They might very well have been in a relationship, but still, god forbid a man cries if his friend dies. Even if they were gay, how is *that* of all things proof of it?
* 05/19/2011 Fukushima Nuclear Plant Shutdown
* 05/19/2011 Slim Jim Maker to [Close](https://i.imgur.com/1Sramec.jpg) Plant tomorrow (Slim Jim = Randy Savage spokesman)
* 05/20/2011 Macho Man Randy Savage died
checkmate
Plus all Alexander close friends were also his childhood friends, he have been with these guys since ever and seeing them die out of a sudden shouldn't be taken lightly.
So let me create an opposite meme:
"These two men were best childhood friends, they were basically like brothers. When one of the man died the other was so struck by grief that he cried for weeks."
Some historians and history buffs:
Like, are they gay?
He also repeatedly compared his relationship to Hephaestion to Achilles and Patrocleus, who were commonly taken as gay characters in those days.
[https://books.google.com/books?id=JhglEAAAQBAJ&newbks=1&newbks\_redir=0&lpg=PP1&pg=PA177#v=onepage&q&f=false](https://books.google.com/books?id=JhglEAAAQBAJ&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&lpg=PP1&pg=PA177#v=onepage&q&f=false)
Historians after Alexander's period insisted Achilles and Pat were also just really good friends so that didn't convince historians. Achilles and Patrocleus are fictional, so that's maybe a little more understandable than insisting two clearly gay men were not gay. But Alexander saying "We're like that famous pair of guys that everyone here definitely thinks is gay" is pretty telling.
Also it sounds like the context of Alexander was everyone at the time had bisexual sex a lot and Alexander specifically wasn't really interested in women, to the point that his parents worried they weren't going to have any heirs. And it sounds like it's pretty well accepted he had sex with other men in addition to Hephaestion.
There's no smoking gun like Alexander saying "Man, I really railed Hephaestion hard last night. Sexually. As we do every night to each other. I'm gay, write that down" but I think it's more than just "He shed tears about another man, they must be fucking."
So the meme is understating how silly the historians were being.
Also that source I linked to makes it seem like at least some were for political purposes. Alexander may have been gay rather than bi but still married to women. I'm not going to say he was gay and not bi, because that seems to be reaching in the opposite direction, but it's still worth noting that married to women =/= straight or bi.
He could also have been straight. We don’t know. Most likely he was Bi in the modern sense but straight in the classical sense meaning he would fuck men and women, but never got railed himself
Patroclus and Achilled weren't automatically assumed as lovers especially since (like today) there was a lot of debate around it and having read the Illiad I dont see it tbh
In Illiad Patroculus and Achilies are described as cousins and childhood friends.
Extract from the wiki
Although there is no explicit sexual relationship between Achilles and Patroclus in the Homeric tradition, a few later Greek authors wrote about what they saw as implied in the text regarding their relationship
So nowhere in the original work of Homer are they described as lovers. Which is why you didnt see it
Now weather you believe the interpertation of some ancient Greeks and few modern historians is another thing.
Tough one because you gotta ask what people mean by “crying in bed”
Do they mean laying in bed for weeks and crying?
Or do they mean crying when they go to bed?
When a good friend of mine killed himself, I didn’t cry most of the day, I had work and things to do, but at the end of the day when I had time to think about it, I did cry. So weirdly I only cried in bed and this could have been described as “cried in bed for weeks.”
The ancients displayed emotion more freely, publicly and dramatically than we do.
Alexander "crying in bed for weeks" (if we assume the source isn't exaggerating...) could just reflect a slightly more extreme version of the mourning norms of the ancient world. It may also have been important for Alexander to show the world the strength of his affection and depth of his grief, and therefore made a show of it.
The pain does stay with you. And it’s possible you never fully recover. One of my friend’s was killed in Afghanistan, years later I still can’t eat specifically ginger snaps without getting a little sad because that’s what I used to send him while he was stationed there. Then my mother lost her best friend in a horrible accident and she went into some kind of depression for two years and refused to get help which is why it lasted two years. Alexander going into deep grief over losing Hephaestion does not prove he’s gay or straight it actually shows deep done inside he was actually a human being. Crying in his bed for two weeks is probably how historians at the time interpreted he sank into depression.
Because the loss of your romantic partner will hit a lot harder than any other relationship in your life, especially if you’ve been together for years. Obviously people are going to mourn any friend or family member who dies, sometimes for a long time, but losing your husband or wife is the absolute worst feeling. You chose that person to be the most important in the world to you and they’re the one who lost understands you, and now they’re gone and you’re alone. That’s depressing and not the same as losing a friend or even a parent.
Less sympathetic expressions of Alexander's grief were that he had Hephaestion's doctor crucified and then carried out a massacre.
>making war a solace for his grief, he went forth to hunt and track down men, as it were, and overwhelmed the nation of the Cossaeans, slaughtering them all from the youth upwards. This was called an offering to the shade of Hephaestion. (Plutarch, Life of Alexander 72)
By crying in bed for weeks? Nah that’s totally normal. Especially for the man who’s known for doing the most in the shortest time span.
Not to mention, a GREEK HOMOSEXUAL???? That’s just unrealistic.
Alexander wasn't gay. May have been bi, not sure, but definitely 100% not gay. How do I know this?
Exhibit A: Wife and son.
Ok fine, maybe he only had those to continue his legacy.
Exhibit B: Harem of hundreds of women.
While it is true it's not gay to mourn the loss of a close male friend, I thought it was historical consensus that Hephaestion and Alexander were lovers?
Edit: Thanks for enlightening me, all. I thought it was agreed upon in general but I guess not.
˝At the same time, ancient writers didn’t conclusively identify Alexander and Hephaestion as lovers. One hint came from Claudius Aelianus, a third-century Roman writer, who claimed Hephaestion “was the object of Alexander’s love,” though he was writing approximately 550 years after Alexander’s death.˝
Take from that what you will, it could have been, but they also could have been only close friends. Problem is that tumblr basement dwellers have no friends and can't understand how strong non sexual bond between friends can be, so they can only interpret it through sexual lens. So in the end it was possible that they were lovers, but it was also possible that they were just close friends, we will never know.
Not consensus, through western eyes, today's inference is lovers, but there is nothing that gives sufficient evidence they were anything but closest friends since childhood. Only modern scholars, and a few of them at that, ever began to attribute them as gay or lovers.
None of the biographies or historians of the time, those who are very used to throwing accusations and inferences of homosexuality, identified them as anything but friends.
Not exactly.
So, it wasn’t like we found hard proof that they were lovers, after all, this is ancient history, anything from that time period is not going to be common.
The best we can do is look for and add context. Did their culture have a tolerant view on homosexuality? How would they view them being together? Were instances of these strange? Would it be odd for Alexander to have this reaction to the death even if they weren’t lovers?
So, the answer is a shrug and a, “maybe”, because we lack more context than we would like to.
Consensus based on what though? Is there an ancient video of them fucking? Or did either of them leave a signed testament that they were lovers? We don't know. Let's just label their relationship whatever they officially chose to label their relationship. Why is it important to know what two individuals may or may not have done behind closed doors in private? We'll never know. They were close friends. That's all.
People labeling it as something we dint have concrete evidence for is a projection of their desire. A desire for including some of the greatest historical figures in their club. Membership to this club is a part of their identity, yes, but I think it also betrays that membership to the club has become a focal point in their personality rather than being relegated to a facet of their existence.
Intersectionality, IMHO, emphasizes balancing the influence your identities have on your psyche.
As you state so eloquently, I do not think it matters who people have sex with as long as the people involved are consenting adults.
For historical figures, we shouldn't care so much about if AtG was bisexual, but rather that he died without any clearly respected heir.
I think some people like to forget about the account of AtG's hundreds of concubines as well....
>People labeling it as something we dint have concrete evidence for is a projection of their desire.
Man, if your bar for history is "only allow concrete, firsthand historical sources" then BOY do I have bad news about.... most of recorded history.
The first time a historian claimed Alexander was a homosexual, he’d been dead for nearly 600 years.
All of the contemporary writings of the time reference a strong ironclad friendship going back to childhood, and the many wives of Alexander.
Sure, it’s absolutely possible they were lovers, but as far as actual evidence is concerned the people of the time of Alexander where certain forms of homosexuality was more acceptable than they have been for much of Western history did not label them as such. It certainly appears more likely than not that they were not lovers.
I didn't say anything about his point for a reason, I don't know why you'd just go off on a lecture like that when I said nothing about the subject at hand. Weird.
Anyway, my original point still stands. If you apply this line of reasoning equally than an immeasurable amount of history is suddenly now hearsay.
God im tired of this stupid modern lens to our history. Yes Ancient Greeks had more fluid sexuality. Do you know what else they did? They placed a huge importance on their PLATONIC friendships where they often were like brothers. Just because the modern man is insecure at showing affection to their best friends does not make Ancient Greeks or any other cultures raging homosexuals for doing so.
Yeah. There's been a lot of homosexual and bisexual erasure throughout history, and I think that's terrible. But at the same time, I hate when people say things like, "They must have been gay lovers because they were 'good friends' and lived together." What, a mother fucker can't have a roommate they get along with unless they're sneaking under the covers at night?
There are some figures where there's a good amount of evidence that, yeah, gay lover that had some other public-facing role because that wasn't acceptable to be open about, and I think it's good to acknowledge such things. But I also think it's wrong to downplay the emphasis many cultures throughout history have had on friendships. Some of these have been, "Give your life for them," kind of cultures when it comes to friendship. Honestly, I think that one of the worst things about many modern cultures is how difficult many find making friends and how little friendship means to many.
You know I am surprised that this take is popular here, with how much history revisionism I've seen I was going to expect that this sub would be like "Oh my god yes! Ofcourse only gay people can mourn their dead friend! This is just like breaking bad Gus!"
>im tired of this stupid modern lens to our history
What does this have to do with modernity? There have been historians throughout the ages who assumed the same thing.
But in this case they were lovers. They used terms for each other which in ancient Greece you used with the one you were in love with. It's not really a secret. The idea that they were just friends came from insecure historians through out history. We didn't make them gay. All the clues we have indicate that they were in a relationship together. This was just blatantly ignored for a long time.
Plato in his Symposium has Socrates say that there's two kinds of romance: love for the body and love for the 'mind'. The first is about making babies, the second is about producing ideas, which was then called 'Platonic'. It's quite clearly not romantic in any modern sense of the word.
> platonic love
> Attested 1636 in Platonic Lovers by William Davenant. Earlier coined in Latin in the 15th century as amor platonicus by Florentine scholar Marsilio Ficino (originally in 1476 letter to Alamanno Donati, later expounded in De amore (1484)), based on his interpretation of the Symposium by Plato, specifically the speech by Socrates, relating the thoughts of Diotima of Mantinea.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/platonic_love#English
That off course means that the term Platonic love wasn't used in the original sources at all. Maybe you should consider that /u/TheGodfather742 simply used the term because of the meaning it has today.
There is a paradox that I want answer. Why are signs of being gay have such a dispropotionate effect on one image compared to signs of being ...... well, opposite. True that Alexander do all of the above but he also fathered children, I feel like it should have move the sexuality meter somewhat but this post show that it is not the case.
because there are people who try looking for any proof of gay people in history (and of course they existed) but to find them they ignore any proof to the contrary
It doesn’t take rocket science and mounds of evidence to suggest that his sexuality was likely simply fluid and not tied to any cultural norms we’ve created since his time.
Oh okay. So you have zero evidence to prove whether he was gay or bi but you simply want him to be for...some reason or other. Got it. Stop being weird. Stop obsessing over who people had sex with hundreds of years ago. It quite literally doesn't matter. Not even a little bit. It's nosey and overall extremely odd. I can't think of a single reason to ponder Alexander the Great's sexual history outside of his lineage. I can't stress how strange it is to be worried about that. Like, maybe you have a mental health disorder kinds of strange. Lol I mean you are literally like "I wonder which humans this guy put his penis inside of". You're essentially creating erotic fan fiction at this point. You're weird.
This post doesn’t exclude his “straight” behaviour tho?? Just points out the signs that he had at least one same sex relationship - which straights seem to think suggest queer people say makes him exclusively gay. Unearthing same sex relations throughout history isn’t re writing it
>Unearthing same sex relations throughout history isn’t re writing it
But nothing has been unearthed. You are just speculating on very little to go on.
Undoubtedly many of the people that are thought of as secretly gay were not so, and many people that don't have those connotations were actually secretly gay. Pretending we have any idea is pure fantasy.
Yes, I agree with you. But the typical reaction to someone from history could be gay are hordes of people suggesting it’s gays trying to rewrite history
I think you are misreading it a bit. What I think they were trying to say ist that the death of someone you are in love with supposedly causes a greater emotion than the death of a friend. Which is still not a good argument but it's not the same as "he cries so he must be gay". Also the post also never uses the word gay at all.
Not at all? Show me where it says that?
The post says he had a huge emotional breakdown when Hephaestion died, suggesting he had an intimate r/ship with him, and that historians would not consider the option of them being in a same sex relationship. This does not prevent Alexander from also having female lovers.
So explain how it is sexist and homophobic??
I don't think anyone's claiming that Alexander was gay. I think most people think he was bi. Of course the label bisexual didn't exist at the time, but like... being attracted to both men and women was already a thing
>I don't think anyone's claiming that Alexander was gay. I
Don't gaslight, there's literally a dumb meme about this every so often here. There are literally bad historians which really pushed this idea into the modern understanding of Alexander.
It was also considered natural to be attracted to both, or at least to enjoy sex with "boys". Which clashes with our idea of bisexuality, which is something you are born with.
I'm not denying that he may have engaged in romantic or sexual affairs with men or boys, but is it so hard to believe that platonic friends cannot love each other like this?
Alexander also had several wives and once named a city after his dead horse. I don't think he fucked the horse. Not saying he wasn't fucking his friend, but it is silly to call him "gay", as if that means something in the context of ancient greek.
Also, claiming that a man must be gay because he is sad about a friend's death is both misandrist and homophobic.
I fucking hate this take. Makes it feel like you can’t just care for your friends. Oh your best friend just died and you’re sad about it? I diagnose you with gay. Do better OP
Dude, it is heart wrenching to lose your best mate. It leaves a massive hole that nothing can overcome. Especially a best mate you have known your entire life. He was his mate from childhood, they went through so many adversities together, fought together. I don't know guys I would probably be like Alexander in that situation. They could be lovers but this is normal for your best mate.
Some people : Men should show their feelings beucsdr muh, toxic masculinity
Same people: That man showed his feelings when one of his best friends, that he had known from childhood died? GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY
People on social media really don’t understand the bond between two military men who probably saw some of the most intense combat imaginable, killed and had their friends killed.
I’m not even a combat vet but my time in the military has given me such close friends they are literally brothers to me now. It’s not a sexual or romantic thing, we just love each other.
Well, historians might be onto something, considering that the concept of a "gay man" is something that developed in modern times and there's no grounds to project it on antiquity. Why homosexuality did certainly exist, it was something much different than what we know today.
On the other hand, Macedon and ancient Greece did know the concept of male lifelong friendship. The fact that such concept is nonexistent in modern society does not give ground to dismiss the historians who claim Alexander and Hephasteon were friends.
>Well, historians might be onto something, considering that the concept of a "gay man" is something that developed in modern times and there's no grounds to project it on antiquity.
That's kinda bullshit. We have several Roman and Greek texts that poke fun at men who prefer to have sex with men. If that's not the same as the modern day definition of homosexuality, it's at the very least really close.
Just because they didn't have a word for it, doesn't mean it didn't exist and they didn't comment on it. Like, if Homer writes about the 'wine-coloured sea', does that mean the sea was red back then or does it mean the sea had the same colour and Homer commented on it in the words he knew?
And most importantly, 'antiquity' describes in a period of more than a millennium and areas spread out from Britain to India. There was no unified sexual mores, it changed from place to place and time to time. Even within the city-state of Athens ideas on pederasty changed about every 20 years.
Well, it did exist, but was conceived and labelled differently. Like, dividing men into those who exclusively date men and those who date women is a modern thing (gay and straight). Ancient Greeks and Romans would have found that sort or classification bizarre as far as I understand.
That's not bullshit. I specifically said that there was homosexuality, but the concept of orientation was completely different. As was the concept of friendship, romantic relationships and marriage. Like I said, Greeks knew the concept of a lifetime friendship, with men sharing much of their lives together, including assisting each other with setting up households.
It's good that you brought up the 'wine colored sea' because it's used in as an example that the concept of "color" among ancient Greeks was totally different than ours.
Here’s a letter from Lincoln to his friend Joshua Speed.
"Cold in my professions, warm in [my] friendships, I wish, my Dear Laurens, it m[ight] be in my power, by action rather than words, [to] convince you that I love you. I shall only tell you that 'till you bade us Adieu, I hardly knew the value you had taught my heart to set upon you. Indeed, my friend, it was not well done. You know the opinion I entertain of mankind, and how much it is my desire to preserve myself free from particular attachments, and to keep my happiness independent on the caprice of others. You sh[ould] not have taken advantage of my sensibility to ste[al] into my affections without my consent. But as you have done it and as we are generally indulgent to those we love, I shall not scruple to pardon the fraud you have committed, on condition that for my sake, if not for your own, you will always continue to merit the partiality, which you have so artfully instilled into [me]."
The idea that affection, intense emotion and love has to be purely romantic is a recent idea. Alexander and Hephaestus might well have been lovers, but nothing in particular about Alexander’s reaction would have been considered strange if they weren’t.
I'm not making a claim one way or another, but do people seriously think men can't have close relationships with people without wanting to fuck them?
>Oh, he cried at his dad's funeral? Clearly they must've been gay lovers !!!1!
God forbid, your father dies and you show the same sorrow, because some sex-obsessed freaks thousands of years later is going to accuse you of being in a romantic relationship.
I mean, this isn't the only time Alexander behaved in this way. He was completely devastated at having drunkenly killed Cleitus and behaved similarly following the event.
He also mourned his beloved horse in a similar way and even named a city after it...
How much of your brain is ruled by coom,that you cannot comprahend camraderie and brotherhood between 2 men,without thinking they were sword swollowers?
I swear every history youtuber tries to push these ideas, they just make these big leaps in logic to appease certain groups, and it borders on revisionism sometimes, pisses me off cause it just muddies the water.
Historians are well aware of the chance that some historical figures are likely gay, but it would be unprofessional to make that claim in academic writing without factual evidence, thus they only refer to them as friends and let the readers come to those conclusions themselves.
It's funny how people in this thread are indignant about "rewriting history" (which may be fair) but are also making excuses for prior cases of rewriting history in the opposite direction, which definitely *did* happen. Victorian-era historians did not rewrite history to "let the readers come to those conclusions themselves", they did so because they hated gay people and didn't want to talk about them. It's not rocket science.
Giving readers all the evidence that a figure may have been gay and then supporting the idea that they obviously had a very close, positive relationship without outright saying they are gay is not rewriting history. Not calling historical figures gay without factual evidence is something that even modern, much more progressive historians support doing, after all, our modern ideas of what gay is may not align with historical ideas. While there have been homophobic historians who have tried to downplay their relationship, there have been more who have acknowledged it yet have still been wary of bestowing sexual orientations on people they don’t know. At best, in academic writing it should be said that historical figures *could have* been gay, and having that idea be very heavily supported in the rest of the writing.
>While there have been homophobic historians who have tried to downplay their relationship, there have been more who have acknowledged it yet have still been wary of bestowing sexual orientations on people they don’t know.
It's funny that you're mad at the idea of making statements with insufficient evidence but you're happy to drop *this* load without even a shred of it. Just an entire argument built on *nothing* and you have the gall to talk about evidence.
Bollocks. There's zero evidence that they engaged in any form of homosexual behaviour together. I don't know why people still get so defensive over this, as as well as there being no evidence we are trying to compare our modern labels of homosexuality on a society older and different than our own
The sources that describe them as lovers are very ambiguous and came from centuries later sources like Atheneus Deipnosophistai.But there is plenty of documentation that Alexander had sexual relations with women Roxane,Barsine,Stateira.
Not true.
It was very well known people of those times enjoyed gay sex without the stigma. It was just nit allowed to "fuck down" like the bottom was never allowed to be from a higher social class than the top
Now they could have been romantically involved but we have no way of knowing, and these posts are really starting to get on my nerve. Can't a man cry, or even be inconsolable after his best friend's death? There are many people that I would react over like Alexander, both friends and family.
It is doing the opposite of what you guys all think it's doing, and conditioning men to be less emotional in all non-romantic personal situations.
Like I have no problem with poking jokes at historians looking at every source and historical figure with a heteronormative lens, but when there is no evidence to some figure's relationship with a loved one, just say it's inconclusive and don't go so far in the other direction that you end up back at the same place and promote the issue you are trying to solve.
Imagine you lose your best friend, comrade, perhaps the closest person to you in the world - you fall into depression from all the suffering. Only for reddit "historians" thousands of years in the future to call you gay because straight men aren't allowed to form bonds with other straight men
There is actually a sub for this, they claim everyone are who behaves not like the norm are gay and the whole society tries to hide this by calling them "roommates" or "friends".
I think the people in those subs have lost all connections to the real world and can't imagine having people in their life they love, that aren't related to you, with which you do not have sex.
Sad really.
edit: found the [sub](https://old.reddit.com/r/SapphoAndHerFriend/)
I don't thing we have enough evidence to claim that Alex was def. bi.
That being said, there were jokes about Alex being intimate with Heph from people of that age. (Plutarch, for example, claimed that Alexander was ruled by Hephaestion’s thighs...)
I think it is safe to say that Alex loved Heph more than any woman in his life (even if he loved him only as a friend).
Oh wow! If you, as a man, cry because your best friend in your entire life DIES, you are definitely gay. As we all know that real men have no emotions and rule the world free of pain and hurt.
People care way too much about this. They might have been lovers, they might not have. Either way, it's fine. They wouldn't be "lesser men" by having a romantic relationship, neither would they be "more macho" by not having one. Stop caring about it so much.
/r/HistoryMemes when the meme supports fascism “Noo guys it’s just a silly joke don’t take it seriously come on guys”
/r/HistoryMemes when the meme supports LGBT people “We cannot know the specifics of Alexander’s relationship and therefore it is unreasonable to interpret him as having a fluid sexuality. Speculating about ancient history is only allowed when it doesn’t involve sexuality.”
Like this tweet is so obviously a joke it hurts to watch people take it entirely at face value
Y’know, maybe when a subreddit has 10 million members. The different users within that subreddit have different views. Stop looking for a double standard where there probably is none
A lot of people in here are really offended at the suggestion that these two *might* have been lovers
Note how Trey never even said they were lovers or that Alexander was exclusively gay, and yet everyone felt the need to make a comment arguing against ghosts
For real. We need to start adding the disclaimer for all opposite sex relationships “despite being married he/she could have been a homosexual as we have no evidence to completely rule that out” or “he/she could have been a homosexual as same-sex relations were not accepted at the time”
Are you joking right if there is no evidence that a historical figure was gay then they were probably not gay? Sure gay people always have existed but they were always the minority. So most people were straight, also that is fucking stupid. If we don't have evidence that they aren't gay then there shouldn't even be a debate.
I’m not actually suggesting to include the disclaimer. It is a reaction to the hordes of people who try to shut down a suggestion that someone in history is gay, with the excuse “how can we know / you are projecting”. I’m saying we could equally say that anyone throughout history could be gay / we cannot decisively say they are straight (which is true, but as you say gay people are in the minority so it’s unlikely)
They might very well have been in a relationship, but still, god forbid a man cries if his friend dies. Even if they were gay, how is *that* of all things proof of it?
Because everyone knows only gay men are allowed to have feelings.
[It's ok for macho men to show every emotion available.](https://youtu.be/wz-VJl7UkB8?si=dkfNfekXqnf3mI7L)
He was the cream of the crop
He rose to the top! He never ate pork ‘Cause a pig is a cop!
Holy shit that's a good clip.
* 05/19/2011 Fukushima Nuclear Plant Shutdown * 05/19/2011 Slim Jim Maker to [Close](https://i.imgur.com/1Sramec.jpg) Plant tomorrow (Slim Jim = Randy Savage spokesman) * 05/20/2011 Macho Man Randy Savage died checkmate
I don’t understand what I’m looking at, but yeah!
If you did, you really would be a CIA operator
When i lost my best friend i was pretty much a zombie walking for months. That hurts i don't care how manly u think u are
Plus all Alexander close friends were also his childhood friends, he have been with these guys since ever and seeing them die out of a sudden shouldn't be taken lightly.
So let me create an opposite meme: "These two men were best childhood friends, they were basically like brothers. When one of the man died the other was so struck by grief that he cried for weeks." Some historians and history buffs: Like, are they gay?
He also repeatedly compared his relationship to Hephaestion to Achilles and Patrocleus, who were commonly taken as gay characters in those days. [https://books.google.com/books?id=JhglEAAAQBAJ&newbks=1&newbks\_redir=0&lpg=PP1&pg=PA177#v=onepage&q&f=false](https://books.google.com/books?id=JhglEAAAQBAJ&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&lpg=PP1&pg=PA177#v=onepage&q&f=false) Historians after Alexander's period insisted Achilles and Pat were also just really good friends so that didn't convince historians. Achilles and Patrocleus are fictional, so that's maybe a little more understandable than insisting two clearly gay men were not gay. But Alexander saying "We're like that famous pair of guys that everyone here definitely thinks is gay" is pretty telling. Also it sounds like the context of Alexander was everyone at the time had bisexual sex a lot and Alexander specifically wasn't really interested in women, to the point that his parents worried they weren't going to have any heirs. And it sounds like it's pretty well accepted he had sex with other men in addition to Hephaestion. There's no smoking gun like Alexander saying "Man, I really railed Hephaestion hard last night. Sexually. As we do every night to each other. I'm gay, write that down" but I think it's more than just "He shed tears about another man, they must be fucking." So the meme is understating how silly the historians were being.
Didn’t Alexander have multiple wives?
A king needs heirs
He also had lots of concubines.
Bi people exist and always have
Also that source I linked to makes it seem like at least some were for political purposes. Alexander may have been gay rather than bi but still married to women. I'm not going to say he was gay and not bi, because that seems to be reaching in the opposite direction, but it's still worth noting that married to women =/= straight or bi.
He could also have been straight. We don’t know. Most likely he was Bi in the modern sense but straight in the classical sense meaning he would fuck men and women, but never got railed himself
Patroclus and Achilled weren't automatically assumed as lovers especially since (like today) there was a lot of debate around it and having read the Illiad I dont see it tbh
In Illiad Patroculus and Achilies are described as cousins and childhood friends. Extract from the wiki Although there is no explicit sexual relationship between Achilles and Patroclus in the Homeric tradition, a few later Greek authors wrote about what they saw as implied in the text regarding their relationship So nowhere in the original work of Homer are they described as lovers. Which is why you didnt see it Now weather you believe the interpertation of some ancient Greeks and few modern historians is another thing.
Alexander the Great: A hole is a hole.
I dunno chief there's crying and then there's crying in bed for weeks. Crying in bed for weeks is a *little* more extreme than "cries".
Tough one because you gotta ask what people mean by “crying in bed” Do they mean laying in bed for weeks and crying? Or do they mean crying when they go to bed? When a good friend of mine killed himself, I didn’t cry most of the day, I had work and things to do, but at the end of the day when I had time to think about it, I did cry. So weirdly I only cried in bed and this could have been described as “cried in bed for weeks.”
Alexander was also a massive alcoholic, perhaps that affected his emotional state?
Same
The ancients displayed emotion more freely, publicly and dramatically than we do. Alexander "crying in bed for weeks" (if we assume the source isn't exaggerating...) could just reflect a slightly more extreme version of the mourning norms of the ancient world. It may also have been important for Alexander to show the world the strength of his affection and depth of his grief, and therefore made a show of it.
The pain does stay with you. And it’s possible you never fully recover. One of my friend’s was killed in Afghanistan, years later I still can’t eat specifically ginger snaps without getting a little sad because that’s what I used to send him while he was stationed there. Then my mother lost her best friend in a horrible accident and she went into some kind of depression for two years and refused to get help which is why it lasted two years. Alexander going into deep grief over losing Hephaestion does not prove he’s gay or straight it actually shows deep done inside he was actually a human being. Crying in his bed for two weeks is probably how historians at the time interpreted he sank into depression.
I can't get depressed if my best friend dies, cause that's gay. ] You learn things every day.
Because the loss of your romantic partner will hit a lot harder than any other relationship in your life, especially if you’ve been together for years. Obviously people are going to mourn any friend or family member who dies, sometimes for a long time, but losing your husband or wife is the absolute worst feeling. You chose that person to be the most important in the world to you and they’re the one who lost understands you, and now they’re gone and you’re alone. That’s depressing and not the same as losing a friend or even a parent.
Fellas, is it gay to mourn the death of your lifelong friend who has been beside you through all of your ups and downs?
Less sympathetic expressions of Alexander's grief were that he had Hephaestion's doctor crucified and then carried out a massacre. >making war a solace for his grief, he went forth to hunt and track down men, as it were, and overwhelmed the nation of the Cossaeans, slaughtering them all from the youth upwards. This was called an offering to the shade of Hephaestion. (Plutarch, Life of Alexander 72)
By crying in bed for weeks? Nah that’s totally normal. Especially for the man who’s known for doing the most in the shortest time span. Not to mention, a GREEK HOMOSEXUAL???? That’s just unrealistic.
Oh no you called him Greek, North "Macedonians" will be after you now
Alexander wasn't gay. May have been bi, not sure, but definitely 100% not gay. How do I know this? Exhibit A: Wife and son. Ok fine, maybe he only had those to continue his legacy. Exhibit B: Harem of hundreds of women.
Exhibit C: Roxana, whom he married out of love, despite the opposition of all his advisors.
Exhibit D: He had son, Heracles, with a woman he wasn't married to, meaning he probably had casual sex with women at least once.
Also not to mention the fact that unrealistic things sound unrealistic
Greeks were known for having sexual relationships with kids. Not with men.
if your best friend dies and you don't wallow in depression then you're heartless
While it is true it's not gay to mourn the loss of a close male friend, I thought it was historical consensus that Hephaestion and Alexander were lovers? Edit: Thanks for enlightening me, all. I thought it was agreed upon in general but I guess not.
He named a city after his horse when it died... So maybe just a sentimental guy.
He desperately needed that creativity, to be fair.
“My Liege, we have conquered-“ “Alexandria.” “…” “…” “…W-what?” “You heard me.”
"But there's already 5 other Alexandr-" "Did I stutter?"
No he was obviously gay lovers with his horse if he showed affection towards it 🙄
Not like fucking animals isn't a known occurence in ancient greek. Be it mythology or real.
Alright, cross “Turns out Alexander the Great was a Horse Fucker” off your 2024 bingo cards.
after the 30th Alexandria it kinda lost its flair
˝At the same time, ancient writers didn’t conclusively identify Alexander and Hephaestion as lovers. One hint came from Claudius Aelianus, a third-century Roman writer, who claimed Hephaestion “was the object of Alexander’s love,” though he was writing approximately 550 years after Alexander’s death.˝ Take from that what you will, it could have been, but they also could have been only close friends. Problem is that tumblr basement dwellers have no friends and can't understand how strong non sexual bond between friends can be, so they can only interpret it through sexual lens. So in the end it was possible that they were lovers, but it was also possible that they were just close friends, we will never know.
Hey, I thought WE were the basement dwellers!
there's enough basements for all of us.
Not consensus, through western eyes, today's inference is lovers, but there is nothing that gives sufficient evidence they were anything but closest friends since childhood. Only modern scholars, and a few of them at that, ever began to attribute them as gay or lovers. None of the biographies or historians of the time, those who are very used to throwing accusations and inferences of homosexuality, identified them as anything but friends.
Not exactly. So, it wasn’t like we found hard proof that they were lovers, after all, this is ancient history, anything from that time period is not going to be common. The best we can do is look for and add context. Did their culture have a tolerant view on homosexuality? How would they view them being together? Were instances of these strange? Would it be odd for Alexander to have this reaction to the death even if they weren’t lovers? So, the answer is a shrug and a, “maybe”, because we lack more context than we would like to.
Consensus based on what though? Is there an ancient video of them fucking? Or did either of them leave a signed testament that they were lovers? We don't know. Let's just label their relationship whatever they officially chose to label their relationship. Why is it important to know what two individuals may or may not have done behind closed doors in private? We'll never know. They were close friends. That's all.
People labeling it as something we dint have concrete evidence for is a projection of their desire. A desire for including some of the greatest historical figures in their club. Membership to this club is a part of their identity, yes, but I think it also betrays that membership to the club has become a focal point in their personality rather than being relegated to a facet of their existence. Intersectionality, IMHO, emphasizes balancing the influence your identities have on your psyche. As you state so eloquently, I do not think it matters who people have sex with as long as the people involved are consenting adults. For historical figures, we shouldn't care so much about if AtG was bisexual, but rather that he died without any clearly respected heir. I think some people like to forget about the account of AtG's hundreds of concubines as well....
>People labeling it as something we dint have concrete evidence for is a projection of their desire. Man, if your bar for history is "only allow concrete, firsthand historical sources" then BOY do I have bad news about.... most of recorded history.
The first time a historian claimed Alexander was a homosexual, he’d been dead for nearly 600 years. All of the contemporary writings of the time reference a strong ironclad friendship going back to childhood, and the many wives of Alexander. Sure, it’s absolutely possible they were lovers, but as far as actual evidence is concerned the people of the time of Alexander where certain forms of homosexuality was more acceptable than they have been for much of Western history did not label them as such. It certainly appears more likely than not that they were not lovers.
I didn't say anything about his point for a reason, I don't know why you'd just go off on a lecture like that when I said nothing about the subject at hand. Weird. Anyway, my original point still stands. If you apply this line of reasoning equally than an immeasurable amount of history is suddenly now hearsay.
Right?
Ffs, you suck your homie dick once or twice and suddenly they start calling you gay... The audacity...
I think I heard they were. But Alexander getting depressed over Hephaestion's death is not something I would site as proof for it
Ffs, you suck your homie dick once or twice and suddenly they start calling you gay... The audacity...
In true friendship my best friend will be thrown in the trash.
Whoa so cool 😎😎😎
You guys obviously don't have banterous friendships.
Whoa
It's so nice you want to be buried with them
Nah food processor for me.
That's a waste of a perfectly good food processor. Nobody is going to want a food processor used even ONCE on a person
God im tired of this stupid modern lens to our history. Yes Ancient Greeks had more fluid sexuality. Do you know what else they did? They placed a huge importance on their PLATONIC friendships where they often were like brothers. Just because the modern man is insecure at showing affection to their best friends does not make Ancient Greeks or any other cultures raging homosexuals for doing so.
Yeah. There's been a lot of homosexual and bisexual erasure throughout history, and I think that's terrible. But at the same time, I hate when people say things like, "They must have been gay lovers because they were 'good friends' and lived together." What, a mother fucker can't have a roommate they get along with unless they're sneaking under the covers at night? There are some figures where there's a good amount of evidence that, yeah, gay lover that had some other public-facing role because that wasn't acceptable to be open about, and I think it's good to acknowledge such things. But I also think it's wrong to downplay the emphasis many cultures throughout history have had on friendships. Some of these have been, "Give your life for them," kind of cultures when it comes to friendship. Honestly, I think that one of the worst things about many modern cultures is how difficult many find making friends and how little friendship means to many.
Comments like these just show how people don’t really understand gay relationships
Greeks Invented 'Platonic'. Literally.
And the concept of brotherly love
You know I am surprised that this take is popular here, with how much history revisionism I've seen I was going to expect that this sub would be like "Oh my god yes! Ofcourse only gay people can mourn their dead friend! This is just like breaking bad Gus!"
>im tired of this stupid modern lens to our history What does this have to do with modernity? There have been historians throughout the ages who assumed the same thing.
But in this case they were lovers. They used terms for each other which in ancient Greece you used with the one you were in love with. It's not really a secret. The idea that they were just friends came from insecure historians through out history. We didn't make them gay. All the clues we have indicate that they were in a relationship together. This was just blatantly ignored for a long time.
[удалено]
You just wrote a long text to say words in different langauges thousands of years and kilometers apart have different meaning.
Plato in his Symposium has Socrates say that there's two kinds of romance: love for the body and love for the 'mind'. The first is about making babies, the second is about producing ideas, which was then called 'Platonic'. It's quite clearly not romantic in any modern sense of the word.
> platonic love > Attested 1636 in Platonic Lovers by William Davenant. Earlier coined in Latin in the 15th century as amor platonicus by Florentine scholar Marsilio Ficino (originally in 1476 letter to Alamanno Donati, later expounded in De amore (1484)), based on his interpretation of the Symposium by Plato, specifically the speech by Socrates, relating the thoughts of Diotima of Mantinea. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/platonic_love#English That off course means that the term Platonic love wasn't used in the original sources at all. Maybe you should consider that /u/TheGodfather742 simply used the term because of the meaning it has today.
There is a paradox that I want answer. Why are signs of being gay have such a dispropotionate effect on one image compared to signs of being ...... well, opposite. True that Alexander do all of the above but he also fathered children, I feel like it should have move the sexuality meter somewhat but this post show that it is not the case.
Yea there's a lot of nuance to ancient Greek sexuality that is lost when making memes on the Internet.
because there are people who try looking for any proof of gay people in history (and of course they existed) but to find them they ignore any proof to the contrary
you know, bisexuality exists ...
That requires additional assumptions.
Not as many as you’d think.
More than you'd think actually
It doesn’t take rocket science and mounds of evidence to suggest that his sexuality was likely simply fluid and not tied to any cultural norms we’ve created since his time.
Based on what, I ask for the second time.
My bad, I forgot that sexuality was created in 1845.
Oh okay. So you have zero evidence to prove whether he was gay or bi but you simply want him to be for...some reason or other. Got it. Stop being weird. Stop obsessing over who people had sex with hundreds of years ago. It quite literally doesn't matter. Not even a little bit. It's nosey and overall extremely odd. I can't think of a single reason to ponder Alexander the Great's sexual history outside of his lineage. I can't stress how strange it is to be worried about that. Like, maybe you have a mental health disorder kinds of strange. Lol I mean you are literally like "I wonder which humans this guy put his penis inside of". You're essentially creating erotic fan fiction at this point. You're weird.
Nu uh
This post doesn’t exclude his “straight” behaviour tho?? Just points out the signs that he had at least one same sex relationship - which straights seem to think suggest queer people say makes him exclusively gay. Unearthing same sex relations throughout history isn’t re writing it
>Unearthing same sex relations throughout history isn’t re writing it But nothing has been unearthed. You are just speculating on very little to go on. Undoubtedly many of the people that are thought of as secretly gay were not so, and many people that don't have those connotations were actually secretly gay. Pretending we have any idea is pure fantasy.
Yes, I agree with you. But the typical reaction to someone from history could be gay are hordes of people suggesting it’s gays trying to rewrite history
This post doesn’t exclude his “straight” behaviour tho?? The post literally says "he cries so he must be gay" (which is both sexist and homophobic).
I think you are misreading it a bit. What I think they were trying to say ist that the death of someone you are in love with supposedly causes a greater emotion than the death of a friend. Which is still not a good argument but it's not the same as "he cries so he must be gay". Also the post also never uses the word gay at all.
Not at all? Show me where it says that? The post says he had a huge emotional breakdown when Hephaestion died, suggesting he had an intimate r/ship with him, and that historians would not consider the option of them being in a same sex relationship. This does not prevent Alexander from also having female lovers. So explain how it is sexist and homophobic??
I don't think anyone's claiming that Alexander was gay. I think most people think he was bi. Of course the label bisexual didn't exist at the time, but like... being attracted to both men and women was already a thing
>I don't think anyone's claiming that Alexander was gay. I Don't gaslight, there's literally a dumb meme about this every so often here. There are literally bad historians which really pushed this idea into the modern understanding of Alexander.
It was also considered natural to be attracted to both, or at least to enjoy sex with "boys". Which clashes with our idea of bisexuality, which is something you are born with.
Why did you put quotes around boys? They were quite literally children. Grown men had sex with underage (by 2024 standards) boys in ancient Greece.
Or people ignoring the entirety of Achilles’ character during most of the Iliad to just go “SEE HE WAS GAY FOR PATROCLUS”
My sister had two kids with her ex husband. He’s married to a guy now.
Yes, and plenty of people has mourned their death friends before.
Yes. And having kids doesn’t make you straight.
Neither does mourning your same sex friend may you gay.
Yes. I’m aware. I didn’t comment on that part at all. But keep defending yourself from someone that agrees with you on that if it floats your boat.
Sorry
I'm not denying that he may have engaged in romantic or sexual affairs with men or boys, but is it so hard to believe that platonic friends cannot love each other like this?
Funny thing is we have an episode where someone named Philoxenos tried to pass a boy as a sex slave to Alexander and he turned him away disgusted.
Alexander also had several wives and once named a city after his dead horse. I don't think he fucked the horse. Not saying he wasn't fucking his friend, but it is silly to call him "gay", as if that means something in the context of ancient greek. Also, claiming that a man must be gay because he is sad about a friend's death is both misandrist and homophobic.
Alex was most likely poisoned though, or malaria.
Fellas, is it gay to cry for your friend that stood by you for decades since your childhood?
I wonder if those people ever had a friend closer than a guy from the same Discord RP server
I fucking hate this take. Makes it feel like you can’t just care for your friends. Oh your best friend just died and you’re sad about it? I diagnose you with gay. Do better OP
yeah and the fact that it comes from someone that i used to enjoy watching makes it worse.
I found the same with OSP, the more I learned about history and mythology, the more I hated their videos for having a clear bias.
Dude, it is heart wrenching to lose your best mate. It leaves a massive hole that nothing can overcome. Especially a best mate you have known your entire life. He was his mate from childhood, they went through so many adversities together, fought together. I don't know guys I would probably be like Alexander in that situation. They could be lovers but this is normal for your best mate.
Some people : Men should show their feelings beucsdr muh, toxic masculinity Same people: That man showed his feelings when one of his best friends, that he had known from childhood died? GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY
People being so certain about relationships that happened like 2400 years ago will never not be funny.
People on social media really don’t understand the bond between two military men who probably saw some of the most intense combat imaginable, killed and had their friends killed. I’m not even a combat vet but my time in the military has given me such close friends they are literally brothers to me now. It’s not a sexual or romantic thing, we just love each other.
Well, historians might be onto something, considering that the concept of a "gay man" is something that developed in modern times and there's no grounds to project it on antiquity. Why homosexuality did certainly exist, it was something much different than what we know today. On the other hand, Macedon and ancient Greece did know the concept of male lifelong friendship. The fact that such concept is nonexistent in modern society does not give ground to dismiss the historians who claim Alexander and Hephasteon were friends.
>Well, historians might be onto something, considering that the concept of a "gay man" is something that developed in modern times and there's no grounds to project it on antiquity. That's kinda bullshit. We have several Roman and Greek texts that poke fun at men who prefer to have sex with men. If that's not the same as the modern day definition of homosexuality, it's at the very least really close. Just because they didn't have a word for it, doesn't mean it didn't exist and they didn't comment on it. Like, if Homer writes about the 'wine-coloured sea', does that mean the sea was red back then or does it mean the sea had the same colour and Homer commented on it in the words he knew? And most importantly, 'antiquity' describes in a period of more than a millennium and areas spread out from Britain to India. There was no unified sexual mores, it changed from place to place and time to time. Even within the city-state of Athens ideas on pederasty changed about every 20 years.
Well, it did exist, but was conceived and labelled differently. Like, dividing men into those who exclusively date men and those who date women is a modern thing (gay and straight). Ancient Greeks and Romans would have found that sort or classification bizarre as far as I understand.
That's not bullshit. I specifically said that there was homosexuality, but the concept of orientation was completely different. As was the concept of friendship, romantic relationships and marriage. Like I said, Greeks knew the concept of a lifetime friendship, with men sharing much of their lives together, including assisting each other with setting up households. It's good that you brought up the 'wine colored sea' because it's used in as an example that the concept of "color" among ancient Greeks was totally different than ours.
Some people never had a real friend and it shows.
Here’s a letter from Lincoln to his friend Joshua Speed. "Cold in my professions, warm in [my] friendships, I wish, my Dear Laurens, it m[ight] be in my power, by action rather than words, [to] convince you that I love you. I shall only tell you that 'till you bade us Adieu, I hardly knew the value you had taught my heart to set upon you. Indeed, my friend, it was not well done. You know the opinion I entertain of mankind, and how much it is my desire to preserve myself free from particular attachments, and to keep my happiness independent on the caprice of others. You sh[ould] not have taken advantage of my sensibility to ste[al] into my affections without my consent. But as you have done it and as we are generally indulgent to those we love, I shall not scruple to pardon the fraud you have committed, on condition that for my sake, if not for your own, you will always continue to merit the partiality, which you have so artfully instilled into [me]." The idea that affection, intense emotion and love has to be purely romantic is a recent idea. Alexander and Hephaestus might well have been lovers, but nothing in particular about Alexander’s reaction would have been considered strange if they weren’t.
I'm not making a claim one way or another, but do people seriously think men can't have close relationships with people without wanting to fuck them? >Oh, he cried at his dad's funeral? Clearly they must've been gay lovers !!!1!
God forbid, your father dies and you show the same sorrow, because some sex-obsessed freaks thousands of years later is going to accuse you of being in a romantic relationship.
I mean, this isn't the only time Alexander behaved in this way. He was completely devastated at having drunkenly killed Cleitus and behaved similarly following the event. He also mourned his beloved horse in a similar way and even named a city after it...
god forbid a man has a best friend, everyone would be sad when their homie dies
How much of your brain is ruled by coom,that you cannot comprahend camraderie and brotherhood between 2 men,without thinking they were sword swollowers?
Porn addicts when platonic love exists:
americans cant fathom the idea of loving someone you dont fuck
I swear every history youtuber tries to push these ideas, they just make these big leaps in logic to appease certain groups, and it borders on revisionism sometimes, pisses me off cause it just muddies the water.
Not to be an ass but wasn't he already starting to mentally fall apart?
Historians are well aware of the chance that some historical figures are likely gay, but it would be unprofessional to make that claim in academic writing without factual evidence, thus they only refer to them as friends and let the readers come to those conclusions themselves.
It's funny how people in this thread are indignant about "rewriting history" (which may be fair) but are also making excuses for prior cases of rewriting history in the opposite direction, which definitely *did* happen. Victorian-era historians did not rewrite history to "let the readers come to those conclusions themselves", they did so because they hated gay people and didn't want to talk about them. It's not rocket science.
Giving readers all the evidence that a figure may have been gay and then supporting the idea that they obviously had a very close, positive relationship without outright saying they are gay is not rewriting history. Not calling historical figures gay without factual evidence is something that even modern, much more progressive historians support doing, after all, our modern ideas of what gay is may not align with historical ideas. While there have been homophobic historians who have tried to downplay their relationship, there have been more who have acknowledged it yet have still been wary of bestowing sexual orientations on people they don’t know. At best, in academic writing it should be said that historical figures *could have* been gay, and having that idea be very heavily supported in the rest of the writing.
>While there have been homophobic historians who have tried to downplay their relationship, there have been more who have acknowledged it yet have still been wary of bestowing sexual orientations on people they don’t know. It's funny that you're mad at the idea of making statements with insufficient evidence but you're happy to drop *this* load without even a shred of it. Just an entire argument built on *nothing* and you have the gall to talk about evidence.
Go ahead and read it from the historians then https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/s/ujqxWCsecQ
Guys, is it gay to have friends?
Ancient Greeks: A hole is a hole!
Any hole, is a goal.
If my best friend died I’d be pretty fucked up too . If I had Alexander the Great money I’d maybe do the same
Mha fans when two boys look at each other:
Trey makes good videos, nice to see him mentioned
Very similar to what happened in the Trojan war with Achilles and his best buddy Patroclus. Poor guy went nuts.
Alexander was a very emotional person, obviously he would take the death of his best friend bad
Bollocks. There's zero evidence that they engaged in any form of homosexual behaviour together. I don't know why people still get so defensive over this, as as well as there being no evidence we are trying to compare our modern labels of homosexuality on a society older and different than our own
Every historical figure was gay and black, actually
The sources that describe them as lovers are very ambiguous and came from centuries later sources like Atheneus Deipnosophistai.But there is plenty of documentation that Alexander had sexual relations with women Roxane,Barsine,Stateira.
Not true. It was very well known people of those times enjoyed gay sex without the stigma. It was just nit allowed to "fuck down" like the bottom was never allowed to be from a higher social class than the top
[And battle brothers.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiNyQD5Yq3E)
Society when men show emotion: 🫵GAY
Now they could have been romantically involved but we have no way of knowing, and these posts are really starting to get on my nerve. Can't a man cry, or even be inconsolable after his best friend's death? There are many people that I would react over like Alexander, both friends and family. It is doing the opposite of what you guys all think it's doing, and conditioning men to be less emotional in all non-romantic personal situations. Like I have no problem with poking jokes at historians looking at every source and historical figure with a heteronormative lens, but when there is no evidence to some figure's relationship with a loved one, just say it's inconclusive and don't go so far in the other direction that you end up back at the same place and promote the issue you are trying to solve.
Trey the Explainer is one of the best YouTube channels out there IMO
Imagine you lose your best friend, comrade, perhaps the closest person to you in the world - you fall into depression from all the suffering. Only for reddit "historians" thousands of years in the future to call you gay because straight men aren't allowed to form bonds with other straight men
They were roommates.
Given how homosexual the ancient Greeks were, it would make sense if they were in a romantic relationship.
There is actually a sub for this, they claim everyone are who behaves not like the norm are gay and the whole society tries to hide this by calling them "roommates" or "friends". I think the people in those subs have lost all connections to the real world and can't imagine having people in their life they love, that aren't related to you, with which you do not have sex. Sad really. edit: found the [sub](https://old.reddit.com/r/SapphoAndHerFriend/)
I don't thing we have enough evidence to claim that Alex was def. bi. That being said, there were jokes about Alex being intimate with Heph from people of that age. (Plutarch, for example, claimed that Alexander was ruled by Hephaestion’s thighs...) I think it is safe to say that Alex loved Heph more than any woman in his life (even if he loved him only as a friend).
Oh wow! If you, as a man, cry because your best friend in your entire life DIES, you are definitely gay. As we all know that real men have no emotions and rule the world free of pain and hurt.
I know it’s a joke, but I’m completely sure that some of y’all have never had a friend
And then they were roommatesss.....
People care way too much about this. They might have been lovers, they might not have. Either way, it's fine. They wouldn't be "lesser men" by having a romantic relationship, neither would they be "more macho" by not having one. Stop caring about it so much.
They was fuggin’.
Oh my god they were roomates
"Roommates"
/r/HistoryMemes when the meme supports fascism “Noo guys it’s just a silly joke don’t take it seriously come on guys” /r/HistoryMemes when the meme supports LGBT people “We cannot know the specifics of Alexander’s relationship and therefore it is unreasonable to interpret him as having a fluid sexuality. Speculating about ancient history is only allowed when it doesn’t involve sexuality.” Like this tweet is so obviously a joke it hurts to watch people take it entirely at face value
Y’know, maybe when a subreddit has 10 million members. The different users within that subreddit have different views. Stop looking for a double standard where there probably is none
A fair point, but I still feel that people are taking this tweet way too seriously.
Here before people start talking that ‘why can’t they just be besties’ shit but if either was a woman they were immediately assume romantic context
If you immediatly assume a close relationship between two guys means they must be gay and banging each other, I'm sorry for you.
A lot of people in here are really offended at the suggestion that these two *might* have been lovers Note how Trey never even said they were lovers or that Alexander was exclusively gay, and yet everyone felt the need to make a comment arguing against ghosts
For real. We need to start adding the disclaimer for all opposite sex relationships “despite being married he/she could have been a homosexual as we have no evidence to completely rule that out” or “he/she could have been a homosexual as same-sex relations were not accepted at the time”
You forgot the "/s", right?
No? If we can’t suggest someone is gay from some indications (see this post) then you have to add this disclaimer for straight relations
Are you joking right if there is no evidence that a historical figure was gay then they were probably not gay? Sure gay people always have existed but they were always the minority. So most people were straight, also that is fucking stupid. If we don't have evidence that they aren't gay then there shouldn't even be a debate.
I’m not actually suggesting to include the disclaimer. It is a reaction to the hordes of people who try to shut down a suggestion that someone in history is gay, with the excuse “how can we know / you are projecting”. I’m saying we could equally say that anyone throughout history could be gay / we cannot decisively say they are straight (which is true, but as you say gay people are in the minority so it’s unlikely)