Macedonia History

 The famous mosaic with the battle scene of Alexander the Great vs Darius from the legendary Pompeii is now being spruced up in a seven-month restoration in Naples. Pompeii's famous mosaic of the victory of Alexander III of Macedon over King Darius III. of Persia is to undergo a major restoration project at the National Archaeological Museum of Naples (MANN). The restoration of the monumental and quite famous Alexander mosaic begins at the end of this month and is expected to be completed in July. The 'Alexander mosaic' was rediscovered in 1831 in the House of the Faun in Pompeii. The floor mosaic dates from around 100 BC. And is said to have struck the battle of Issus in southern Anatolia on November 5, 333 BC. Represent the second great battle of Alexander's Persian campaign. The mosaic measures 5.82 x 3.13 meters and is one of the most famous works of the ancient Roman city, which was buried under volcanic ash after the eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79. The upcoming res...

Alexander III the Great (356-323 B.C.) was the King of Macedonia and the conqueror of the Persian Empire to establish the Macedonian Empire. Alexander is deemed one of the greatest military geniuses of all times. He was the inspiration for conquerors like Hannibal the Carthaginian, the Romans Pompey and Caesar, and Napoleon. Alexander’s father was King Philip II who conquered and established Greece as a united front to attack the Persian Empire. At age 12 Alexander tamed and rode the unruly stallion, Bucephalus, which no one at that stage was able to ride. Bucephalus was the horse Alexander rode in all of his major battles till the very end. When he was 13, the philosopher Aristotle was appointed as Alexander’s personal tutor. During the following three years, Aristotle gave Alexander training in all the major areas of Greek knowledge. At the age of 18, he took charge of the Companion Cavalry and defeated the Athenian and Theban armies at Chaeronea in 338 BC. So...

It is astounding to think of Alexander, the Great, as a conquerer. But it is indeed a fact that he is popularly known as a great Greek emperor. However, most do not know the fact that he was not a Greek. He was born in Pella, a tribal pocket of Macedonia, which became a part of Yugoslavia. It can thus be concluded by all means that he was a tribal by birth. He inherited the escalated political position from his father, Philip. Alexander started his political career under the tutelage of the great scholar, Aristotle. Alexander, as a part of military exercise by conquerring parts of North Africa, reached West Asia. From there he reached Persia (present-day Iran) and defeated King Darius and followed further in his expedition to North West India. But his mission came to an abrupt end due to unaccounted death at the age of 32 years. The main argument I pose to place here is that in the course of just around 10 years of military mission, Alexander could establish a suzerain...

Alexander the Great's 'lost city' was a magical place where people drank wine and naked philosophers imparted wisdom, ancient accounts claim. Now, nearly 2,000 years after the great warrior's death, archaeologists believe the city may have finally been discovered in Iraq. Experts first noticed ancient remains in the Iraqi settlement, known as Qalatga Darband, after looking at declassified American spy footage from the 1960s. The images were made public in 1996 but, due to political instability, archaeologists were unable to explore the site properly for years. Now, using more recent drone footage and on-site work, researchers have established there was a city during the first and second centuries BC, which had strong Greek and Roman influences. They believe Alexander the Great founded it in 331 BC, and later settled in the city with 3,000 veterans of his campaigns. Undefeated in battle, Alexander had carved out a vast empire stretching from ...

Why did Alexander the Great's empire fall?   (click headline for original source) It’s a really big mess. Dramatic though. The following was spread out across more than a dozen Wikipedia articles, and I’ve drawn together what I can to form this comprehensive and long summary. In short: Lots of fighting between generals resulted in three of them claiming empires in Asia, Greece and Egypt. All of these later fell to the expanding Romans. In long: Alexander , the military genius who conquered all the land from Greece to India in a decade without ever losing a battle, suddenly died in June 323 BCE. He was only 32 and had no children (yet - his wife Roxana would give birth after his death), and had made plans to invade Arabia and set up his capital at Babylon - plans which would never be put into effect. No one knows for sure if he got sick or was poisoned; it could have been either. Regardless, his generals immediately began fighting over who should take...

Long before George R.R. Martin penned his tale of war, intrigue and treachery the ancient world was scene to its own version of The Game of Thrones. When Alexander the Great died in Babylon 323 BC, he left the greatest empire the world had yet seen with no clear successor. While both of his wives (Roxane the daughter of Oxyartes of Bactria; and Stateira , daughter of Darius) were pregnant, he had no (legitimate) children yet born; though a four year old son of his former mistress Barsiné, named Heracles, was claimed by some to be Alexander’s illegitimate son. Alexander had made no provision for what was to happen in the case of his death. For a ruler who habitually took unnecessary risks; leading his Army, literally, from the front this was particularly irresponsible. But it was completely in character for Alexander, who ever refused to acknowledge his own mortality. The bust of Alexander now in the Louvre, portrays the conqueror in his last years; and is considered the b...

James Romm examines some intriguing new theories about a long-standing historical mystery. In Babylon on June 10th, 323 BC, at about 5pm, Alexander the Great died aged 32, having conquered an empire stretching from modern Albania to eastern Pakistan. The question of what, or who, killed the Macedonian king has never been answered successfully. Today new theories are heating up one of history’s longest-running cold cases. Like the death of Stalin, to which it is sometimes compared, the death of Alexander poses a mystery that is perhaps insoluble but nonetheless irresistible. Conspiracy buffs have been speculating about it since before the king’s body was cold, but recently there has been an extraordinary number of new accusers and new suspects. Fuel was added to the fire by Oliver Stone’s Alexander, released in 2004 with new versions in 2006 and 2008: a film that, whatever its artistic flaws, presents a historically informed theory about who killed Alexander and why. Few ...

The tumultuous chain of events that unfolded after the death of Alexander the Great was the original Game of Thrones, with more riches, bloody intrigue, and larger-than-life characters than George Martin or the HBO series could have invented. A vigorous young king, by sheer force of personality and some very shrewd politicking, managed to take his army from Macedonia through Asia Minor, across the Near East, through the Khyber Pass, and to the Hindu Kush with great dreams of unifying a vast empire. After succumbing to a 10-day fever (perhaps brought on by malaria or by less "natural" causes), Alexander the Great died unexpectedly in Babylon in June 323 B.C., leaving a freshly conquered empire of unprecedented breadth and complexity but no designated heir. To understand the bloody struggle that ensued, one must look west to the origins of Alexander and his successors, the kingdom of Macedonia, where just north of Greece a small, restless hereditary monarchy had been...