 |
 |
| ON THE OTHER HAND |
| Alexander the Greatest By Antonio C. Abaya Written Dec. 08, 2004 For the Philippines Free Press, December 18 issue This essay is not about the movie. By a series of coincidences, I have lately become immersed in the story of Alexander the Great, one of the towering figures of all time. About six months ago, I read �Alexander the Great�, (Ohio University Press, 1982) which I had ordered from amazon.com, a novel by one of my favorite writers, Nikos Kazantzakis, author of �Zorba the Greek� and �The Last Temptation of Christ�, among others. A few months later, when it became available on DVD in the US, I ordered �In the Footsteps of Alexander the Great�, a four-hour BBC production written by the British historian Michael Wood, which had first been telecast in the US on public (meaning, non-commercial) television in 1997. Michael Wood re-traced the route taken by Alexander when he set out from Macedonia in 334 BC to conquer the Persian Empire and whatever lay beyond it, up to his death in Babylon (in present-day Iraq) in 323 BC, at the age of 33. Wood traveled by skiff, train, bus, mule, camel and on foot, and even flew in a US Air Force EWACS plane over the plains near Gaugamela. This was the site of Alexander�s decisive victory over the Persian king Darius, but was still controlled by Saddam Hussein in the aftermath of Operation Desert Storm (1991-92) and was closed to western visitors. (A few years ago, I had watched Wood�s other opus �The Conquistadors� on San Francisco�s public television Channel 9. In it, Wood re-traced the routes taken by the Spanish conquistadors in the New World in the 16th century: Hernando Cortes in Montezuma�s Mexico, Francisco Pizarro in the Inca Empire in the Andes, and the all but forgotten but magnificently named Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca [Head of a Cow] who survived a shipwreck off what is now Florida, lived as a healer among Indian tribes for some time, then walked, [yes, walked] from what is now Galveston, Texas, to the Pacific coast of Mexico.) And, on or about Nov. 25, Discovery Channel re-ran (it had been shown months before) an intriguing feature titled �Who Killed Alexander the Great?� in which a forensic detective, John Greave (spelling uncertain), using historians� accounts of his symptoms, established who or what finally conquered the conqueror of the then known world. Of the three sources above, the Kanzantzakis book is the least helpful. Not only because, being a novel, it has no footnotes or bibliography, but also because it was meant to be supplementary reading material for Greek high school students. (Mr. K was once Greek Minister of Education.) So it lacked the usual literary fire and emotional brimstone so typical of Kazantzakis� better known novels. And it omitted any reference to Alexander�s fabled sexual excesses and extreme cruelty towards those who stood in his way. Michael Wood followed the route taken by Alexander based on the accounts of ancient historians: the Roman Plutarch, the Greeks Arrian and Quertius, and the Macedonian Callisthenes, nephew of the philosopher Aristotle (Aristotle was Alexander�s personal tutor) and official historian of the expedition, who had accompanied Alexander from Macedonia until he had a violent spat with the god-king in Balkh (in present-day Afghanistan) for which he was tortured and crucified.. Callisthenes� full account was lost in time long ago, but there are substantial excerpts from it in the extant writings of Plutarch, Quertius and Arrian, in Penguin Classics editions, which Wood would pull out from his backpack every now and then to read before his TV audience to emphasize a dramatic moment in his narrative. Not unlike Alexander himself, who claimed direct descent from his hero Achilles and who carried a copy of Homer�s Iliad with him, to read along the way and draw inspiration from. To say that Alexander was a driven man would be The Understatement of the past 2400 years. Even when he was still in his teens, he was pressured by both his father, King Philip II of Macedon, and his mother, Olympias, to prepare himself to conquer the world. Contrary to popular misconception, he did not weep towards the end of his life, that there were no more worlds to conquer. He wept at age 19, even before he began, that his father, who had extended his empire up to what is now Bucharest, Romania, was leaving nothing for him to conquer. Being a good runner, horseman and swordsman, he was encouraged to compete in the Olympic Games, but world domination appealed to him more. Though a Macedonian, Alexander admired Greek culture and Greek civilization. He was driven by a passionate desire to avenge the Persian pillage and burning of Athens in 480 BC, and he gloried in the Athenians� victory over the Persians in the Battle of Marathon (490 BC) and the destruction of the Persian fleet by the Athenian navy in the Battle of Salamis (480 BC). One can arguably draw a parallel between the time of Alexander, when the East (represented by the Persians) clashed with the West (represented by the Macedonians and the Greeks)��and the present era when the West (the Americans and the British) is in armed conflict with the East (Osama bin Laden and his jihadists). Even the present-day battlegrounds � Iraq and Afghanistan � were once parts of the Persian Empire and were also the battlegrounds then, along with what is now Iran, as the present more and more resembles the past. Is Iran next in the crosshairs of the neocons? A thousand years after the siege of Troy, Alexander visited the tomb of Achilles (in present-day Turkey) and appropriated for himself the sword and shield said to have once belonged to his hero, and which he now used with devastating effect against those who stood in his way. He defeated the Persian king Darius in the Battle of Issus (in present-day Turkey) and later, more decisively, in the Battle of Gaugamela (in present-day Iraq). He laid siege to and captured the island-city of Tyre (in present-day Lebanon) by building a causeway to it, which still stands after 2,400 years. And he devastated Gaza (in present-day Palestine) for resisting his advance. After swinging through the southern outposts of the Persian Empire in Egypt, Alexander resumed his pursuit of the defeated Darius, capturing the magnificent Persian capital of Persepolis (in present-day Iran), which he ordered destroyed and burned to the ground as payback for Persian atrocities in Athens 150 years earlier. Luckily, enough ruins have survived to suggest the splendor of the imperial palace, from which Alexander and his Macedonians are said to have carted away 3,000 tons of gold and silver. Near present-day Tehran, the Macedonians caught up with the wounded Darius, who had been deposed in a coup, stabbed and left to die in a bullock cart. Darius entreated his captors to thank Alexander for him for treating with (untypical) chivalry his wife, mother and children, whom he had left behind after his defeat at Issus,�.and died. Alexander had an unshakeable belief in his destiny, a belief that was reinforced whenever he consulted the gods. At the oracle of Apollo in Didena (in present-day Turkey), he was told that he would defeat the Persian Empire. At the oracle of Ammon in Siwa, deep in the Libyan desert, he was greeted as the Son of God. And at the temples in Memphis and Luxor he was addressed as the successor to the Egyptian pharaohs. All heady stuff which no doubt inspired him to build some 20 cities which he named after himself, Alexandria, the most celebrated (for its extensive library) being the still existing and bustling port city in Egypt. Even to this day, as Wood recorded, teahouse storytellers and traveling street performers in Turkey, Iran, Iraq and elsewhere still sing of the legendary Alexander, not necessarily in glowing terms, as part of their oral tradition that is passed �from chest to chest.� In the Holy Quran, written 1,000 years after his death, he is remembered as a �two-horned devil.� In the Prophet Daniel�s tomb near Susa, the winter capital of Persia, he is referred to as �a demon with disheveled hair, born of a race of wrath.� The Zoroastrian worshippers in Iran have not forgotten that he persecuted their ancestors, slaughtered their priests and burned their scriptures. They still read the prediction in their holy book that �all Asia will suffer from his evil yoke, for he is the devil�s disciple, but those whom he destroys will destroy him, and he will be swept away from the earth.� Reaching the shores of the Caspian Sea, which he concluded was the northern edge of the world, Alexander turned east and marched into Afghanistan. (To be continued.) ***** Reactions to [email protected]. Other articles in www.tapatt.org OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Reactions to �Alexander the Greatest� Sir, Good day! Just read your article on Alexander. Just thinking you might be interested in this magazine website: http://www.thetrumpet.com Thanks again. Driggs Matabaran, [email protected] December 13, 2004 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Terrific! Thanks! Lydia B. Echauz, [email protected] President, Far Eastern University December 13, 2004 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww . I really enjoyed your informative column on Alexander the Great. Thanks. Augusto �Toti� Villalon, [email protected] Philippine Daily Inquirer December 13, 2004 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Dear Mr. Abaya, Thanks for that historical piece. I am intrigued too by the mightiest conquerors of the world. Julius Ceasar, Hannibal Barca, Attila the Hun, Genghis Khan, Napoleon, Adolph Hitler etc. but nothing matches Bush and the neo-cons. Auggie Surtida, [email protected] December 13, 2004 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Anyone who is familiar with the streets in Manila, the real Gandara could be somewhere in Pakistan or Indian- Afghan border. One book I read mentioned that close to Gandara, Alexander's horse who served him twenty good years of service finally died. Alexander in mourning Bocephalus declared one week of festivities that included days of uninterrupted drinking and Olympic games highlighted by Alexander naming a new city called Bocephalia. There were suspicions that Olympias ordered the murder of King Philips. Alexander was implicated in the murder. Alexander as one biographer noted was not perturbed believing in the oracle that he was a demigod and Philip is not his real father. Jose Sison Luzadas, [email protected] Toronto, Ontario, CANADA December 13, 2004 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Fast forward 2000 years... What would our world history be like had Alexander lived 20-30 more years and went on to conquer the continent? JC Chong, [email protected] December 13, 2004 MY REPLY. You would have to pick it up in Babylon, after his aborted India foray. Alexander would have gone on to conquer Arabia and Africa, then returned to the Mediterranean Sea. With Arabia under Greek control and influence, there might have been no Mohammed and Islam. With inexhaustible manpower from North Africa and Black Africa, he might have conquered Iberia, Gaul, Italia and Alemania, and there might have been no Roman Empire, only an expanded Greek-Macedonian empire. But all these are only fantasies. wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Tony, I enjoyed your article on Alexander the Greatest. Saw the movie twice and also traced his route to the East. Very interesting indeed. From Lebanon to Persia (Iraq, Iran , then Afghanistan) to the Hindu Kush "Wall". Alexander's Expedition to India would most probably be via the present-day Northern Pakistan or the contested region JAMMU and KASHMIR. Going South would have been via Paisalabad or Lahore. I remember the Famous Cover of National Geographic of the young Green-Eyed Afghan Girl who was re-discovered after 20 years(?). Well, the Legacy of the fair-haired Macedonians lives on - at least, with the charming eyes. Lastly, The Biggest Mistake of Alexander, as per watching the movie twice, was going to India. It was a Big "Wrong Mistake". I may sound biased or even racist, but I do not trust the Indians. The "Barbarian" wife, Roxanna, was correct in urging Alexander to return to Babylon where he is strong and appreciated. Also, Alexander was probably "The First Global Thinker" of mixing nations through inter-marriage and foreign trade. I like him for his respect of other nation's culture like Persia, which he said is older than Greece and Macedonia. Tony, what do you think? Would have it been better if Alexander went North to Russia, Georgia and Ukraine? I look forward being able to catch another re-ran of the Discovery Channel and also viewing the BBC 4-hour production on Alexander the Great. Thanks, once again, to the treat on Alexander the Greatest. Rick B. Ramos, [email protected] December 13, 2004 MY REPLY. If Alexander had gone north to what became Russia, he would have had his balls frozen, as what happened to Napoleon and Hitler later. wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Dear Mr. Abaya, Thanks for the wonderful narrative piece. Now, it drives me more to watch the movie about the man. By the way, Free Press has been a favorite of my father when I was in grade and high school. It had been my source of reading aside from the classic Reader�s Digest. Nostalgic indeed. Rgds, Jerome Escobedo, [email protected] December 14, 2004 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww |
| Dear Tony, I really enjoyed reading your article on Alexander.. Thank you for writing it. Memorably yours, Michael Van Masters, [email protected] "The Memory Master" 818-996-0080, May 03, 2006 OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO |