Well, here I am to try and settle your doubts about Alexander's hair and eyes.
I was searching for a photo of that painting and have only now located it. I will try and paste it here, though I am not very clever at this sort of thing that you kids are so good at!
I am sorry, I am not able to past the picture successfully. I will try again later. But the hair in the picture is a rich blonde.
I also found a write up which cites Plutarch and Curtius, and should thus be reliable.
Alexander's physical features have been described in the primary sources (Plutarch, Curtius) and he was probably a strawberry-blond with blue or grey eyes, like his mother.
Reddish blonde, because his hair was described as 'lion-colored', and blue or grey eyed because when the Greeks talked about light eyes, that is what scholars think they meant. Sometimes, as in 'grey-eyed Athena', the Greeks actually said, "grey". Since there is some argument about whether the Greeks recognized blue as a color (a whole other thread), Alexander could well have had blue or blue-green eyes, and they were classified thereby as 'light'.
Apelles, the official court painter, was criticized for portraying Alexander as darker than he was. This is one reason why the Alexander Mosaic is thought to have been ultimately based on a painting by Apelles. Even in that mosaic you can see that his eyes have light irises, although the pupils are dilated. (The iconography of the eyes belongs to the Greek tradition of showing possession by a god though wide 'staring' eyes).
But no reliable source has said that his eyes were different colors, or that he had patches of different color in his hair or on his skin. This would be noticeable enough to be remarked on. Alexander was famously not vain about his appearance, so it is unlikely he would suppress this information.
The eyes: The above paper says that he had blue or blue grey eyes, but there are reports that he had heterochromia iridum, which is an excess or a deficit of pigmentation in one eye as compared to the other. It is said that he had one blue eye and one brown. And he was NOT a mutant! What an awful word, you naughty kids!
The scent from the body: I have located a very good translation of Plutarch's Life of Alexander, and the extract below confirms, in essence (pun intended!) what you have been saying, Taherav. It confirms that his body smelled sweet at all times, but does not link that with the son of Zeus angle. It can be seen at
http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Lives/Alexander*/3.html#11
Plutarch, The Parallel Lives
p225 The Life of Alexander
(Part 1 of 7)
4 1 The outward appearance of Alexander is best represented by the statues of him which Lysippus made, and it was by this artist alone that Alexander himself thought it fit that he should be modelled. 2 For those peculiarities which many of his successors and friends afterwards tried to imitate, namely, the poise of the neck, which was bent slightly to the left, and the melting glance of his eyes, this artist has accurately observed. 3 Apelles, however, in painting him as wielder of the thunder-bolt, did not reproduce his complexion, but made it too dark and swarthy. Whereas he was of a fair colour, as they say, and his p233 fairness passed into ruddiness on his breast particularly, and in his face. 4 Moreover, that a very pleasant odour exhaled from his skin and that there was a fragrance about his mouth and all his flesh, so that his garments were filled with it, this we have read in the Memoirs of Aristoxenus.
5 Now, the cause of this, perhaps, was the temperament of his body, which was a very warm and fiery one; for fragrance is generated, as Theophrastus thinks, where moist humours are acted upon by heat. 6 Wherefore the dry and parched regions of the world produce the most and best spices; for the sun draws away the moisture which, like material of corruption, abounds in vegetable bodies. 7 And in Alexander's case, it was the heat of his body, as it would seem, which made him prone to drink, and choleric.
Ok, folks, I have done my best! I hope it will be of interest and use.
Shyamala Aunty
Cricket
CID
