It is known that Alexander consistently sought to surpass Hercules' wide-wanderings and daring deeds.
He claimed Hercules as an ancestor. He is often depicted on coins clad in a lion pelt - just like his hero. And just
like his hero his divinity was widely recognized during his brief but eventful earthy sojourn.
Though the Greeks considered the Trojans barbarians, it was the Greeks who were
in fact Illium's barbarian invaders, as any reader of the Iliad can attest. And Homer did a great job in immortalizing
our heroic codes and barbaric behaviors for posterity. Homer's work not only inspired Alexander on his campaigns but was
considered sacred scripture by my people for centuries.
The Romans, whom my Hellenic ancestors also dismissed as barbarians, appropriated our Olympian culture, rubbed
our faces in it and then declared us the barbarians. Julius Ceasar found his Destiny while contemplating a statue of
Alexander in a temple of Hercules. Marc Antony, his Champion, was considered an incarnation of Hercules before he hooked up
with Cleopatra.
And
let us not forget that the children of Israel considered both the Greeks and Romans to be Edomites, barbaric descendants of
Esau the hairy and wild. The Greeks under Alexander were thought to have brought cultural contamination to the Holy Land.
Some say that the Philistines and even the unrepentant Tribe of Dan were barbaric Hellenes.
To many modern Greeks those of us who still heed the call
of Olympus and tread the Heroic Path are considered regressive primitives, outsiders, barbarians.
But enough of history...
'tis also the barbarians of heroic fantasy that are celebrated in the pages of The Barbarian Chronicles.
Robert E. Howard, creator of Conan, wrote The House of Arabu. This short story is a tale
of Pyrrhas the Argive, a Greek barbarian, and his adventures in the ancient Near East. This yarn was eventually adapted
into a Conan tale by Marvel in issue #38 of the Conan the Barbarian comic.
In Larry Niven's The Magic Goes Away, Orolandes the Greek barbarian is the only survivor of an
ill-fated raid on Atlantis. By killing the wizard-priests that protected the land, the Hellenic hordes undid the spells that
kept the island above the waters. And Atlantis was swallowed by the waves.
By now I'm sure that you've all caught my drift and that I've proven my point. A Greek,
even a modern Greek, can be a barbarian if they so choose. And if a modern Greek
can be an archetypal barbarian then verily anyone can be anything they aspire to! That has been my credo and pimary message
throughout my career.
