Alexander the Great as Portrayed by Plutarch and Oliver Stone
"My intention is not to write histories, but lives. Sometimes small incidents, rather than glorious exploits, give us the best evidence of character. So, as portrait painters are more exact in doing the face (where the character is revealed) than the rest of the body, I must be allowed to give my more particular attention to the marks of the souls of men. By these, rather than the historical events they participated in, I try to portray their lives. I leave the task of a more complete historical chronicle to others."
Plutarch began the life of Alexander with this disclaimer. Writing in an age when manuscripts were copied painstakingly by hand on relatively expensive parchment or vellum, writers had to strive to be brief and succinct. Plutarch's life of Alexander runs to a little...
life of Alexander the Great is one of the most well documented lives of the time and within all of that documentation there is a sense that Alexander was either a tyrant or a saint like human. It is clear that the mystery of his existence is challenged by the propriety of the ancient writings and the individual author's ideal of the hero, whom they wished to portray. In
Gallic Campaigns Caesar's Gallic Campaigns Caesar's Gallic Campaigns Julius Caesar was an ambitious and ruthless man. He did not begin by attempting to conquer the world, as had Alexander the Great[footnoteRef:1], but he did have the political ambition to at least rule the Roman state as emperor. He had been a consul for several years and upon the end of his term, he was without anything to do. So, through influence he was
Hellenic sculpture and Hellenistic sculpture? First, the Greek Hellenic period dates from 900-323 B.C., and the Hellenistic period came right after that and lasted until 31 B.C. The focus of the Hellenic period is Idealism, while the focus of the Hellenistic period is Realism. Hellenic art and sculpture was developed mostly in Greece, with no outside influence, while Hellenistic art and sculpture became more influenced by other lands, because
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