Posted on 08/17/2023 4:32:38 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Don’t know if he was an alcoholic but heard he was a fag (or Bi)
I tend to think that anyone who could afford to drink alcohol before there was clean drinking water did so as a matter of good practice. When that happens there is alway a propensity to become an alcoholic. It’s not that big of a deal when everyone else is going around half drunk too.
“Alexander consumed large quantities of undiluted wine periodically....”
I think they’d probably find something similar true of almost every soldier that ever went to war.
Within recent history, drinks with alcohol were preferred over water because the water was usually not very clean and caused disease. Alcohol in fluids does a great job of killing bacteria, and long before people knew anything about bacteria or alcohol, they noticed that people who drank straight water tended to get sick more than people who mixed alcohol in their drink. Alexander may very well have been an alcoholic - I’d guess many people of that time and for multiple centuries afterward were if they could afford it.
I’m not sure, but I think Alexander threw a vase at his father when he was drunk too.
In Alexander’s case it was more a problem with how he behaved when he was in the cups. It was a problem that bothered him. His men had to restrain him from killing himself after he ran Clitus through during a drinking bout. He sacked and burned Persepolis to the ground... another ‘idea’ he got while at a drinking party that he probably regretted afterwards. When his friend Hephaestion (the only person he probably actually loved) died he went into a long inordinate mourning. Alexander was not a Stoic... It was those personality traits that came to the fore when he was drinking that were a problem.
The Macedonian upper class had a traditional of drinking bouts. So, by our standards they probably all were.
My history teacher referred to him as “Alexander The Grape”
Yeah... he threw a drinking cup at him at Phillip’s marriage to a Greek wife. Someone had insinuated that now Phillip could have a Greek son. Alexander (whose mother was Boeotian) heard it and berated his father... started a row. Alexander yelled “who am I then” and threw the cup. Phillip tried to run at him and tripped across the floor (drunk probably) and Alexander yelled’’ “look, he thinks he is going to conquer Asia and he can’t make it across the room.’ Nasty scene... all families have their ups and downs..
It has been said by others here, but until fairly recent times water was often deadly and alcoholic beverages at least killed the bacteria. A fair percentage of the population had a buzz on pretty much all the time unless they lived near a very clean source of water.
Yes.
I labeled him an alcoholic in my 1992 book, Vessels of Rage, published in the UK (Element Books) as The Secret History of Alcoholism.
The most significant sign of alcoholism and the most difficult to hide is ... high tolerance. As I note in my book Alexander would challenge followers to drinking contests which he always won.
Add to that his impulsive behavior when drinking and his regret over it’s consequences, he’d have a hard time escaping the alkie Dx from a modern shrink. All Macedonians drank wine... often not mixed with water like the Greeks, it was how the alcohol effected him that was problematic.
...And it made ugly girls look hot on a Saturday night...
Of course he was, based upon his nickname: Alexander the Grape.
So, he took a fancy to little dwarf women, eh? If I know my Greek pro = 2, so he liked them them two at a time like Fredo and the cocktail waitresses. What a strange bird.
It was the latter. They didn’t have paper bags back then.
If you’re the son of Zeus-Ammon, the rules no longer apply to you.
He died at around age 33. Given the weak alcohol level of beverages back then (I believe? - no spirits back then) there must have been some other strong contributing factors.
and we should care why?
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