Home About us Products Services Contact us Bookmark
:: wikimiki.org ::
Isauria

Isauria

Isauria, in ancient geography, is a rugged isolated district in the interior of South Asia Minor, of very different extent at different periods, but generally covering much of what is now south-central Turkey, or the core of the Taurus Mountains. It derives its name from the contentious Isaurian tribe and twin settlements Isaura Nea and Isaura Palaea. Isaurian marauders were fiercely independent mountain people who created havoc in neighboring districts under Macedonian and Roman occupations. The permanent nucleus of Isauria was north of the Taurus range which lies directly to south of Iconium and Lystra. Lycaon had all the Iconian plain; but Isauria began as soon as the foothills were reached. Its two original towns, Isaura Nea and Isaura Palaea, lay, one among these foothills (Doria) and the other on the watershed (Zengibar Kale). In the 4th century BC, Isauria began as it would end, and became the wild district about Isaura Palaea and the heads of the Calycadnus. When the capital, Isaura (also known as Isaura Vetus or Isaura Palaea), a strongly fortified city at the foot of Mt. Taurus, was besieged by Perdiccas, the Macedonian regent after Alexander the Great's death, the Isaurians set the place alight and let it perish in flames rather than submit to capture.

Roman domination

When the Romans first encountered the Isaurians (early in the 1st century BC), they regarded Cilicia Trachea as part of Isauria, which thus extended to the sea; and this extension of the name continued to be in common use for two centuries. The whole basin of the Calycadnus was reckoned Isaurian, and the cities in the valley of its southern branch formed what was known as the Isaurian Decapolis. The Isaurians were brought partially under control (76–75 BC) by the Romans. During the war of the Cilician and other pirates against Rome, the Isaurians took so active a part that the proconsul P. Servilius deemed it necessary to follow them into their rugged strongholds, and compel the whole people to submission, an exploit for which he received the title of Isauricus (75 BC). The Isaurians were afterwards placed for a time under the rule of Amyntas, king of Galatia; but it is evident that they continued to retain their predatory habits and virtual independence. In the 3rd century they sheltered the rebel emperor, Trebonianus Gallus. In the early 4th century all Cilicia was detached by order of Diocletian for administrative purposes from the northern slope of Taurus, and we find a province called at first Isauria-Lycaonia, and later Isauria alone, extending up to the limits of Galatia, but not passing Taurus on the south. Pisidia, part of which had hitherto been included in one province with Isauria, was also detached, and made to include Iconium. In compensation Isauria received the eastern part of Pamphylia. In the 4th century they were still described by Ammianus Marcellinus as the scourge of the neighbouring provinces of Asia Minor but they were said to have been effectually subdued in the reign of Justinian I. This comparatively obscure people produced two Byzantine emperors, Zeno, whose native name was Traskalisseus Rousoumbladeotes, and Leo III, who ascended the throne of Constantinople in 718, reigned until 741, and became the founder of a dynasty of three generations. The region had not been completely subdued until the arrival in the 11th century of the Seljuk Turks whose descendants have now coalesced with the local population and formed a settled people.

Later history

The site contains ruins of the town and its fortifications. The ruins of Isaura Palaea are mainly remarkable for their fine situation, fortifications and tombs. Those of Isaura Nea has disappeared, but numerous inscriptions and many sculpture stelae, built into the houses of Doria, prove the site. It was the latter, and not the former town, that Servilius reduced by cutting off the water supply. J. S. Sterrett explored in the highland of Isauria in 1885 but it was not exhaustive. The site was identified by W. I. Ramsay in 1901.

References


- Category:Ancient Roman enemies and allies Category:Ancient Roman provinces

Geography

)]] Geography is the study of the locational and spatial variation of both natural and human phenomena on Earth. The word derives from the Greek words Ge (γη) or Gaea (γεια), both meaning "Earth", and graphein (γραφειν) meaning "to describe" and "to write". Modern geography is a diverse discipline that draws influence from almost every other arena of knowledge. Geographers engage with other disciplines according to their particular research interests and, while subjects such as biology and economics have a powerful influence, there are geographers who use concepts taken from subjects such as sociology, psychology and sports science, among many others. Within the discipline there have been many long-running tensions among those seeking to define geography - whether as a 'science' or as a 'humanity', as a 'systematic' subject or 'regional' specialism and so forth - which at various times have come close to destroying geography as an academic discipline. Whilst profound differences do exist among geographers, the dual concepts of space and place provide a commonality of interest, which gives the subject a unique identity.

Structure of geography

William Hughes - who taught the geography of the Holy Lands to divinity students at King's College London - defined geography in an address in 1863: :"Mere place names are not geography. To know by heart a whole gazeteer full of them would not, in itself, constitute anyone a geographer. Geography has higher aims than this: it seeks to classify phenomena (alike of the natural and of the political world insofar as it treats of the latter) to compare, to generalise, to ascend from effects to causes and in doing so to trace out the great laws of nature and to mark their influence upon man. In a word, geography is a science, a thing not of mere names, but of argument and reason, of cause and effect." This was a specific rejection of geography as a merely descriptive discipline and also defined it as inclusive of both the physical world and the human. Within the discipline, however, there are many areas of specialism. Modern geographers tend to specialise in one of the broad branches (or sub-branches). However, most introductory geography syllabuses seek to ensure that geographers have at least working knowledge of the main focus of each branch of the subject.

Physical geography

Physical geography (or physiogeography) focuses on geography as an Earth science. It aims to understand the physical layout of the Earth, its weather and global flora and fauna patterns. Many areas of physical geography make use of geology, particularly in the study of weathering and sediment movement. Physical Geography can be divided into the following broad categories:
- Geomorphology
- Hydrology
- Glaciology
- Biogeography
- Climatology
- Pedology (soil study)
- Coastal/Marine studies
- Geodesy
- Palaeogeography
- Environmental Geography and management
- Landscape ecology Exact lines between these different areas are often difficult to draw. Sometimes Oceanography is included as a branch within physical geography, but is now considered a separate subject in its own right. Related topics: Atmosphere - Archipelago - Continent - Desert - Island - Landform - Ocean - Sea - River - Lake - Ecology - Soil - Timeline of geography, paleontology - Geostatistics - Environmental science - Oceanography - Environmental studies

Human geography

Human geography is a branch of geography that focuses on the study of patterns and processes that shape human interaction with various environments. It encompasses human, political, cultural, social, and economic aspects. While the major focus of human geography is not the physical landscape of the Earth (see Physical geography) it is hardly possible to discuss human geography without referring to the physical landscape on which human activities are being played out, and environmental geography is emerging as a link between the two. Human geography can be divided into broad categories, such as:
- Economic geography
- Development geography
- Population geography or Demography
-
- Urban geography
- Social geography
- Behavioral geography
- Cultural geography
- Political geography, including Geopolitics
-
- Historical geography
- Regional science
- Strategic geography
- Military geography
- Feminist geography
- Distinction between these fields of study have become increasingly blurred over time and the above list should not be considered definitive. Related topics: Countries of the world - Country - Nation - State - Personal union - Province - County - City - Municipality - Central place theory - Urban morphology

Socio-environmental geography

During the time of environmental determinism, geography was defined not as the study of spatial relationships, but as the study of how humans and the natural environment interact. Though environmental determinism has died out, there remains a strong tradition of geographers addressing the relationships between people and nature. There are two main subfields of socio-environmental geography:
- cultural and political ecology (CAPE) and
- risk-hazards research.

Cultural and political ecology

Cultural ecology grew out of the work of Carl Sauer in geography and a similar school of thought in anthropology. It examined how human societies adapt themselves to the natural environment. Sustainability science has been one important outgrowth of this tradition. Political ecology arose when some geographers used aspects of critical geography to look at relations of power and how they affect people's use of the environment. For example, an influential study by Michael Watts argued that famines in the Sahel are caused by the changes in the region's political and economic system as a result of colonialism and the spread of capitalism.

Risk-hazards research

Research on hazards began with the work of geographer Gilbert F. White, who sought to understand why people live in disaster-prone floodplains. Since then, the hazards field has expanded to become a multidisciplinary field examining both natural hazards (such as earthquakes) and technological hazards (such as nuclear reactor meltdowns). Geographers studying hazards are interested in both the dynamics of the hazard event and how people and societies deal with it.

Historical geography

This branch seeks to determine how cultural features of the multifarious societies across the planet evolved and came into being. Study of the landscape is one of many key foci in this field - much can be deduced about earlier societies from their impact on their local environment and surroundings. ; What's in a name? Historical geography and the Berkeley School "Historical Geography" can indeed refer to the reciprocal effects of geography and history on each other. But in the United States, it has a more specialized meaning: This is the name given by Carl Ortwin Sauer of the University of California, Berkeley to his program of reorganizing cultural geography (some say all geography) along regional lines, beginning in the first decades of the 20th Century. To Sauer, a landscape and the cultures in it could only be understood if all of its influences through history were taken into account: Physical, cultural, economic, political, environmental. Sauer stressed regional specialization as the only means of gaining expertise on regions of the world. Sauer's philosophy was the principal shaper of American geographic thought in the mid-20th century. Regional specialists remain in academic geography departments to this day. But many geographers feel that it harmed the discipline in the long run: Too much effort was spent on data collection and classification, and too little on analysis and explanation. Studies became more and more area specific as later geographers struggled to find places to make names for themselves. This probably led in turn to the 1950s crisis in Geography which nearly destroyed it as an academic discipline.

History of geography

:See main article: History of geography History of geography The Greeks are the first known culture to actively explore geography as a science and philosophy. Mapping by the Romans as they explored new lands added new techniques. During the Middle Ages, Arabs such as Idrisi, Ibn Batutta, and Ibn Khaldun maintained the Greek and Roman techniques and developed new ones. Following the journeys of Marco Polo, interest in geography spread throughout Europe. The great voyages of exploration in 16th and 17th centuries revived a desire for both accurate geographic detail, and more solid theoretical foundations. This period is also known as Great Geographical Discoveries. By the 18th century, geography had become recognized as a discrete discipline and became part of a typical university curriculum in Europe (especially Paris and Berlin). Over the past two centuries the quantity of knowledge and the number of tools has exploded. There are strong links between geography and the sciences of geology and botany, as well as economics, sociology and demographics. In the West during the 20th century, the discipline of geography went through four major phases: environmental determinism, regional geography, the quantitative revolution, and critical geography.

Geographic techniques

As spatial interrelationships are key to this synoptic science, maps are a key tool. Classical cartography has been joined by a more modern approach to geographical analysis, computer-based geographic information systems (GIS).
- Cartography studies the representation of the Earth's surface with abstract symbols (map making). Although other subdisciplines of geography rely on maps for presenting their analyses, the actual making of maps is abstract enough to be regarded separately. Cartography has grown from a collection of drafting techniques into an actual science. Cartographers must learn cognitive psychology and ergonomics to understand which symbols convey information about the Earth most effectively, and behavioral psychology to induce the readers of their maps to act on the information. They must learn geodesy and fairly advanced mathematics to understand how the shape of the Earth affects the distortion of map symbols projected onto a flat surface for viewing. It can be said, without much controversy, that cartography is the seed from which the larger field of Geography grew. Most geographers will cite a childhood fascination with maps as an early sign they would end up in the field. mathematics
- Geographic Information Systems deals with the storage of information about the Earth for automatic retrieval by a computer, in an accurate manner appropriate to the information's purpose. In addition to all of the other subdisciplines of geography, GIS specialists must understand computer science and database systems. GIS has so revolutionized the field of cartography that nearly all mapmaking is now done with the assistance of some form of GIS software.
- Geographic quantitative methods deal with numerical methods peculiar to (or at least most commonly found in) geography. In addition to spatial analyses, you are likely to find things like cluster analysis, discriminant analysis, and non-parametric statistical tests in geographic studies.
- Geographic qualitative methods, or ethnographic research techniques, are used by human geographers. In cultural geography there is a tradition of employing qualitative research techniques also used in anthropology and sociology. Participant Observation and in-depth interviews provide human geographers with qualitative data. In their study geographers use four interrelated approaches:
- Systematic - Groups geographical knowledge into categories that can be explored globally
- Regional - Examines systematic relationships between categories for a specific region or location on the planet.
- Descriptive - Simply specifies the locations of features and populations.
- Analytical - Asks why we find features and populations in a specific geographic area.

Related fields

Urban and regional planning

Urban planning and regional planning use the science of geography to assist in determining how to develop (or not develop) the land to meet particular criteria, such as safety, beauty, economic opportunities, the preservation of the built or natural heritage, etcetera. The planning of towns, cities and rural areas may be seen as applied geography although it also draws heavily upon the arts, the sciences and lessons of history. Some of the issues facing planning are considered briefly under the headings of rural exodus, urban exodus and Smart Growth.

Regional science

In the 1950s the regional science movement arose, led by Walter Isard to provide a more quantitative and analytical base to geographical questions, in contrast to the more qualitative tendencies of traditional geography programs. Regional Science comprises the body of knowledge in which the spatial dimension plays a fundamental role, such as regional economics, resource management, location theory, urban and regional planning, transport and communication, human geography, population distribution, landscape ecology, and environmental quality.

Reference

See also


- List of geography topics
- Geographical terms
- List of countries
- Geography reference tables
- Map
- Geographical renaming
- Geographic magazines
- National Geographic Society (United States)
- National Geographic Bee (United States)
- Point of Beginning
- Royal Geographical Society (United Kingdom)

External links


- [http://www.confluence.org/ Confluence.org - A work in progress, involving travelling to every point on the globe where the lines of longitude and latitude intersect and taking a photograph in each direction.]
- [http://www.aag.org/ Association of American Geographers]
- [http://www.gisuser.com/ GISuser.com, information-rich portal about GIS]
- [http://www.populationdata.net/ PopulationData.net]
- [http://www.freemaps.de/ Free Maps Germany]
- [http://www.ericdigests.org/1996-4/high.htm Using Literature To Teach Geography in High Schools. ERIC Digest.]
- [http://ericdigests.org/1992-5/geography.htm Teaching Geography at School and Home. ERIC Digest.]
- [http://ericdigests.org/1996-1/geography.htm The National Geography Content Standards. ERIC Digest.]
- [http://www.geo-guide.de Geo-Guide] extensive list of academic resources on geography and earth science
- [http://www.geopium.org Geopium: Geopolitics of Illicit Drugs in Asia]
- [http://www.nationalgeographic.com/ National Geographic Online]
- [http://www.rgs.org Royal Geographical Society]
- [http://www.rcgs.org Royal Canadian Geographical Society]
- [http://www.canadiangeographic.ca Canadian Geographic]
- [http://hypergeo.free.fr Hypergeo : Geographical Encyclopedia]
- [http://www.rare-maps.com/links.cfm Antique and Rare Maps - Art Source International] - Links to rare and antique maps and to cartography resources.
- [http://www.mapinfo.com/ MapInfo GIS Software]
- Category:School subjects als:Geografie ko:지리학 ms:Geografi ja:地理学 simple:Geography th:ภูมิศาสตร์



Mount Taurus

:For the Taurus Mountains on the moon, see Montes Taurus. The Taurus Mountains or simply the Taurus, (Turkish Toros, also known as Ala-Dagh or Bulghar-Dagh) are a mountain range, forming the rugged southeastern rim of the Anatolian plateau, from which the Euphrates River descends into Syria. The system extends along a curve from Lake Egridir in the west to the upper reaches of the Euphrates River in the east. It has many peaks rising above 10,000–12,000 ft (3,000–3,700 m) in elevation. The pass that was known in Antiquity as the Cilician Gates crosses the range north of Tarsus. Limestone has eroded to form karstic landscapes of waterfalls, underground rivers, and the largest caves of Asia. Taurus is the Greek word for bull, in astronomy a constellation (the Bull), said to represent a bull tamed by Jason, the hero of Greek mythology.

External link


- [http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/gallery/images/shuttle/sts-73/html/sts073-723-054.html NASA satellite view of the Taurus Mountains] Category:Mountain ranges of Asia

Iconium

Konya (also Koniah, Konieh, Konia, and Qunia; historically known as Iconium, Greek: Ικόνιον) is a city in Turkey, on the central plateau of Anatolia. It has a population of 742 690 (in 2000) and it is the capital of Konya Province, which is the biggest Turkish province in terms of area. Iconium is an ancient city, visited by Saint Paul according to the Book of Acts. In Christian legend, it was also the birthplace of Saint Thecla. From 1097 to 1243 it was the capital of the Seljuk Sultans of Rüm, though temporarily occupied by the Crusaders Godfrey of Bouillon (August 1097) and Frederick Barbarossa (May 18, 1190). Konya reached its height of wealth and influence from 1205 to 1239 when the sultans controlled all of Anatolia, Armenia, some of the Middle East and also Crimea. In 1219, the city was filled with refugees from the Khwarezmid Empire in Persia, fleeing the advance of the Mongols who had defeated the Shah of Khwarezmid, Muhammad II. In 1243, Konya was captured by Mongols as well. The city remained the capital of the Turkish puppet-ruler under the Mongol warlord Möngke Khan. Following the fall of the Sultanate of Rüm, Konya was made an emirate in 1307 to 1322 when it was captured by the Karamanids. In 1420, Karamanid fell to the Ottoman Empire and, in 1453, Konya was made the provincial capital of the Ottoman Province of Karamanid. Both Saladin and the Ottoman Sultan Selim II has built mosques in Konya. The tomb of Jalal al-Din Muhammad Rumi, a mystical poet and founder of The Whirling Dervishes, is located here. On February 2, 2004, an apartment building collapsed in Konya, killing 92.

External links


- [http://www.pbase.com/dosseman/konya_turkey Pictures of the city, amongst them the Mevlana Muzesi and several Seljuk buildings]
- [http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07619a.htm Catholic Encyclopedia entry]
- [http://www.turkeyforecast.com/weather/konya/ Konya Weather Forecast Information] Category:Cities along the Silk Road Category:Cities in Turkey Category:Holy cities Category:Seljuk Turks ja:コンヤ

Watershed

:For other senses of watershed, see watershed (disambiguation). ---- A watershed is a region of land where water drains downhill into a specified body of water, such as a river, lake, sea, ocean or wetland. A watershed includes both the waterway and the land that drains to it. Each watershed is separated topographically by a ridge, hill or mountain. A watershed is like a funnel - collecting all the water within the drainage area and channeling it into a waterway. So defined it may also be called a water basin or catchment basin, and this is the sense intended in this article, unless otherwise indicated. In many contexts, however, watershed is used to mean a water divide, a boundary between water basins. Rain that falls anywhere within a given body of water's watershed or basin will eventually drain into that body of water. A map of the primary watersheds in the world can be found at [http://earthtrends.wri.org/maps_spatial/maps_detail_static.cfm?map_select=274&theme=2]. A watershed that drains into a river is usually known as a river basin. Each area of a drainage basin has its own drainage system.

Watersheds in ecology

Watersheds constitute a very important type of ecoregion. They do things such as provide habitats for animals, lessen flooding, and prevent erosion. Pollution anywhere within the watershed can potentially affect life anywhere downstream from it.

Watersheds in politics

Watersheds have been important historically in determining boundaries, particularly in regions where trade by water has been important. For example, the English crown gave the Hudson's Bay Company a monopoly on the Indian trade in the entire Hudson Bay watershed, an area called Rupert's Land. The company later acquired the North American watershed of the Arctic Ocean (the North-Western Territory). These lands later became part of Canada as the Northwest Territories, making up the majority of Canada's land area. Today, bioregional democracy can include agreements of states in a particular watershed to defend it. These include the Great Lakes Commission, which deals with the largest fresh watershed in the world.

Analyzing watersheds

Rain gauge data is used to measure total precipitation over a watersheds, and there are different ways to interpret that data. If the gauges are many and evenly distributed over an area of uniform precipitation, using the arithmetic mean method will give good results. In the Thiessen polygon method, the watershed is divided into polygons with the rain gauge in the middle of each polygon assumed to be representative for the rainfall on the area of land included in its polygon. These polygons are made by drawing lines between gauges, then making perpendicular bisectors of those lines form the polygons. The isohyetal method involves contours of equal precipitation are drawn over the gauges on a map. Calculating the area between these curves and adding up the volume of water is time consuming.

Ocean watersheds

One can divide up the world among the watersheds of the oceans and largest seas. The Atlantic Ocean watershed consists of the Saint Lawrence River and Great Lakes watersheds, plus the Eastern Seaboard, Canadian Maritimes, Newfoundland and Labrador in North America; nearly all of South America (that portion east of the Andes); northern Europe; and the greatest portion of western Sub-Saharan Africa. The Caribbean Sea watershed consists of all of the American interior (the Louisiana Purchase, the western Mississippi River watershed; as well as the eastern half such as the Ohio River and its tributaries); eastern Central America; and far northern South America. The Mediterranean Sea watershed consists of much of northeastern Africa, including Egypt, Libya, and Sudan (the Nile watershed), as well as southern and eastern Europe, Turkey, and the Levant. Of course, the previous two can be considered part of the Atlantic watershed, since the Caribbean Sea is part of the Atlantic Ocean, and the Atlantic drains into the Mediterranean due to its higher evaporation. The Indian Ocean watershed consists of the eastern coast of Africa, the coasts of the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf, the Indian subcontinent, Burma, and most of Australia. The Pacific Ocean watershed consists of much of China, southeastern Russia, Japan, Korea, most of Indonesia and Malaysia, the Philippines, the rest of the Pacific islands, and the northeast coast of Australia; as well as Alaska, British Columbia, the western United States and Central America, and the coast of South America (the smaller portion west of the Andes). The Arctic Ocean watershed consists of the aforementioned Rupert's Land, and most of the territory of Russia. In addition to the oceanic watersheds, there are numerous endorheic watersheds, inland basins which drain into no ocean. The largest of these consists of much of the interior of Asia, and drains into the Caspian Sea and the Aral Sea. Other basins include the Great Basin in the United States, much of the Sahara Desert, the watershed of the Okavango River, highlands near the African Great Lakes, the interiors of Australia and the Arabian Peninsula, and parts in Mexico and the Andes.

See also


- List of watersheds (a list of the largest watersheds of the world)
- Hydrology
- River

Footnote


- Watershed meaning water basin predominates in American English, while the meaning water divide predominates in Commonwealth English.

External links


- [http://earthtrends.wri.org/maps_spatial/maps_detail_static.cfm?map_select=274&theme=2 Map of primary watersheds in the world]
- [http://www.ericdigests.org/2003-1/ideas.htm Studying Watersheds: A Confluence of Important Ideas]
- [http://www.watersheds.org/ Bryant Creek Watershed Atlas]
- [http://www.SAWPA.org/ Santa Ana Watershed Information]
- [http://water.usgs.gov/wsc Science in Your Watershed] Category:Hydrology Category:Rivers ja:分水界 simple:Watershed

Perdiccas

:For the Macedonian kings of this name, see Perdiccas I, Perdiccas II, and Perdiccas III. Perdiccas (d. May-June 320 BC) was one of Alexander the Great's generals. After Alexander's death in 323 BC he became regent of all Alexander's empire. He was son of Orontes, a descendant of the independent princes of the province of Orestis. As the commander of a battalion of heavy phalanx infantry, Perdiccas distinguished himself at the conquest of Thebes (335 BC), where he was severely wounded. Subsequently he held an important command in the Indian campaigns of Alexander. When Hephaestion unexpectedly died in 324 BC, he was appointed has successor as commander of the Companion cavalry and chiliarch (vizier). In the settlement made after Alexander's death (323 BC) Alexander's generals agreed that Philip III of Macedon, an epileptic bastard son of Alexander's father Philip II of Macedon, and the unborn child of Alexander's wife Roxana should be recognized as joint kings. Perdiccas was appointed guardian and regent of entire empire. He soon showed himself intolerant of any rivals, and, acting in the name of the two kings (Roxana gave birth to a son, Alexander), sought to hold the empire together under his own hand. He had Meleager, the infantry commander, arrested and murdered. In 322 BC, he broke off his engagement with Nicaea, daughter of Antipater, because Olympias offered him the hand of Cleopatra, a sister of Alexander the Great. Perdiccas' most loyal supporter was Eumenes, governor of Cappadocia and Paphlagonia. These provinces had not yet been conquered by the Macedonians. Antigonus (governor of Phrygia, Lycia and Pamphylia) refused to undertake the task when Perdiccas ordered him to. Having been summoned to the royal presence to stand his trial for disobedience, Antigonus fled to Europe and entered an alliance with Antipater, Craterus and Ptolemy against him. Leaving the war in Asia Minor to Eumenes, Perdiccas marched to attack Ptolemy in Egypt. He reached Pelusium but failed to cross the Nile. A mutiny broke out amongst his troops, disheartened by failure and exasperated by his severity. Perdiccas was assassinated by his officers (Peithon, Antigenes, and Seleucus) sometime between 21 May and 19 June of 320 BC.

External links


- [http://www.livius.org/pen-pg/perdiccas/perdiccas.htm www.livius.org]

Reference


- Peter Green, Alexander to Actium, pp. 3-15 Category:320 BC deaths Category:Ancient Greeks Category:Regents Category:Ancient Greek generals Category:Alexander the Great

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, and based largely on Cleitarchus through the mediation of Timagenes, with some material probably from Ptolemy;
- Life of Alexander (see Parallel Lives) and two orations On the Fortune or the Virtue of Alexander the Great (see Moralia), by the Greek historian and biographer Plutarch of Chaeronea in the second century, based largely on Aristobulus and especially Cleitarchus.
- Bibliotheca historia (Library of world history), written in Greek by the Sicilian historian Diodorus Siculus, from which Book 17 relates the conquests of Alexander, based almost entirely on Timagenes's work. The books immediately before and after, on Philip and Alexander's "Successors," throw light on Alexander's reign.
- The Epitome of the Philippic History of Pompeius Trogus by Justin, which contains factual errors and is highly compressed. It is difficult in this case to understand the source, since we only have an epitome, but it is thought that also Pompeius Trogus may have limited himself to use Timagenes for his Latin history. To these five main sources some like to add the Metz Epitome, an anonymous late Latin work that narrates Alexander's campaigns from Hyrcania to India. Much is also recounted incidentally in other authors, including Strabo, Athenaeus, Polyaenus, Aelian, and others. The "problem of the sources" is the main concern (and chief delight) of Alexander-historians. In effect, each presents a different "Alexander," with details to suit. Arrian is mostly interested in the military aspects, while Curtius veers to a more private and more darker Alexander. Plutarch can't resist a good story, light or dark. All, with the possible exception of Arrian, include a considerable level of fantasy, prompting Strabo to remark, "All who wrote about Alexander preferred the marvellous to the true." Nevertheless, the sources tell us much, and leave much to our interpretation and imagination.

Alexander's legend

Alexander was a legend in his own time. His court historian Callisthenes portrayed the sea in Cilicia as drawing back from him in proskynesis. Writing after Alexander's death, another participant, Onesicritus, went so far as to invent a tryst between Alexander and Thalestris, queen of the mythical Amazons. When Onesicritus read this passage to his patron, Alexander's general and later King Lysimachus, Lysimachus quipped "I wonder where I was at the time." In the first centuries after Alexander's death, probably in Alexandria, a quantity of the more legendary material coalesced into a text known as the Alexander Romance, later falsely ascribed to the historian Callisthenes and therefore known as Pseudo-Callisthenes. This text underwent numerous expansions and revisions throughout Antiquity and the Middle Ages, exhibiting a plasticity unseen in "higher" literary forms. Latin and Syriac translations were made in Late Antiquity. From these, versions were developed in all the major languages of Europe and the Middle East, including Armenian, Georgian, Persian, Arabic, Turkish, Hebrew, Serbian, Slavonic, Romanian, Hungarian, German, English, Italian, and French. The "Romance" is regarded by most Western scholars as the source of the account of Alexander given in the Koran (Sura The Cave). It is the source of many incidents in Ferdowsi's "Shahnama". A Mongolian version is also extant. Some believe that, excepting certain religious texts, it is the most widely-read work of pre-modern times.

Alexander's legend in non-Western sources

Alexander was often identified in Persian and Arabic-language sources as Dhul-Qarnayn, Arabic for the "Two-Horned One", possibly a reference to the appearance of a horn-headed figure that appears on coins minted during his rule and later imitated in ancient Middle Eastern coinage. If this theory is followed, Islamic accounts of the Alexander legend, particularly in the Qur'an and in Persian legends, combined the Pseudo-Callisthenes legendary, pseudo-religious material about Alexander. The same legends from the Pseudo-Callisthenes were combined in Persia with Sasanid Persian ideas about Alexander in the Iskandarnamah.

Main towns founded by Alexander

Around seventy towns or outposts are claimed to have been founded by Alexander. Some of the main ones are:
- Alexandria, Egypt
- Alexandria Asiana, Iran
- Alexandria in Ariana, Afghanistan
- Alexandria of the Caucasus, Afghanistan
- Alexandria on the Oxus, Afghanistan
- Alexandria of the Arachosians, Afghanistan
- Alexandria on the Indus (Alexandria Bucephalous), Pakistan
- Alexandria Eschate, "The furthest", Tajikistan
- Iskenderun (Alexandretta), Turkey
- Kandahar (Alexandropolis), Afghanistan

Alexander in popular media


- A 1956 movie starring Richard Burton titled Alexander the Great was produced by MGM.
- A 1941 Hindi Movie Sikandar directed by Sohrab Modi depicts Alexander the Great's Indian conquest.
- Bond's 2000 album Born includes a song titled Alexander the Great.
- Oliver Stone's film Alexander, starring Colin Farrell, was released on November 24, 2004.
- Baz Luhrmann had been planning to make a very different film about Alexander, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, but the release of Stone's film eventually persuaded him to abandon the project. [http://www.imdb.com/news/wenn/2004-11-01#2]
- Numerous television series about Alexander have been created.
- The British heavy metal band Iron Maiden had a song entitled "Alexander the Great" on their album Somewhere in Time (1986). The song describes Alexander's life, but contains one inaccuracy: in the song it is stated that Alexander's army would not follow him into India.
- Brazilian musician Caetano Veloso's 1998 album Livro includes an epic song about Alexander called "Alexandre."
- From 1969 to 1981, Mary Renault wrote a historical fiction trilogy, speculating on the life of Alexander: Fire from Heaven (about his early life), The Persian Boy (about his conquest of Persia, his expedition to India, and his death, seen from the viewpoint of a Persian eunuch), and Funeral Games (about the events following his death). Alexander also appears briefly in Renault's novel The Mask of Apollo. In addition to the fiction, Renault also wrote a non-fiction biography, The Nature of Alexander.
- A 1965 Hindi movie Sikandar-e-Azam directed

Ancient Rome

Ancient Rome was a civilization that existed in Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East between 753 BC and its downfall in AD 476. For several centuries, the Romans controlled the whole of Western Europe, as well as the entire area surrounding the Mediterranean Sea and some of the area surrounding the Black Sea. Black Sea]]

History

Monarchy

Black Sea The city of Rome grew from settlements on and around the Palatine Hill, approximately eighteen miles from the Tyrrhenian Sea on the river Tiber. At this location the Tiber has an island where the river can be forded. Because of the river and the ford, Rome was at a crossroads of traffic and trade. In Roman legend, Rome was founded on 21 April 753 BC, by Romulus who, along with his brother Remus was suckled by a she-wolf. Romulus killed Remus in a quarrel over where their new city should be located. Romulus, whose name is said to have inspired Rome's name, was the first of seven Kings of Rome, the last of whom, Tarquin the Proud, was deposed in 510 BC or 509 BC when the Roman Republic was established. The mythical or semi-mythical kings are (in chronological order): Romulus, Numa Pompilius (Good King Numa), Tullus Hostilius, Ancus Marcius, Tarquinius Priscus, Servius Tullius, and Tarquinius Superbus (Tarquin the Proud).

Republic

Tarquinius Superbus The Roman Republic was established around 509 BC, according to later writers such as Titus Livius (Livy), when the king was driven out, and a system based on annually elected magistrates was established in the monarchy's place. The most important were the two consuls, who between them exercised executive authority, but had to contend with the Senate, which grew in size and power with the establishment of the Republic. The magistracies were originally restricted to patricians but were later opened to plebeians. The Romans gradually subdued the other peoples on the Italian peninsula, mostly related Italic tribes (of Indo-European stock) such as the Samnites and Sabines, but also the Etruscans. The last threat to Roman hegemony in Italy came when Tarentum, a major Greek colony, enlisted the aid of Pyrrhus of Epirus in 282 BC. The Romans secured their conquests by founding Roman colonies in strategic places. In the second half of the 3rd century BC, Rome clashed with Carthage in the first two Punic wars. These wars resulted in Rome's first overseas conquests, of Sicily and Iberia, and the rise of Rome as a significant imperial power. After defeating Macedon and the Seleucids in the 2nd century BC, the Romans became the undisputed masters of the Mediterranean. Internal strife now became the greatest threat to the Republic. The Senate, jealous of its own power, repeatedly blocked important land reforms. An unintended consequence of Gaius Marius's military reforms was that soldiers often had more loyalty to their commander than to the city, and a powerful general, such as Marius or his rival Lucius Cornelius Sulla, could hold the city and Senate to ransom. In the mid-1st century BC three men, Julius Caesar, Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus, and Marcus Licinius Crassus, formed a secret pact (the