Alexander the Great in Mythologies all over the world

[christos200]

- Mongol Painting of Alexander the Great.



- Alexander the Great depicted in a 14th-century Byzantine manuscript.



- Post-Islamic Persian miniature depicting Khidr and Alexander watching the Water of Life revive a salted fish.



- Persian Painting of Alexander the Great

Look at those pictures. In one picture Alexander is a Mongol Warrior. In the other, a Byzantine Emperor. In the others, a Persian King. Alexander is part of the mythology of all people. Medieval Europeans viewed him as a Christian Knight who fought the enemies of Christianity. In Byzantium, he was viewed as a Byzantine Emperor leading his men against the enemies of the Empire. In Ancient Greece, he was seen as a God who fought with the Amazons and found the Water of Life. In Islam and the Arabs, he is seen as a Muslim King who believed in Allah and waged Jihad. In Persia, as a wise Persian King. Firdausi's Shahnameh ("The Book of Kings") includes Alexander in a line of legitimate Iranian shahs, a mythical figure who explored the far reaches of the world in search of the Fountain of Youth. Later Persian writers associate him with philosophy, portraying him at a symposium with figures such as Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, in search of immortality. In China, he is seen as fighting with the mythical Chinese heroes.

No man, except for Prophet Mohament, Buddha and Jesus, has ever been so adopted in the mythologies of so many nations and was given so diverse depictions. For example, look at this Malay epic:

Hikayat Iskandar Zulkarnain is a Malay epic describing fictional exploits of Iskandar Zulkarnain who is Alexander the Great. The oldest existing manuscript is dated 1713, but is in a poor state. Another manuscript was copied by Muhammad Cing Sa`idullah at about 1830.

One interesting aspect of the history of Isakandar Zulkarnain is his link with the Minangkabau Kingdoms of Sumatra, Indonesia. Its rulers claimed their lineage directly from Iskandar Zulkarnain. The best known Minangkabau ruler, Adityavarman, who ruled over Sumatra between 1347 and 1374 AD claimed for himself the name Maharaja Di Raja, 'a great lord of kings.' It was William Marsten who first publicized this link at the end of the 18th century. (Early Modern History ISBN 981-3018-28-3 page 60)

About the Ottomans:

At the time of the conquest of Constantinople and during the period of the reign of Mehmed II he himself had access to at least a double tradition on the figure of Alexander: first, there was the learned Greek tradition, as his library possessed copies of the Greek text of Arrian. Further, his biographer Critobulus and other Greek learned men at his court constantly compared him to Alexander and discussed Alexander with him. Ιn addition there was the long mesenvi of Ahmedi (early fifteenth century), the Iskandarname, a poem on the deeds of Alexander the Great that goes back to the Persian model of Nizami (second half of the twelfth century) in over 10,000 verses.

About the Serbs:

The Serbian version of the Pseudo-Callisthenes Alexander seems also to have been widely diffused, influential and popular among the Serbs of the Ottoman period. This is particularly demonstrable for the literary Serbian world of that period, as some 350 manuscripts of the romance are known. Marinkovic states that generations of Serbs formed their tastes, style, and literary language on the basis of this change, which in time underwent changes of language, content and tone. But though the Byzantine origin of the original Serbian is neither proven nor disproved, nevertheless, the contents go back to the Pseudo-Callisthenes.

According to the Quran (Surah 18:89-98) Alexander the Great was a devout Muslim and lived to a ripe old age.

About Greeks:

Veloudes in his remarkable book has stated that the modern Greek Alexander romance is the only one, which stands at the end of a 2,000 year development. Its development phases are not interrupted by translations from foreign languages and it is marked by an unbroken series of reworking within the same language. He concludes, from the oldest Pseudo-Callisthenes text to the last edition of the modern Greek popular book in 1926 that there is no decisive break. Naturally the question of the priority of the late Byzantine romance or the Serbian Alexandrida remains unsolved, but even if the priority of the Serbian should later be demonstrated, it would not substantially take away from the case which Veloudes has made. It would be well to pause for a moment and to consider his conclusions as they bear upon the question as to how widespread this material was among Greeks during the Ottoman period. Veloudes found and catalogues 46 separate editions of the printed form of the prose Alexander romance in Greek, the editions dating from 1680 to 1926. Thirteen, or a little over a third, date from the period before the outbreak of the Greek Revolution. Ιn the form of what he calls and defines as a Volksbuch the romance circulated among Greeks via public readings and recitations by wandering reciters, was very popular, and was heard throughout the Greek-speaking world. But beyond popular consumption, the figure of Alexander was the subject in one form or another of Greek historians during the Turkokratia, who often went back to the original sources, and of literary figures who utilized the example of Alexander only for moral, rhetorical, comparative reasons, but also as an expression of national aspirations. The uniqueness of the Greek Alexander tradition is further illustrated, Veloudes quite properly asserts, by the vast proliferation of the legend in oral materials: lore, tales, folk songs, magical imprecations. His figure early penetrated that spectacular borrowing from Turkish popular culture, the shadow plays of Karagoz. For the Greeks, the Alexander legend was extremely widely diffused in many of its literary and oral manifestations. And, as Veloudes has asserted, this was a survival and further development of the Byzantine version of the Pseudo - Callisthenes.

It is just amazing how the story of this man could spread all over the world. Do you have and other paintings/examples of Alexander in the mythology of varius nations?

 

[Midnight-Blue766]

I thought Persian people hated Alexander.

 

[dutchfire]

He was one awesome Slav.

 

[christos200]

I thought Persian people hated Alexander.

That is only half the truth. In Islamic Iran, especially in the Medieval Era, Alexander was seen as a wise Persian King. Of course, many Iranians hated him, but in Medieval Iran that was not the case.

 

[Kyriakos]

Alexander seems to be the epitome of the "Great King", although it is worth noting that before his campaign the Greek people called the Persian kings by that very title.

There are many Byzantine scholars who referred extensively to Alexander, the emperor (and historian) Constantine Porphyrogennetos being one of them.

It is also, at least poetically, of note that Alexander looked only to the East, which in Greek was always called Anatole (a term that signifies the position from where the Sun rises, and thus also signifies the past, the beginning of life).

 

[r16]

ı would really take an issue with Iskender being a devout Muslim . Zülkarneyn is a figure that built the wall that seperates the Gog-Mog crowd from this realm . But any claims that he was Alexander must be related to widespread efforts to insert Greek Philosophy into Islamic thinking back in the day .

also in this link stemming from a site with charges of inconsistency in Kuran there seems to be an attempt to define Zülkarneyn as a Persian emperor , which is also wrong . Islam debates whether Zülkarneyn was a prophet or not , his Persianness must be a similar ploy by "Sassanid remnants" .

 

[Kyriakos]

The actual enlightened old islamic states (eg the civs centered on Bagdad or Cordoba) did not need to bring Alexander into play so as to focus heavily on Greek philosophy and science: they already were focused on those in their golden era.

 

[r16]

and ı am not challenging that one bit , mind you . Quite a bit of the respect the Islamic Civilization gets is based on the notion that it was Islam that kept the Greek achievements while the West was in the Dark ages . It's just the tale of great conqueror that everybody could somehow relate to , just like Romans did during they were adapting the Greek stuff . Why should later generations of Greeks under Muslim rulers give up something that had worked before ?

and actually checking Kuran ı think the verses should be labelled as 83-98 or something . Wikipedia must be mentioning Zülkarneyn was already a big thing with the Jews ; quite possible that they used the tale as a proof why they shouldn't convert to Islam or otherwise adapt to the situation .

 

[Virote_Considon]

I agree that Alexander is part of the mythologies of all people. Such as those from the sovereign Republic Macedonia.

 

[caketastydelish]

I thought Persian people hated Alexander.

Wrong.

 

[Traitorfish]

It's not all that mind-blowing if you step away from the presumption of Hellenocentrism. To us, sure, it's Mighty Whitey bringing reason, justice and well-aired genitals to the bepantalooned Oriental barbarian, and we tend to see Alexander's legacy as an affirmation of that narrative. But to the rest of the world, it's the ruler of a rebellious Persian province staging a coup and installing himself on the imperial throne, which while still self-evidently good material for myth-making, is hardly without precedent. The particular eccentricities of his tribe are for most of them an essentially secondary detail, significant only to those with a particular investment in those eccentricities, which is to say: Europeans.

It resonates not because it's unique, but because its familiar, because it's coherent with stories that people already knew how to tell. The Chinese were so used to the premise that it formed a central aspect of their political philosophy, and you'll find the same basic premise underlying the political mythologies of as distantly-flung peoples as the Scots, Mongols and Zulus. Alexander was not some Tunguska meteor in human form, tearing through history through sheer force of heroism, he was the embodiment of a well-tread archetype, and the breadth of his renown was a matter of the sheer extent to which he embodied it, or could be taken up by mythologisers as embodying it.

 

[Dachs]

it's the ruler of a rebellious Persian province

hahaha what

 

[caketastydelish]

Yeah, I thought by the time Alexander was alive Macedonia (as well as Greece in general) wasn't even a part of the Persian empire anymore.

 

[Kyriakos]

Iirc they weren't ever parts of the Persian empire anyway, just some of them 'allied' with Persia during its two invasions (which makes sense, if one lived in the northern edge of the Greek peninsula, it would be pretty much suicidal to try to fight Persia alone, so they just allowed Persia free passage to the south).

If Persia had not been defeated, then they most probably would become some sort of province in the long run, like the ionian city states after Lydia fell.

 

[caketastydelish]

An interesting thing to speculate on is what would have happened if Greece fell completely to the Persians. My history professor (while I was still a history minor, mind you) once said Persians actually had plans to go into modern France and Italy after conquering Greece.

Not a doubt in my mind they couldn't have possibly pulled that off especially considering they couldn't even invade Greece.

Ultimately, they would have been spread too thin. It doesn't matter even if you're the single superpower in the world (which would have been arguable to say at best), when you're living in the pre-gunpowder time, owning that much land becomes incredibly hard, even in the case of the Persians who very exceptionally tolerant of the people they conquered (in terms of their religion/customs/etc) making them less likely to revolt.

And this is all ignoring the obvious that when Rome came along, they would have managed to pull back the Persians pretty far, which they already did anyway. Yes Persia had a wonderful, organized fighting machine (something the western cinema will never understand) but let's not forget that Rome's center of gravity was in... Rome, while Persia's was far away.

The British/French/Spanish/Portuguese empires could get away with this sort of thing because they were the technological gap between them and the people they were oppressing was much more significant, usually in conjunction to giving the natives all sorts of diseases, thus crippling any chance they had of repelling them even further.

The Persians had no such luxuries (or if they did, it was to a far lesser extent) to the people they conquered, or tried to conquer in the case of Greece.

No, Greeks did not manage to repel the Persians because of whatever white supremacists may think, but mostly because the Persian empire had simply 'bit off more than it could chew' by that point, so to speak. That is to say, they had gotten to the point where their frontier borders were far, far too away from their center of gravity.

Even the Persian empire, with it's mail system of horses that was far ahead of it's time, suffered greatly from what I'm talking about. Remember, this is a time without cars, airplanes, internet, etc. It's simply structurally very hard for an empire that big to begin with, and invading an enemy like Greece that is actually just as technologically (I'm talking strictly in military terms) capable as the persians themselves, and in some cases even more-so, just wasn't going to happen, period.

 

[christos200]

It's not all that mind-blowing if you step away from the presumption of Hellenocentrism.

One thing that I do not like about this forums is that everyone assumes that every time I say that a Greek General is good, everyone says that I am nationalist or something like that. Can you stop this? Have real arguments, not "you are a nationalist", ok?

To us, sure, it's Mighty Whitey bringing reason, justice and well-aired genitals to the bepantalooned Oriental barbarian, and we tend to see Alexander's legacy as an affirmation of that narrative.

I, and most people, do not see it this way. The Persian Empire was quite civilized and even Alexander adopted Persian costums. Also, I do not like how Alexander is being discriminated for being white. Because the (Western) Europeans feel guilt for colonialism, does this mean that in order to not feel guilty, we have to say that a white General could not be better than any Asian one?

But to the rest of the world, it's the ruler of a rebellious Persian province staging a coup and installing himself on the imperial throne, which while still self-evidently good material for myth-making, is hardly without precedent.

Macedonia, and Greece in general, were not part of the Persian Empire. Alexander did not stage a coup. He invaded and took over the Persian Empire.

The particular eccentricities of his tribe are for most of them an essentially secondary detail, significant only to those with a particular investment in those eccentricities, which is to say: Europeans.

You know, Alexander is not called the Great because of being European. He is called the Great for his Balkan Campaign, his Siege of Thebes, Granicus, Issus, Tyre, Gaza, Gaugamela, the campaign against the nomadic tribes in the eastern, Jaxartes, corssing the Hindu Kush during Winter and his battle of Hydaspes.

But, it seems that you forget all of this and think that Alexander is called Great just because he is European. If this helps your guilt over colonialism, that is okay.

 

[caketastydelish]

To us, sure, it's Mighty Whitey bringing reason, justice and well-aired genitals to the bepantalooned Oriental barbarian, and we tend to see Alexander's legacy as an affirmation of that narrative.

I, and most people, do not see it this way. The Persian Empire was quite civilized and even Alexander adopted Persian costums. Also, I do not like how Alexander is being discriminated for being white. Because the (Western) Europeans feel guilt for colonialism, does this mean that in order to not feel guilty, we have to say that a white General could not be better than any Asian one?

Plus, a hell of a lot of modern, western, white women prefer the genitals these days of the 'eastern barbarians' anyway (as they've told me in private, pun intended).

 

[Kyriakos]

I am not Hellenocentric either, but Heliocentric

Of course, they are on the same axis, and sometimes even their center becomes the same.

 

[Traitorfish]

hahaha what

Empires like Persia were sometimes a bit hazy on the distinction between what was and was not theirs, and from what I gather tended to see Greece as a tributary that just hadn't sent them tribute in a while, and people living thousands of miles away and centuries after the fact probably were not likely to be familiar enough with the details to quibble on that.

I mean, I would have thought that you'd infer from context I'm talking about narratives, not realities- unless, perhaps, it turns out that Alexander's greatest achievement really was convincing the Persians to feel the wind between their balls...?

One thing that I do not like about this forums is that everyone assumes that every time I say that a Greek General is good, everyone says that I am nationalist or something like that. Can you stop this? Have real arguments, not "you are a nationalist", ok?

Most Westerners are Hellenocentric in this era, was my point. You'll note I specify "Europeans", not "Greeks".

I, and most people, do not see it this way. The Persian Empire was quite civilized and even Alexander adopted Persian costums. Also, I do not like how Alexander is being discriminated for being white. Because the (Western) Europeans feel guilt for colonialism, does this mean that in order to not feel guilty, we have to say that a white General could not be better than any Asian one?

Alexander wasn't white. White people weren't a Thing in the 4th century BC. (The Greeks specifically identified themselves as "bronze", iirc, contrasting themselves favourably to the pale-skinned "barbarians" to their North.) Again, I'm talking about narratives, in this case that modern Europeans tended to see in Alexander's conquest the anticipation of their own imperial projects.

Macedonia, and Greece in general, were not part of the Persian Empire. Alexander did not stage a coup. He invaded and took over the Persian Empire.
...
You know, Alexander is not called the Great because of being European. He is called the Great for his Balkan Campaign, his Siege of Thebes, Granicus, Issus, Tyre, Gaza, Gaugamela, the campaign against the nomadic tribes in the eastern, Jaxartes, corssing the Hindu Kush during Winter and his battle of Hydaspes.

Again, I'm talking about narratives. For Europeans, Alexander's singular greatness is heavily intertwined his with his perceived European-ness.

But, it seems that you forget all of this and think that Alexander is called Great just because he is European. If this helps your guilt over colonialism, that is okay.

Ireland didn't have colonies.

 

[christos200]

Sorry, it was just a misunderstanding.