Posted on 07/25/2012 9:39:37 AM PDT by Renfield
Alexander the Great is portrayed as a legendary conqueror and military leader in Greek-influenced Western history books but his legacy looks very different from a Persian perspective.
Any visitor to the spectacular ruins of Persepolis - the site of the ceremonial capital of the ancient Persian Achaemenid empire, will be told three facts: it was built by Darius the Great, embellished by his son Xerxes, and destroyed by that man, Alexander.
~~~snip~~~
He razed Persepolis to the ground following a night of drunken excess at the goading of a Greek courtesan, ostensibly in revenge for the burning of the Acropolis by the Persian ruler Xerxes.
Persians also condemn him for the widespread destruction he is thought to have encouraged to cultural and religious sites throughout the empire...
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.co.uk ...
Ping
Alexander the so-so.
Only in this day and age is history rewritten for and by the alleged victims.
The Book of Danial talks ALOT about this time period.
That’s right....in our new more ‘multicultural’ era we must see all sides of everything. I guess the Persians forgot ( or never knew) that victors write history and always have.
The Ayatollahs should be pleased that he razed all those non-Islamic sites for them...
Wouldn’t Alexander “the homosexual degenerate” be more historically accurate?
And any thinking person would understand that modern day Iranians would have a different view of Alexander the Great than do we in the west.
Its also true that our view is no less valid than their's.
Their Empire is one of the most impressive, cultural and tolerant examples I can think of.
Poor Darius
I was listening to a history podcast a while back where the guy was making the point that, arguably, Alexander was worse than Hitler. The rationale was that Hitler, evil though he clearly was, thought that he was doing something for the greater good of the German people; there was some “cause” there, heinous as we find it. Alexander’s only cause was his own glory.
The homosexual claims are unfounded and unlikely.
“Alexander married twice: Roxana, daughter of the Bactrian nobleman Oxyartes, out of love; and Stateira II, a Persian princess and daughter of Darius III of Persia, for political reasons. He apparently had two sons, Alexander IV of Macedon of Roxana and, possibly, Heracles of Macedon from his mistress Barsine. He lost another child when Roxana miscarried at Babylon.”
Doesn’t sound like a homo to me.
There is no historical evidence that Alexander was homosexual.
It is all the rage now to consider anyone who had close friend to be a homosexual.
It sucks to lose wars.
Prostration was such an issue to the Hellenize warrior-citizen that two Spartan warriors sent to atone to Xerxes for killing his emissaries by throwing them down a well; by having Xerxes kill them - were horrified to learn that they were expected to prostrate themselves in his royal presence. They came to be killed - but not to bow down!
Alexander was generally a benevolent conqueror.
One exception was the city of Tyre but only because that city butchered his heralds on the walls in full view of Alexander and his men.
They thought wrongly, that because the city was on an island with high walls that they were safe from attack. It actually was a very difficult job but Alexander seems to have been particularly determined to conquer Tyre.
Okay, those daggum homosekshuls, they even fooled me with their propaganda. :P
While the relationship of Achilles and Patroclus may or may not have been homosexual (very common and sometimes even institutionalized among the Greeks); during the time of Alexander such a comparison was bound to have such connotations.
So I guess the lesson would be that if you don't want such speculation of homosexuality about the close relationship between yourself and your lifelong male companion; you don't go around comparing yourself and him to two who were widely believed to be so.
The principal problem of the very impressive Persian empire was, as is so often the case in empires in general, one of succession. Alexander caught them at a bad time; so, for that matter did Xenophon's Greek army earlier, who got sucked into fighting for the losing side and ended up having to cut its way to the sea.
Persia's earlier (mid-sixth-century BC) conquest of Ionia was a rather impressive show as well. A good deal of fighting, quite a great deal of diplomacy, intimidation, and bribery. Persian history that complains about Greek invasions should acknowledge that they started the thing, after all.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.