Dear Folk,
Today I am celebrating the macho man of Macedonia, the only Greek to be called "The Great," that founder of dynasties, the spiritual father of Rome and Cleopatra, Alexander III. I have at least three dates listed for his birthday. Well, he deserves all three. Let's kick back with some ouzo and feta, a little baklava and some dark thick coffee and party!
Alex was born in 356 BCE to Philip II who was king of Macedonia and Olympias who was a princess of Epirus. That was a lot to live up to. Macedonia was its own kingdom northeast of Greece. It is a mountainous and rugged land. Folk from there are serious. Alex was born in Pella which was the capital of the time. Philip took schooling seriously, too; he brought in a tutor for young Alex: guy named Aristotle. Aristotle taught his young princely charge rhetoric, literature, science, medicine, and philosophy. Where are the curricula like that in today's schools? Oh, I forgot, we want slaves not conquerors.
They said Alex was bound for glory. Witness these two legends: Olympias, his mother, had a dream earlier that Zeus Himself in the form of a snake entered her womb and conceived Alexander. On the day of his birth an eagle, bird of Zeus, was sitting on the roof of the building where he was born. Some might be reminded of the snake and eagle symbol of the Aztecs here.
Under Philip II, Macedonia had become strong and united, the first real nation in European history. Greece was reaching the end of its Golden Age. Art, literature, and philosophy were still bopping, but the small city-states had refused to unite and were exhausted by wars. Philip admired Greek culture a whole heap. He bought as much of it as was for sale. The Greeks despised the Macedonians as barbarians. Folks from the city rarely credit hill folk with any wisdom at all. Fools!
When Alex was nineteen in the summer of 336 BCE, Philip was assassinated. Did his recently divorced ex-wife do it? Some historians think so. In any case, Alex was in the driver's seat. When he looked around, it was not a pretty sight. There were enemies abounding at home and revolution abroad. Alex did the politically correct thing of the time: he executed everyone who meant him and his kingdom harm. Remember, this was before DNA testing. He then headed off to Thessaly on the eastern Greek peninsula to reestablish his benign and enlightened rule. Sort of a rule of thumb: cut off their thumbs and they have a hard time holding a sword. I made that part up. By the end of that summer, everyone was serene or at least quiet.
The Greeks decided that Alex would be best handled by encouraging his desire to exsanguinate some enemies of their states, mainly the Persians. Daddy Philip had already plotted out a nice campaign and it was a natural for him. In the meantime, some Thracians decided to leave the Macedonian Co-prosperity Sphere without asking. Thrace was that area north of Greece and extending over to Turkey. The Danube River runs through it. Alexander persuaded them to return to the fold. Okay, he killed lots of them. When he got back to Greece the Illyrians were being ill-mannered and the Thebens needed thrashing. Alex took care of business on both of them in one week. Thebes was an object lesson. Alex took the city in a rush, destroyed every building in it except for the temples of the gods and the house of the Greek poet Pindar. He then sold the survivors (estimated at about 8000) into slavery. Anybody else want to revolt?
Okay, it was time to go seek out some Persians. It was spring of 334 BCE when he crossed the Hellespont into Turkey with an army of 35,000 Macedonian and Greek troops, 5000 cavalry and 160 support ships. His chief officers, all home boys to Macedonia, were Antigonus, Ptolemy, and Seleucus.
Near the ancient city of Troy at the river Granicus, Alex caught an army of Persians and Greek hoplites (mercs working the other side). Although the enemy totaled 40,000, Alex's force won with only 110 casualties. All of Asia Minor turned belly-up and let Alex and his boys go through. On his way past Phrygia, he came upon the Gordian knot. Legend had that whomever could untie it could rule Asia. Alex took his sword and cut the thing in two. Everybody said that it was a fair solution; thinking outside the box as it were. Besides, are you going to argue with 35,000 Macedonians in full-battle array?
Continuing his southward expedition, Alex finally found the main Persian army, commanded by King Darius III, at Issus, in northeastern Syria. How many troops Darius's army had is debatable. Those who think it was 500,000 have been reading Alex's spin doctors. There were a grunch of Persians though. The Battle of Issus, in 333 BCE, ended in a great victory for Alexander. Cut off from his base, Darius hightailed it northward, abandoning his mother, wife, and children to Alexander. Boo! Hiss! Alex was a cultured gentleman and treated Darius' family better than Darius did. Tyre and Gaza were next in 332 BCE and then Egypt. It was a cake walk: the Egyptians were so tired of the danged Persians.
He founded a city which he modestly named Alexandria in 332 BCE. He picked up all of the territory formerly controlled by Carthage. In 331 BCE Alexander did a pilgrimage to the great temple of Amon-Ra, god of the sun. Since the pharaohs were all sons of Amon, it was an important thing for Alex to fit in there. Evidently, Alex went over big at the temple. This also fed into Alex's belief of his own divine origin.
Babylon was his next objective. Pulling his forces back together at Tyre, he now had 40,000 infantry and 7000 cavalry. Darius had been hiding up twixt the Tigris and Euphrates. There were a mess of Persians there with Darius – chariots with scythes on their wheels, all sorts of bad dudes! At the Battle of Gaugamela (means "house of the camel), October 1, 331 BCE, Alexander crushed them. Darius skedaddled again like he did at Issus. Two of his own generals eventually put Darius down. Had to, you know. The city of Susa with its enormous treasures was soon conquered. Then, in midwinter, Alexander forced his way to Persepolis, the Persian capital. After plundering the royal treasuries and taking other rich booty, he burned the city during a drunken binge and thus completed the destruction of the ancient Persian Empire.
Somehow he went very native and adopted Persian manners. He married Eastern wives, namely, Roxana (died about 311 BCE), daughter of Oxyartes of Sogdiana, and Barsine (or Stateira; died about 323 BCE), the elder daughter of Darius. Fact is, he encouraged and bribed his officers to take Persian wives. Oh and he really wanted the Greeks to consider him a living god as the Persians seemed to; the Greeks did not buy it.
He now commanded what is now Afghanistan, Baluchistan, Bactria, Turkistan, heck all of Central Asia, Northern Africa, Turkey, Egypt, the Middle East. This he did in three years. To think it takes 40 % of American college students six years to complete a BS. He then went across the Indus River in 326 BCE and invade the Punjab. His forces even beat elephant mounted troops. The Macedonians were getting homesick and were balking at more conquering. Just wasn't fun anymore. Alex had them build some boats, sailed down the Indus and up to the Persian Gulf. He then marched his boys across the desert up to Media – a tough march which took its toll on the troops.
He got back to Babylon in 323 BCE just in time to contract a fever and die on June 13th. His will left his empire in his own words "to the strongest." Nice touch, Alex! Guess that brought peace. His body, encased in gold leaf, was later placed in a magnificent tomb at Alexandria, Egypt.
His empire mostly was divided up into smaller chunks although his son, unborn at his death, by Roxana did get some support. The generals wound up carving it along the following: Egypt was left to the Ptolemy line, thus the connection to Cleopatra; the Seleucids ruled Asia, Asia Minor and Palestine; the Antigonids ruled in Macedonia and Greece. The same countries conquered by Alexander were later mostly occupied by the Romans, the cultural sons of this warrior Macedonian.
What have we learned? He who fights and runs away lives to fight another day, but he who does it often gets offed by his own troops? Don't burn down the houses of poets? Sometimes it just isn't fun to play anymore even if you win all the time? The microbe is mightier than the sword? How about drink makes us clumsy, stupid and wont to set fire to things?
If you are whomping the Persians, scaring off elephants laden with archers, or just marrying your enemy's daughter, and you want to forward these missives to others, hey go man! Howsomever, please leave my name and sig. attached.
Thinking snakes in wombs is kind of yucky,
J. Ellsworth Weaver
SCA – Sir Balthazar of Endor
AS – Polyphemus Theognis
TRV – Sebastian Yeats