Deze vuist op deze puist ... Re: 20-3stenengebeden

'Waar
de stenen top der ...'
x"Alex's Empire{s}"x
X
FROM
431 to
404 B.C.
the Peloponnesian War
wasted Greece.
MEANWHILE
to the north of Greece,
the kindred country of
MACEDONIA
was rising slowly to power and civilisation?
The Macedonians spoke a language closely akin to Greek,
and on several occasions Macedonian competitors
had taken part in
the Olympic
games
.............
X
In 359 B.C.
a man of great abilities and ambition
became king of this little country - PHILIP.
This Phipil had previously been a hostage in Greece;
he had had a thoroughly Greek education
and he was probably aware of the ideas of Herodotus -
which had also been developed
by the philosopher Isocrates -
of a possible conquest of Asia by a
consolidated
Greece ...
X
HE
set himself first
to extend and organise his own realm
and to remodel his army .............
For a thousand years now the charging horse-chariot had been
the decisive factor in battles, that
and the close-fighting
infantry.
X
Mounted
horsemen had also fought,
but as a cloud of skirmishers,
individually and without discipline.
Philip made his infantry fight in a closely packed mass,
the Macedonian phalanx,
and he trained his mounted gentlemen,
the knights or 'companions',
to fight in formation and so invented
cavalry?
x
The master move
in most of his battles and in the battles of his son ALEXANDER was
a cavalry charge?
The plalanx held the enemy infantry in front {like 'we' do nowadays with rockets, bomberplanes, tanks and so on?} while the cavalry
swept away the enemy horse on his wings and poured in
on the flank and rear of his infantry ....
CHariots were disabled by bowmen,
who shot the horses ...
X




With this NEW army
Philip extended his frontiers thru Thessaly to Greece;
and the battle of CHaeronia {338 B.C.},
fought against Athens and her allies,
put all Greece at his feet?!
AT LAST the dream of Herodotus was bearing fruit.
A congress of all the Greek states
appointed Philip captain-general of a Graeco-Macedonian confederacy
against Persia, and in 336 B.C. his advanced guard
crossed into Asia upon this long premeditated
adventure?
x
BUT he never followed it!
HE was assassinated;
it is believed at the instigation of his queen {chercher la femme} Olympias,
Alexander's mother .............
SHE was jealous because Philip had married
a second wife .....
X
BUT
Philip had taken
unusual pains with his son's education?!
HE had not only secured Aristotle, the greatest philosopher of the world,
as his boy's tutor, but he had also shared his ideas with him
and thrust military experience upon him!
At Chaeronia, Alexander, who was then only eighteen years old
had been in command
of the cavalry ...
x
And SO it was
possible for this young man,
who was still only twenty years old at the time of his accession,
to take up his father's task at once
and to proceed successfully with
the Persian adventure?!
X
In 334 B.C. -
for two years were needed to establish and confirm his position
in Macedonia and Greece -
{doesn't this sound a bit like the two 'Bushes' of 2,338 years later?}
he crossed into Asia,
defeated a not very much bigger Persian army at the battle of the Granicus and captured a number of cities in Asia Minor ....
He kept along the
seacoast ...
x
IT WAS NECESSARY
for him to reduce and garrison all the coast towns as he advanced {!},
because the Persians had control of the fleets of Tyre and Sidon
and so had command of the sea ...
Had he left a hostile port in his rear the Persians might have landed forces
to raid his communications
and cut him off?
x
At Issus {333 B.C.} he met
and smashed a vast conglomerate host under Darius III ...
LIKE the host of Xerxes that had crossed the Dardanelles a century and a half before, it was an incoherent accumulation of contingents
and it was encumbered with a multitude of
court officials,
the harem of Darius
and many camp-followers ...........
x
Sidon surrendered to Alex, but Tyre resisted obstinately ...
FINALLY that great city was stormed and plundered and destroyed!
GAZA also was stormed, and towards the end of 332 B.C.
the conquerer entered Egypt and took over its rule
from the Persians ........
X
AT Alexandretta and at Alexandria in Egypt
he built great cities,
accessible from the land and so incapable of revolt!
To these the trade of the Phoenicians {phonetic!} cities was diverted!
The Phoenicians of the western Mediterranean suddenly
disappear from history - and as immediately the Jews of Alexandria
and the other trading cities created by Alexander
appear
....
x
Time to take a break:
eureka-aha-capsule,
anti-biotics, breakfast,
coffee, cress, garlic,
salt & bread to be able to
go ahead!?
liefdesverdrietverliefdgemeengaap!nahnahbah!nahnahverdrietig
verliefdvrolijkknipoogerg vrolijkcool!verliefd
engel
04 jul 2004 - bewerkt op 10 jan 2008 - meld ongepast verhaal
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Asih, man, 81 jaar
   
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