Why is there more media about Caesar than about Alexander?

Caesar is more relatable.

Alex conquered the world as a 20-something.

Caesar cried about being a loser in comparison when he was in his 30s.
One of my older unfinished fanfiction crossovers is a story combining Sliders and Xena: Warrior Princess. The Sliders slide into a San Francisco where everything looks like ancient Greek cities. The historical reason for this is because Alexander the Great did not die young. He continued across Asia, discovered the Pacific Ocean, found a way across, and set up a new Greek empire in North America.

And since Xena and Gabrielle can turn up in any century the scriptwriter decides, I thought it would be fun to have a scene in which Professor Maximilian Arturo explains to Ares why it's impossible that he exists (since Arturo is all about science over religion and doesn't believe the Olympian gods were anything more than just fanciful stories).

Ares gets annoyed, and the Professor reaps the consequences... which were really fun to write. *snicker*
 
One of my older unfinished fanfiction crossovers is a story combining Sliders and Xena: Warrior Princess. The Sliders slide into a San Francisco where everything looks like ancient Greek cities. The historical reason for this is because Alexander the Great did not die young. He continued across Asia, discovered the Pacific Ocean, found a way across, and set up a new Greek empire in North America.

And since Xena and Gabrielle can turn up in any century the scriptwriter decides, I thought it would be fun to have a scene in which Professor Maximilian Arturo explains to Ares why it's impossible that he exists (since Arturo is all about science over religion and doesn't believe the Olympian gods were anything more than just fanciful stories).

Ares gets annoyed, and the Professor reaps the consequences... which were really fun to write. *snicker*
godsplaining :lol:
 
Other than Janus (and, in a different way, Cybele), I don't recall any other notable roman deity which isn't just tied to the greek ones :)

And Cybele was Anatolian in origin.
Bellona wasn't Greek in origin, she was Sabine although she was later tied to Enyo.
 
Caesar went out in style, a conspiracy resulting in him being stabbed to death in the Senate.

Alexander got the flu or something.
 
Rome became a bigger empire than Greece, and it lasted longer.

Historical achievements in history are compared to one another like penises. Bigger and longer is objectionably better.
 
They're both mass murdering asshats that enabled the worst ****head rapist murderers of their day because ambition. Best you forget both of them and let them burn in Hell.

But we need to spend public money to mourn dead Confederates? Lmao
 
When people stop complaining, I'll let them go. Our blood ran, too. And yes, its lingering hurt has still passed down. I think my son might be the generation that loses it*. The decades of martial law take a while to unmuddy the social and class picture once you put the politics of the rich into it.

Seriously, go research the Grange and why it matters past the moron Wiki article if you care to sort out why I make the point over and over. You won't take my word on it, so it would be up to you!

*Which only makes sense. My generation(barely, if you're the youngest of a youngest) was still raised in formational years by granparents who were raised in formational years by those that lived this. Once removed is still taught by a generation that could feel it. Twice removed is playing telephone. It's why humans forget their history. But hey, maybe the tools are better moving forward. Hope?
 
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Caesar went out in style, a conspiracy resulting in him being stabbed to death in the Senate.

Alexander got the flu or something.
Way back when, the Canadian comedy duo of Wayne & Shuster presented their version of the murder of Julius Caesar: "Rinse the Blood Off My Toga." Johnny Wayne plays Flavius Maximus, Private Roman Eye, and Frank Shuster plays Brutus, who hires Flavius to solve the murder.

Up to a few minutes ago I'd only seen the color version done in the '80s. But I see now that someone uploaded the original black and white version they did in the '50s. Some of the jokes differ, and '50s comedy might contain material that modern audiences find a bit unacceptable.

In the 1950s version, the actual skit starts approximately 3:30 minutes in:



And this is the only color version I could find - I recall it being a bit longer; it seems to have been edited:

 
Why does there seem to be so little creative energy put into Alexander and the Diodachi?
It has everything the more popular Caesar has and ten times more.
It's missing one crucial element: contemporary resonance.

The story of Caesar is the rise of a powerful military-political strongman in a time of crisis and the collapse of constitutional government; this is a reoccurring anxiety in modern Western culture, so chewing over the canonical type-specimen allows each generation to work through those anxieties. You can use Caesar to talk about Oliver Cromwell, Napoleon Boneparte or Vladimir Putin, figures who followed a "Caesarean" path to power. Even trashy or sensational interpretations which don't have a lot to say trade in tropes which seem contemporary, which give the drama a sense of immediacy.

The story of Alexander is of a conquering prince who erupts out of obscurity, creates an empire, and then dies just in time for it to all fall apart. This isn't something that can plausibly occur in a post-Reformation European society, so it isn't something that Westerners have given much thought to. You can't use this to talk about many Western figures of the last four centuries, and it's difficult to draw out any broader themes.

The late Roman Republic is perceived to belong to the modern era in a way which Alexander simply doesn't, and nobody has yet found a way of bringing him into the present. The Oliver Stone movie tried something with ill-advised military adventures into the Middle East, but ultimately couldn't find anything in particular to say about it- and was very quickly overshadowed by Ridley Scott's Kingdom of Heaven as a template for heavy-handed historical analogies about American foreign policy.
 
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I think that it is more likely that countries such as England and France feel they are more tied to the roman empire (regardless if this is true or not). In Germany, afaik, typically you see more books on ancient Greece than Rome (or at least did so in previous centuries).

I wouldn't say that Alexander started from relative obscurity. Persia already had lost significant territories to single greek states (such as Athens and Sparta) in separate wars, and was very much aware of the potential threat of Philip's campaign (which became Alexander's, since Philip died).
 
I wouldn't say that Alexander started from relative obscurity. Persia already had lost significant territories to single greek states (such as Athens and Sparta) in separate wars, and was very much aware of the potential threat of Philip's campaign (which became Alexander's, since Philip died).

Yeah, except Athens and Sparta didn't respect the Macedonians at that time and even went so far as not to consider them being truly Greek.

So, Alexander kind of did just come out of nowhere and used force of arms to demand respect, only for that respect to crumble as his generals divvied up the empire to themselves after his passing.
 
But we need to spend public money to mourn dead Confederates? Lmao

"He may be a son of a *****, but he is our son of a *****."
 
I wouldn't say that Alexander started from relative obscurity. Persia already had lost significant territories to single greek states (such as Athens and Sparta) in separate wars, and was very much aware of the potential threat of Philip's campaign (which became Alexander's, since Philip died).
"Obscure" may have been too strong a word, but to the Persians, Phillip wasn't much more than a tribal chieftain; his unproven teenage son shouldn't have been much more than a headache on their Western border. He represents a type of "great man" that doesn't and really can't exist in a modern Western state system, so it's hard to hammer his career into any sort contemporary analogy.
 
alexander is the one every would be Western conqueror of Middle East or similarly colonizable territory tried to be . Ceasar is the one limited by similarly powerful men , until he was killed . Alexander gets a lot more coverage in smoke filled dark rooms , even if he too was killed by his men ...
 
alexander is the one every would be Western conqueror of Middle East or similarly colonizable territory tried to be . Ceasar is the one limited by similarly powerful men , until he was killed . Alexander gets a lot more coverage in smoke filled dark rooms , even if he too was killed by his men ...

I agree, I believe Alexander is more popular among elites and is actually the one they secretly want to become assuming that there are no institutions or checks and balances to reign them in. In fact, even Ceasar probably would have admired him and perhaps secretly wanted to rule as a god king/great conqueror like him but couldn't because he was limited by the Roman institutions and jealous senators of his time.
 
I agree, I believe Alexander is more popular among elites and is actually the one they secretly want to become assuming that there are no institutions or checks and balances to reign them in. In fact, even Ceasar probably would have admired him and perhaps secretly wanted to rule as a god king/great conqueror like him but couldn't because he was limited by the Roman institutions and jealous senators of his time.

Caesar almost certainly admired him. When he sae the statue of Alexander in Gades (now Cadiz) he supposedly wept because Caesar was then the same age as Alexander was at his death and Caesar felt he had not achieved a single noteworthy thing.
 
Well, Alexander never lost a battle. Caesar lost a number of battles :)

Yeah, except Athens and Sparta didn't respect the Macedonians at that time and even went so far as not to consider them being truly Greek.

So, Alexander kind of did just come out of nowhere and used force of arms to demand respect, only for that respect to crumble as his generals divvied up the empire to themselves after his passing.

I don't think that Sparta cared; their own state's myth was that they are not local anyway (probably formed to make the citizens be paranoid at all times and ready to defend). They only cared when they refused to join the coalition of the war against Persia, stating that Sparta only takes part in wars it is leading. Alexander in his epigrams referred to the campaign as "Alexander and the greeks, apart from the lacaedemonians" ^_^
As for Athens, you are probably thinking of Demosthenes, who was a great orator, but his argument was that only athenians are actually local (the term "autochthonous" comes from one of his speeches, not sure if he coined it, but means 'produced by the earth itself' - and he described only athenians as such).
Afaik pre-Alexander Macedonia was a state with a greek ruling class and a part of its citizenry being likely mixed with other people in the region; they also had a king, which while rare in the greek world is not singular (Sparta even had two kings ruling simultaneously). But they did take part in the olympic games, and the holy alliance (the latter is even how Macedonia rose to significance, in the war against Phokis, supposedly to protect Delphi but in reality to annex lands).
 
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Caesar wrote a favourable history of his exploits that promulgated his own image.

Alexander left it to others.

One has to assume that Alexander had a much greater legacy, though. Despite some terms staying around (eg caesar becomes kaiser,czar etc), Caesar was a general who got declared imperator and run a coup. Alexander was pretty much a god-like figure by the time he died, and countless artifacts (including a lot of literature) got created about him to make him be the measure of comparison for all future military leaders (vanquished Hannibal's reply, when he was asked who the greatest general was, is imo emblematic of the sentiment). Caesar was killed by a few senators. Alexander died in a far easier to romanticize way, and had "conquered the world" while still a young man.
 
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