Professor Elspeth Dusinberre, CU Boulder: Alexander the Great, the Alexander Sarcophagus, and the Problems of Power

DUE TO WEATHER THE LECTURE BY BETH DUSINBERRE ON OCT. 26TH AT THE PUBLIC LIBRARY WAS CANCELLED.

RE-SCHEDULED TO APRIL 11, 2012.

Wednesday, Oct. 26th, 2011

7 pm

Canyon Theatre, Boulder Public Library

1001 Arapahoe, Boulder, Colorado

Alexander the Great was never buried in the Alexander Sarcophagus, but it is a monument that serves as a nexus for understanding the impact of his personality on his world. Alexander was born in 356 BCE in Macedonia and died in 323 BCE in Babylon. He was barely 20 when he succeeded to the throne, and it was but two years later, having already secured all of Greece, that he invaded the vast neighboring Persian empire that reached from the Aegean to the Indus, from Egypt to the Central Asian Republics. In the course of a few years, he overthrew the Persian kings and their enormous empire. The Alexander Sarcophagus, named because the Macedonian conqueror appears twice in the sculptures that decorate its sides, was carved around 320 BCE for the ruler of Sidon, in modern Israel. It shows Alexander as a vital, forceful warrior, as ruler, as semi-divine figure. It creates links between Alexander as king and the prior Persian kings. And it does all of this by melding Persian and Greek traditions. It is a monument that itself exemplifies many of the traits Alexander was seeking to attain in his brief time as King of Kings, King of the Four Corners, King of the Achaemenid Persian empire and of
Greece. This one object thus demonstrates conquest, glory, sycophancy, propaganda, and actual administrative practice. It allows us to understand both the power of images — and the power of Alexander himself.

This free public lecture is presented by the Department of Classics at the University of Colorado and supported by a generous contribution by Mary E.V. McClanahan.