[UA] Hero archetype

[James Palmer]

Absolute best book on Alexander ever written is ALEXANDER AT THE WORLD'S 
END, by Tom Holt, which very much stresses the 'imitation hero' aspect ... 
strongly recommended.

J.


>From: Greg Stolze <holycrow at mindspring.com>
>Reply-To: ua at lists.uchicago.edu
>To: ua at lists.uchicago.edu
>Subject: Re: [UA] Hero archetype
>Date: Fri, 22 Jun 2001 08:10:14 -0500
>
> >> I recently read John Keegan's "The Masks of Command" and it discussed
> >Alexander the Great as a prototypical "Greek Hero
> >> Hero?  To the Macedonians, hell yes.  To the Persians, the guy was the
> >devil made flesh.
> >
> >my problem with archetypes like this is that they seem to be "after the
> >fact". alexander now seems like the obvious choice for an avatar but 
>that's
> >only with the benefit of hindsight.
>
>That has happened, certainly, but I have to respectfully disagree in the
>particular case of Alexander.  His culture's image of the hero as the guy
>who gets up in the front of the battle and stabs the other fellow in the
>face until the line breaks goes back to the Illiad -- a story which
>(according to Keegan) Alexander loved.  Alexander embodied that image in
>pretty much every particular, to the point that in one campaign he was,
>literally, the first over the wall.  He got cut off, in fact, and had to be
>rescued by his buddies.
>
>-G.
>
>If the reinstatement of capital punishment was clearly doing nothing to
>reduce the number of murders in those states permitting it, it certainly
>appeared to be cutting down on the number of confessions.
>         -Dr. Douglas Ubelaker
>
>www.waylay.com
>www.thehungersite.com
>
>
>
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