Skopjan propaganda # 5 “Alexander’s army was not a Greek army”

in Skopjan Propaganda / by Admin / on June 24, 2007 at 7:43 am /

In response to the misinformation and falsification of history from the site http://faq.macedonia.org we are going to provide references both by Ancient and Modern sources refuting the lies and misinformation from FYROM.

- Ancient Sources -

1 .

“Porus, bringing up his elephants, followed these movements, guided by the
noise, and Alexander gradually led him to make these marches, parallel to
his own, a regular thing. This went on for some time, until Porus, finding that the Greeks never went beyond shouts and yells, gave it up. Clearly, it was afalse alarm; so he ceased to follow the movements of the Greek cavalry and stayed where he was in his original position with lookouts posted at various points along the river.”

Arrian’s Life of Alexander the Great. Penguin Classics. Translated by Aubrey
De Selincourt. Page 172

“Alexander promptly sent for Abisares, adding a threat that, should he fail to appear he would soon see the Greek army and its commander-in-chief and in an unwelcome spot.”

Arrian’s Life of Alexander the Great. Penguin Classics. Translated by Aubrey
De Selincourt. Page 182

Even though Xerxes had a huge host with him, he was a barbarian and was defeated by the prudence of the Hellenes; whereas Alexander the Hellene has already engaged in 13 battles and has not been defeated once.”

<`Pseudo-Kallisthenes' 2.3.4.-5; Oration of Demosthenes>

“And, now, is justly the barbarian praised by the Athenians for capturing Hellenes? As for Alexander who is a Hellene and captured Hellenes, not only did he not imprison his opponents, but enlisted them and made them his allies instead of enemies… ”

`Pseudo-Kallisthenes’ 2.4.5; Oration of Demosthenes

“No king of the Hellenes had ever conquered Egypt with the exception only of Alexander, and that he did without war…”

`Pseudo-Kallisthenes’ 2.4.7-8; Oration of Demosthenes

Mutiny was but a step away when, unperturbed by all this, Alexander summoned a full meeting of his generals and officers in his tent and ordered the Egyptian seers to give their opinion. They were well aware that the annual cycle follows a pattern of changes, that the moon is eclipsed when it passes behind the earth or is blocked by the sun, but they did not give this explanation, which they themselves knew, to the common soldiers. Instead, they declared that the sun represented the Greeks and the moon the Persians, and that an eclipse of the moon predicted disaster and slaughter for those nations.

(Quintus Curtius Rufus 4.10)

Alexander called a meeting of his generals the next day. He told them that no city was more hateful to the Greeks than Persepolis, the capital of the old kings of Persia, the city from which troops without number had poured forth, from which first Darius and then Xerxes had waged an unholy war on Europe. To appease the spirits of their forefathers they should wipe it out, he said.

(Quintus Curtius Rufus 5.6)

“…The Greeks moved on thence, from the sacred island, and were already coasting along Persian territory…”

Arrian, Indica XXXVIII

9. “

…Thence they sailed eight hundred stades, anchoring at Troea; there were small and poverty-stricken villages on the coast. The inhabitants deserted their huts and the Greeks found there a small quantity of corn, and dates from the palms…”

[Arrian, Indica XXIX]

10.

“…he (Alexander) inflicted punishment on the Persians for their outrages on all the Greeks, and how he delivered us all from the greatest evils by enslaving the barbarians and depriving them of the resources they used for the destruction of the Greeks, pitting now the Athenians and now the Thebans against the ancestors of these Spartans, how in a word he made Asia subject to Greece.”

[Polybius, Book IX, 34, 3]

11.

“…Yet through Alexander (the Great) Bactria and the Caucasus learned to revere the gods of the Greeks Alexander established more than seventy cities among savage tribes, and sowed all Asia with Greek magistracies... Egypt would not have its Alexandria, nor Mesopotamia its Seleucia, nor Sogdiana its Prophthasia, nor India its Bucephalia, nor the Caucasus a Greek city, for by the founding of cities in these places savagery was extinguished and the worse element, gaining familiarity with the better, changed under its influence…”

Plutarch’s Moralia, On the Fortune of Alexander I, 328D, 329A (Loeb, F.C. Babbitt)

12.

“But he said, If I were not Alexandros, I should be Diogenes; that is to say: `If it were not my purpose to combine barbarian things with things HELLENIC, to traverse and civilize every continent, to search out the uttermost parts of land and sea, TO PUSH THE BOUNDS OF MACEDONIA TO THE FARTHEST OCEAN, AND TO DISSEMINATE AND SHOWER THE BLESSINGS OF HELLENIC JUSTICE and peace over every nation, I should not be content to sit quietly in the luxury of idle power, but I should emulate the frugality of Diogenes. But as things are, forgive me Diogenes, that I imitate Herakles, and emulate Perseus, and follow in the footsteps of Dionysos, the divine author and progenitor of my family, and DESIRE THAT VICTORIOUS HELLENES SHOULD DANCE AGAIN in India <...>“

Plutarch’s Moralia, On the Fortune of Alexander, 332A (Loeb, F.C Babbitt)

13.

Similarly, the Thebans voted to drive out the garrison in the Cadmeia and not to concede to Alexander the leadership of the Greeks.

Diodorus of Sicily, 17.3.4

14.

he spoke to them in moderate terms and had them pass a resolution appointing him general plenipotentiary of the Greeks and undertaking themselves to join in an expedition against Persia seeking satisfaction for the offences which the Persians had committed against Greece.

Diodorus of Sicily, 17.4.9

15.

“Alexandros observed that his soldiers were exhausted with their constant campaigns. …The hooves of the horses had been worn thin by steady marching. The arms and armour were wearing out, and the Hellenic clothing was quite gone. They had to clothe themselves in materials of the barbarians,…”

(Diodoros of Sicily 17.94.1-2)

16.

” There are Greek troops, to be sure, in Persian service — but how different is theirs cause from ours ! They will be fighting for pay— and not much of it at that; we on the contrary shall fight for Greece, and our hearts will be in it. As for our foreign troops —Thracians, Paeonians, Illyrians, Agrianes — they are the best and stoutest soldiers of Europe, and they will find as their opponents the slackest and softest of the tribes of Asia.”

Arrian - The Campaigns of Alexander. Alexander talking to the troops before the battle. Book 2-7 Penguin Classics. Page 112. Translation by Aubrey De Seliucourt.

17.

“…so said the military leaders to the camps: `We have made enough war in Persia and conquered Dareios who claimed taxes from the Hellenes, but what are we accomplishing by marching against the Indians, in scary lands and doing things IMPROPER FROM HELLAS? If Alexandros has become full of himself and wishes to be a warrior, and subjugate barbarian peoples why do we follow him? Let him move on alone and engage in wars. Having heard these Alexander separated the Persian host from the MACEDONIANS AND THE OTHER HELLENES and addressed them…”

(`Pseudo-Kallisthenes’ 3.1.2-4)

18.

Alexander (the Great)… after talking to the Thessalians and the other Hellenes,… grabbed his spear with his left hand, shifted his right
hand to pray to the gods, as Kallisthenes reports, wishing, if he is indeed a SON of ZEUS that they SUPPORT the HELLENES. Aristandros, the priest…”

(Plutarchos, Alexander 33)

19.

“Your ancestors invaded Macedonia and the rest of Hellas and did us great harm, though we had done them no prior injury;… I have been appointed hegemon of the Greeks… ”

(Arrian, Anabasis of Alexander II, 14, 4)

20.

.”He sent to Athens three hundred Persian panoplies to be set up to Athena in the acropolis; he ordered this inscription to be attached: Alexander son of Philip and the Hellenes, except the Lacedaemonians, set up these spoils from the barbarians dwelling in Asia”,

(Arrian I, 16, 7)