Good evening, I’m Elena from Italy and thanks to be here on Alessandro III di Macedonia – your source about Alexander the Great and Hellenism! Today I’d like to inform you about the release of a book that I have known about for a few days, but I waited to inform you because I also wanted the price to be known. Today I’m announcing the release of the book:
Alexander The Great In Love. Desire, Violence and Gender in the Conquest of Asia
by Borja Antela-Bernárdez
L’Erma di Bretschneider, 2025
This is a book mainly about Love and Desire, kink and Queerness, but also about violence. Structured in four chapters, the first one is devoted to the way Love is presented by the tradition on Alexander the Great and the Argead kings. A second chapter is related to another kind of Aphrodite’s attributions, as it is sex, in its violent form: raping and slavery of women. The third chapter studies two aspects of their royal and charismatic powers: the control over animals, and the cases in our sources where members of the Argead family are involved with practices of transvestism and cross-dressing, two aspects frequently related to Dionysos that are also connected to the cults of Aphrodite in Macedonia. In the last chapter, I drive an analysis of Alexander’s performative displays in an attempt to ungender some of the usual perspectives on the many details we have about him, his sexuality, customs and dressing, adoptions of oriental traditions, and later reception and renovation of his own character.
Borja Antela-Bernárdez is Chairman of Ancient Greek History at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. Since his PhD Thesis about Alexander and the Greeks (published in 2005), he wrote a lot about Alexander the Great, but also on his many usual topics of research, like Modern Historiography on Alexander and the Hellenistic World, the place of Athens in the Ist Mithridatic War, Gender and Ancient Greek History (mainly Hellenistic-Late Roman Republic periods), and Classical Reception in Cinema. Co-Director of the journal Karanos. Bulletin of Ancient Macedonian Studies. He is at the end of his forties, and he strongly believes in a better world.
Paperback
ISBN: 978-8891335609
Studia Historica, 134
2025, 204 pp.
17 x 24 cm
DOI: 10.48255/9788891335630
ISSN: 0081-6507
€ 70,00
Table of Contents:
Preface
Foreword
Alexander in love
Aphrodite’s Nightmare: Victims of Slavery and Sexual violence in Alexander’s conquest
Beastmasters and Crossdressers: Two Aspects of Argead Kingship
Queer Alexander, into the realm of Aphrodite
Bibliography
This book is a must-buy, and I was honestly surprised by the price: € 70 isn’t cheap, but considering it’s from a major academic publisher like L’Erma di Bretschneider, it’s not excessive either. Professor Antela-Bernárdez is a great researcher on Alexander, and his latest publication is noteworthy for any enthusiast who can read English.
Thanks for your attention, have a good evening,
Alessandro III di Macedonia 