As a very early teenager, I owned a book for young readers about the early life of Abraham Lincoln. I thumbed through it constantly, often stopping to gaze at line drawings of a younger Abe and his friends, especially one of Joshua Speed drawing back a quilt to get in bed with the clean-shaven future president.

I suppose the author included that drawing to show children how times have changed, or perhaps to emphasize Lincoln's relative poverty, given the book presented his life as a rags-to-riches story.

But I saw what I wanted: A good, kind man unafraid to be affectionate with other men. I might even (I don't fully remember) have explicitly thought about his affection towards men as being "gay."

I already knew I was gay, and I had already internalized a lot of moral condemnation over it. At that point in my life, Abraham Lincoln could be whatever I needed him to be.

And it wouldn't be long before I discovered in Alexander the Great another role model whose actual history was less important than my thoughts and imagination.

Maybe it's all to the good that figures from the past are so open to our private interpretations.