\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
Reading a life of Alexander the Great, Alexander<\/p>\n
whose rough father, Philip, hired Aristotle to tutor<\/p>\n
the young scion and warrior, to put some polish<\/p>\n
on his smooth shoulders. Alexander who, later<\/p>\n
on the campaign trail into Persia, carried a copy of<\/p>\n
The Iliad<\/span> in a velvet-lined box, he loved that book so<\/p>\n much. He loved to fight and drink, too.<\/p>\n I came to that place in the life where Alexander, after<\/p>\n a long night of carousing, a wine-drunk (the worst kind of drunk–<\/p>\n hangovers you don’t forget), threw the first brand<\/p>\n to start a fire that burned Persepolis, capital of the Persian Empire<\/p>\n (ancient even in Alexander’s day).<\/p>\n Razed it right to ground. Later, of course,<\/p>\n next morning–maybe even while the fire roared–he was<\/p>\n remorseful. But nothing like the remorse felt<\/p>\n the next evening when, during a disagreement that turned ugly<\/p>\n and, on Alexander’s part, overbearing, his face flushed<\/p>\n from too many bowls of uncut wine, Alexander rose drunkenly to his feet,<\/p>\n grabbed a spear and drove it through the breast<\/p>\n of his friend Cletus, who’d saved his life at Granicus.<\/p>\n \u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n For three days Alexander mourned. Wept. Refused food. “Refused<\/p>\n to see to his bodily needs.” He even promised<\/p>\n to give up wine forever.<\/p>\n (I’ve heard such promises and the lamentations that go with them.)<\/p>\n Needless to say, life for the army came to a full stop<\/p>\n as Alexander gave himself over to his grief.<\/p>\n But at the end of those three days, the fearsome heat<\/p>\n beginning to take its toll on the body of his dead friend,<\/p>\n Alexander was persuaded to take action. Pulling himself together<\/p>\n and leaving his tent, he took out his copy of Homer, untied it,<\/p>\n began to turn the pages. Finally he gave orders that the funeral<\/p>\n rites described for Patroklos be followed to the letter:<\/p>\n he wanted Cletus to have the biggest possible send-off.<\/p>\n And when the pyre was burning and the bowls of wine were<\/p>\n passed his way during the ceremony? Of course, what do you<\/p>\n think? Alexander drank his fill and passed<\/p>\n out. He had to be carried to his tent. He had to be lifted, to be put<\/p>\n into his bed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00c2\u00a0 Reading a life of Alexander the Great, Alexander whose rough father, Philip, hired Aristotle to tutor the young scion and warrior, to put some polish on his smooth shoulders. Alexander who, later on the campaign trail into Persia, carried a copy of The Iliad in a velvet-lined box, he loved that book so much. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-432","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","czr-hentry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p71YpQ-6Y","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johnnylogic.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johnnylogic.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johnnylogic.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnnylogic.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnnylogic.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=432"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnnylogic.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":438,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnnylogic.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432\/revisions\/438"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johnnylogic.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnnylogic.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnnylogic.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}