#Alexander the Great's personality

[laysidel-dekie]

there are things left unsaid.

[the-punforgiven]

Im curious, for people who have beaten the Shadow of the Erdtree final boss, rb and put in the tags how you did it!

(Don't say who it is though, I've still got mutuals who haven't played it and are avoiding spoilers lol)

[shmowder]

In case you missed it, Game Rant did an interview with Nikolay Dybowski about Pathologic 3. Here is the link for it.

And here are the bits that stood out the most to me:

Q: The non-linearity of time and how it will be related to the nature of the Town are also core story components. How did this affect design and direction?

A: Connecting non-linear time with a long, narrative-heavy story that involves many characters and cause-and-effect chains would be extremely difficult. We focused on what the player feels in the moment rather than on gathering information in the right order. The latter approach works well in shorter formats like Her Story or 12 Minutes, but in Pathologic, it would be overwhelming.

We wanted players to feel like “everything, everywhere, all at once”—similar to Billy Pilgrim in Slaughterhouse-Five. Different versions of reality coexist simultaneously, creating a “quantum” feeling for the player. Look at the time travel mechanic as an opportunity to correct mistakes, or even to make deliberate mistakes in order to unlock new paths and ideas. It is like a "sanctioned save scum."

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Q: Conversely, how will it (Pathologic 3) connect to and consider the events and characters in Pathologic 2?

A: Consider it as two subjective retellings of the same events. This is the same Town, the same twelve days, the same participants and events that occurred in the Haruspex’s story. But this is a different perspective. Like two witnesses recounting the same event in Rashomon, the stories vary greatly, each focusing on different details. Finally, we always give our heroes the right to make honest mistakes, forget, and even lie. Every narrator is an unreliable narrator.

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Q: How did Pathologic’s previous philosophical explorations help inform or play into the narrative and themes here?

A: Everything we now see as true and valuable, we’ve kept. Everything we’ve outgrown, like childhood clothes, we either reimagined and reinterpreted to give these ideas new meaning, or let go of them. After all, we’ve grown a lot (hopefully, along with the industry). When I first conceived Pathologic, I was 21 and completely alone. Now I’m 47, surrounded by incredibly talented people who enrich this universe as much as I do, and that makes a difference.

We’ve kept the idea of the tragedy of utopian projects. We kept the idea that the plague is a voice of the natural order—one that the thinking human mind cannot accept—and that it has its own truth. We retained the belief that evil cannot be defeated with its own tools or outplayed on its field; yet it can be defeated realistically in a different, orthogonal way. In another dimension.

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Q: It’s mentioned that the Bachelor is searching for an immortal man in Pathologic 3. Can you say if this is in reference to Mark Immortell?

A: No, there’s no connection between Simon Kain (one of the town’s rulers) and Mark Immortell (the director of the town theater). Mark is a clown. He awkwardly mimics Simon, parodying him, which is why he takes on this pseudonym. He's fully aware that he’s a jester, and the gesture itself is ironic.

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Q: What do you hope players will take away most from Pathologic 3?

A: The hope that humanity remains a promising and capable species.

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Also, new game pictures and screenshots dropped:

(some are old ones I forgot to post)

[soupdwelling]

i see this as a personal challenge to continue to twink the monsters despite jonny’s best efforts

[my-chiliarch]

OH MY GOD

Just when I was ready to give up on this series, SUDDENLY THIS

[hexjulia]

Alexander the great left oversized props behind when he was retreating in India to make the locals think he and his horses were huge lmfao.

[jeannereames]

Going through other classical fan’s blog on here, I saw one person put forward a theory that Hephaestion was erased from history due to his excessive cruelty, such as him torturing Philotas. Could there be any truth in that? Was Hepheastion uniquely cruel as he became more powerful in Alexander’s empire?

The Problem with Hephaistion’s Erasure

…is that he wasn’t erased. (Or not until later.) It’s perception more than a reality. He actually has quite a bit of mention in Curtius, Arrian, Diodoros, and Plutarch—as much (or more) than any of the other younger marshals during Alexander’s lifetime. This reflects what was present in the now-lost sources written during ATG’s career or in the generation after his death (Kallisthenes, Kleitarchos, Ptolemy, Aristobulos, Marsyas, Nearchos, Onesikritos, etc.).

Yet the notion that he was erased from the historical record is a common one. When I first arrived at Penn State and announced that I wanted to do my dissertation on Hephaistion, Gene Borza told me, “I don’t think there’s enough information in the ancient sources to support an entire dissertation on him, even as a court study.” Then, that very summer, Gene reread the ancient sources for a project of his own, and next fall, he admitted (with some surprise), “He’s in the sources more than I realized.”

(I bit my tongue on, “I told you.”)

So, what’s going on here?

First, Hephaistion didn’t outlive Alexander. Maintaining his memory was not particularly useful to any of the surviving marshals/Diadochi, except maybe Perdikkas, who inherited his position. Yet, like Leonnatos and Krateros, Perdikkas also died (relatively) early in the wars, and the Successors who outlived him (e.g., Ptolemy, Antipatros, Antigonos, Lysimachos, et al.) blackened Perdikkas’ memory.

Ergo, Hephaistion fades into the background until appropriated later by Hellenistic- and especially Roman-era rhetorical schools as part of popular anecdotes and topoi (conventional tales or themes) about Alexander.

Do you know HOW many times the “He is Alexander, too?” story appears? Sometimes positively, occasionally negatively. Same with Hephaistion reading (beside Alexander) a letter from Alexander’s mother. He also gets trotted out frequently as an example of Alexander’s lack of self-control, given the king’s “excessive” grief at his death (which seems to grow with each retelling).

Yet NONE of those has to do with his role as chiliarch or his military accomplishments. Also, in Plutarch—probably the most popular history of Alexander*—we find nothing about Hephaistion as a commander, and little about politics. Plutarch tells us the king sent Hephaistion a little dish of smelts (or sardines); that Hephaistion and Krateros got into it with swords; that Hephaistion blamed Kallisthenes for the failure of the proskynesis banquet; that he ate a whole boiled fowl and drank a pitcher of wine on the morning of his death; and that Alexander called him Philalexandros. But if Plutarch were all we had, you’d never know Hephaistion was named chiliarch!

It’s largely the personal that came down to later historians…and movie-makers like Oliver Stone (or Netflix, even when their Hephaistion historian tells them to give him more to do; at least he got to intrigue with Mazaeus). One must go to the original histories and start making lists to realize just how much Hephaistion appears, particularly post-Baktria.

The man did have a career apart from being the king’s bosom buddy. 😒

As for whether he was exceptionally cruel, three problems complicate determining that: 1) biases in the sources, 2) biases of the people who knew him, and last, 3) simple cultural differences.

Let’s start with the last, as it’s mentioned in the ask. Hephaistion was one of three marshals who interrogated Philotas. To modern readers, use of torture strikes as horrific (as well it should). But in the ancient world, torture during questioning was standard, for some. A slave’s testimony wasn’t even admissible in court unless given under torture. (Otherwise, they believed a slave would lie to save their master.) Torture of arrested (lower-ranking) soldiers in military camp was also the norm, especially by the Roman era.

It’s not the torture itself that’s shocking. It’s who it was performed on: a high-ranking member of the Hetairoi. Arrian glosses over the whole thing because Philotas (Parmenion’s son) was tortured, not because torture was employed.

Also, there were three of them: Krateros, Hephaistion, and Koenos, Philotas’s brother-in-law, who didn’t want to go down with the ship so needed to distance himself (emphatically). Plutarch has Philotas, during the torture, beg Hephaistion for pity, while Alexander listens behind a curtain. Yet Plutarch’s point is what Alexander says regarding Philotas’s lack of fortitude—not who Philotas appealed to. We absolutely cannot trust details like this in Plutarch’s anecdotes! He changes out players, and details, as it suits him. Philotas’s supposed appeal to Hephaistion quite probably didn’t happen.

But did Plutarch make Philotas beg Hephaistion in order to increase the reader’s impression of Hephaistion’s cruelty? Maybe. Yet in Plutarch’s version, it’s Krateros who’s the snake in the grass and out to get Philotas. So perhaps Plutarch is trying to imply Hephaistion was the soft-touch among the three. Despite Plutarch’s overall portrait of Hephaistion, I’m inclined to read it as the latter here. (For my article on the whole Philotas Affair.)

Still, it’s a good example of why just reading these stories and interpreting them with modern sentiments can (sometimes) result in serious misunderstandings.

The other two problems both concern bias, albeit among different groups.

As I just alluded to, our sources paint different portraits of Hephaistion. Plutarch probably has the most “negative” picture, and Curtius the most “positive.” Diodoros and Arrian are more neutral (but sometimes deceptively so, at least in Arrian). From positive to negative, I’d rank them: Curtius, Diodoros, Arrian, Plutarch. (Hephaistion’s barely in Justin, so I ignore him.)

Outside these histories, particularly in Roman rhetorical exercises, Hephaistion appears only in relation to Alexander. By then, he’d become a symbol, not an officer or even much of a person. Just Alexander’s echo: “Alexander too.”

Last, we have the biases of those who knew Hephaistion. I already noted that enshrining his memory was not particularly useful to the Diadochi, so they didn’t. Others may also have had reason to bad-mouth him. But not all, or we wouldn’t have the nicer assessments such as Curtius’s assertion that he was charming and didn’t push his place.

By the end of his life, he was Alexander’s righthand man with loads of power. That’s going to make enemies, and there were men at court afraid of him. Why isn’t clear. Was he fearsome because he was cruel and arrogant, or because he had the authority to break a man’s career (just as did the king)? It seems many of the people who were afraid of him (or disliked him) also feared Alexander. Except Krateros, who’s a special case.

Leaving him aside, we know Hephaistion also quarreled with Eumenes … but so did a lot of people, including rather infamously Antipatros. (Eumenes was also friends with Krateros.) Similarly, Arrian (7.18.1-5) relates that a certain Apollodoros told Alexander (in Babylon) about bad omens concerning him. But first, Apollodoros had asked his brother (a Seer) to sacrifice about Hephaistion, because he feared him. His brother said the omens were bad and sure enough, Hephaistion died shortly after. So Apollodoros asked his brother to sacrifice about Alexander, because he also feared him … bad again. Curiously, Apollodoros told Alexander, and got a pardon for his honesty.

Arrian recounts the story as part of his list of bad omens for Alexander in Babylon, so we’re not told why Apollodoros feared the two but may hazard a guess. Arrian sets the warning in Babylon, but most of the events predated that, going at least as far back as Ekbatana, and likely earlier.

Upon his return from India, Alexander had engaged in a lot of “house-cleaning.” Curtius (and Arrian, et al.) present him as exceptionally savage to some of those left behind to mind the store while he was away in the East. He removed them from their positions and even executed several—all based on negative accounts of their behavior in his absence, milking the populace and such. He supposedly didn’t give these noblemen a fair chance to defend themselves because he’d become easily swayed by flatterers and other courtiers with grudges (and—so Curtius—one of them was even, horrors!, a eunuch). There’s a LOT of Roman anxiety about imperial purges under this, as well as the standard template of growing tyrannical behavior that would (of course) result from Alexander’s Orientalizing.

So, we must interrogate the texts as to whether Alexander was unfairly harsh, or these men had earned their punishment. Even if Apollodoros told Alexander about the omens, it may have been to save his own neck by showing he’s really a “good guy after all.”

The negative press about Hephaistion all arises once he gained power and authority. Perhaps that’s because it went to his head, and he attacked his enemies. But it’s equally possible he went after wrong-doers in the name of the king, and they didn’t like it. After he was dead (and so was Alexander), those people got revenge with a poison pen, like Ephippos of Olynthos.

It might also be a bit of both the above. After all, in ancient Greece and Rome a moral man helped his friends and actively sought to hurt his enemies.

The upshot remains: we just don’t know what Hephaistion was like as a person. Curtius describes him as charming. Plutarch’s portrait is more hostile, but even that isn’t unmitigated. We’re reduced to “hints and allegations.” More specificity about him is what fiction is for. 😉

—————-

* Plutarch’s popularity owes to four things. His Life of Alexander is shorter than Arrian, Curtius, or Diodoros. It’s also heavily focused on personality and anecdotes, which are intrinsically more interesting to the average reader. Thid, it was more readily available than most others (even Arrian). Last, his Lives all lend themselves to reuse in sermons/etc. as moral lessons. A number of the stories that people know best about Alexander come from Plutarch.

[lightdancer1]

People are like 'our peasant ancestors lived better than we did with fewer working hours and adored weather'

The same people who think pressing a screen on a smart phone is true slavery, and that there was ever a point in life where simply getting food and clothing wasn't great toil with long hours for relatively simple rewards in that 90% of human existence before recorded history and the 5% that's been recorded. They would go feral if asked to live a true peasant's lifestyle without any electronic conveniences, subject to the whim of nature and of the seasons that cannot be controlled, asked to feed and clothe themselves the way most of humanity did for most of its history.

Farming isn't idyllic now, in the 21st Century, with machines and knowledge a smelly lousy peasant didn't have and didn't know how to have. In the days when the cutting edge technology was the ass end of a mule or an ox and where you had to do all that weeding stooping over in a hot sun for the entirety of the working day it was much worse. There's a reason the Bible calls farming a curse!

Our ancestors would weep with joy that their modern descendants live in lives less brutal and horrifying than what they would have taken for granted, if anything. Nostalgia is a liar, at best, and it is seldom at its best.

[catilinas]

hey how come in all the stuff i have read about how 'alexander the great was poisoned, actually' is probably bullshit, none of it has mentioned that he was allegedly poisoned with Water From Thee Actual River Styx????????????

[cute-chamomile]

My favourite responses from non-Greek people on the internet so far are the ones who are like "you mean this whole time you didn't have marriage? But gay sex and ancient Greece-" and it's funny, I agree! But a) orthodox christianity holds so much power over the people still and b) the people who are conservative and use ancient Greece to fuel their supremacist thoughts do pick and choose which parts of the ancient greek history to celebrate and boast about, they are supremacists, they wouldn't play fair. And there are a lot of people who place their bigoted views on some long lost "glory" days like that. This took a lot of effort to get done and I'm really proud of us.

[oaths-sworn-in-blood]

Ancient and Modern Times

Still the same...

Always and Forever...

Έρρωσθε 🇬🇷

[bitchy-peachy]

I'm wheezing lmfaoo

[nopesjsgwhqgsx]

New Character Trait Unlocked!

Man

[t4toro]

looking @ these two photos, dreaming of what cld’ve been a film abt alexander the great n hephaestion starring william shatner n leonard nimoy, sighs wistfully

[perdvivly]