Alexander the Great was here!

Next stop Chaeronea

Like a lot of others, Alexander the Great has made an impression me. I watched Michael Wood’s “In the Footsteps of Alexander the Great” (1998) with interest. See http://www.amazon.com/Footsteps-Alexander-Great-Michael-Wood/dp/B0002V7OGA And in so doing I began to think that Michael Wood had something special, too, the way he could talk his way into forbidden territory, drink tea with tyrants, and mix with hoi polloi in just about any language.
Still earlier I read all three of Mary Renault’s Alexander novels. Fire from Heaven,

The Persian Boy, and Funeral Games

as well as her The Nature of Alexander(1975).
In this later biography of Alexander she includes a striking photograph of that lion, which has stayed with me since 1975. Here it is:

A very dramatic picture in the mist, but one that gives no sense of the size of the lion. Keep looking to find out more about that.
Phillip, Alexander’s father, went to war with the Greeks. The major battle was at Chaeronea in Boeotia near Thebes. Alexander played a part in the Macedonian victory and commissioned a statue at the site to give thanks for victory. That much was common. What was uncommon was that the statue he commissioned was a tribute to the courage of his enemies – the Sacred Band of Thebes, a regiment of homosexuals who fought to the death. That catches the imagination.
Something of the story of the battle can be found at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Chaeronea_(338_BC) If one searches for information, there is a board game now, and little else. The tourist marketers have not yet focussed on it. Nonetheless I found enough information to make me think a visit worthwhile.
Then the question was how to get there. There were plenty of bus trips available from Athens for Delphi or Marathon (other places on The Plan) but not Chaeronea. That was one of the reason I decided to hire a driver.

Not a car, having read enough about driving in Athens and Greece to decide a rented car would not do. Navigating with Greek signs was not an option. At that time I did not realize how few signs there would be, but that became a second reason.
So we went to Delphi via Chaeronea and I got see the lion. When we stopped at Chaeronea we were alone.

I am the little guy in the front. Big, huh! There is a museum next door that has not been open for five years, according to Driver Tony who took the initiative to go and find someone to ask.
While Greeks would like to claim Alexander (much about him figures in the museums), Greece has vexed relations with FYROM. Indeed FYROM appeared in the newspaper nearly every day. FYROM? Oh, that is the name Greeks give to the “Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia” rather than yield to them the term Macedonia, which is also the name of an area of northern Greece very far south from ancient Macedonia of Alexander. Maybe Greece should give back the name Macedonia to FYROM.