Wednesday, April 06, 2005

The File: Alexander The Super-tastic Awesome

The increasing frequency with which Alexander was wounded as he led his army towards the limits of the known world implies a growing quality of desperation in his leadership and anticipated the probability of a serious wound.... At Multan in 325 probabilities caught up with him.... Impatient at the slowness with which his siege engineers commenced their deliberate procedures, Alexander put himself at the head of a small storming party and rushed the inner wall. He got to the top, found himself cut off and had to fight for his life. Over-exposed on the crest of the wall, he leapt down inside, put his back to the mudbrick beside a small fig tree and began to lay about him with his sword at a swelling body of attackers. For some moments he held his own, slashing and throwing stones. His attackers, deterred by his spitfire bravery, drew off and began to shower him with "whatever anyone had in his hand or could lay his hands upon." Three of his storm party jumped down to join him. One was shot in the face with an arrow. Shortly afterwards an arrow struck Alexander also. It penetrated "right through the breastplate into the lung, so that," according to Ptolemy, "breath together with blood shot forth from the wound." Such a "sucking wound" is extremely serious. Aelxander contrived to resist for a while, "but when a good deal of blood came forth, in a thick stream, as would be with the breath, he was overcome by dizziness and faintness, and fell there where he stood bending over his shield."

The frantic intervention of his followers saved the king from immediate death. They slaughtered all the Indians within sword distance and managed to carry their stricken leader away on a shield.... What this wound history suggests is a rising temperature of commitment, almost as if Alexander's fever for victory rose with the tide of difficulty....
-- John Keegan, The Mask Of Command, pp. 62-3

Finding himself over-exposed, he leapt inside. And even with the advantage of more years and better technology, no one has managed to equal his accomplishments. He was not just the right man in the right place at the right time, but the best exemplar of the heroic ideal in his era. And he must have been luckier than Lucky the Leprechaun because he kept winning. That's why, despite the Oliver Stone debacle, Baz Luhrman is still going to make a movie about him. A movie I will pay money to see!

11:42:55 PM    comment []

The File: Constantine XI

The defenders began to abandon their posts, running home to protect their families. The Turkish scaling ladders were no longer pushed away, and the attack triumphed in every sector.

The emperor Constantine preferred to die with his city rather than survive as a captive. He threw away his helmet with the imperial eagle, and his emblazoned surcoat, and sought an anonymous death in the heart of the fighting. The city finally fell....
-- Andrew Wheatcroft, The Fall of Constantinople, as excerpted in John Keegan's The Book of War: 25 Centuries of Great War Writing, pp. 68

Keegan would probably classify this as a Renaissance-era example of the heroic ideal of leadership brought to the extremes: not only does the emperor "lead from the front," but he dies with his men. Alexander, one suspects, would have approved.

11:17:19 PM    comment []

The File: Sebastian O

The dandy has one unique advantage over the common herd. No matter what the situation, he will always be more exquisitely dressed than his enemies. Therefore, he has already triumphed.
-- Grant Morrison and Steve Yeowell, Sebastian O

How many of these vintage-inspired graphic novels are we going to see? This one was fun, but not (of course) as fun as League.

12:07:17 AM    comment []