Alexander the Great
2014, 10 minutes
Alexander: a life in two minutes
This film is about one of the most debated incidents of Alexander’s reign, his attempt to introduce ‘proskynesis’, a form of ritual prostration, to his court. In Persia, this gesture was performed by everybody when they came into the king’s presence as a sign of respect. In Greece, however, this was only performed to cult statues of gods and was akin to worship. For obvious reasons, Alexander’s attempt to get his Greek and Macedonian subjects to perform this action was hugely controversial. The debate about his motivation here has rumbled on for over two thousand years…