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Here is a short fun read, giving the essentials on the life of Alexander the Great, the famous Macedonian general who conquered the world in ancient times. Alvear and Schecter crack lots of jokes, and in between are careful to tell us all the things that most straight histories leave out, namely, the gay stuff. Books and movies about Alexander might mention his drinking buddy Hephaestion, but they will rarely tell you they were lovers, for instance.
The authors manage to get a fairly major thing wrong, however. They spend a good deal of time explaining the old man - young man love relationships so common in ancient Greece. They even get into the details of the sex (the older man is the top). Then the authors try to shoehorn the Alexander/Hephaestion relationship into this model.
It doesn’t work. Alexander is only a few years younger than Hephaestion, so you don’t have the older generation - younger generation model here. The authors quote the cynic philosophers regarding their love relationship: “Alexander was only defeated once, and that was by Hephaestion’s thighs.” However, the authors do not understand what the cynics are saying.
Sex between men in ancient Greece varied depending on their relative ages. Old men generally topped young men, in anal sex. But if the two were of relatively the same age, as with Alexander and Hephaestion, the men were face to face, with each man in turn inserting himself between his lover’s lubricated thighs.
This makes me wonder what else the authors might have missed or been mistaken in, and I would have been happier if there had been a bibliography or source notes in the back of the book.
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Cary Renfro is an activist and book reviewer. He is a feature writer for The Capitol Forum in Salem, Oregon.
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