The life story of Alexander the Great Part II
In 336 BC, Philip went to Aegean to attend the wedding of his daughter Cleopatra to Alexander I of Evros, the brother of his wife Olympias, who was assassinated by his bodyguard commander, Pausanias of Orestiade. He then ran towards the city gate trying to escape, but stumbled with a vine rope. Two of Alexander's companions, Perdicas and Leoniatus, caught him immediately. After the death of Philip Baya, the nobility of Alexander, king of the throne of Macedonia and commander-in-chief of his army, was only 20 years old.
Consolidate his power
Alexander began his reign by exterminating his opponents, who would likely emerge from the throne of the kingdom.He ordered the execution of his cousin Aminitas IV, the most prominent rival and claimant to the throne of Macedonia, and two other Macedonian princes from the territory of Linjestus, but he pardoned a third, Alexander Lingisti. Olympias also ordered the execution of Cleopatra Euridis, the last wife of Philip, and her daughter Europa, whom she had given birth to, and burned two lives. It appears that Alexander was not willing or willing to execute the woman and her innocent daughter, as the sources state that he was furious when he was known for their death. Other people also affected by Alexander's sword include: Attalus, who was commander of the Frontier Corps of the Army stationed in Asia Minor, and Cleopatra Eurydis, as he communicated with Athenian leader Demostheni about the possibility of defecting from the Macedonian army and joining the Athens army. Alexander was still spiteful of Attalus after he publicly insulted him at the wedding of his niece Ali Philip, and after the death of the two and proved his contact with the Athenians, Alexander executed him and got rid of his evils. Alexander pardoned his half-brother Felipe Arredaeus for a mental disability, probably because of the poison that Olympias had hidden for him.
After the death of Philip spread, several cities under Macedonian revolt rose up against their rulers, including: Thebes, Athens, and Thessaly, as well as the Thracian tribes living in the north of the kingdom. As soon as the news of the revolution reached the ears of Alexander, he prepared and equipped an army of 3,000 horsemen, although his advisers advised him to adopt diplomatic solutions, and walked south towards Thessaly, and as soon as he reached the crossing between Mount Olymp and Mount Usa, he was surprised by the Thessalonians who had occupied and stationed their forces there. He ordered his men to climb Mount Osa and to turn around the Thessalonians and surprise them. The Thessalonians were shocked when they woke up the next morning to find the Macedonians behind the rear of their army, surrendered immediately, and their knights voluntarily joined the army of Alexander, who completed the march south to the Mora Peninsula.
Alexander continued his journey until he reached the corridor of the incendiary gates, and continued south until Corinth arrived, and then the Athenians asked him for safety, and promised him to submit to Macedonia, pardoned them and secured them for their lives and property. During his stay in Corinth, Alexander met with the famous ascetic philosopher Diogenes the Dog, and he was a big fan of him. He asked him if he had a request that he could fulfill. It appears that this response delighted Alexander, where some historians say: «I really tell you, if I was not Alexander I would have been Diogenes». Alexander was disqualified as the supreme leader of the Hellenistic League during his stay in Corinth.He was succeeded by his father to lead the armies of all of Greece in the next war with the Persian Empire, and received reports that the Thracians revolted against his rule.
Alexander wanted to secure the borders of his northern kingdom, before crossing the Dardanelles to Asia, and in the spring of 335 BC he embarked on a campaign to purge his country of the revolutions and uprisings. Alexander set out from Amphipolis eastward to the country of the "Independent Thracians", and on the slopes of the Balkans defeated their forces in disbelief. The army then headed to the main branch of the river, where the Gitians tied on the opposite bank, and Alexander ordered his men to cross at night under cover of darkness. Afterwards, he reached out to Cleitus of Aleria, and Plockias of the Tolentians to disobey him. During Alexander's Northern Campaign, when the latter knew about it, he headed south at full speed to extinguish the fire of the revolution before it was extended. As in previous revolutions, all the Greek cities hesitated to fight Alexander when he learned of his arrival, except Thebes, who decided to confront. The resistance of the Tayyibis was absolutely useless. Alexander and his army swept them like a storm, leveling their city by land, dividing its territory among the rest of the city. The end of Thebes had a terrible effect in the hearts of the Athenians, and they submitted to Macedonia for fear that they would suffer the same fate. Alexander devoted himself fully to his Asian campaign, gathering troops and equipment and going east, leaving one of the military commanders, Antipater, as regent.
In 334 BC, Alexander crossed the Dardanelles with an army of 48,100 infantry soldiers, 6,100 cavalry, and a fleet of 120 ships with a crew of 38,000, brought from Macedonia and various Greek cities. The army also included a number of mercenaries and feudal warriors from Thrace, Paionia, and Aleria. Alexander showed his intention to conquer all the territory of the Persian Empire when he first inserted a spear into the Asian mainland, saying that he accepted Asia as a gift to the goddess. This incident also showed another important thing: Alexander's yearning for fighting the Persians, and his inclination towards military solutions, unlike his father, who always favored diplomatic solutions. The Macedonians clashed with the Persians in the first battle on the banks of the Granikos River, now known as the Peva River, northwest Asia Minor, near the site of the city of Troy, where the Persians were defeated and handed over the keys of the city of Sard, the capital of that province, to Alexander, who entered it by victory. He seized its coffers and then continued its advance along the Ionian coast. Alexander laid siege to the city of Halicarnassus, in the province of Karia, making it the first city to besiege it.The siege was so successful that the city's mercenary commander, Memnon Rhodesi, and the governor of the Persian province of Arandbad, had to withdraw by sea. Alexander handed the rule of Karia to Ada Kariya, a former governor of the region, who declared her allegiance to Macedonia and adopted Alexander officially until the rule of the province legitimately after her death.
Alexander and his army advanced from Halicarnassus to the mountainous region of Lycia in southern Anatolia and the Pamphylia plain, conquering all the coastal cities one by one, depriving the Persians of many important seaports. Alexander marched into Anatolia after the conquest of Gamphelia, as the rest of the coastline contained no prominent seaports or bases. To the wrath of Zeus upon him and his lack of success in his campaign. After Thermos, Gordium was the next stop for Alexander and his army, in which he dissolved the previously unresolved Gordian knot, which only the true king of Asia was said to solve. Historians report that Alexander cut the knot with his sword, saying it was not necessary to know the correct way to solve it.
After Alexander and his army spent the whole winter invading and conquering fortified cities and castles in Asia Minor, they continued their march south and crossed the gates of Cilicia in 333 BC, and met the Persians again at Asus, led by Shah Dara III himself. His wife, two daughters, and his mother «Cisigambis» were captured in captivity. The Shah offered to conclude a peace treaty with Alexander under which the latter would retain the territory he had opened, and to release his family for 10,000 tons. Alexander responded to this proposal that only he had the right to divide the territory of Asia, since it was impossible for its master, neither Dara nor anyone could determine for him what he kept and what he left.
Alexander immortalized his victory, which opened the doors of the Levant wide, by establishing a city in the north of the country on the borders of Anatolia, is «Iskenderun». Alexander had now to choose one of two plans: either to pursue the Persians to their own country, or to crawl south to open the Phoenician cities and Egypt before pouncing on Persia. Alexander chose the second plan to safeguard his transportation lines and to thwart every attempt by the Persian fleet to move Greece to revolt against it. The Phoenician cities were under the yoke of heavy Persian colonialism, opening their doors to Alexander and receiving him as a savior.
Alexander wanted to offer the sacrifices to the god of images «Malqart», so the Syrians refuse to do so, as they considered this work as a right of their king only. Alexander regarded this rejection as a personal insult to him, and determined to discipline the stubborn city. Images were then divided into two parts: wild images and island images. Alexander saw that he would first open the wild city, and then build a dam that would connect it to the island and cross the sea, and besiege the island and fall into his hands. Thus, he seized the wilderness with great ease, and then ordered his men to demolish their buildings, throw their debris into the sea, and cut down trees from nearby forests to use them in massive landfills. But the Syrians resisted the conqueror with astonishing courage, until despair almost leaked to his heart. Finally, Alexander was able to gather a huge naval force besieged the island fell in his hand, in the month of July 332 BC, after a seven-month siege. Alexander retaliated from Tire, killing six thousand of its people, and crucified two thousand, and enchant thirty thousand. Then he entered the temple of Melqart and offered sacrifices to the god of Tire, and set up a gaming party to rejoice in his victory.
After the destruction of Tire, most of the Shami cities and towns were subjected to Alexander without a fight, as he passed to Egypt, except for Gaza.The city's Persian ruler refused to open its doors to the Macedonian leader, and declared his intention to resist it. Gaza was one of the most fortified cities in Syria, and its position on a hill imposed on any army hit the siege on it to be able to open it. The Macedonians tried to storm the city three times in a row, they did not succeed, and the fourth time they succeeded after using siege tools they brought specially from Tire, but Alexander paid the price of the siege dearly, he was seriously injured in his shoulder. As he did in Tire, Alexander took revenge on the people of the city for the evil of revenge. His wounds.
The city of Jerusalem had opened its doors to Alexander, and he entered it without resistance. Great will invade the territory of the Persian Empire and that the Shah of Persia, the great centuries will not be able to stand in his path: Taper between his eyes. And he came to the ram of the two horns, which I saw standing by the river, and ran upon him with his might. And I saw him have arrived along with the ram, Va_i_at it and hit the ram and break the horns, did not ram the strength to stand up in front of him, and put on the ground and stepped on, and did not ram the savior of his hand. [Daniel 8] shows that Alexander mirth when he heard a prophecy concerning him, Vokrm Jerusalemites He stayed for a while in the city during which he visited the Temple of Herod, and then left and continued his way south.
Alexander arrived at the Farma, the gate of East Egypt, in the autumn of 332 BC, and found no resistance from the Egyptians or the Persian garrison at the border and opened it easily, then across the Nile and arrived in the capital of Memphis, was welcomed by its people as a victorious editor, and then held a cultural entertainment festival Greek-style celebration of this great victory. After that, he walked his forces with the canal branch of the Nile, heading for the Mediterranean coast, landed near Lake Mariout, and took care of the importance of the place between the lake and the Mediterranean, especially since the place is close to the Nile River, which supplies it with fresh water. He found a small island near the beach called «Pharos», and then commissioned one of his aides called «Dinocrates» to oversee the construction of a city in this and arrived the beach on the island by a stone and sand, with the new city to bear the name of the Macedonian leader, namely, Alexandria Which was destined to become the capital of Egypt later during the reign of the Ptolemies.
Historians recount that when Alexander the Great chose Alexandria to be the capital of his empire, he was guided by the guidance of his spiritual teacher Homer, the epic of the Iliad and the Odyssey, who appeared to Alexander in the dream, and was sung by his famous verses from the Odyssey of the Odyssey when the hero of the saga and his companions turned to the island of Pharos. Alexander immediately deceived him, and went to Pharos, which was still a small island to the southwest for the Canopic estuary.
As the engineers embarked on the design, Alexander decided to make a spiritual journey to the temple of the god Amun, opposite Zeus to the Greeks, in the oasis of Siwa in the Western Desert of Egypt. The Temple of Amun in Siwa Oasis was famous as one of the important temples of prediction and spiritual mediation in the Mediterranean at the time. When Alexander the Great arrived at the temple and entered it, he was welcomed by the priests of Amun, who set him a pharaoh over Egypt and declared him the son of Amun, the great Egyptian goddess, and wore him his crown and shape as the head of a ram with two horns. Since then, Alexander claimed that Zeus-Amun was his real father, and his head was later engraved on the minted coins decorated with ram horns, the sign of immortality. Alexander then returned to Memphis, and before leaving Egypt he was careful to organize the country carefully. He was keen to preserve the old Egyptian regimes, diversify the rule between the Egyptians and the Greeks, who put military and financial power in their hands, kept the Egyptians administrative authority, and distributed the authorities evenly, and did not appoint a Macedonian governor-general, thus ensuring the satisfaction of the Egyptians and the failure of national revolutions. Egypt thus became a Greek state, and Alexander kept Memphis as its capital, and he was keen to open the doors of Egypt to the Greek immigrants, especially the Macedonians, because Egypt as imagined by the Macedonian leader was a Greek state, Macedonian rule, thought and culture, and this was a turning point in the history of Egypt, as it entered a new phase Of its diverse civilization phases. Before Alexander left Egypt, he reviewed his troops for farewell and held a sports and cultural festival for the Egyptian and Greek people as a symbol of cooperation between the two ancient civilizations.He also recommended his staff to make some repairs to the temples and renovate the Temple of Karnak.Then, he made the journey and moved his army eastward again.
Alexander marched his army to Dar al-Pers, intending to eradicate their military power.He reached Mesopotamia, where Shah Dara III had mobilized a large army of 200,000 to 250,000 troops, while contemporary sources state that the number It was probably between 50,000 and 100,000 soldiers, while the Macedonian army numbered only 47,000. The Shah chose the location of the decisive battle carefully. He wanted to throw his entire military weight against the Macedonians, ensuring victory.
The commanders of Alexander's army proposed to surprise the Persians on the eve of the battle and to attack them under cover of darkness and took them by surprise, because confronting this large army face to face is very difficult, if not impossible. But Alexander rejected this idea, saying that he would not steal this victory, but would win it well, so how could he be the king of Asia if not really earned it. In any case, such an attack would have been likely to fail, as Dara anticipated and predicted, ordering his men to stay awake all night and put them on standby to counter any possible attack. The following morning, the Macedonian army headed to the battlefield to find the Persians lined up and waiting for them. There were plenty of war wheels and fifteen war elephants brought in from India. Alexander showed his military genius at the beginning of the battle. They broke through the ranks of his army, and he fled on the run with some of his commanders, leaving his army under the weight of the blows of Alexander and his army. Alexander followed the remnants of the Persian army with the desire to capture the Shah, and he followed him to Arbala in the north, but was unable to catch him, because he crossed the Zagros Mountains and took refuge in Hamadan. Alexander then entered Babylon, the Persian capital, crowned with fingernail, and was welcomed by its people, and gave safety to the people and prevent his soldiers from entering the homes without the permission of the owners or to take away something.
After the conquest of Babylon, Alexander set off for the city of Sousse, one of the important Achaemenid capitals. He then marched with most of his army to Persepolis, the religious capital of Persia, across the royal road.He is said to have personally selected the soldiers, each in his name, to do the job.When the Macedonians arrived at the Gates of Persia, they found a small army waiting for them, led by the governor of the territory “They defeated him and scattered him, then they rushed to the city before her garrison robbed her treasury and fled. Alexander allowed his men to loot Persepolis for several days after he entered it, and he stayed there for five months. During his stay, a massive fire broke out in the eastern palace of Khashayarsha, spreading to the rest of the city, possibly caused by a drunken man who did not know what he was doing, or that one of them deliberately set fire to an important Persian landmark, in response to the Persians' burning of Acropolis of Athens during Second Persian War.
Alexander pursued the chase of Shah Dara III with all his determination, pursued him to Medea first, then followed him to Parthia.Dara was in an unenviable state.After losing all his battles with Alexander, and losing most of the land to his favor, he lost the respect and trust of his few officers who accompanied him. And among them «Ardashir» known as Psus, the governor of Bakhtria and his cousin, has disobeyed the latter, not only that, but he handcuffed and carried him with him captive to Central Asia. When Alexander and his army were approaching, he ordered his men to stab a deadly stab at Dara, then declared himself a successor, under the name of Ardashir V, and proceeded to Central Asia to prepare a series of military campaigns against the Macedonian leader. The front of the Macedonian army found a thrown in his chariot in the event of a conflict, and when Alexander arrived Dara had surrendered the soul, and it appears that Alexander was saddened to see his old adversary as such, who was once a great king, ended up in this way; He covered him with his mantle, and his body was taken to Persepolis, where he was buried alongside his ancestors of kings, after a solemn funeral. Some novels, including Alexander himself, suggest that when he arrived, Dara was still alive, and named Alexander a successor to the throne of Persia. Historians consider the end of the Achaemenid Empire to have come with the death of Dara III.
Alexander Psus was considered an aggressor usurper, and he proceeded in his trail. The campaign aimed at arresting Bsous turned into a large-scale tour in Central Asia. Alexander opened the city after city and town after town, and founded several cities, all of which he called «Alexandria», and some still exist to the present, but the name changed, Afghanistan, and Alexandria maximum in Tajikistan. Alexander included several provinces in his empire during this tour, such as Medea, Gart, Ariana (Western Afghanistan), Zrenka, Rukh (Central and Southern Afghanistan), Bakhteriya (Northern and Central Afghanistan), and Sithia.
Alexander was able to Psus after he was betrayed by the governor of Sogdia, called "Spentamensch", and handed over to Ptolemy in 329 BC, the latter carried him to Alexander, who ordered his execution immediately, his nose was cut and his ears were cut, and some sources state that he was crucified at the same site where he was killed Dara and others state that he was tortured and beheaded in Hamadan, and Plutarch says his body was cut into pieces in Bakhteria. Shortly after this incident, the Spentamanche declared disobedience to Alexander and encouraged the sons of Sogdia to revolt, taking advantage of the absence of the Macedonian army to respond to a raid by the Sithon nomads on the banks of the Sihon River. Alexander was able to defeat the Sethites, and then turned his eyes to Sogdia.He met the Spentamines army, defeated him and forced him to flee.Then his soldiers soon killed him in their hands, and sent Alexander to ask for forgiveness and peace and declare their allegiance to him.
We complete the rest of Alexander the Great's life story at the following link
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