How Alexander the Great's Hormones Affected His Success

 Nadene Goldfoot                                            

Young man with lots of  self-assurance that he will be on target.  He's like Alexander the Great!  He has lots of confidence in himself.  Why?

 How your hormones are behaving might also be controlled by your DNA.  What were your ancestors like?  Same problems?  

Hormones play a big part in the life of people and their successes.  If one's hormones are off balance, they may suffer from tiredness and no desire or motivation for accomplishing anything.  Those people who have been successful must have being doing something right to have normal bodily functions.  We can think of emperors in history who must have been off balance with hormones to explain their odd unacceptable behaviors. This is corroborated by another study, in which higher testosterone levels and shorter CAG repeats were related to dominance as well as aggressive and non-aggressive risk-taking, Caligula and Nero fit this pattern. Officially known as Gaius (Gaius Caesar Augustus Germanicus), Caligula was the third Roman Emperor, ruling from 37 to 41 AD. ...Nero. Fully named Nero Claudius Caesar, Nero ruled from 54 to 68 AD and was arguably an even worse madman than his uncle Caligula. 

Longer CAG repeats and lower testosterone were related to depression and lower self-esteem.

Testosterone is the male hormone.  Look what happens to it at age 90.  Think of the men running for president and their ages.  This may be why Bill Clinton was in trouble.  He was a young president born in August 19, 1946 and president from 1993 to 2001, at ages 47 to 55.  That was a HURRAH age with age 60 being quite a drop in hormones and 70 dropping even way more.   

A natural cause of hormone changing is aging, especially for women.  Being tired and unmotivated anymore is an indication.  Today, women are offered pills to make up for hormonal loss. With age, there are changes in your body functions, sleep patterns, and energy levels - which is commonly associated with ‘ageing’. What most people don’t realize is that these changes are caused by what is known as a ‘hormonal imbalance’.  

Women certainly do have hormone changes with their menopause.  We haven't thought about this happening to men as well, but they are also affected by hormonal changes.  It's men who have ruled the world up till now, without any competition from women.  There are multiple reasons attributed to hormonal imbalance in men. The main causes include: Prolonged exposure to chronic stress, and Type 1 and type 2 diabetes.                               

  Greatest Ruler was young, Alexander the Great, king at 20 ruled a vast empire by the time he died at age 33.  His hormones must have been in tip-top shape!  Macedonia, his homeland, was part of Greece.  Macedonia (Greece), a former administrative region, spanning today three administrative subdivisions of northern Greece.  Nick Marks commented, "As the famous proverb goes, “fortune favours the bold” and all of antiquity’s greatest commanders at one time or other took monumental risks.. Caesar crossing the Rubicon, Hannibal crossing the Alps and Pyrrhus fighting in the thickest of the action at Heraclea.

In the end, it was these risks paying off that ensured their names became immortalised in the history books.  Yet of all these remarkable ancient generals one could argue that Alexander the Great risked his life the most.

Successful leaders by rights should have been young men. b; 356 BCE  Alexander the Great is a great example.  He was the young king of Macedonia of Greece starting at age 20  from 336 to 323 BCE which a great personality, beloved by the Jewish people.  He was king from age 20 to 33, quite young for our standards, but then he was living a very dangerous life. 

 Candidates for US president must be a natural-born citizen of the United States;  be at least 35 years old. and have been a resident of the United States for 14years.     

One of his campaigns brought Alexander to the Land of Israel. He arrived during the reign of the great High Priest, the last of the Men of the Great Assembly, Simon the Just. Most historians say that he came in about the year 329 BCE. (He was dead by age 33 by 323 BCE.)

The Jews were terrified of the now victorious Greeks, because they had backed Persia in the war. There were two choices. We will see this story repeated over and over again in the time of the Second Temple. One was to fight, which is what the Jews did later with the Romans. The second was to somehow come to an accommodation with the enemy.

Simon the Just chose the second course. The Jews were not about to defeat Alexander in battle; therefore, the correct way to deal with the matter was to come to an accommodation with him.                                          

Alexander and his white horse, Bucephalus.  

The Talmud describes the drama of that first encounter (Yoma 69a). Simon the Just came forth with other members of the priesthood, as well as the sages of the Sanhedrin, to greet Alexander at the gates of Jerusalem as he strode in on his famous white horse, which he rode all over the world in his conquests. According to the historians of the time, it was an enormously tall horse and Alexander was an enormously tall person. Plus, he always wore a plumed helmet. Combined, Alexander stood about 13 feet high on the horse. He was an awe-inspiring sight to behold.   

In 335 BC,  (1)he campaigned in the Balkans and reasserted control over Thrace and Illyria before marching on the city of Thebes,  (2) Alexander then led the League of Corinth, and used his authority to launch the pan-Hellenic project  assuming leadership over all Greeks in their conquest of Persia. (3) In 334 BC, he invaded the Achaemenid Persian Empire and began a series of campaigns  Alexander broke the power of Achaemenid Persia in a series of decisive battles, including those at Issus and Gaugamela;  (4) overthrew Darius III and conquered the Achaemenid Empire .After the fall of Persia, (5) the Macedonian Empire held a vast swath of territory between the Adriatic Sea and the Indus River. 

Alexander (left), wearing a kausia and fighting an Asiatic lion with his friend Craterus (detail); late 4th century BC mosaic, Pella Museum. Hephaestion, a general  in his army, was his very best friend.    The ancient sources report Alexander as sexually active with women throughout his life and how in adulthood he brought concubines to bed every night.  That also shows his hormones were working well.  Some people have tried to make out that he was homosexual.  He hadn't married and was living with men all the time.  Was Craterus more than a friend?  No proof.  

Alexander endeavored to reach the "ends of the world and the Great Outer Sea" and (6) invaded India in 326 BC, achieving an important victory over Porus, an ancient Indian king of present-day Punjab, at the Battle of the Hydaspes. 

He  (7) turned back at the Beas River and later died in 323 BC in Babylon, the city of Mesopotamia that he had planned to establish as his empire's capital.  His goal was huge, and he accomplished much!  What hormones he must have had !  

However, he was a soldier and had his own army with him.  Depression is the second most prevalent mental  health problem in war veterans, after post-traumatic stress disorder from hormonal affects.  Further, depression most often follows PTSD onset, loads heavily on specific PTSD symptom factors (i.e., dysphoria and numbing), and contributes to negative mental and physical health outcomes beyond PTSD severity and prior combat exposure. This supports military research efforts to identify risk and resilience factors specific to depression, and person-level and contextual factors governing its emergence and course.   After all, he did die at 33.  

Greek or Mediterranean  diet mostly relies on its produce of the country: fresh, seasonal fruits, vegetables, grains, pulses, legumes, goats, sheep, fresh fish, and, of course, the ever present olive oil. Cheeses and yogurts are also fundamental. The most characteristic and ancient element of Greek cuisine is olive oil, what Greeks call liquid gold, produced from the olive trees prominent throughout the country.  The basic grain in Greece is wheat, though barley and other seeds are also grown.  Important vegetables include tomatoes, eggplants, peppers, onions, potatoes, beans and okras.  Thyme, flower or pine honey is used in cooking instead of sugar.

Eating is focal in Greek culture. It is around the dining table and  everything is shared.  They must have eaten very healthy back in the day of Alexander as well to maintain healthy hormones.  

Young men lack experience and wisdom of the aged, but then they are the ones who are the doers, the ones that carry out their plans.  They are necessary.  

Resource:

The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia

https://www.medanta.org/patient-education-blog/signs-youre-experiencing-a-hormone-imbalance-for-men/#:~:text=There%20are%20multiple%20reasons%20attributed,1%20and%20type%202%20diabetes

https://www.kidslovegreece.com/en/our_top_selections/the-best-foods-to-try-in-greece-eat-like-a-greek-family/#:~:text=Greek%20diet%20mostly%20relies%20on,dining%20table%20everything%20is%20shared.

https://bigthink.com/the-past/7-most-notorious-and-excessive-roman-emperors/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hephaestion