Macedonian Criticism of Oliver Stone’s film Alexander

Alexander directed by Oliver Stone. Colin Farrell as Alexander The Great.

Macedonian Criticism of Oliver Stone’s film Alexander (Letter Sent to Movie Critics – November 2004)

1) Where are the Historical Errors in the film?

Stone has Collin Farell (the actor playing Alexander) saying to the Macedonians before the battle of Gaugamela against the Persians that they are fighting for “the glory of Greece.” Ancient sources do not write that Alexander fought for the “glory of Greece” but for that of Macedonia. Three ancient historians detailed Alexander’s address to the army before the battle.  And each one of them made a clear distinction between Macedonians, Greeks, Illyrians, and Thracians, as four separate ethnicities that composed Alexander’s army.  Here are the words of the Roman historian Curtius Rufus: “Riding to the front line he (Alexander the Great) named the soldiers and they responded from pot to spot where they were lined up. The Macedonians, who had won so many battles in Europe and set off to invade Asia … got encouragement from him – he reminded them of their permanent values. They were the world’s liberators and one day they would pass the frontiers set by Hercules and Father Liber. They would subdue all races on Earth. Bactria and India would become Macedonian provinces. Getting closer to the Greeks, he reminded them that those were the people (the Persians on the other side) who provoked war with Greece, … those were the people that burned their temples and cities … As the Illyrians and Thracians lived mainly from plunder, he told them to look at the enemy line glittering in gold” (Curt.3.10.4-10)

Notice what Alexander told the Macedonians – “Bactria and India would become Macedonian provinces”.  It is for the glory of Macedonia, not for the glory of Greece. The Greeks, are here a second nation of importance to Alexander. Throughout Oliver Stone’s film there is confusion whether the Macedonians were distinct people or just another Greeks. Ironically the original Synopsis of the film makes the clear distinction between Macedonians and Greeks. There we read: “Alexander led his virtually invincible Greek and Macedonian armies through 22,000 miles…His extraordinary journey begins when Alexander launches his invasion from Macedonia…” Yet although in the Synopsis the Macedonians are separate from the Greeks, and they left from Macedonia and not from Greece, Stone has them fighting for the “glory of Greece”?!  The error is obvious.

Parmenion

John Kavanagh Parmenion roolissa Oliver Stonen ohjaamassa elokuvassa Aleksanteri

Parmenion (n. 400-330 eaa.) taisteli Makedonian armeijassa sekä Filippos II:n että Aleksanteri Suuren aikana. Syntyjään jalosukuinen kenraali oli Filippoksen uskottu, joka löi illyrialaiset perusteellisesti vuonna 356 eaa. Vuonnna 346 eaa. Parmenion lähetettiin Ateenaan neuvottelemaan rauhasta, joka tehtiin Filokrateen johdolla. Attaloksen ja Amyntaksen rinnalla Parmenion johti Vähään-Aasiaan lähteneitä etujoukkoja.

Parmenion palasi pian Filippoksen murhan jälkeen Makedoniaan ja liittoutui nopeasti Aleksanterin kanssa auttaen häntä turvaamaan valtaistuimensa myöntymällä Attaloksen murhaan. Tästä palveluksesta Parmenion ja hänen sukunsa hyötyivät suuresti. Hän oli Aleksanterin oikea käsi kaikissa tämän suurimmissa taisteluissa, joissa hän komensi makedonialaisten vasenta sivustaa. Hänen poikansa Filotas ja Nikandor nousivat myös huomattaviin asemiin.

Parmenion säilytti asemansa Aleksanterin varakomentajana vuoteen 330 eaa, jolloin häntä syytettiin Persian kullan kätkemisestä Ekbatanaan. Samana vuonna Parmenion tuomittiin kuolemaan sen jälkeen kun hänet oli yhdistetty Filotaksen väitettyyn salaliittoon Aleksanteria vastaan. Todisteita Parmenionin sekaantumisesta salaliittoon ei näytä olevan, mutta koska hän saattoi muodostaa uhan Aleksanterin pyrkimyksille, salaliitto tarjosi oivan keinon Parmenionin raivaamiselle.

Hephaestion´s relationships

Hephaestion

Little is known of Hephaestion’s personal relationships, beyond his extraordinarily close friendship with Alexander The Great. Alexander was outgoing, charismatic man, who had many friends, but his dearest and closest friend and confidant was Hephaestion. Theirs was a friendship which had been forged in boyhood. It endured through adolescence, through Alexander’s becoming a king, through the hardships of campaigning and the flatteries of court life, and their marriages.

Their tutor, Aristotle, described such a friendship as “..one soul abiding in two bodies”. That they themselves considered their friendship to be of such a kind is shown by the stories of the morning ater  the battle of Issus. Diodorus, Arrian and Curtius all describe the scene, when Alexander and Hephaestion went together to visit the captured Persian royal family. Its senior member, the queen Sisygambis, knelt to Hephaestion to plead for their lives, mistaking him for Alexander, because he was taller, and both young men were wearing similar clothes. When she realised her mistake, she was acutely embarrassed, but Alexander reassured her with the words, “You were not mistaken, Mother; this man too is Alexander”. Their love for each other was no secret, as is borne out by their own words. Hephaestion, when replying to a letter to Alexander’s mother, Olympias, said “..you know that Alexander means more to us than anything”. Arrian says that Alexander, after Hephaestion’s death, described him as “..the friend i valued as my own life”. Paul Cartladge describes their closeness when he says: “Alexander seems actually to have referred to Hephaestion’s as his alter ego”. 

Alexander and Hephaestion enter the tent of the captive royal family of Darius. From a 1696 edition of Curtius.

Their friendship was also a working partnership; in all that Alexander undertook, Hephaestion was at his side. They worked well together; it is possible to discern a pattern, when studying Hephaestion’s career, of Alexander’s constant trust in, and increasing reliance on Hephaestion. By the time of the advance into India, after the deaths of senior generals from the older generation, there had been worrying instances among senior officers of their own generation, of treachery, a lack of sympathy with Alexander’s aims of further integration of Persians into the army, and of sheer incompetence. Time ater time, when Alexander needed to divide his forces, he entrusted half to Hephaestion, knowing that in him he had a man of unquestionable loyalty, who understood and sympathised with his aims, and above all, who got the job done.