F I S H I N G

Born 356 bC.

Aristoteles was his teacher and Homer was his course book. When he was 14, his father gave him that famous black horse Bucephalos that shied from its own shadow.

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Crowned in 336.

When Alexander was 20, his father was murdered. Alexander became heir to the kingdom and started out to conquer the world.

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Alexander’s Maps:

Unlike modern generals, Alexander had very little geography data to prepare his campaigns. There were few maps and they were drawn according to observations made by travelers and poets.

That is why the extent of Alexander’s empire is known more  accurately to us now than it was then to Alexander himself.

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The coin shows Alexander  on his horse Bucephalos going after the Persians who fought on elephants:

The photo is at “Alexander production pictures” and it can’t be linked directly.

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330 –  Alexander’s most dangerous enemy Darius was assassinated by his own people. ………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

324 —   Alexander lost his horse and his best friend Hephaestion dies.

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323 – Alexander died  as a commander never defeated.  He was only 33.  His empire fell apart, but his fame lasted.  — The coin shows him getting crowned by Fame.

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Alexander the Great is  the most famous man of antiquity.  He created an empire that included a large part of the known world. In many places he was considered a god. He is said to have founded 70 cities all along the way from Greece to India.

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Persepolis in Iran: the name is Greek meaning “the city of the Persians”. Alexander the Great may have been drunk when he ordered the city to be looted and the palace to be set on fire to celebrate his victory.

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The pillars of the Persepolis palace were not stone, but cedars  brought in by ship from the  Lebanon. They burnt instantly when Alexander  and his girlfriend Thais threw in their torches, and she encouraged all their drunken friends to do the same.

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He founded Alexandria in Egypt:

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Everybody knows about the Gordian knot: rather than trying to untie it, he cut through it and was admired for it ever after. Remember however that basically this procedure would involve cruelty in most cases. –

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He may have been short-tempered. When his best friend Hephaestion died, Alexander ordered the manes of his horses and mules  cut and the medic  executed.

And the old sources report that he was a drunk: “He was  more greedy for wine than able to carry it.”

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His coins were used all over the ancient world for more than 200 years. The coins + explanations  are from  http://www.forumancientcoins.com/catalog/

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Alexander’s sarcophagus is in Istanbul. Such is his fame in the East that people consider this sculpture their Mona Lisa as a work of art that everybody knows.

[See they still rode without stirrups, bareback!]

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Quick Summary

on the afternoon of June 11, 323 BC, at the palace of Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon.

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For detailed data see faq.macedonia.org/history.

A legend says that when Alexander reached the end of the world, he met the Talking Tree who warned him of his imminent death. In Arabic his name is Iskandar:

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Their religion and philosophy was based on Zoroaster. Zoroaster taught that life is a fight between truth and lies, light and dark. The Zoroastrian symbol of equinox is a fight between a wild bull and a lion.

The bull represents the Earth, and the lion is the sun, and on that day they are equal in strength.

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Now, most people would get to know this story through Oliver Stone’s film with Colin Farrell as Alexander.

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