The Conquest of the Territories Occupied Today by Syria, Lebanon, Israel, and Egypt

At 24 (332-331 BC), Alexander set off to conquer these territories. I will use the names of these places as they are known today to make it easier for the readers less informed about the names of places and territories long since swallowed by the unforgiving pit of history.

The above-mentioned territories were conquered by several tribes and peoples; the latter could change only the names of the places and not their geography. Who knows who will rule over these places in the year 4000 and what name they will bear? However, let us go back to our young Thracian and to the consequences triggered off by his actions. After the clash of Issus, Alexander sent the old General Parmenia to Damascus to capture the Persian remains but, surprise, the latter took prisoner a Persian nobleman's daughter, by the name of Barsine. She had been given a Greek upbringing and had been married twice: the first time to Mentor of Rodhos, the Greek mercenaries' captain, and the second time, to Memnon, Alexander's bitterest foe. Plutarch speaks of Barsine having had an affair with Alexander and about her giving him a child, named Heracles. What happened to Alexander's son is still a mystery. In the meantime,

Alexander's army mobilised for the struggle down the Phoenician Coast (today Syria and Lebanon) where all the towns and fortresses recognised Alexander as descendant of Darius III. The only fortress, which attempted to apply the politics of neutrality, was the Tyre. Its leaders sent Alexander gifts and even a golden crown but would not let him enter their fortress. It was not easy for Alexander's army to penetrate because the Tyrian fortress was an island fortified with strong walls and whose harbour housed over 83 ships. After the Macedonian army did not manage alone to defeat the Tyre, Alexander profited by the envy and jealousy of the Tyrians' neighbouring "brothers." With the help of several Phoenician battle ships, of the naval force of Rodhos, and especially of the 120 ships of the Cypriote King, Alexander would defeat the resistance of the Tyrian population; or, to put it more accurately, he would slaughter them or sell them into slavery. The Tyre's leaders were executed together with other 2,000 people who were crucified. After a 6-month resistance, the Tyre was razed. This seems to be the "civilising" impact of the Macedonians upon the Greeks, the Persians, the Indians, and upon all the peoples Alexander conquered and subjugated.

I wonder have we changed in all these 2000 years that have elapsed since then? Has our ferocity turned into something better? Today, the Macedonians are submitted to the Greeks, Bulgarians, Yugoslavians, and Albanians. It is only in their own country - Romanian Dacia - that they are free today and entitled to write, publish, and communicate in their own language - Macedonian, Macedo-Romanian. The young, tempestuous, and self-confident Alexander entered the fortress Tyre killing and wounding whoever stood in his way. Curtius speaks about over 10,000 butchered men; Alexander himself was wounded in the leg and was forced to leave the battlefield. When the governor of the Tyrian fortress and of the whole territory occupied by nowadays' Gaza was caught, Alexander ordered that his ankles be pierced and tied to the back of a chariot and then had him driven around the walls of the fortress. Alexander's punishment looks very much like an imitation of the treatment Achilles applied to the Thracian-Ramantes Hector during the Trojan War.

In the winter of the same year 332 BC, Alexander crossed Gaza to enter Egypt, and received no opposition from the latter. What did the 24-year old Alexander feel when he found himself in front of the pyramids? Who can answer that? Could he have felt that he was following in somebody's footsteps? And if so, in whose footsteps? Is it possible that he knew about his ancestors, the Carpatho-Danubians, the Ramantes people who had conquered northern Africa

2,000 years before him? Later on, Napoleon Bonaparte realised he was looking at the same pyramids Alexander the Great had seen 2,ooo years before him. However, Alexander was the child of his time - deeply religious and superstitious.

He would cover a 25-km distance, riding on the back of his camel about 30 km a day, in order to reach Siwa, where the Egyptian priests of the temple - "the Oracle of Ammon" were to recognise him as son of god, and even call him Pharaoh of Egypt - in writing, as Alexander had claimed (however, this was put down not in Greek, but in Egyptian hieroglyphs). Nevertheless, we shall never know what happened there and what changes his religious beliefs underwent. What is certain is the fact that he was so deeply impressed by the temple "The Oracle of Siwa, the god" that he contemplated death for the first time; he ordered his close friend Aridaeus to have him buried, when the time came, next to his father Ammon, at Siwa! Yet, this never happened. It seems he was buried under the foundation of the new city Alexandria.

Strangely enough, Alexander did not take the same route back: after leaving Siwa he set out southwards, and crossed the desert. Why on earth did he choose this risky route? Arrian says that according to Ptolemeus (who accompanied Alexander on his way to Siwa), Alexander chose another way back. In fact, that route has never been traced. 2000 years later, in the spring of the year 1942, the German General Rommel raised the following question: Which was Alexander's southern route home?" The General wanted to find that road in order to avoid the English on his way to Egypt. Rommel himself is said to have approached the Oracle and asked one question only; however, neither the general's question nor the Oracle's answer is known to this day.

Alexander had heard about the legendary Siwa from Herodotus; he also knew about the attempt of Cambyses, Cyrus' son, to conquer and destroy Siwa, by taking a southern route, and about Cambyses' whole army being swallowed up by the sand (maybe future archaeological studies will unearth that army still buried into the sand).

Alexander's mysterious route back was partially traced by an Egyptian archaeologist who discovered in 1939, close to the Oasis Bahariya, an unknown temple, buried in the sand. As he removed the sand from around its walls, he came across other hieroglyph cartouches which mentioned that the temple was dedicated to Pharaoh Alexander, and that it was protected by two gods: Horus and Isis.

How did short-lived Alexander find the time to pull down and re-conquer empires, build fortresses and temples? What did that 24-year old boy, feel when he set about building a temple right there, in the middle of the desert, close to the Oasis Bahariya, and so far from his native Balkans?

Probably this is the route he took on returning from Siwa; his General Ptolemeus, who later ruled over Egypt, indicated Alexander's route with this temple. Maybe Alexander himself had ordered the building of this temple and thus thanked the gods for his safe and lucky return from Siwa.

At the end of January, 331 BC, Alexander took up building his first city: Alexandria; his father, Philip II, had built Philippopolis (today Plovdiv). This was going to be the first of his 30 towns, which were to bear his name, founded on the territories conquered by him. Alexandria was supposed to be a cultural centre on the Mediterranean, and so it was. Alexandria became a cultural El Dorado and stayed so for as long as 1000 years until the Islamic World rose.