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ALEXANDER OF MACEDON TEMPLE

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A tribute to the memory of the greatest commander in world history and a foremost champion of the Brotherhood of Man
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    Alexander of Macedon's Oath at Opis, 324 BC:

    "I wish all of you, now that the wars are coming to an end, to live happily, in peace. All mortals from now on will live like one people, united, and peacefully working towards a common prosperity. 

    You should regard the whole world as your own country with common laws, a country where the best and the brightest rule, regardless of race. 

    I do not separate people, as do the narrow-minded, into Greeks and barbarians. I am not interested in the origin or race of citizens. I only distinguish them on the basis of their virtue. For me each good foreigner is a Greek and each bad Greek is worse than a barbarian. 

    If ever differences arose, never resort to arms, but resolve them peacefully. If need be, I will serve as your arbitrator. Do not consider God as a dictatorial Ruler, but as Father of all, so that your conduct would resemble the cohabitation of siblings within one family.

    On my part, I consider all of you equal, white or dark, and I would like you not to be only plain subjects of my Commonwealth, but all shareholders, all partners.

    To the extent it is in my power, I shall try to accomplish all that I promise. Keep the oath we are taking with the libation tonight like a Contract of Love"
    Alexander Head #3 18.6 KAlexander the Great (356-323 BC), king of Macedonia, conqueror of the Persian Empire, and one of the greatest military geniuses of all times. Alexander, born in Pella, the ancient capital of Macedonia, was the son of Philip II, king of Macedonia, and of Olympias, a princess of Epirus. Aristotle was Alexander's tutor; he gave Alexander a thorough training in rhetoric and literature and stimulated his interest in science, medicine, and philosophy. In the summer of 336 BC Philip was assassinated, and Alexander ascended to the Macedonian throne. He found himself surrounded by enemies at home and threatened by rebellion abroad. Alexander disposed quickly of all conspirators and domestic enemies by ordering their execution. Then he descended on Thessaly, where partisans of independence had gained ascendancy, and restored Macedonian rule. 

    Before the end of the summer of 336 BC he had reestablished his position in Greece and was elected by a congress of states at Corinth. In 335 BC as general of the Greeks in a campaign against the Persians, originally planned by his father, he carried out a successful campaign against the defecting Thracians, penetrating to the Danube River. On his return he crushed in a single week the threatening Illyrians and then hastened to Thebes, which had revolted. He took the city by storm and razed it, sparing only the temples of the gods and the house of the Greek lyric poet Pindar, and selling the surviving inhabitants, about 8000 in number, into slavery. Alexander's promptness in crushing the revolt of Thebes brought the other Greek states into instant and abject submission. Alexander began his war against Persia in the spring of 334 BC by crossing the Hellespont (modern Dardanelles) with an army of 35,000 Macedonian and Greek troops; his chief officers, all Macedonians, included Antigonus, Ptolemy, and Seleucus. 

    At the river Granicus, near the ancient city of Troy, he attacked an army of Persians and Greek hoplites (mercenaries) totaling 40,000 men. His forces defeated the enemy and, according to tradition, lost only 110 men; after this battle all the states of Asia Minor submitted to him. In passing through Phrygia he is said to have cut with his sword the Gordian knot. Continuing to advance southward, Alexander encountered the main Persian army, commanded by King Darius III, at Issus, in northeastern Syria. The size of Darius's army is unknown; the ancient tradition that it contained 500,000 men is now considered a fantastic exaggeration. The Battle of Issus, in 333, ended in a great victory for Alexander. Cut off from his base, Darius fled northward, abandoning his mother, wife, and children to Alexander, who treated them with the respect due to royalty. Tyre, a strongly fortified seaport, offered obstinate resistance, but Alexander took it by storm in 332 after a siege of seven months. Alexander captured Gaza next and then passed on into Egypt, where he was greeted as a deliverer. By these successes he secured control of the entire eastern Mediterranean coastline. 

    Later in 332 he founded, at the mouth of the Nile River, the city of Alexandria, which later became the literary, scientific, and commercial center of the Greek world. Cyrene, the capital of the ancient North African kingdom of Cyrenaica, submitted to Alexander soon afterward, extending his dominion to Carthaginian territory. In the spring of 331 Alexander made a pilgrimage to the great temple and oracle of Amon-Ra, Egyptian god of the sun, whom the Greeks identified with Zeus. The earlier Egyptian pharaohs were believed to be sons of Amon-Ra; and Alexander, the new ruler of Egypt, wanted the god to acknowledge him as his son. The pilgrimage apparently was successful, and it may have confirmed in him a belief in his own divine origin. Turning northward again, he reorganized his forces at Tyre and started for Babylon with an army of 40,000 infantry and 7000 cavalry. Crossing the Euphrates and the Tigris rivers, he met Darius at the head of an army of unknown size, which, according to the exaggerated accounts of antiquity, was said to number a million men; this army he completely defeated in the Battle of Gaugamela, on October 1, 331 BC. Darius fled as he had done at Issus and was later slain by two of his own generals. Babylon surrendered after Gaugamela, and the city of Susa with its enormous treasures was soon conquered. Then, in midwinter, Alexander forced his way to Persepolis, the Persian capital. After plundering the royal treasuries and taking other rich booty, he burned the city during a drunken binge and thus completed the destruction of the ancient Persian Empire. 

    His domain now extended along and beyond the southern shores of the Caspian Sea, including modern Afghanistan and Baluchistan, and northward into Bactria and Sogdiana, the modern Western Turkistan, also known as Central Asia. It had taken Alexander only three years, from the spring of 330 BC to the spring of 327 BC, to master this vast area. In order to complete his conquest of the remnants of the Persian Empire, which had once included part of western India, Alexander crossed the Indus River in 326 BC, and invaded the Punjab as far as the river Hyphasis (modern Beas); at this point the Macedonians rebelled and refused to go farther. He then constructed a fleet and passed down the Indus, reaching its mouth in September 325 BC. The fleet then sailed to the Persian Gulf. With his army, he returned overland across the desert to Media. Shortages of food and water caused severe losses and hardship among his troops. Alexander spent about a year organizing his dominions and completing a survey of the Persian Gulf in preparation for further conquests. He arrived in Babylon in the spring of 323 BC. In June he contracted a fever and died. He left his empire, in his own words, "to the strongest"; this ambiguous testament resulted in dire conflicts for half a century. 

    Alexander was one of the greatest generals of all time, noted for his brilliance as a tactician and troop leader and for the rapidity with which he could traverse great expanses of territory. He was usually brave and generous, but could be cruel and ruthless when politics demanded. As a statesman and ruler he had grandiose plans; according to many modern historians he cherished a scheme for uniting the East and the West in a world empire, a new and enlightened "world brotherhood of all men." He trained thousands of Persian youths in Macedonian tactics and enrolled them in his army. He himself adopted Persian manners and married Eastern wives, namely, Roxana (died about 311 BC), daughter of Oxyartes of Sogdiana, and Barsine (or Stateira; died about 323BC), the elder daughter of Darius; and he encouraged and bribed his officers to take Persian wives. 

    To bind his conquests together, Alexander founded a number of cities, most of them named Alexandria, along his line of march; these cities were well located, well paved, and provided with good water supplies. Greek veterans from his army settled in them; young men, traders, merchants, and scholars were attracted to them; Greek culture was introduced; and the Greek language became widely known. Thus, Alexander vastly extended the influence of Greek civilization and prepared the way for the kingdoms of the Hellenistic period and the conquests of the Roman Empire. "Alexander the Great," Microsoft(R) Encarta(R) 97 Encyclopedia. (c) 1993-1996 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. - Thanks to Bill Gates!

    This is what Compton's Interactive Encyclopedia (1998) has to say about Alexander.

    Alexander Links
    Selected Images

    Small Gold Alexander Statue #1 39.4 K

    Alexander's Quotes

    Legends Related to Alexander

    Questions & Answers

    (these answers only represent our personal opinion and may be treated as mere speculation by the more skeptical of you)
     

  • Was Alexander poisoned or died of fever/typhoid?
  • Was Alexander a son of God?
  • What was Alexander's mission?
  • Why Alexander stopped his campaign in the Kullu Valley on the bank of Hyphasis (Beas) river near modern Mandi in Himachal Pradesh (North-West India)?
  • Was Alexander a drunk?
    • Was Alexander a gay?
  • He loved Hephaestion deeply as well but it was a purely brotherly love. Speculations that he had sex with a Persian boy, eunuch Bagoas, advanced recently by Mary Renault in her trilogy, are a pure fantasy. In any case the social norms and morals at that time were very different from ours and many rulers and nobles of that time were bisexual according to ancient sources. The jury is still out on this controversial issue. Let's wait till arheologists find the tomb which will have much material evidence on various issues.


    • Was Alexander guilty of his father's death?

  • Most historians agree that he wasn't. The assasination was sponsored by Darius III, the Persian king, and implemented by the Lyncestian family, an age-long rival of the Phillip kin in their struggle for Macedonian throne. Given the exuberant joy Demosthenes displayed at the news of the murder it is quite likely he was a part of this plot. The allegation that Olympias, Alexander's mother was behind the murder was popularized by Cassander in order to justify his murder of Olympias and Alexander's wife and children about thirty years later. She was much offended by Phillip's womanizing behavior and new marriage but she was no part of the plot.

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    Where is Alexander's tomb?

    Are the people of Malana (Kullu Valley, north-west India ) and Kalash tribe, Black Kafirs of Hindukush, (north-west Pakistan) really the descendants of the Alexander's army as they claim? Was Alexander a cultural barbarian who burned temples, libraries and palaces, e.g. the royal palace in Persepolis?
    You may send your questions, contributions and comments to sangha@sangha.net.