from the first civilizations that appeared in the History, there's always stories and stories (legends,myths) in couples that, somehow, they ended up changing the course of the facts or deeply marking the circumstances of a given time. However, it is known that the establishment of marital ties did not always correspond to loving yearnings (or at least not only to that), but, rather, to political and social pacts. In this sense, we present below fourClassical Antiquity and Middle Age couples that entered History for different reasons and that until today feed the popular imagination.
Alexander the Great and Roxane
Alexander the Great, or Alexander, the Great, who lived in the IV century; C., was responsible for the foundation of the Macedonian Empire, orHellenistic Empire, which expanded Greek culture to various parts of the “Old World”, especially to Asia Minor and the Middle East. For Alexander, the high point of the expansion towards the East was the victory over the EmpirePersian, commanded by
DariusIII. The victory allowed the young emperor to incorporate into his domain vast tracts of land in the Middle East and Asia, as well as submitting the newly conquered peoples to his authority.
Emperor Alexander the Great married a Persian noblewoman named Roxane
As Alexander avoided tyranny, one of the ways he found to maintain a good relationship with the conquered peoples was to respect the fundamental bases of their cultures. In the specific case of the conquest of Persia, something unexpected happened: Alexander fell in love with a noblewoman bacterial (belonging to the region of Bactria, one of the provinces of the Persian Empire) by name Roxane, daughter of Oxyarts, one of the closest men to Darius III.
Historians like Johan Droysen suspect that the passion was really real. Roxane and Alexander ended up marrying and sealing the union between the Greek and Persian cultures. they had a child, Alexander IV, who was later murdered with his mother and grandmother, Olympia (Alexander's mother), by Cassander, one of the emperor's generals.
Marco Antonio and Cleopatra
Another couple from the period of the Ancient Age to have great prominence was MarchAntonio and Cleopatra. Marco Antônio was one of the generals of RepublicRoman and participated in the call SecondTriumvirate, in the 1st century a. C., next to lepid and otavio. Mark Antony met Cleopatra, then Queen of Hellenistic Egypt, after the murder of JuliusCaesar by a group of Roman senators.
Marco Antônio's passion for Cleopatra ended up generating a conflict that ended the Republic
Cleopatra had had a relationship with Julius Caesar and had gone from Egypt to Rome on Caesar's return expedition. With the death of Julius Caesar, some suspicions were raised against Cleopatra, and Marcus Antony was charged with questioning her. But when he saw the young queen, the triumvir, following the same path as Caesar, he ended up letting himself be seduced by the Egyptian.
Mark Antony's “devotion” for Cleopatra was so great that he even left his patrician wife, Octavia, to live in the city of Alexandria (capital of Hellenistic Egypt) with Cleopatra and her children of this. Almost the entire Asian region dominated by Rome and also Egypt were under the responsibility of Mark Antony. Blind infatuation with Cleopatra made the general pass on all possessions to the queen and her descendants.
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This gesture culminated in the revolt of the Roman nobles and the victorious military campaign of otavio (future emperor otavioaugust) against Marco Antônio. This victory gave Otávio the opportunity to become emperor and receive titles like augustus (divine).
Abelard and Heloise
In the context of the Middle Ages, one of the best known couples is Peter Abelard and Heloise. Pedro Abelardo was a young master of philosophy and various studies, such as alchemy and astrology, well known by students at the Cathedral School of Notre-Dame, in Paris. Heloisa, one of the students, was supervised by her uncle fulbert.
Abelardo and Heloisa: a couple marked by the forbidden relationship
The attention given to the same intellectual interests made Abelardo and Heloísa fall in love. The girl did everything to get her uncle to hire Abelardo to be her tutor and teach her at home. It so happened that, after a while, Fulbert discovered that the relationship between the two went beyond the condition of teacher and student, which resulted in Abelard's expulsion. The two, however, continued to meet in secret. Heloisa ended up getting pregnant and was sent by Abelardo to the village of Pallet to be taken care of by her sister.
Abelardo returned to Paris and decided to ask forgiveness from Heloisa's uncle and her hand in marriage. The uncle nodded, but reticent. The two managed to get married. However, people close to Fulbert began to scoff at the condition of having a niece married after being pregnant to a husband who would probably only be interested in the dowry.
Pride made Fulbert commit a barbarity: he ordered some henchmen to go to Abelard's house and castrate him. So it was done. Faced with such tragedy, Abelard decided to go to a monastery to pursue a religious career. Heloisa opted for the same fate, retreating to a convent. From their religious quarters, both continued exchanging countless letters, in which the love that withstood various trials can be seen.
Fernando of Aragon and Isabel of Castile
In the transition from the Middle Ages to the Modern Age (15th century), a couple made all the difference in the context of the formation of Europe: Isabel I, from the kingdom of Castile, and Fernando II, from the kingdom of Aragon, both of Hispanic origin.
Isabel of Castile and Fernando of Aragon were the so-called “Catholic kings”, whose marriage unified Spain
Their marriage unified the territory of what we know today as Spain. They were given the title of "Catholic Kings" by the Pope Alexander VI through the package insert If convenient, of December 19, 1496. This union under the sign of Catholicism made the unified Spanish kingdom soon became a vast transatlantic maritime empire, starting with the action of definitively expelling the moors (Muslims) from the Iberian territory.
Isabel and Fernando fostered the project of the Genoese navigator christopherColumbus of crossing the Atlantic Ocean (a fact that depended on the belief in the sphericity of the Earth) to get to reach the Indies, without having to follow the same route that the Portuguese were already taking, bypassing the coast of Africa. Such an undertaking, as we know, took place in 1492 and resulted in the dominance of the American continent and contact with the natives of the Aztec and Mayan civilizations (initially).
By Me. Cláudio Fernandes
