Now preparations for storming the city could be
pressed ahead. The siege mound was gradually extended towards the walls and
Alexander’s military engineers, notably the brilliant Thessalian Diades,
constructed the most formidable offensive arsenal yet seen in Hellenic siege
warfare.
“Conquest and Empire:The Reign of Alexander the Great”,
A.B.Bosworth,page 66
The Macedonians were originally one of several Greek tribes living on
the northern frontier of the Hellenic world.”
“The
relatively remote geographical situation of the Macedonians contributed to
their retention of a social organization different from the rest of Greeks”
Encyclopedia
of the Archaeology of Ancient Egypt By Kathryn A. Bard, pages 553-554
✍️ Quote:
Persian
rule in Egypt was not to survive long, but its overthrow was not the work of
Egyptians. In 336 BC a Greek army,led by Alexander III (Alexander the Great)
king of Macedonia invaded the Persian empire.
📖 “The Cambridge History of Africa” edited by
J. D. Fage, page 105
✍️Quote:
It would be
easy to see in this, the formal establishment of Greek rule in Egypt, the
logical culmination of three centuries of Greek influence and patronage. But,
except in so far as the earlier involvement of Greeks in Egyptian affairs
prepared the Egyptians psychologically to accept Greek rule...
📖 “The Cambridge History of Africa” edited by J. D. Fage, page 106
“The future
relations between the two peoples had been irrevocably fixed by Alexander’s
Anabasis, which destined them to work together in close co-operation as joint
rulers of the East, and eventually to be blended into one Nation.“
Max Cary, A History of the Greek World from 323-146 B.C. page 10
In 197 he
re-entered Thessaly and forced a battle on the field of Cynoscephalae. In this
encounter the Macedonian heavy infantry proved that in a solid front-to-front
charge not even the Roman legions could hold, but that, once thrown out of
order or taken in flank, it became helpless. While one Macedonian Phalanx
charged right home, another broke itself up by its own impetus and became an
easy prey to the enemy; and the victorious division, without cavalry support on
the flanks, was enfiladed and cut to pieces by the succcessful Roman wing
wheeling upon it. This was the first decisive victory of Romans over Greeks in a set battle on a large scale; but it
sufficed definitely to establish Roman ascendancy in Greece.
Max Cary, “A History of the Greek World from
323-146 B.C.”, page 191
A History of
the Greek World from 325 to 146 B.C.
by Cary Max ,publication date:1932
Description
A History
of the Greek World from 323 to 146 B.C. (1951) looks at the period of Greek
history from the Macedonian to the Roman conquests. It contains a narrative of
the political history of the Hellenistic states; a description of their
statecraft, war-craft and economic practice; and a summary of later Greek
achievement in the fields of art, literature, science, philosophy and religion.
“When
Alexander was just a child, his father was making Macedon (Now Macedonia in
northern Greece) into one of the Greatest Greek city-states, as well as the
dominant power in the Balkans.”
Mark
Grossman,World Military Leaders:A Biographical Dictionary,page 11
“...he was tutored by Aristotle,the great Greek orator and educator,whom Philip called to Pella.”
“That the Macedonians were of Greek stock seems
certain.
“…but Macedonian proper names, such as Ptolemaios or
Philippos, are good Greek names, and the names of the Macedonian months,
although differed from those of Athens or Sparta, were also Greek.
Alexander the Great,J.R. Hamilton(Hutchinson,London, 1973),page 23
“The
Macedonians were ethnically related to the Greeks and spoke a dialect of Greek,
but their loose feudal kingdom on the northern border of the Greek world had
always been regarded as culturally backward.
Art and Experience in Classical Greece,Jerome Jordan
Pollitt,page 138
“The latest archaeological findings have confirmed
that Macedonia took it’s name from a tribe of tall, Greek-speaking people, the
Makednoi ( = lenght )”
“Philip II of Macedon was anxious to pacify and unify
Greeks at any cost… His dream was fulfilled by his son Alexander III the
Great,who in no more than 12 years at the head of a Greek army occupied a major
part of then known world from the Aegean Sea to the frontiers of India “
Nigel Guy Wilson, Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece,page
439
“The Macedonian people and their kings were of Greek stock,as their traditions and the scanty remains of their language combine to testify.”
J.B.Bury and R. Meiggs:A History of Greece. To the Death of Alexander the Great
"That
the Macedonians and their kings did in fact speak a dialect of Greek and bore
Greek names may be regarded nowadays as certain."
Malcom Errington, "A History of Macedonia",page 3
“Macedonian horsemen together with those of their Thessalian neighbours were later
regarded as the best in Greece”
Macedonia
and Epirus were the buffers of Greece in Europe...
The Greeks
Until Alexander [Ancient Peoples and Places series],1962 by R. M. Cook,page 23
I fear that I have not been wholly consistent in my
use of the term “Macedonian.” For the record, let me state that I believe
Macedonians, ancient and modern,are Greeks .
Ptolemy of
Egypt,Walter M. Ellis, Routledge, 1994
In less than twelve years Alexander conquered the
Persian empire,a region that included
the modern countries of
Turkey,Syria,Lebanon,Israel,Egypt,Iraq,Iran,Afghanistan,Pakistan,and parts of
former Soviet Turkestan and Uzbekistan.His empire also included a relatively
united Greece,the work of his father,Philip II.
Ptolemy was
the creator of the longest lasting of the Hellenistic kingdoms. He created a
state whose cultural importance was unparalleled until the coming of Rome. He
encouraged the erection of the Pharos Lighthouse, one of the seven wonders of
the ancient world, as well as creating a library which eventually contained the
greatest collection of books until relatively recent times. Ptolemy's
institution of higher learning, the Museum, gave birth to the greatest
advancements in science before the seventeenth century of our own era.
In this
work, the first biography of Ptolemy in any language, Professor Ellis charts
Ptolemy's extraordinary achievements in and beyond Egypt in the context of the
fragmentation of Alexander's enormous empire and the creation of the
Hellenistic state.
The Greek
leaders perceived the sudden resurgence of Persian power in the region as a new
and significant challenge to their interests. To gain support for an activist
policy, some attempted to redefine the nature of the Greek-Persian conflict
from one of straightforward geopolitics to the more emotional issue of
pan-Hellenism. For such proponents of a continuation of the struggle the issue
was no longer merely the matter of the defense of the Greek city-states. The
Persian challenge was now characterized as a conflict of principle, of Hellenic
culture and civilization against Asiatic barbarism in an unrelenting struggle
for survival. They advocated a crusade to be carried out by a unified Greek
nation that was to include all that partook of Greek civilization. However, the
traditional leadership of Athens and the other prominent city-states, exhausted
by the long external and internal wars, were unable to mobilize the support
necessary for an effective response to the Persian challenge. Nonetheless, the
pan-Hellenic crusade was soon to be undertaken, but not by Athens. It was
Macedonia that was to impose its own leadership on Greece and undertake the
renewed struggle against Persia in the name of the Hellenes .
The
Pre-Islamic Middle East, Martin Sicker,
2000,page 99
After successfully annexing Thessaly and Thrace, Philip was widely acknowledged as the natural leader of a Hellenic alliance. The venerable Isocrates saw Philip as the man that Greece needed to deal with a chronic demographic problem that menaced its future. He argued that Greece was plagued by overpopulation, which produced large numbers of men suitable for military service who wandered about, without loyalty to any city, selling their services to anyone who could pay for them and thereby posing a constant menace to the stability of the country. What was needed, he suggested, was a new country that might be colonized by Greece’s surplus population. This new land would have to be conquered from Persia, and Philip of Macedon, who was already successfully challenging the Persians in a contest for control of the European shores of the Hellespont, was clearly the only one who might be able to annex all Anatolia to the Hellenic world.
The Pre-Islamic Middle East, Martin Sicker, 2000,page 100
Philip had
no illusions about the stability of the Common Peace, given the turbulent
history of the Greek city-states, their competitiveness, and their general
reluctance to sacrifice their freedom of action even for the common good.
Moreover, he was a Macedonian, from the backwater of the Greek world .
A Persian
offer of 300 talents was privately accepted by Demosthenes, who employed it for
purposes compatible with mutual Athenian-Persian interests in thwarting
Macedonian ascendancy
Tradition
held the other element to be Hellenic, and no one in the fourth century
seriously questioned its belief.
“Philip and
Alexander of Macedon” by David G. Hogarth,page 5
The king
[of macedon] was chief in the first instance of a race of plain-dwellers, who
held themselves to be, like him, of Hellenic stock…
“Philip and
Alexander of Macedon” by David G. Hogarth, page 8
From
Alexander I, who rode to the Athenian pickets the night before Plataea and
proclaimed himself to the generals their friend and a Greek, down to Amyntas,
father of Philip, who joined forces with Lacedaemon in 382, the kings of
Macedon bid for greek support by being more Hellenic than the Hellenes.
“Philip and
Alexander of Macedon” by David G. Hogarth, page 9-10
Archelaus
patronized Athenian poets and Athenian drama and commisioned Euripides to
dramatize the deeds of his Argive ancestor.
“Philip and
Alexander of Macedon” by David G. Hogarth, page 10
“Macedonia”
therefore, throughout historical times until the accession of Philip the
Second, presents the spectacle of a nation that was no nation, but a group of
discordant units, without community of race, religion, speech or sentiment,
resultant from half-accomplished conquest and weak as the several sticks of the
faggot in the fable.
“Philip and
Alexander of Macedon” by David G. Hogarth, page 10
Wie es anfing - Thales, Heraklit, Platon, Aristoteles Hellenismus und Weltbürgertum - Epikur, die Stoa und Plotin Moral u...
