#Cassander

[nuka-rockit]

Durge brings his pet Gnolls to Moorise Towers

[that-guy-in-the-chiton]

Presenting Kassander, a shepherd, the son of Hermes and an oread. He was Persephone's lover and almost husband before she got snatched.

[vlasdygoth]

A reflection

[ancientorigins]

The elite bodyguard of Alexander the Great is said to have killed a lion with his bare hands and this is how he gained Alexander’s attention. This man was Lysimachus and he eventually had a small empire of his own.

[cinemagirlblog]

[jeannereames]

Was Olympias really stoned to death? When I first read it, I thought it sounded so horrific it was probably an exaggeration/sensationalism, although I did change my mind soon enough when I learned about the general brutality of that age.

Still, it seems like an excruciating and terrifying way to go..

Beth Carney reports it as one possibility in the sources, although the exact manner of her death is unclear.

Our earliest source, Diodoros gives her an heroic death (19.51.4-5), but the exact method isn't stated (see highlighted). It's the most commonly related version:

" (4) As Olympias, however, refused to flee but on the contrary was ready to be judged before all the Macedonians, Cassander, fearing that the crowd might change its mind if it heard the queen defend herself and was reminded of all the benefits conferred on the entire nation by Alexander and Philip, sent to her two hundred soldiers who were best fitted for such a task, ordering them to slay her as soon as possible. (5) They, accordingly, broke into the royal house, but when they beheld Olympias, overawed by her exalted rank, they withdrew with their task unfulfilled. But the relatives of her victims, wishing to curry favour with Cassander as well as to avenge their dead, murdered the queen, who uttered no ignoble or womanish plea."

Justin (14.6.2-12) follows Diodorus with a few more details, but still isn't clear: note he says she doesn't shrink from "sword or blow," but that's actually unclear. He IS sure to tell us that before expiring, she fixed her hair and covered her ankles with her robe, to avoid being "unseemly" (immodest). Like Diodoros, it's a very heroic, male death, as she doesn't scream or protest or cry out, despite the concern with modesty. The fact she has time to "fix herself" would suggest something that wasn't immediate, but we should be VERY chary of taking Justin literally. He has a topos to promote, and isn't inclined to let a little thing like facts get in the way. LOL

" (2) Hearing, therefore, of the approach of Cassander, and distrusting the Macedonians, she retired, with her daughter-in-law Roxane, and her grandson Heracles, to the city of Pydna. (3) Deidameia, the daughter of king Aeacides, and Thessalonice, her step-daughter, rendered illustrious by the name of Philippus, who was her father, and many others, wives of the leading men, a retinue showy rather than serviceable, attended her on her journey. (4) When the news of her retreat was brought to Cassander, he marched immediately, with the utmost expedition, to Pydna, and laid siege to the city. (5) Olympias, distressed with famine and the sword, and the wearisomeness of a long siege, surrendered herself to the conqueror, stipulating only for life. (6) But Cassander, on summoning the people to an assembly, to inquire "what they would wish to be done with Olympias," induced the parents of those whom she had killed to put on mourning apparel, and expose her cruelties; (7) when the Macedonians, exasperated by their statements, decreed, without regard to her former majesty, that she should be put to death; (8) utterly unmindful that, by the labours of her son and her husband, they had not only lived in security among their neighbours, but had attained to vast power, and even to the conquest of the world. (9) Olympias, seeing armed men advancing towards her, bent upon her destruction, went voluntarily to meet them, dressed in her regal apparel, and leaning on two of her maids. (10) The executioners, on beholding her, struck with the recollection of her former royal dignity, and with the names of so many of their kings, that occurred to their memory in connection with her, stood still, (11) until others were sent by Cassander to despatch her; she, at the same time, not shrinking from the sword or the blow, or crying out like a woman, but submitting to death like the bravest of men, and suitably to the glory of her ancient race, so that you might have perceived the soul of Alexander in his dying mother. (12) As she was expiring, too, she is said to have settled her hair, and to have covered her feet with her robe, that nothing unseemly might appear about her."

It's only in Pausanias (9.7.2) that we're told she was stoned by "exasperated Macedonians," but his isn't a lengthy account. While Pausanias is typically considered the better source, we must still be careful. Note the "death by worms" in the below. That was a common trope in especially Roman literature, indicating poor morals (cf. also Herod's and Sulla's demise). That doesn't mean he's wrong about Olympias, however. I'm more inclined to believe that because her death isn't the focus of his moralizing (unlike, say, Justin or even Diodoros).

" [2] My own view is that in building Thebes Cassander was mainly influenced by hatred of Alexander. He destroyed the whole house of Alexander to the bitter end. Olympias he threw to the exasperated Macedonians to be stoned to death; and the sons of Alexander, Heracles by Barsina and Alexander by Roxana, he killed by poison. But he himself was not to come to a good end. He was filled with dropsy, and from the dropsy came worms while he was yet alive."

However she met her end, the sources do seem to support a memory that she met it bravely.

[newbornwhumperfly]

a red seed…

so, i whipped up a little Gifte for my dearest pal @much-ado-about-whumping cause they voted and also they’re just wonderful therefore deserving of Giftes ❤️❤️❤️

a little context ~ déomas is bel’s lovely whumpee from their déomas and rhys series and cassander is my whumpee (a sex slave, from my series morja and company, who has yet to make an appearance!) who bel and i have lovingly crafted together! this is just a sweet little nonsense crossover ❤️

CW: Allusions to noncon/dubcon, dubiously consensual sex work, homelessness, complicated abuse survivor navigating safety in thorny ways, bittersweet ending

title is insp. by margaret atwood’s poem “eurydice” - “even in this domain of hunger…you hold love in your hand, a red seed you had forgotten you were holding”

~

“You look cold, honey.”

The voice is low and soft and startles Déomas out of his stupor. He’s been huddled in this alley for a while, trying to bear out the cold of the crisp autumn day behind the bakery. The stones in the wall are warmed by the crackling oven within and it provides a meager sliver of solace. Déomas’ clothing, bright and thin and clinging in all the right ways, isn’t exactly sturdy.

Normally, Déomas somewhat admires the season, with the bursts of rich color - crimson and yellow and burnt orange - on the foliage, the bright roses in the cheeks of passersby, the candied apples glistening and spiced chestnuts roasting in the stalls of street vendors. 

But the season is less…cheerful for an urchin such as Déomas. A streetwalker. The vendors keep their eyes on him when he walks down the street with sharp suspicion - with good reason, Déomas has pilfered food for survival many a time. Can’t blame them for protecting their wares from wandering hands. 

A principle Déomas cannot afford to adopt.

He’s been trying to avoid…this. Not in the mood to suck cock or spread his thighs, doesn’t have the fucking heart to coo platitudes at some bastard with loose coins as he ruts between Déomas’ legs or down his throat or into Déomas’ clever, coaxing hand. What he’s in the mood for very rarely matters where Déomas is concerned but he’s tired. 

Still…it’s only going to get colder and he’s shivering. So he tries to glance up through his curls with some artfulness, to let the weary heaviness of his lids lend him some allure. Tries to lick his cracking lips moist, draw attention to their plump shape (and away from his cherry-red nose, runny, fuck, he’s catching ill). 

It’s…not what he expected. Usually, the men who seek out boys like him in dark alleyways are a little older, all swagger and spoiled whim, wanting their bored egos stroked. 

The creature standing over him looks more like Déomas than the men he services. He’s willowy, young, perhaps in the middle of his thirties, and he’s beautiful. Golden-brown skin, heavy-lidded amber eyes, a halo of tawny curls, his mouth held soft and smiling. To Déomas’ first glance, he seems like a statue - graceful and poised and…sad, his russet shawl blowing around his face in the chilly breeze. 

Still…appearances can be deceptive and very often are. Déomas flutters his lashes in a manner that will make the man think about all the ways Déomas would look pretty at his feet. Purses his lips pathetically and clutches his own patchy cloak around himself. 

“Y-Yes, good sir. It’s…quite a hard night…”

Perhaps this man wants pathetic - Déomas can do pathetic. He tries to look small and helpless, huddled against the wall. 

The man’s breath doesn’t catch, he doesn’t wet his mouth with his tongue, doesn’t swallow in wanton excitement. Instead, he kneels right there on the cobblestones, seemingly heedless of the cold mud seeping into his trousers, and extends a hand. 

“Oh, it is, truly. What do you say to the idea of going somewhere a little warmer, out of the chill?”

So he wants to play a savior. Déomas can work with that. Men have paid less of a price for the pleasure of his company. He slides his fingers delicately into the outheld palm - it’s soft to touch, warm, shocking against the iciness of Déomas’ flesh. 

He allows the man to draw him to his feet, hiding his weak-kneed wobble (gods, how long has it been since he’s eaten?) by leaning suggestively, tripping, against the man’s side. Déomas isn’t groped, does not have ale-laden breath panted against his neck, doesn’t even get an arm looped possessively around his waist for his trouble. He just…smiles, warm and pleasant, steadies Déomas on his feet. Odd. 

“What might I call you, goodsir?” Déomas purrs, wide-eyed, demure and polite, as he follows the man down the street like a lost kitten. Ingénue orphan - poor helpless whore, doesn’t want to be trapped in this profession on such a cold night. 

“Cassander, but you can call me Cass.” 

His voice is a burr, rich and heavy and murmurous, a clean brook tumbling over old stones. 

Déomas thinks that this man - Cass - will lead him to an inn. Perhaps a tavern, if he’s feeling cheap, where he can fuck Déomas semi-privately in a back booth as he nurses an ale. Instead, he draws Déomas into the very bakery he was huddling behind. 

Déomas is too startled to really register it all, pulled along, windswept into the whole thing. Sat down at a little one-legged table, in the corner by the window, draped with a lace tablecloth and a beeswax candle. Served two mugs of piping cider, spicy and sweet and heavenly against Déomas’ half-numb palms. 

He sips it, dizzy with the wave of warmth, the glare of candlelight, the murmurous buzz of chatter, and is surprised it isn’t mulled. Men usually try to get him drunk when they buy things for him. But even without the bitter punch of alcohol, the fruity beverage warms him right to his core, the apple-taste sinking into his very bones and thawing something tight and frozen there. 

This Cass is still smiling, chatting softly to the baker’s apprentice, who is laying out a plate- no, a platter of sticky buns. Melted brown sugar and glazed pecans, all clumped over flaky golden dough fresh from the hearth and steaming in their dish, fogging up the frosty window glass. 

Very stupidly, Déomas sort of wants to cry. 

Cass pushes bun after bun upon him, coaxing him to eat his fill, to wash it all down with more sweet cider. Doesn’t speak much, except to make a soft, idle little comment about the fading sun upon the cobblestones or a customer with an excitable daughter. He almost doesn’t care that it surely, surely, comes with a steep price. Nobody is kind to Déomas without expecting something in return. 

But he hasn’t had a hot meal in ages. He’s too exhausted, too sore inside and out, too shivery still at every gust of air from the bakery door swinging open and shut for patrons, to mind it too much. Perhaps Cass will want Déomas to lick his cock and call him master or daddy or baby. Maybe he’ll want to share Déomas’ talents with a friend. He’s had worse for less. And, oddly, he is grateful. He might not even mind so much, being a good little whore for someone so pretty and graceful. 

He’s so enraptured by his meal, fingers sticky with syrup, belly full and heavy, mouth singing with spices, he only takes idle note of the coin Cass lays on the table. It isn’t much - the bakery caters to those with little money to spare, after all - but eyeing the man’s clothing, Déomas has discerned that this man isn’t wealthy. 

It’s hidden well, but his clothing has been mended, again and again, stitched in places where the fabric has been torn or worn through with holes. The red of his shawl has taken on a faded hue. And his makeup…

Oh, he must be going slow. Déomas somehow failed to notice, a combination of the dim evening light and his own dizzy hunger, but the man has a little cream spread over his skin. Not everywhere, just…places. The corner of his mouth (a little too pink to be quite natural, now Déomas thinks of it), under his eyes, along the slender column of his throat. Hiding bruises. The lids of his eyes are tinted with a soft, pearly powder, and his cheeks - which Déomas thought were flushed by the cold - are rouged. 

“Didn’t tell me you were a whore.”

Blunt, yes, but he’s just a little shocked it took him all of half an hour to figure it out. He ought to have recognized tart paint when he saw it - Déomas has often enough covered the handprints of grasping clients or the mark of some righteous citizen’s quick backhand.

Cass offers his same soft little smile. 

“You didn’t ask.”

Fuck. Déomas isn’t sure how to feel exactly but he leans back, crosses his arms tight across his chest, eyes narrowed. 

“So…just got out of the business and pitied the poor sluts who couldn’t climb their way free, is that it?”

Déomas shouldn’t be so fucking thorny. He winces as soon as he says it. Why is he such a bitch? He doesn’t back down though. His hackles are raised - from trusting little sex kitten to hissing alley-cat in moments. People in his line of work can’t afford to be philanthropists so he must…must be a favored courtesan of some pathetic man with a fat purse and a lonely wife. That’s got to be it, right? Déomas half-expects the aging whore across from him to spit back at him, maybe to spout some nauseating holier-than-thou platitude about seeing the light. 

Instead, Cass surprises Déomas once more by laughing. It’s not even sharp. Just…soft and amused and so sad, that sorrow which flows beneath all his grace and warmth like a dark river. 

“Not at all. I just thought you seemed cold, honey.”

Cass stands, brushing crumbs off his lap delicately, drawing his shawl up over his lovely halo of curls and fishes another few coins from his little drawstring purse, lays them before Déomas on the table with the empty dishes. 

“It’ll frost over tonight, I should think, so this is for a room down at the Bluebell. They don’t ask questions but the doors lock well and it’s clean, warm - this should buy you a night.” 

Still so patient, calm, measured. It makes Déomas feel a little cornered, like he wants to bolt, fidgeting in his chair, neck prickling, flushed and hot and sharp. He still feels like being a bit of a bitch because his belly is full and his holes are unfucked and he’s warm and untouched and none of this makes any sense.

“You’ll come visit me later, is that it? If you don’t have to go running off to your…paramour?” 

Drawled with a sneer - it’s shaky, choked, pathetic. He’s so tired of the game of it all and he won’t be caught by surprise by anyone, he won’t. 

Cass goes a little still. A shadow passes over his face, dark and horrible, his amber eyes glimmering with tears and for a moment he looks so miserable that Déomas feels ill. It passes and that placid, demure expression is back. Strained, now. Weary.

“No. I have…an appointment at the Dragon’s Head tavern, I’ll likely, uh, stay the night there.”

Oh.

Déomas flushes - this time with the hot stab of shame lancing through him. The whore tavern. Rough and seedy and a place someone like Déomas often finds himself. Not someone like this glowing, graceful creature. 

“Oh, I-“

“It’s okay, honey.” Cass interrupts softly. For a moment, it seems like he is going to reach out and touch Déomas but thinks better of it. Instead, he catches Déomas’ gaze and it’s like his eyes burn through the redhead, piercing his chest and his heart and deeper, deeper still. 

“Just…take care of yourself, okay? You deserve a night to sleep inside, away from the cold, without paying anything.”

Déomas wants to scoff, to protest that doesn’t. He really doesn’t. This whore doesn’t know him. 

He can’t say any of that with Cass’ sad, kind eyes on him. So, like a coward, he glances away. Cass doesn’t seem to fault him for that either, though, and just sighs. Not a sound of irritation, just…resignation. 

“It’s true. Whether you believe it or not.”

He’s gone before Déomas can retort, a flurry of cold wind and red shawl, into the evening. Déomas doesn’t watch him go, doesn’t look over his shoulder to watch Cassander glide quietly down the cold streets while Déomas sits in the bakery, safe and sound and alone. 

It isn’t true, he’ll tell himself, even as his fists clench so hard they tremble around enough money to buy him safety and privacy for a single night. He’s wrong about me - he doesn’t know me.

Yet, under all the tangle of frost-tipped thorns, a little hidden patch of Déomas’ tired, wounded heart melts and softens like snow under the morning sun. 

~

hope you enjoyed seeing our blorbos from our brains hang out 🥺❤️🥺

[quackerjack]

i see people's ocs and i go bananas .... 72 and cassander for the wrapped ask game :0

72: the music and the mirror from a chorus line

Thank you for the ask!!! Not a song I would pick for him normally but I actually really like it

[fionacreates]

The bodyguard and the king - fun sketching

[princessmeepa]

King vs king

Alexander the Great and Cassander are best friends, seem like it

[nuka-rockit]

threatening to kill each other can be a love language

[that-guy-in-the-chiton]

Sometimes, Persephone visits Elysium when Hades isn’t looking, mostly because it reminds her of her home on the surface and the cherished times with her mother. One day, her former lover Kassander appears there and she sits with him as they catch up and he plays his panpipes for her.

[aximeck]

The Revolt and The Revelry

Part of the senior university project I worked on where I created a series of tarot-inspired illustrations involving my characters and scenery of the city I live in!

[ancientorigins]

The elite bodyguard of Alexander the Great is said to have killed a lion with his bare hands and this is how he gained Alexander’s attention. This man was Lysimachus and he eventually had a small empire of his own.

[cinemagirlblog]