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Antioch

Antioch

:This article is about the largest city named Antioch in Asia Minor (now Turkey), for other places see Antioch (disambiguation). Antioch (disambiguation) The city of Antioch on the Orontes (modern Antakya; Greek Αντιοχεια ἡ επι Δαφνη) is located in what is now Turkey. Located on the eastern side (left bank) of the Orontes River about 20 miles from the sea and its port, Seleucia of Pieria (Suedia, now Samandagi), it was founded as a Greek city near the end of the 4th century BC by Seleucus I Nicator, who made it the capital of his empire in Syria. Seleucus I had served as one of Alexander the Great's generals, and the name Antiochus occurred frequently amongst members of his family. Alexander the Great Antioch was destined to rival Alexandria in Egypt as the chief city of the nearer East and to be the cradle of gentile Christianity. The geographical character of the district north and north-east of the elbow of Orontes makes it the natural centre of Syria, so long as that country is held by a western power; and only Asiatic, and especially Arab, dynasties have neglected it for the oasis of Damascus. The two easiest routes from the Mediterranean, lying through the Orontes gorge and the Beilan Pass, converge in the plain of the Antioch Lake (Balük Geut or El Bahr) and are met there by # the road from the Amanic Gates (Baghche Pass) and western Commagene, which descends the valley of the Kara Su, # the roads from eastern Commagene and the Euphratean crossings at Samosata (Samsat) and Apamea Zeugma (Birejik), which descend the valleys of the Afrin and the Kuwaik, and # the road from the Euphratean ford at Thapsacus, which skirts the fringe of the Syrian steppe. Travellers by all these roads must proceed south by the single route of the Orontes valley. Alexander is said to have camped on the site of Antioch, and dedicated an altar to Zeus Bottiaeus, which lay in the northwest of the future city. But the first western sovereign practically to recognize the importance of the district was Antigonus, who began to build a city, Antigonia, on the Kara Su a few miles north of the situation of Antioch; but, on his defeat, he left it to serve as a quarry for his rival Seleucus. The latter is said to have appealed to augury to determine the exact site of his projected foundation; but less fantastic considerations went far to settle it. To build south of the river, and on and under the last east spur of Casius, was to have security against invasion from the north, and command of the abundant waters of the mountain. One torrent, the Onopniktes ("donkey-drowner"), flowed through the new city, and many other streams came down a few miles west into the beautiful suburb of Daphne. The site appears not to have been found wholly uninhabited. A settlement, Meroe, boasting a shrine of Anait, called by the Greeks the "Persian Artemis," had long been located there, and was ultimately included in the eastern suburbs of the new city; and there seems to have been a village on the spur (Mt. Silpius), of which we hear in late authors under the name Io, or Iopolis. This name was always adduced as evidence by Antiochenes (e.g. Libanius) anxious to affiliate themselves to the Attic Ionians--an anxiety which is illustrated by the Athenian types used on the city's coins. At any rate, Io may have been a small early colony of trading Greeks (Javan). John Malalas mentions also a village, Bottia, in the plain by the river. The original city of Seleucus was laid out in imitation of the "gridiron" plan of Alexandria by the architect, Xenarius. Libanius describes the first building and arrangement of this city (i. p. 300. 17). The citadel was on Mt. Silpius and the city lay mainly on the low ground to the north, fringing the river. Two great colonnaded streets intersected in the centre. Shortly afterwards a second quarter was laid out, probably on the east and by Antiochus I, which, from an expression of Strabo, appears to have been the native, as contrasted with the Greek, town. It was enclosed by a wall of its own. In the Orontes, north of the city, lay a large island, and on this Seleucus II Callinicus began a third walled "city," which was finished by Antiochus III. A fourth and last quarter was added by Antiochus IV Epiphanes (175-164 BC); and thenceforth Antioch was known as Tetrapolis. From west to east the whole was about 4 miles in diameter and little less from north to south, this area including many large gardens. Of its population in the Greek and Classical Roman period we know nothing, but it is generally estimated at around 500,000 people living in 15 square kilometers by the 1st century A.D.. In the 4th century A.D. it was about 200,000 according to Chrysostom, who probably did not reckon slaves. About 4 miles west and beyond the suburb, Heraclea, lay the paradise of Daphne, a park of woods and waters, in the midst of which rose a great temple to the Pythian Apollo, founded by Seleucus I. and enriched with a cult-statue of the god, as Musagetes, by Bryaxis. A companion sanctuary of Hecate was constructed underground by Diocletian. The beauty and the lax morals of Daphne were celebrated all over the western world; and indeed Antioch as a whole shared in both these titles to fame. Its amenities awoke both the enthusiasm and the scorn of many writers of antiquity. Antioch became the capital and court-city of the western Seleucid empire under Antiochus I, its counterpart in the east being Seleucia on the Tigris; but its paramount importance dates from the battle of Ancyra (240 BC), which shifted the Seleucid centre of gravity from Asia Minor, and led indirectly to the rise of Pergamum. Thenceforward the Seleucids resided at Antioch and treated it as their capital par excellence. We know little of it in the Greek period, apart from Syria, all our information coming from authors of the late Roman time. Among its great Greek buildings we hear only of the theatre, of which substructures still remain on the flank of Silpius, and of the royal palace, probably situated on the island. It enjoyed a great reputation for letters and the arts (Cicero pro Archia, 3); but the only names of distinction in these pursuits during the Seleucid period, that have come down to us, are Apollophanes, the Stoic, and one Phoebus, a writer on dreams. The mass of the population seems to have been only superficially Hellenic, and to have spoken Aramaic in non-official life. The nicknames which they gave to their later kings were Aramaic; and, except Apollo and Daphne, the great divinities of north Syria seem to have remained essentially native, such as the "Persian Artemis" of Meroe and Atargatis of Hierapolis Bambyce. We may infer, from its epithet, "Golden," that the external appearance of Antioch was magnificent; but the city needed constant restoration owing to the seismic disturbances to which the district has always been peculiarly liable. The first great earthquake is said by the native chronicler John Malalas, who tells us most that we know of the city, to have occurred in 148 BC, and to have done immense damage. The inhabitants were turbulent, fickle and notoriously dissolute. In the many dissensions of the Seleucid house they took violent part, and frequently rose in rebellion, for example against Alexander Balas in 147 BC, and Demetrius II in 129. The latter, enlisting a body of Jews, punished his capital with fire and sword. In the last struggles of the Seleucid house, Antioch turned definitely against its feeble rulers, invited Tigranes of Armenia to occupy the city in 83, tried to unseat Antiochus XIII in 65, and petitioned Rome against his restoration in the following year. Its wish prevailed, and it passed with Syria to the Roman Republic in 64 BC, but remained a civitas libera. The Romans both felt and expressed boundless contempt for the hybrid Antiochenes; but their emperors favoured the city from the first, seeing in it a more suitable capital for the eastern part of the empire than Alexandria could ever be, thanks to the isolated position of Egypt. To a certain extent they tried to make it an eastern Rome. Caesar visited it in 47 BC, and confirmed its freedom. A great temple to Jupiter Capitolinus rose on Silpius, probably at the instance of Octavian, whose cause the city had espoused. A forum of Roman type was laid out. Tiberius built two long colonnades on the south towards Silpius. Agrippa and Tiberius enlarged the theatre, and Trajan finished their work. Antoninus Pius paved the great east to west artery with granite. A circus, other colonnades and great numbers of baths were built, and new aqueducts to supply them bore the names of Caesars, the finest being the work of Hadrian. The Roman client, King Herod, erected a long stoa on the east, and Agrippa encouraged the growth of a new suburb south of this. Agrippa.]] Under the empire we chiefly hear of the earthquakes which shook Antioch. One, in AD 37, caused the emperor Caligula to send two senators to report on the condition of the city. Another followed in the next reign; and in 115, during Trajan's sojourn in the place with his army of Parthia, the whole site was convulsed, the landscape altered, and the emperor himself forced to take shelter in the circus for several days. He and his successor restored the city; but in 526, after minor shocks, the calamity returned in a terrible form; the octagonal cathedral which had been erected by the emperor Constantius II suffered and thousands of lives were lost, largely those of Christians gathered to a great church assembly. We hear also of especially terrific earthquakes on November 29 528 and October 31 588. At Antioch Germanicus died in AD 19, and his body was burnt in the forum. Titus set up the Cherubim, captured from the Jewish temple, over one of the gates. Commodus had Olympic games celebrated at Antioch, and in 266 the town was suddenly raided by the Persians, who slew many in the theatre. In 387 there was a great sedition caused by a new tax levied by order of Theodosius, and the city was punished by the loss of its metropolitan status. Zeno, who renamed it Theopolis, restored many of its public buildings just before the great earthquake of 526, whose destructive work was completed by the Persian Chosroes twelve years later. Justinian I made an effort to revive it, and Procopius describes his repairing of the walls; but its glory was past. The chief interest of Antioch under the empire lies in its relation to Christianity. Evangelized perhaps by Peter, according to the tradition upon which the Antiochene patriarchate still rests its claim for primacy (cf. Acts xi.), and certainly by Barnabas and Paul, who here preached his first Christian sermon in a synagogue, its converts were the first to be called Christians (Acts 11:26). They multiplied exceedingly, and by the time of Theodosius were reckoned by Chrysostom at about 100,000 souls. Between 252 and 300 A.D. ten assemblies of the church were held at Antioch and it became the seat of one of the four original patriarchates, along with Jerusalem, Alexandria, and Rome (see Pentarchy). Today Antioch remains the seat of a patriarchate of the Oriental Orthodox churches. One of the canonical Eastern Orthodox churches is still called the Antiochian Orthodox Church, although it moved its headquarters from Antioch to Damascus, Syria, several centuries ago (see list of Patriarchs of Antioch), and its prime bishop retains the title "Patriarch of Antioch," somewhat analogous to the manner in which several Popes, heads of the Roman Catholic Church remained "Bishop of Rome" even while residing in Avignon, France in the 14th Century of the Common Era. When Julian visited the place in 362 the impudent population railed at him for his favour to Jewish and pagan rites, and to revenge itself for the closing of its great church of Constantine, burned down the temple of Apollo in Daphne. The emperor's rough and severe habits and his rigid administration prompted Antiochene lampoons, to which he replied in the curious satiric apologia, still extant, which he called Misopogon. His successor, Valens, who endowed Antioch with a new forum having a statue of Valentinian on a central column, reopened the great church, which stood till the sack of Chosroes in 538. Antioch gave its name to a certain school of Christian thought, distinguished by literal interpretation of the Scriptures and insistence on the human limitations of Jesus. Diodorus of Tarsus and Theodore of Mopsuestia were the leaders of this school. The principal local saint was Simeon Stylites, who performed his penance on a hill some 40 miles east. His body was brought to the city and buried in a building erected under the emperor Leo. Leo In 638, during the reign of Heraclius, Antioch passed into Saracen hands, and (as Arabic أنطاكيّة Antākiyyah) decayed apace for more than 300 years; but in 969 it was recovered for the Byzantine Emperor Nicephorus II Phocas by Michael Burza and Peter the Eunuch. In 1084 the Seljuk Turks captured it but held it only fourteen years, yielding place to the Crusaders, who besieged it for nine months during the First Crusade, enduring frightful sufferings. Being at last betrayed, it was given to Bohemund, prince of Tarentum, and it remained the capital of the Latin Principality of Antioch for nearly two centuries. It fell at last to the Egyptian Mamluk Sultan Baibars, in 1268, after a great destruction and slaughter. Together with the fact that large ships could no longer enter the Orontes because too much sand had accumulated in the river bed over the centuries, that meant it was never to become a major city again, with much of its former role falling to the port city of Alexandretta (Iskenderun). Little remains now of the ancient city, except colossal ruins of aqueducts and part of the Roman walls, which are used as quarries for modern Antakia; but no scientific examination of the site has been made. A statue in the Vatican and a silver statuette in the British Museum perpetuate the type of its great effigy of the civic Fortune of Antioch--a majestic seated figure, with Orontes as a youth issuing from under her feet. Antakya, the modern town, is still of considerable importance. It is still the centre of a large district, growing in wealth and productiveness with the draining of its central lake, undertaken by a French company. In 1822 (as in 1872) Antakia suffered by earthquake, and when Ibrahim Pasha made it his headquarters in 1835, it had only some 5000 inhabitants. Its hopes, based on a Euphrates valley railway, which was to have started from its port of Suedia (Seleucia), were doomed to disappointment, and it suffered repeatedly from visitations of cholera; but it did nevertheless grow rapidly and resumed much of its old importance when a railway was made down the lower Orontes valley. Antakya is the capital of the province Hatay. Many other cities within the Seleucid empire were also named Antioch, most of them founded by Seleucus I Nicator. It is said of Seleucus I Nicator that "few princes have ever lived with so great a passion for the building of cities. He is reputed to have built in all nine Seleucias, sixteen Antiochs, and six Laodiceas". For instance Pisidian Antioch in Central-West Turkey is where Saint Paul gave his first sermon to the Gentiles (Acts 13:13-52{{{

Antioch (disambiguation)

Antioch may refer to: ;Cities in the Seleucid Empire
- Antioch on the Orontes (Syrian Antioch), now Antakya in Turkey
  - Principality of Antioch, a Crusader state
  - St. Ignatius of Antioch, a 1st century bishop
- Antioch on the Maeander
- Antioch, Mygdonia, in ancient Mesopotamia, later named Nisibis, now Nusaybin in Turkey
- Antioch, Pisidia ;Places in the USA:
- Antioch, California
- Antioch, Illinois
- Antioch, Ohio
- Antioch, Tennessee
- Antioch College, a university in Yellow Springs, Ohio ;Or
- Antioch, Ontario, Canada
- Pertuis d'Antioche, France



Orontes River

] The Orontes or ‘Asi is a river of Lebanon and Syria. It was anciently the chief river of Syria, also called Draco, Typhon and Axius. The last was a native form, from whose revival, or continuous employment in native speech, has proceeded the modern name ‘Asi ("rebel"), which is variously interpreted by Arabs as referring to the stream’s impetuosity, to its unproductive channel, or to the fact that it flows away from Mecca. The Orontes rises in the great springs of Labweh on the east side of the Bekaa valley, very near the fountains of the southward-flowing Litani, and it runs due north, parallel with the coast, falling 2000 feet (600 m) through a rocky gorge. Leaving this it expands into the Lake of Homs, having been dammed back in antiquity. The valley now widens out into the rich district of Hamah (Hamaih-Epiphaneia), below which lie the broad meadow-lands of GMb, containing the sites of ancient Apamea and Larissa. This central Orontes valley ends at the rocky barrier of Jisr al-Hadid, where the river is diverted to the west, and the plain of Antioch opens. Two large tributaries from the north, the Afrin and Kara Su, here reach it through the former Lake of Antioch, which is now drained through an artificial channel (Nahr al-Kowsit). Passing north of the modern Antakya (ancient Antioch) the Orontes plunges southwest into a gorge (compared by the ancients to Tempe), and falls 150 feet (50 m) in 10 miles (16 km) to the sea just south of the little port of Samandagi (former Suedia, in antiquity Seleucia Pieria), after a total course of 150 miles (240 km). Mainly unnavigable and of little use for irrigation, the Orontes derives its historical importance solely from the convenience of its valley for traffic from north to south; roads from the north and northeast, converging at Antioch, follow the course of the stream up to Homs, where they fork to Damascus and to Syria and the south; and along its valley have passed the armies and traffic bound to and from Egypt in all ages. On the Orontes was fought the Battle of Kadesh during the reign of Ramesses II (1304 – 1237 BC). By the Orontes the Battle of Karkar was fought in 853 BC, when the army of Assyria, led by king Shalmaneser III, encountered an allied army of 12 kings led by Hadadezer of Damascus. The Orontes has long been a boundary marker. For the Egyptians it marked the northern extremity of Amurru, east of Phoenicia. For the Crusaders in the 12th century, the Orontes River became the permanent boundary between the Principality of Antioch and that of Aleppo.

See also


- Battle of Kadesh

External link


- [http://www.syrialive.net/Tourism/MajorSites/aassi/aassi.htm SyriaLive.net page on Orontes, with photos]

References


- Category:Levant Category:Rivers of Lebanon Category:Rivers of Syria Category:Rivers of Turkey

Greek people

:For other uses of the name "Greek", see Greek (disambiguation) The Greeks are a nation and ethnic group, who have populated Greece from the 17th century BC until the present day.

Identity of the Greek people

17th century BC

Classical and Roman

Herodotus states that the Athenians declared, before the battle of Plataea, that they would not go over to Mardonius, because in the first place, they were bound to avenge the burning of the Acropolis; and, secondly, they would not betray their fellow Greeks, to whom they were bound by:
- A common language1 (the use of one of the dialects of the Greek language)
- Common blood2 (descent from Hellen, son of Deucalion)
- Common shrines, statues and sacrifices (practice of the ancient Greek religion)3 and
- Common habits and customs.  This notion that the Greeks had a common descent was then comparatively recent. As Thucydides observes, the name of Hellas spread from a valley in Thessaly to the Greek-speaking peoples after the formation of the text of Homer (the Panellenes of Il. 2.530 are the troops of Thessaly, contrasting with the Achaeans), not long before his own time. This places the idea in the Archaic period, when Greek-speakers discovered that the world was wider, wealthier, and more cultured than they had hitherto imagined. Homer's Trojan War is, indeed, a conflict among Greeks: the Trojans speak Greek, bear Greek names, and worship the Greek gods; and Priam is descended from Zeus (see Alaksandus). The Carians are the only people Homer considers barbarophonoi. Nor did the late and schematic myth of the sons of Hellen ever convince other mythographers to comply with it. Theseus is descended from Erechtheus, son of the Earth; Oedipus from the Phoenician Cadmus; Agamemnon from Phrygian Pelops; Heracles and Perseus from Egyptian Danaus. Whole cities were not descended from Hellen: Athens, Lemnos, and the Cretans were Pelasgian; and 1 Maccabees 12:21 attests that the Spartans are children of Abraham. The myth of Hellen combined into one group the smaller tribes that participated in the Delphic Amphictyon, such as the Aeolians, the Achaeans, and the Dorians. Traces of the older distinctions remained; Dorians were forbidden in the Parthenon; although the Spartan king Cleomenes I claimed this did not apply to him — as a descendant of Heracles, he was an Achaean. (As in this example, the Greeks almost always reckoned descent only through the male line.) So the exact nature of Greek identity has been an open question since ancient times. It has not become clearer with time: descent is at best a matter of tradition, and the Greeks have altered their language, religion, and customs since Herodotus. Nevertheless, there has been, in practice, a continuous Greek identity since ancient times, containing at least those who chose to be Greek and who had citizenship in a Greek city, or membership of a Greek community. As early as the 5th century BC, Isocrates, after speaking of common origin and worship, says: "the name Hellenes suggests no longer a race but an intelligence, and... the title Hellenes is applied rather to those who share our culture than to those who share a common blood". [http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0144:speech=4:section=50|Panegyric 4.50]. After the 4th century BC, Greek became the lingua franca of the East Mediterranean region and was widely spoken by educated non-Greeks. After the 4th century AD, Greeks became Christian. (In the Judeo-Christian tradition, Greeks are descended from Javan, son of Japheth).

Byzantine and Ottoman

Japheth family of Byzantine emperors.]] After the creation of the Eastern Roman Empire, Greek culture shifted from Hellenic (Greek pagan) to Romaic (Greek paganism fused with Christianity), and the word "Hellene" became associated with the pagan past. All Roman citizens, and thus all subjects of the Byzantine Empire, were Romaic. Distinctions between nationalities among the citizens of the Eastern Roman Empire did not become extinct, but became secondary to religious considerations as the renewed Empire used Christianity to maintain its cohesion. It was religion that divided the Empire from the Muslims; and, along different lines, it came to divide the Empire from the Franks, Armenians, Copts, and Syrians. Greek nationalism was reborn after the fall of Constantinople to the Crusaders of the Fourth Crusade in 1204, and the establishment of a number of Greek kingdoms (such as the Empire of Nicaea and the Despotate of Epirus). When the empire was revived in 1261, it became essentially a Greek national state. Adherence to Greek Orthodox rites became the defining characteristic of the Greek people. During the Ottoman rule of Greece, Greek Orthodox Christianity was the only Greek community; the Ottomans considered religion to be the defining characteristic of "national" groups (millet). Greeks who adopted Islam during that period were considered 'Turks'. Following this definition, Alexander Ypsilanti expected the Moldavians and Wallachians, being Greek Orthodox, to rise for Greek independence; but they did not.

Modern independence

This strong relation between Greek national identity and Greek Orthodox religion continued after the creation of the modern Greek state in 1830, and when the Treaty of Lausanne was signed between Greece and Turkey in 1923, the two countries agreed to use religion as the determinant for ethnic identity. However, in many important respects, the Greek state adhered from its founding to remarkably secular principles. For instance, Jews were granted full citizens rights in 1830, the year Greece's independence was formally recognized, thus making Greece the second state in Europe (after France) with an emancipated Jewish community. Today, the deeper integration of Greece into the Western strategic system and the effects of migration (both emigration from Greece in the 1950s and 1960s, and immigration into Greece in more recent years) have led to a perception of Greek national identity similar to that of other Western European nations. The Greek Orthodox faith is now only one of a variety of factors that yield Greek identity.

Names used for the Greek people

Main Article: Names of the Greeks. Names of the Greeks Throughout the centuries, the Greeks have been known by a number of names, including:
- Hellenes (Έλληνες) - In mythology, Hellen, son of Deucalion and Pyrrha, received from the nymph Orseis three sons, Aeolus, Dorus and Xuthus, each of which founded a primary tribe of Hellas; Aeolians, Dorians, Achaeans and Ionians. Originally, only a small tribe in Thessaly were called Hellenes, but the word soon extended to the rest of the peninsula and came to represent all Greek people. In early Christian times it was sometimes used to mean "pagans". It remains in Greece today, the primary national name.
- Greeks (Γραικοί) - In mythology, Graecus was the brother of Latinus and niece to Hellen. It was the name of a Boeotian tribe that migrated to Italy in the 8th century BC and probably through contact with natives there brought the term to represent all Hellenes, which then established itself in Italy and in the West in general.
- Romioi (Ρωμιοί) - Romans is the political name by which the Greeks were known during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. The name originally signified the inhabitants of the city of Rome in Italy, but with the elevation of the Greeks in the Roman Empire, it soon lost its connection with the Latins. Emperor Caracella granted all free people in the Roman Empire citizenship, but the Greeks transmogrified the term Roman into the term Romaion. The term was created in order to establish a dualistic connotation that represented the Greeks' Roman citizenship and their Hellenic ancestry. The word Romaions came to represent the Greek inhabitants of the Byzantine Empire. It remains still in use today in Greece, being the most popular national name after Hellene.
- Yunani (Ίωνες) - Yunani, from the Persian Yauna, itself a transliteration of the Greek Ionia, is the name by which the Greeks are known in the East today. The term became established in the ancient Middle East from the Persians, who in contact with the Ionian tribes in western Asia Minor in the 6th century BC, extended the name to all Hellenes.
- Achaeans, Argives, and Danaans are names used interchangeably by Homer, to signify the Greek allied forces.

History of the Greeks

The history of the Greek people is closely associated with the history of Greece itself. While Greeks have migrated away from Greece for many centuries, historically these colonists or emigrants remained close to their homeland. During the Ottoman rule of Greece, a number of Greek enclaves around the Mediterranean were cut off from the core, notably in Southern Italy, the Caucasus, Syria,and Egypt. During the 20th century, a huge wave of migration to the United States, Australia, Canada,and elsewhere created a Greek diaspora which, in many ways, has developed a cultural identity separate from that of the Greeks who remained home.

Greeks around the world

Outside Greece and Cyprus, large Greek communities can be found in a number of countries:
- United States: 1,153,295 (self-reported heritage); 365,435 speak Greek at home. (2000 Census). See Greek-Americans.
- Germany: 363,000 (1995, based on citizenship)
- Canada: 203,354 born in Greece4 (1996 Census); total approx. 320,000 Canadians of Greek heritage (2003 community estimates). See Greek-Canadians
- Australia: 260,000 speak Greek at home (1996 Census); 336,782 self-reported Greek origin (1986 Census[http://www.hellenism.net/cgi-bin/display_article.html?s=49&a=172]). See Greek-Australians
- Albania: 36,000-300,000 by different estimates: 36,000 (Albanian Institute of Statistics, reported by [http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/3235.htm US Dept. of State], 2005); 62,500 (Albanian census, ibid., 1989); 100,000 ([http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/al.html CIA World Factbook], 1989); 150,000 ([http://www.greekhelsinki.gr/pdf/ghm-greeks-albanians.PDF Greek Helsinki Monitor estimate], 1994); 280,000 (Greek estimate reported by [http://www.unpo.org/news_detail.php?arg=23&par=46 Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization], 2004).
- Former Soviet Union: Approx. 200,000 remain; 300,000 have migrated to Greece (2003, figures not reliable). Significant Greek communities can also be found in the United Kingdom (mostly Greek Cypriots), Argentina, Mexico, Sweden and South Africa.

Timeline of Greek migrations

South Africa Practically every event in this timeline is disputed by one theory or another. This timeline attempts to represent the mainstream views of modern Greek historians. Some key historical events have also been included for context, but this timeline is not intended to cover history not related to migrations. For more information on the historical context of these migrations, please see History of Greece.
- 20th century BC — Greek tribes migrate into Macedonia (most likely from the Caucasus region), and establish some settlements in peninsular Greece.
- 17th century BC — Decline of Minoan civilization, possibly due to the eruption of Thera. Greek tribes (Achaeans, Ionians) enter southern Greece, establishing the Mycenaean civilization. Greek history begins.
- 13th century BC — First colonies established in Asia Minor.
- 11th century BC — Doric tribes move into peninsular Greece.
- 9th century BC — Major colonization of Asia Minor.
- 8th century BC — First colonies established in Sicily and Southern Italy.
- 6th century BC — Colonies established across the Mediterranean and the Black Sea
- 4th century BC — Campaign of Alexander the Great; colonies established in Egypt and the Middle East.
- 2nd century BC — Conquest of Greece by the Roman Empire.
- 4th century — Establishment of Eastern Roman Empire. Migrations of Greeks throughout the Empire, and of non-Greeks into Greece over the next 6 centuries.
- 13th century — Dissolution of Eastern Roman Empire. Re-emergence of Greek nationalism.
- 14th century — Eastern Roman Empire recreated and refashioned as a Greek state.
- 15th century — Conquest of Greece by the Ottoman Empire . Greek diaspora into Europe begins. Turkish settlements in Greece.
- 1830s — Creation of the Modern Greek State. Immigration to the New World begins.
- 1913 — Macedonia partitioned; Population exchange with Bulgaria; Greek presence in Bulgaria and presence of Slavic peoples in Greece practically end.
- 1910s — Genocide of Pontian Greeks; approximately 350,000 killed.
- 1923 — Treaty of Lausanne. 1.3 million Greeks removed from the newly created Republic of Turkey; 500,000 Turks and other Muslims removed from Greece. Muslim Greeks remain in Turkey. 50,000 Christian Greeks in Constantinople and a number of Muslims in Greek (Western) Thrace excluded from the exchange.
- 1948 — Greek Civil War. Tens of thousands of Greek communists and their families flee into Eastern Bloc nations. Thousands settle in Tashkent.
- 1950s — Massive emigration of Greeks to West Germany, the United States, Australia, Canada, and other countries. Large Greek community in Alexandria flees Nasser's regime in Egypt.
- 1955 — Istanbul Pogrom against Greeks. Exodus of Greeks from the city accelerates; less than 2000 remain today.
- 1960s — Republic of Cyprus created, as a joint Greek–Turkish state. Economic emigration continues.
- 1974 — Turkish invasion of Northern Cyprus. Almost all Greeks living in northern Cyprus flee to the south; many flee to the United Kingdom.
- 1980s — Civil war refugees allowed to remigrate to Greece. Reverse migration of Greeks from Germany also begins.
- 1990s — Collapse of Soviet Union. Approx. 300,000 ethnic Greeks migrate from Georgia, Armenia and southern Russia to Greece. Approx 35,000 ethnic Greeks migrate from Albania to Greece.
- 2000s — Schengen Treaty increases population mobility within the European Union. Numbers indicate a trend of reverse migration of Greeks from the United States and Australia beginning.

Footnotes

1In Greek: homoglosson () + 2In Greek: homaimon () 3Compare the Christian Greek and Demotic term omothriskon (). 4Includes non-Greeks born in Greece; excludes Greeks not born in Greece; excludes second-generation Greek-Canadians.

Miscellaneous topics


- Greece
- Greek Language
- History of Greece
- Ancient Greece
- Greek mythology
- Hellenistic civilization
- Byzantine Empire
- Byzantium
- List of Greeks
- Greek American
- Category:Greek-Americans
- Greek Canadians
- Greek Australian

External links


- [http://www.chs.harvard.edu/activities_events.sec/conferences.ssp/conf_greeks_on_greekness.pg Greeks on Greekness: The Construction and Uses of the Greek Past among Greeks under the Roman Empire], a conference on how Greeks imagined Greekness in relation to the past during the first two centuries of the Roman Empire. Category:Ethnic groups of Greece Category:Ethnic groups of Macedonia Category:Indo-European peoples

4th century BC

(2nd millennium BC - 1st millennium BC - 1st millennium) ----

Overview

Events


- Invasion of the Celts into Ireland
- Battle of the Allia and subsequent Gaulish sack of Rome
- 383 BCE Second Buddhist Councel at Vesali. 100 years after the Parimirvana.
- 312 BCE Seleucus I Nicator established himself in Babylon. Begins the Seleucid Empire.
- 323 BCE Alexander the Great conqueres the Persian Empire.
- Kingdom of Macedon conquers Persian empire
- The Scythians are beginning to be absorbed into the Sarmatian people.
- The Romans conquer the Abruzzi region, decline of the Etruscan civilization

Significant persons


- Marcus Furius Camillus, Roman dictator (c.446–365 BC).
- Plato, philosopher (c.427–347 BC).
- Tollund Man, Human sacrifice victim on the Jutland Peninsula in Denmark, possibly the earliest known evidence for worship of Odin.
- Aristotle, philosopher and scientist (384–322 BC).
- Philip II of Macedon (born 382, reigned 359–336 BC).
- Darius III of Persia, last King of the Achaemenid dynasty (born 380, reigned 359–330 BC).
- Mencius, Chinese philosopher and sage (371–289 BC).
- Ptolemy I Soter, founder of the Ptolemaic dynasty (c.367–283 BC).
- Shang Yang, Prime Minister of Qin, his reform helped Qin to become the strongest country and later unified China (term 361–338 BC).
- Seleucus I Nicator, founder of the Seleucid Empire (c.358–281 BC).
- Alexander the Great, King of Macedon, invades Asia Minor, Persia and reaches India (born 356, reigned 336–323 BC).
- Brennus, Gaulish chieftain

Inventions, discoveries, introductions


- Oldest Brahmi script dates from this period (Brahmi is the ancestor of Indic scripts)
- Romans build first aqueduct
- Chinese use bellows

Decades and years

Category:4th century BC ko:기원전 4세기 ja:紀元前4世紀

Seleucus I Nicator

Seleucus I (surnamed for later generations Nicator, Greek: Σέλευκος Νικάτωρ) (c. 358 BC–281 BC), Macedonian officer of Alexander the Great. In the wars of the Diadochi that took place after Alexander's death, Seleucus established the Seleucid dynasty and Seleucid Empire.

Early career & ascent to power

Seleucid Empire Seleucus was the son of Antiochus, one of Philip's generals, and of Laodice. In 333 BC, as a young man of about twenty-three, he accompanied Alexander into Asia and won distinction in the Indian campaign of 326 BC. When the Macedonian empire was divided in 323 BC (the "Partition of Babylon"), Seleucus was given the office of chiliarch, which attached him closely to the regent Perdiccas. Subsequently, Seleucus had a hand in the murder of Perdiccas during the latter's unsuccessful invasion of Egypt in 321 BC. At the second partition, at Triparadisus (321 BC), Seleucus was given the government of the Babylonian satrapy. In 316 BC, when Antigonus had made himself master of the eastern provinces, Seleucus felt himself threatened and fled to Egypt. In the war which followed between Antigonus and the other Macedonian chiefs, Seleucus actively cooperated with Ptolemy and commanded Egyptian squadrons in the Aegean Sea. The victory won by Ptolemy at the battle of Gaza in 312 BC opened the way for Seleucus to return to the east. His return to Babylon in that year was afterwards officially regarded as the beginning of the Seleucid Empire. Master of Babylonia, Seleucus at once proceeded to wrest the neighbouring provinces of Persia, Susiana and Media from the nominees of Antigonus. A raid into Babylonia conducted in 311 BC by Demetrius, son of Antigonus, did not seriously check Seleucus' progress. Over the course of nine years (311-302 BC), while Antigonus was occupied in the west, Seleucus brought the whole eastern part of Alexander's empire as far as the Jaxartes and Indus Rivers under his authority. In 305 BC, after the extinction of the old royal line of Macedonia, Seleucus, like the other four principal Macedonian chiefs, assumed the title and style of King. He established Seleucia on the Tigris as his capital.

Establishing the Seleucid state

His attempt to restore Macedonian rule beyond the Indus, where Chandragupta Maurya had established himself, was not successful. Seleucus entered the Punjab advancing, according to some sources, as far as Pataliputra; but in the end in a peace treaty signed between the two kings in 302 BC Seleucus not only renounced to the indian territories, but in exchange for the Afghan province of Paropamisus he obtained 500 elelephants which were to play a key role in the battle that were to come. To cement the treaty Chandragupta also married Helen, Seleucus' daughter. In 301 BC he joined Lysimachus in Asia Minor, and at Ipsus Antigonus fell before their combined power. A new partition of the empire followed, by which Seleucus added to his kingdom Syria, and perhaps some regions of Asia Minor. The possession of Syria gave him an opening to the Mediterranean, and he immediately founded here the new city of Antioch on the Orontes River as his chief seat of government. Seleucia on the Tigris continued to be the capital for the eastern satrapies. About 293 BC, he installed his son Antiochus there as viceroy, the vast extent of the empire seeming to require a double government. It is said of Seleucus that "few princes have ever lived with so great a passion for the building of cities. He is reputed to have built in all nine Seleucias, sixteen Antiochs, and six Laodiceas". Antiochus The capture of Demetrius in 285 BC added to Seleucus's prestige. The unpopularity of Lysimachus after the murder of Agathocles gave Seleucus an opportunity for removing his last rival. His intervention in the west was solicited by Ptolemy Keraunos, who, on the accession to the Egyptian throne of his brother Ptolemy II (285 BC), had at first taken refuge with Lysimachus and then with Seleucus. War between Seleucus and Lysimachus broke out, and at the decisive battle of Corupedium in Lydia, Lysimachus fell (281 BC). Seleucus now held the whole of Alexander's conquests excepting Egypt in his hands, and moved to take possession of Macedonia and Thrace. He intended to leave Asia to Antiochus and content himself for the remainder of his days with the Macedonian kingdom in its old limits. He had, however, hardly crossed into the Chersonese when he was assassinated by Ptolemy Keraunos near Lysimachia (281 BC).

External links


- [http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~jamesdow/s008/f069878.htm A genealogical tree of Seleucus]

References


-
- Seleukos Nikator: Constructing a Hellenistic Kingdom by John D. Grainger ISBN 0415047013 Category:358 BC births Category:281 BC deaths Category:Ancient Greeks Category:Ancient Greek generals Category:Seleucid rulers Category:Alexander the Great ja:セレウコス1世

Alexander the Great

mosaic, from a 3rd century BC original Greek painting, now lost).]] Alexander the Great (in Greek , transliterated Megas Alexandros; born in Pella, Macedon, in July, 356 BC, died in Babylon, on June 10, 323 BC), King of Macedon 336–323 BC, was arguably the most successful military commander of ancient history, conquering most of the known world before his death. Alexander is also known in Zoroastrian Middle Persian works such as the Arda Wiraz as "the accursed Alexander" due to his conquest of the Persian Empire and the destruction of its capital Persepolis. He is also known in Eastern traditions as Dhul-Qarnayn (the two-horned one), apparently due to an image on coins minted during his rule that seemingly depicted him with the two ram's horns of the Egyptian god Ammon. In north-west India and modern-day Pakistan, he is known as Sikandar-e-Azam (Alexander the Great) and many male children are named Sikandar after him. Following the unification of the multiple city-states of ancient Greece under the rule of his father, Philip II of Macedon, (a labor Alexander had to repeat twice because the southern Greeks rebelled after Philip's death), Alexander conquered the Persian Empire, including Anatolia, Syria, Phoenicia, Gaza, Egypt, Bactria and Mesopotamia and extended the boundaries of his own empire as far as the Punjab. Alexander integrated non-Greeks into his army and administration, leading some scholars to credit him with a "policy of fusion." He encouraged marriage between Greeks and non-Greeks, and practiced it himself. After twelve years of constant military campaigning, Alexander died, possibly of malaria, typhoid or a viral encephalitis. His conquests ushered in centuries of Greek settlement and rule over non-Greek areas, a period known as the Hellenistic Age. Alexander himself lived on in the history and myth of both Greek and non-Greek peoples. Already during his lifetime, and especially after his death, his exploits inspired a literary tradition in which he appears as a towering legendary hero in the tradition of Achilles.

Early life

Achilles.]] Alexander was the son of King Philip II of Macedon and of Epirote princess Olympias. According to Plutarch (Alexander 3.1,3), Olympias was impregnated not by Philip, who was afraid of her and her affinity for sleeping in the company of snakes, but by Zeus. Plutarch (Alexander 2.2-3) relates that both Philip and Olympias dreamt of their son's future birth. Olympias dreamed of a loud burst of thunder and of lightning striking her womb. In Philip's dream, he sealed her womb with the seal of the lion. Alarmed by this, he consulted the seer Aristander of Telmessus, who determined that his wife was pregnant and that the child would have the character of a lion. Aristotle was Alexander's tutor; he gave Alexander a thorough training in rhetoric and literature and stimulated his interest in science, medicine, and philosophy. After his visit to the Oracle of Ammon at Siwah, according to all five of the extant historians (Arrian, Curtius, Diodorus, Justin, and Plutarch), rumors spread that the Oracle had revealed Alexander's father to be Zeus, rather than Philip. According to Plutarch (Alexander 2.1), his father descended from Heracles through Caranus and his mother descended from Aeacus through Neoptolemus and Achilles.

The ascent of Macedon

When Philip led an attack on Byzantium in 340 BC, Alexander, aged 16, was left in command of Macedonia. In 339 BC, Philip divorced Alexander's mother which led to a quarrel between Alexander and his father and threw into question Alexander's succession to the Macedonian throne. In 338 BC, Philip created the League of Corinth. Alexander also assisted his father at the decisive battle of Chaeronea in this year. The cavalry wing led by Alexander annihilated the Sacred Band of Thebes, an elite corps previously regarded as invincible. Philip was content to deprive Thebes of her dominion over Boeotia and leave a Macedonian garrison in the citadel. In 336 BC, Philip was assassinated at the wedding of his daughter Cleopatra to King Alexander of Epirus. The assassin was supposedly a former lover of the king, the disgruntled young nobleman (Pausanias), who held a grudge against Philip because the king had ignored a complaint he had expressed. Philip's murder was once thought to have been planned with the knowledge and involvement of Alexander or Olympias. Another possible instigator could have been Darius III, the recently crowned King of Persia. Plutarch mentions an irate letter from Alexander to Darius, where Alexander blames Darius and Bagoas, his grand vizier, for his father's murder, stating that it was Darius who had been bragging with the Greek cities of how he managed to assassinate Philip. After Philip's death, the army proclaimed Alexander, then aged 20, as the new king of Macedon. Greek cities like Athens and Thebes, which had been forced to pledge allegiance to Philip, saw in the new king an opportunity to retake their full independence. Alexander moved swiftly and Thebes, which had been most active against him, submitted when he ap­peared at its gates. The assembled Greeks at the Isthmus of Corinth, with the sole exception of the Spartans, elected him to the command against Persia, which had previously been bestowed upon his father. The next year, (335 BC), Alexander felt free to engage the Thracians and the Illyrians in order to secure the Danube as the northern boundary of the Macedonian kingdom. While he was triumphantly campaigning north, the Thebans and Athenians rebelled once again. Alexander reacted immediately and while the other cities once again hesitated, Thebes decided this time to resist with the utmost vigor. However, the resistance was all useless and in the end, the city was conquered with great bloodshed. Yet, the Thebans would encounter an ever harsher fate when their city was razed to the ground and its territory divided between the other Boeotian cities. Moreover, all of the city's citzens were sold into slavery, sparing only the priests, the leaders of the pro-Macedonian party and the descendants of Pindar, whose house was the only one left untouched. The end of Thebes cowed Athens into submission and readily accepted Alexander's demand for the exile of all the leaders of the anti-Macedonian party, Demosthenes first of all.

Period of conquests

Demosthenes

The defeat of the Persian Empire

Alexander's army had crossed the Hellespont with about 40,000 soldiers, which primarily consisted of Macedonians, Greeks, Thracians, Paionians, and Illyrians. After an initial victory against Persian forces at the Battle of Granicus, Alexander accepted the surrender of the Persian provincial capital and treasury of Sardis and proceeded down the Ionian coast. At Halicarnassus, Alexander successfully waged the first of many sieges, eventually forcing his opponents, the mercenary captain Memnon of Rhodes and the Persian satrap of Caria, Orontobates, to withdraw by sea. Alexander left Caria in the hands of Ada, who was ruler of Caria before being deposed by her brother Pixodarus. From Halicarnassus, Alexander proceeded into mountainous Lycia and the Pamphylian plain, asserting control over all coastal cities and denying them to his enemy. From Pamphylia onward, the coast held no major ports and so Alexander moved inland. At Termessus, Alexander humbled but did not storm the Pisidian city. At the ancient Phrygian capital of Gordium, Alexander "undid" the tangled Gordian knot, a feat said to await the future "king of Asia." According to the most vivid story, Alexander proclaimed that it did not matter how the knot was undone, and he hacked it apart with his sword. Another version claims that he did not use the sword, but actually figured out how to undo the knot. Asia Alexander's army crossed the Cilician Gates, met and defeated the main Persian army under the command of Darius III at the Battle of Issus in 333 BC. Darius fled this battle in such a panic for his life that he left behind his wife, his children, his mother, and much of his personal treasure. Sisygambis, the queen mother, never forgave Darius for abandoning her. She disowned him and adopted Alexander as her son instead. Proceeding down the Mediterranean coast, he took Tyre and Gaza after famous sieges (see Siege of Tyre). Alexander passed near but probably did not visit Jerusalem. In 332 BC - 331 BC, Alexander was welcomed as a liberator in Egypt and was pronounced the son of Zeus by Egyptian priests of the god Ammon at the Oracle of the god at the Siwa Oasis in the Libyan desert. He founded Alexandria in Egypt, which would become the prosperous capital of the Ptolemaic dynasty after his death. Leaving Egypt, Alexander marched eastward into Assyria (now northern Iraq) and defeated Darius and a third Persian army at the Battle of Gaugamela. Darius was forced to flee the field after his charioteer was killed, and Alexander chased him as far as Arbela. While Darius fled over the mountains to Ecbatana (modern Hamadan), Alexander marched to Babylon. Babylon, Xinjiang Museum, China) (drawing).]] From Babylon, Alexander went to Susa, one of the Achaemenid capitals, and captured its treasury. Sending the bulk of his army to Persepolis, the Persian capital, by the Royal Road, Alexander stormed and captured the Persian Gates (in the modern Zagros Mountains), then sprinted for Persepolis before its treasury could be looted. Alexander allowed the League forces to loot Persepolis. A fire broke out in the eastern palace of Xerxes and spread it to the rest of the city. It was not known if it was a drunken accident or a deliberate act of revenge for the burning of the Athenian Acropolis during the Second Persian War. He then set off in pursuit of Darius, who was kidnapped, and then murdered by followers of Bessus, his Bactrian satrap and kinsman. Bessus then declared himself Darius' successor as Artaxerxes V and retreated into Central Asia to launch a guerrilla campaign against Alexander. With the death of Darius, Alexander declared the war of vengeance over, and released his Greek and other allies from service in the League campaign (although he allowed those that wished to re-enlist as mercenaries in his imperial army). His three-year campaign against first Bessus and then the satrap of Sogdiana, Spitamenes, took him through Media, Parthia, Aria, Drangiana, Arachosia, Bactria, and Scythia. In the process, he captured and refounded Herat and Maracanda. Moreover, he founded a series of new cities, all called Alexandria, including modern Kandahar in Afghanistan, and Alexandria Eschate ("The Furthest") in modern Tajikistan. In the end, both were betrayed by their men, Bessus in 329 BC and Spitamenes the year after.

Hostility toward Alexander

During this time, Alexander adopted some elements of Persian dress and customs at his court, notably the custom of proskynesis, a symbolic kissing of the hand that Persians paid to their social superiors, but a practice of which the Greeks disapproved. The Greeks regarded the gesture as the preserve of deities and believed that Alexander meant to deify himself by requiring it. This cost him much in the sympathies of many of his countrymen. Here, too, a plot against his life was revealed, and his companion Philotas was executed for treason for failing to bring the plot to his attention. Parmenion, Philotas' father, who was at the head of an army at Ecbatana, was assassinated by command of Alexander, who feared that Parmenion might attempt to avenge his son. Several other trials for treason followed, and many Macedonians were executed. Later on, in a drunken quarrel at Maracanda, he also killed the man who had saved his life at Granicus, Clitus the Black. Later in the Central Asian campaign, a second plot against his life, this one by his own pages, was revealed, and his official historian, Callisthenes of Olynthus (who had fallen out of favor with the king by leading the opposition to his attempt to introduce proskynesis), was implicated on what many historians regard as trumped-up charges. However, the evidence is strong that Callisthenes, the teacher of the pages, must have been the one who persuaded them to assassinate the king.

The invasion of India

Olynthus.
Obv: Alexander standing, being crowned by Nike, fully armed and holding Zeus' thunderbolt.
Rev: Greek rider, possibly Alexander, attacking an Indian battle-elephant, possibly fleeing Porus.]] With the death of Spitamenes and his marriage to Roxana (Roshanak in Bactrian) to cement his relations with his new Central Asian satrapies, in 326 BC Alexander was finally free to turn his attention to India. King Ambhi, ruler of Taxila, surrendered the city to Alexander. Many people had fled to a high fortress called Aornos. Alexander took Aornos by storm. Alexander fought an epic battle against Porus, a ruler of a region in the Punjab in the Battle of Hydaspes in (326 BC). After attaining victory, Alexander made an alliance with Porus and appointed him as satrap of his own kingdom. Alexander continued on to conquer all the headwaters of the Indus River. East of Porus' kingdom, near the Ganges River, was the powerful empire of Magadha ruled by the Nanda dynasty. Exhausted by years of campaigning, his army mutinied at the Hyphasis (modern Beas), refusing to march further east. Alexander, after the meeting with his officer, Coenus, was convinced that it was better to return. Alexander was forced to turn south, conquering his way down the Indus to the Indian Ocean. He sent much of his army to Carmania (modern southern Iran) with his general Craterus, and commissioned a fleet to explore the Persian Gulf shore under his admiral Nearchus, while he led the rest of his forces back to Persia by the southern route through the Gedrosia (present day Makran in southern Pakistan).

After India

Pakistan, 1673.]] Discovering that many of his satraps and military governors had misbehaved in his absence, Alexander executed a number of them as examples on his way to Susa. As a gesture of thanks, he paid off the debts of his soldiers, and announced that he would send those over-aged and disabled veterans back to Macedonia under Craterus, but his troops misunderstood his intention and mutinied at the town of Opis, refusing to be sent away and bitterly criticizing his adoption of Persian customs and dress and the introduction of Persian officers and soldiers into Macedonian units. Alexander executed the ringleaders of the mutiny, but forgave the rank and file. In an attempt to craft a lasting harmony between his Macedonian and Persian subjects, he held a mass marriage of his senior officers to Persian and other noblewomen at Opis, but few of those marriages seem to have lasted much beyond a year. His attempts to merge Persian culture with his Greek soldiers also included training a regiment of Persian boys in the ways of Macedonians. It is not certain that Alexander adopted the Persian royal title of shahanshah ("great king" or "king of kings"). However, most historians believe that he did. While attacking the ancient city of Mali along the shore of India, he had received a nearly fatal wound from an arrow in his chest. After traveling to Ecbatana to retrieve the bulk of the Persian treasure, his closest friend and probable lover Hephaestion died of an illness. Alexander was distraught and on his return to Babylon, he fell ill and died.

Alexander's marriages and sexuality

Alexander's greatest emotional attachment is generally considered to have been to his companion, cavalry commander (chiliarchos) and probable lover, Hephaestion. They had most likely been best friends since childhood for Hephaestion too received his education at the court of Alexander's father. Hephaestion makes his appearance in history at the point when Alexander reaches Troy. There the two friends made sacrifices at the shrines of the two heroes Achilles and Patroclus, Alexander honoring Achilles, and Hephaestion honoring Patroclus. As Aelian in his Varia Historia (12.7) claims, "He thus intimated that he was the object of Alexander's love, as Patroclus was of Achilles." Many discussed his ambiguous sexuality. Curtius reports that, "He scorned [feminine] sensual pleasures to such an extent that his mother was anxious lest he be unable to beget offspring." To whet his appetite for the fairer sex, King Philip and Olympias brought in a high-priced Thessalian courtesan named Callixena. Later in life, Alexander married several princesses of former Persian territories, Roxana of Bactria, Statira, daughter of Darius III, and Parysatis, daughter of Ochus. He fathered one child, Alexander IV of Macedon, born by Roxana shortly after his death in 323 BC, and he also had in 327 BC a son, (Heracles), by his concubine Barsine, the daughter of satrap Artabazus of Phrygia. Curtius maintains that Alexander also took as a lover "Bagoas, a eunuch exceptional in beauty and in the very flower of boyhood, with whom Darius was intimate and with whom Alexander would later be intimate," (VI.5.23). Bagoas is the only one who is actually named as the eromenos — the beloved — of Alexander. The word is not used even for Hephaestion. Their relationship seems to have been well known among the troops, as Plutarch recounts an episode (also mentioned by Dicaearchus) during some festivities on the way back from India) in which his men clamor for him to openly kiss the young man: "Bagoas [...] sat down close by him, which so pleased the Macedonians, that they made loud acclamations for him to kiss Bagoas, and never stopped clapping their hands and shouting till Alexander put his arms round him and kissed him." At this point in time, the troops present were all survivors of the crossing of the desert. Bagoas must have endeared himself to them by his courage and fortitude during that harrowing episode. Whatever Alexander's relationship with Bagoas, it was no impediment to relations with his queen: six months after Alexander's death Roxana gave birth to his son and heir, Alexander IV. Besides Bagoas, Curtius mentions yet another lover of Alexander, Euxenippus, "whose youthful grace filled him with enthusiasm" (VII.9.19). The suggestion that Alexander was homosexual or bisexual remains highly controversial and excites passions in some quarters. People of various national, ethnic and cultural origins regard him as a national hero. They argue that historical accounts describing Alexander's relations with Hephaestion and Bagoas as sexual were written centuries after the fact, and thus it can never be established what the 'real' relationship between Alexander and his male companions were. Others argue that the same can be said about all our information regarding Alexander. Such debates, however, are considered anachronistic by scholars of the period, who point out that the concept of homosexuality did not exist in Greco-Roman antiquity. Sexual attraction between males was seen as a normal and universal part of human nature since it was believed that men were attracted to beauty, an attribute of the young, regardless of gender. If Alexander's love life was transgressive, it was not for his love of beautiful youths but for his involvement with a man his own age, in a time when the standard model of male love was pederastic. See History of Homosexuality for more information.

The army of Alexander the Great before the Battle of Gaugamela

The army of Alexander was, for the most part, that of his father Philip. It was composed of light and heavy troops and some engineers, medical and staff units. About one third of the army was composed of his Greek allies from the Hellenic League.

Infantry

The main infantry corps was the phalanx, composed of six regiments (taxies) numbering about 2000 phalangites each. Each soldier had a long pike called a sarissa, which was up to 18 feet long, and a short sword. For protection, the soldier wore a Phrygian-style helmet and a shield. Arrian mentions large shields (the aspis), but this is disputed, as it is difficult to wield both a large pike and a large shield at the same time. Many modern historians claim the phalanx used a smaller shield, called a pelta, the shield used by peltasts. It is unclear whether the phalanx used body armor, but heavy body armor is mentioned in Arrian (1.28.7) and other ancient sources. Modern historians believe most of the phalangites did not wear heavy body armor at the time of Alexander. Another important unit were the hypaspists (shield bearers), arranged into three battalions (lochoi) of 1000 men each. One of the battalions was named the Agema and served as the King's bodyguards. Their armament is unknown and it is difficult to get a clear picture from ancient sources. Sometimes hypaspists are mentioned in the front line of the battle just between the phalanx and the heavy cavalry. Moreover, they seem to have acted as an extension of the phalanx fighting as heavy infantry while keeping a link between the heavily clad phalangites and the companion cavalry. They also accompanied Alexander on flanking marches and were capable of fighting on rough terrain like light troops so it seems they could perform dual functions. In addition to the units mentioned above, the army included some 6000 Greek allied and mercenary hoplites, also arranged in phalanxes. They carried a shorter spear, a dora, which was six or seven feet long and a large aspis. Alexander also had light infantry units composed of peltasts, psiloi and others. Peltasts are considered to be light infantry, although they had a helmet and a small shield and were heavier then the psiloi. The best peltasts were the Agrianians from Thrace.

Cavalry

The heavy cavalry included the Companion cavalry raised from the Macedonian nobility, and the Thessalian cavalry. The Companion cavalry (hetairoi, friends) was divided into eight squadrons called ile, 200 strong, except the Royal Squadron of 300. They were equipped with a 12 - 14 foot lance, the xyston, and heavy body armor. The horses were partially clad in armor as well. The riders did not carry shields. The organization of the Thessalian cavalry was similar to the Companion Cavalry, but they had a shorter spear and fought in a looser formation. Of light cavalry, the prodomoi (runners) secured the wings of the army during battle and went on reconnaissance missions. Several hundred allied horses rounded out the cavalry, but were inferior to the rest.

Death

reconnaissance On the afternoon of June 10 - 11, 323 BC, Alexander died of a mysterious illness in the palace of Nebuchadrezzar II of Babylon. He was only 33 years old. Various theories have been proposed for the cause of his death which include poisoning by the sons of Antipater, sickness that followed a drinking party or a relapse of the malaria he had contracted in 336 BC. What is certain is that on May 29, Alexander participated in a banquet organized by his friend Medius of Larissa. After some heavy drinking, immediately or after a bath, he was forced to bed badly ill. While the troops started rumouring, more and more anxious, on June 9, the generals decided to let the soldiers see their king alive one last time. They were admitted to his presence one at a time, while the king, too ill to speak, confined himself to move his hand. The day after, Alexander was dead. The poisoning theory derives from the story held in antiquity by Justin and Curtius. The original story stated that Cassander, son of Antipater, viceroy of Greece, brought the poison to Alexander in Babylon in a mule's hoof, and that Alexander's royal cupbearer, Iollas, brother of Cassander, administered it. All had powerful motivations for seeing Alexander gone, and all were none the worse for it after his death. However, many other ancient historians, like Plutarch and Arrian, maintained that Alexander was not poisoned, but died of natural causes. The strongest argument against the poison theory entails the fact that twelve days had passed between the start of his illness and his death. Alexander's death may not have been caused by poisoning being that in the ancient world, such long-acting poisons were not available. Various theories have been advanced stating that the king may have died from other illnesses other than malaria, including the West Nile virus. These theories often cite the fact that Alexander's health had fallen to dangerously low levels after years of overdrinking and suffering several appalling wounds (including one in India that nearly claimed his life), and that it was only a matter of time before one sickness or another finally killed him. Neither story is conclusive. Alexander's death has been reinterpreted many times over the centuries, and each generation offers a new take on it. What is certain is that Alexander died of a high fever in early June 10 or 11 of 323 BC. On his death bed, his marshals asked him to whom he bequeathed his kingdom. Since Alexander had only one heir, it was a question of vital importance. He answered famously, "the strongest." Before dying, his final words were "I foresee a great funeral contest over me." Alexander's 'funeral games', where his marshals fought it out over control of his empire, lasted for nearly forty years. Alexander's death has been surrounded by as much controversy as many of the events of his life. Before long, accusations of foul play were being thrown about by his generals at one another, making it incredibly hard for a modern historian to sort out the propaganda and the half-truths from the actual events. No contemporary source can be fully trusted because of the incredible level of self-serving recording, and as a result what truly happened to Alexander the Great may never be known. Alexander's body was placed in a gold anthropid sarcophagus, which was in turn placed in a second gold casket and covered with a purple robe. Alexander's coffin was placed, together with his armor, in a gold carriage which had a vaulted roof supported by an Ionic peristyle. The decoration of the carriage was very rich and is described in great detail by Diodoros. According to legend, Alexander was preserved in a clay vessel full of honey (which acts as a preservative) and interred in a glass coffin. According to Aelian (Varia Historia 12.64), Ptolemy stole the body and brought it to Alexandria, where it was on display until Late Antiquity. It was here that Ptolemy IX, one of the last successors of Ptolemy I, replaced Alexander's sarcophagus with a glass one, and melted the original down in order to strike emergency gold issues of his coinage. Its current whereabouts are unknown. The so-called "Alexander Sarcophagus," discovered near Sidon and now in the Istanbul Archaeological Museum, is now generally thought to be that of Abdylonymus, whom Hephaestion appointed as the king of Sidon by Alexander's order. The sarcophagus depicts Alexander and his companions hunting and in battle with the Persians.

Legacy and division of the empire

Abdylonymus After Alexander's death, his empire was divided among his officers, mostly with the pretense of first preserving a united kingdom. Later, his officers were focused on the explicit formation of rival monarchies and territorial states. Ultimately, the conflict was settled after the Battle of Ipsus in Phrygia in 301 BC. Alexander's empire was divided at first into four major portions: Cassander ruled in Macedon, Lysimachus in Thrace, Seleucus in Mesopotamia and Iran, and Ptolemy in the Levant and Egypt. Antigonus ruled for a while in Asia Minor and Syria but was eventually defeated by the other generals at Ipsus (301 BC). Control over Indian territory was short-lived when Seleucus was defeated by Chandragupta Maurya, the first Mauryan emperor. By 270 BC, Hellenistic states consolidated, with: :
- The Antigonid Empire, centered on Greece :
- The Seleucid Empire in Asia :
- The Ptolemaic kingdom in Egypt and Cyrenaica By the 1st century BC though, most of the Hellenistic territories in the West had been absorbed by the Roman Republic. In the East, they had been dramatically reduced by the expansion of the Parthian Empire and the secession of the Greco-Bactrian kingdom. Alexander's conquests also had long term cultural effects, with the flourishing of Hellenistic civilization throughout the Middle-East and Central Asia, and the development of Greco-Buddhist art in the Indian subcontinent.

Timeline

Alexander's character

Indian subcontinent, capital of Greek Macedonia.]] Modern opinion on Alexander has run the gamut from the idea that he believed he was on a divinely-inspired mission to unite the human race, to the view that he was a megalomaniac bent on world domination. Such views tend to be anachronistic, however, and the sources allow for a variety of interpretations. Much about Alexander's personality and aims remains enigmatic. Alexander is remembered as a legendary hero in Europe and much of both Southwest Asia and Central Asia, where he is known as Iskander or Iskandar Zulkarnain. To Zoroastrians, on the other hand, he is remembered as the destroyer of their first great empire and as the leveller of Persepolis. Ancient sources are generally written with an agenda of either glorifying or denigrating the man, making it difficult to evaluate his actual character. Most refer to a growing instability and megalomania in the years following Gaugamela, but it has been suggested that this simply reflects the Greek stereotype of an orientalizing king. The murder of his friend Clitus, which Alexander deeply and immediately regretted, is often cited as a sign of his paranoia, as is his execution of Philotas and his general Parmenion for failure to pass along details of a plot against him. However, this may have been more prudence rather than paranoia. Modern Alexandrists continue to debate these same issues, among others, in modern times. One unresolved topic involves whether Alexander was actually attempting to better the world by his conquests, or whether his purpose was primarily to rule the world. Partially in response to the ubiquity of positive portrayals of Alexander, an alternate character is sometimes presented which emphasizes some of Alexander's negative aspects. Some proponents of this view cite the destructions of Thebes, Tyre, Persepolis, and Gaza as examples of atrocities, and argue that Alexander preferred to fight rather than negotiate. It is further claimed, in response to the view that Alexander was generally tolerant of the cultures of those whom he conquered, that his attempts at cultural fusion were severely practical and that he never actually admired Persian art or culture. To this way of thinking, Alexander was, first and foremost, a general rather than a statesman. Alexander's character also suffers from the interpretation of historians who themselves are subject to the bias and idealisms of their own time. Good examples are W. W. Tarn, who wrote during the late 19th century and early 20th century, and who saw Alexander in an extremely good light, and Peter Green, who wrote after World War II and for whom Alexander did little that was not inherently selfish or ambition-driven. Tarn wrote in an age where world conquest and warrior-heroes were acceptable, even encouraged, whereas Green wrote with the backdrop of the Holocaust and nuclear weapons. As a result, Alexander's character is skewed depending on which way the historian's own culture is, and further muddles the debate of who he truly was. One undeniable characteristic of Alexander is that he was extremely pious and devout, and began every day with prayers and sacrifices. From his boyhood he believed "one should not be parsimonious with the gods."

Stories and legends

According to one story, the philosopher Anaxarchus checked the vainglory of Alexander, when he aspired to the honors of divinity, by pointing to Alexander's wound, saying, "See the blood of a mortal, not the ichor of a god." In another version, Alexander himself pointed out the difference in response to a sycophantic soldier. A strong oral tradition, although not attested in any extant primary source, lists Alexander as having epilepsy, known to the Greeks as the Sacred Disease and thought to be a mark of divine favor. Alexander had a legendary horse named Bucephalus (meaning "ox-headed"), supposedly descended from the Mares of Diomedes. Alexander himself, while still a young boy, tamed this horse after experienced horse-trainers failed to do so.

Ancient sources

The ancient sources for Alexander's life are, from the perspective of ancient history, relatively numerous. Alexander himself left only a few inscriptions and some letter-fragments of dubious authenticity, but a large number of his contemporaries wrote full accounts. The key contemporary historians are considered Callisthenes, his general Ptolemy, Aristobulus, Nearchus and Onesicritus. Another influential account was penned by Cleitarchus, who, while not a direct witness of Alexander's expedition, used the sources which had just been published. His work was to be the backbone of that of Timagenes, who heavily influenced many surviving historians. Unfortunately, all these works were lost. Instead, the modern historian must rely on authors who used these and other early sources. The five main accounts are by Arrian, Curtius, Plutarch, Diodorus, and Justin.
- Anabasis Alexandri (The Campaigns of Alexander in Greek) by the Greek historian Arrian of Nicomedia, writing in the 2nd century AD, and based largely on Ptolemy and, to a lesser extent, Aristobulus and Nearchus. It is considered generally the most trustworthy source.
- Historiae Alexandri Magni, a biography of Alexander in ten books, of which the last eight survive, by the Roman historian Quintus Curtius Rufus, written in the 1st century AD,