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| Alexander the Greatest, 2 By Antonio C. Abaya Written Dec 10, 2004 For the Philippines Free Press, January 01 issue Again, this essay is not about the movie. Reaching the shores of the Caspian Sea north of present-day Tehran and not knowing that it was only a big lake, Alexander and his Macedonians concluded that they had touched the northern edge of the earth, from where it was possible to sail back to the barbarian lands north of Macedonia and Greece. This steeled his resolve to press on to the east to reach what he thought must be the eastern edge of the world, unaware of the massive land mass that lay beyond Bactria (present-day Afghanistan) in China, Siberia and India. His plan was to touch the eastern edge of the world, then return to Babylon (in present-day Iraq), from where he was going to conquer the Arabian Peninsula and thence the African continent. From what he knew was the western edge of the earth, he planned to return to the Mediterranean and Macedonia by sailing through the Pillars of Hercules (present-day Straits of Gibraltar). . But first he had to pursue the fugitive King Bessos, the successor to Darius on the Persian throne, literally to the ends of the Persian Empire in what is now Afghanistan. He wintered in Kabul, building another Alexandria nearby. Then, instead of following the longer trade routes, he force-marched his army over the top of the Hindu Kush mountains at Khawaq Pass (3,600 meters high), in order to close the distance to his fleeing quarry. On the road to Samarkand (in present-day Uzbekistan), the Macedonians were surprised to find a small town where the people spoke Greek and observed Greek customs. While enjoying their hospitality, Alexander learned that their ancestors had come from Greek towns on the Ionian (Turkish) coast and had served as mercenaries in the Persian army that invaded Greece in 490 BC. That night, at a given signal from Alexander, the Macedonians slaughtered all the inhabitants and leveled the town to the ground. Poor King Bessos was captured shortly, his nose and ears were cut off, and he was bundled off to Persepolis to be impaled, in the Persian manner. In his northernmost advance, Alexander built another city, which he called Alexandria the Farthermost, now known as Khogen (in present-day Tajikistan). From here, he headed south for India. In the Turkoman region of northern Persia, according to the historian Arrian in a story that may have been intended for the Playboy or Penthouse of his day, an amazon queen, accompanied by 300 amazon warriors, visited Alexander�s camp and asked to be impregnated by the god-king whose fame had preceded him. She is said to have spent 13 days and nights of heavy breathing in Alexander�s tent. Hmmmm. In Samarkand (in present-day Uzbekistan), Alexander seems to have reached the turning point of his life and became a megalomaniac. In a fit of anger, he ran a spear through Cleitus, one of his top generals, who had once saved his life, only to weep over Cleitus� body in inconsolable remorse. He had become a �melancholy and violent man,� notes the inscriptions in the tomb of a later conqueror, Tamerlane (1336-1405), in Samarkand. In the fortress at Balkh (in present-day Afghanistan), whose ruins still stand, Alexander announced to his commanders that henceforth he was to be worshipped as a god, in the Persian style, and began to wear Persian clothes. To seal his conquest of Central Asia, he married, at age 29, Roxanne, the teenaged daughter of a Sogdian potentate, which shocked the racist Macedonians. (In Persia, he was to marry another oriental princess.). Grumblings and assassination plots began to circulate among the troops. In one drunken feast in Balkh, his publicist Callisthenes taunted Alexander with a quote from the Iliad: �A better man than you by far was Patroclus, and still death did not escape him.� His godly pretensions publicly mocked, Alexander had the chronicler tortured and crucified. His army, homesick and in a mutinous mood, entered India through the Khyber Pass into what became the Northwest Frontier of British India (now Pakistan). Alexander himself went further east with a smaller force, perhaps still looking for the eastern ocean, and skirted what is now Kashmir, rejoining his main army near present-day Peshawar. In this desolate, mountainous area, where Osama bin Laden is probably hiding, our intrepid traveler Michael Wood chanced upon a community, the Kalash, who are neither Muslim nor Hindu, who are in fact worshippers of the Greek god Dionysius. They claim to be descendants of Alexander�s soldiers who had stayed behind and still possess Greek coins engraved with Alexander�s helmeted profile. With 64,000 infantry and 12,000 cavalry, Alexander crossed the Indus River on pontoons and defeated Indian defenders under King Porus, who vainly employed 200 war elephants against him. But for his soldiers, it was the last straw. On the banks of the Beas River, north of the city of Amritsar (in present-day India), 500 kms away from Delhi, after eight years and 22,000 kilometers on the road (as logged everyday by surveyors), one of his commanders implored Alexander to �put a limit to our endeavors.� Faced with a large scale mutiny, he agreed to turn back without reaching the �eastern edge of the world.� But not before he built a temple on the riverbank with the inscription �Alexander Stopped Here,� pre-dating Kilroy by at least 2,300 years. It was also in this corner of India that his wife Roxanne gave birth to a baby boy. But it died and was buried on the banks of the Jhellum River. And as if that were not bad omen enough, his faithful horse Bucephalus, which he had tamed as a teenager and which had trudged along with him all the way from Macedonia, also died. In its honor, Alexander built a city on the banks of the Hydaspes River, which he named Bucephalia (but which I cannot locate in a modern map of India.) For the return trip to Persia, Alexander ordered the building of a thousand triremes, flat-bottomed Greek warships with three layers of oarsmen. With infantry marching along on both banks, the Macedonian-Greek army sailed down the Indus River, fighting Indian defenders all the way for the next seven months. In the city of Multan (in present-day Pakistan), Alexander personally led the charge up the city walls with only three bodyguards with him. He was badly wounded in the fray, an arrow piercing one of his lungs, another arrow his leg. Near death, he was carried off the battlements on the shield of Achilles. But he survived his wounds. They reached the delta of the Indus River, near what is now the port city of Karachi (Pakistan). From here, Alexander split his army, now swollen to 100,000 with Persian, Bactrian and Indian recruits. Some were put on board the triremes for the sea voyage to Persia along the coast. The bulk of the army, with Alexander in the lead, walked (yes, walked!) all the way to Persepolis through the punishing Gedrosian (now Makran) desert, one of the driest places on earth. Only 20,000 made it, the others felled along the way by thirst, hunger, sunstroke and exhaustion during the 60-day trek through the arid and empty desert. Safely back in Ecbatana (in present-day western Iran) with the survivors of both the desert march and the sea voyage, Alexander rested to literally lick his wounds, and to prepare for the Arabian and African campaigns. But it was the beginning of the end. His life-long companion and lover, Hephaestion, caught a fever and died, which drove Alexander inconsolable and suicidal. He clung to Hephaestion�s body day and night, refusing to eat or sleep. �Others loved me because I am king. Hephaestion loved me for myself,� he wept. He had his architect build a five-storey monument in Babylon for his lover. Then, escorted by his best cavalry, he transported his body in a golden chariot for burial. As he arrived at the gates of Babylon, Persian priests advised him not to enter the city, warning of a great calamity if he did. He did, anyway. Six months later, on June 8 Alexander, too, caught a fever, which rose and ebbed and rose again in the next few days. Fearing the worst, his commanders and soldiers filed past the dying god-king to kiss his hand in a tearful farewell. On June 13, 323 BC, barely 33 years old, Alexander died. Perhaps on no other man or woman in the entire history of mankind would the finger-wagging epitaph Sic transit gloria mundi be more appropriate than on Alexander. But if he could, he would probably reply �But, oh, what a gloria it was while it lasted.� WHO OR WHAT KILLED ALEXANDER? There is not enough space here to follow in detail the logic of forensic detective John Greave. Reading the accounts of Alexander�s journey and the symptoms that he exhibited, Greave narrowed down his diagnosis to either malaria or West Nile fever, which is contracted from infected birds. (Alexander did encounter dead birds falling from the sky in Persia.) Was he perhaps poisoned? His father�s bitter enemy. Antipater, did send two of his sons to Persia, perhaps to do him in. Consulting a toxicologist, Greave learned of a poison that was known to the ancients in both Macedonia and Persia, the roots of the white hellerbore plant, which the ancients also used in small medicinal doses to treat various illnesses. Greave theorizes that when Alexander fell ill, his doctors tried to treat him with hellerbore. But he had been badly weakened by the wounds he suffered in Multan, by the punishing that he took trekking across the desert for 60 days, and by the emotional stress of losing his beloved Hephaestion. When he failed to heal, he may have been given ever stronger doses, which may have finally built up to a lethal level and killed him. ***** Reactions to [email protected]. Other articles in www.tapatt.org OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Reactions to �Alexander the Greatest, 2� In Defense of Alexander Thanks for your interesting review of Alexander the Great. On the whole, I agree with it, although I have a different reading on some aspects of his life. History tells us that although Alexander was one of the greatest generals of all time, he could be very human and humane. For instance, he had too much tender love and affection not only for his mother - who, by the way, claimed in the face of her husband, Philip of Macedonia, that Alexander was begotten from a most powerful god, Zeus, - but also for a favorite friend and military lieutenant, and even for his horse, Bochepalus. Alexander almost committed suicide when, upon a momentary outburst, he killed that assistant, not unlike the grief suffered by Achilles, greatest warrior of his own time, and idol of Alexander, with the death of a special friend, Protaculos. Likewise, he wept copiously when his horse Bochepalus died, in the same manner that Frederick the Great, King of Prussia, another of the greatest generals of his time, grieved over the death of his favorite dog (which occupied a portion of the conjugal bed). Again, when Alexander made prisoners of the wife and daughter of his arch enemy, Emperor Darius the Great of Persia, he gave them tender protection and care, until they were re-united with Darius. History also tells us that although Alexander the Great was at times perceived barbarous, his personal habits and hygiene made him sweet-smelling all day long, unlike Frederick the Great, who, as he was burdened by problems of his family and of state, remained unwashed for days, if not for weeks. (Note: While divine origin was attributed to Alexander, the genealogy of Jesus, the son of God, and of Virgin birth, is being traced to a Biblical man called David.) Merry Christmas! Nelson D. Lavina, [email protected] December 20, 2004 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Hey Tony, Thank you very much for this quickie and fun way to learn history. Merry Xmas! Mahar Mangahas, [email protected] December 20, 2004 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Dear Mr. Abaya, What a great human adventure worthy of cinematic exploits. Reading the essay is an exhilarating experience in taking a glimpse at the great episode in world history. Thanks for sharing a masterpiece drama of human conquest and power. Rgds, Jerome Escobedo, [email protected] December 21, 2004 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww |
| Dear Mr. Abaya, I've always been fascinated by Alexander's triumph in the battlefield but I've never ever thought or anybody telling including my history teacher, that he also conquered the bedroom. He should rightfully be called: Alexander the Greatest...........bi-sexual. Your article adds more power to what is lacking in the movie. Thanks for another very informative reading. Emil Diaz, Jr., Vancouver, Canada December 27, 2004 OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO |