Day 10 - Random Love Post - Alexander the Great

When I was in third grade, we read about Alexander the Great - and I was fascinated by him and I still am. The stories of his life, whether true or false, were romantic to a little girl who read too many books and lived in a dull world. When I was about 13 or 14, I found Mary Renault's The Persian Boy and suddenly, there was a whole new world out there. The intrigue and romance of the times as Renault wrote them swept me away. I have read countless history books about him and his life, seen the movies, read the novels. I am still fascinated by this boy who conquered so much of the world by the time he was 33. He was brilliant and bold, in love with his own image, kind and cruel, driven, and in the end, unforgettable.

Here is a portion of a floor mosaic image from Pompeii from around 100 BC


We went to Berlin in 2017 and saw the Ishtar Gate in the Pergamon Museum. It was the eight gate into the city of Babylon and Alexander and his companions would have walked through it. I stood amazed to think that he had passed through those very gates. The lower portions of the gate are faded and old... the actual parts of the gate they found.

Here is a short video of the gate in the museum.

"Gates of ishtar" (Watch on YouTube)

A statue from the 3rd Century BC

And yes, I do fangirl some pretty strange characters from history.