Travels with Alexander the Great

[magicmountain]

Iron Mask is a very melodic and energetic neoclassical power metal band led by guitarist Dushan Petrossi. Hordes of the Brave is their second disc. The album's masterwork is a tribute to "Alexander the Great" which employs a dark musical tapestry that makes me think of Kamelot's The Black Halo (which is so far the best power metal disc of the year), a mystical atmosphere, and mid-paced, crunchy guitar riffs. Although extremely competent on his guitar, Dushan Petrossi plays his sweep picked notes with admirable restraint and sticky melodies that combine energy, fantasy and virtuosity all in one. The song praises Alexander the Great's warrior nature and the respect he showed for the lands he invaded and their people's rights and races.

Full review here:

http://www.seaoftranquility.org/reviews.php?op=showcontent&id=2374

Here are the lyrics:

He was the son of one Phillip The King, ancient lord on the dawn of time
Olympias, his mother was a witch, dedicated to the rites and spell
She killed the king and he became the master, Leading hordes of Macedonia
Furious army of barbarians, taking Greece and all cities of Zeus.

In the eye of the storm, Athena gave him strength and power
No mercy for the enemies, king of kings, he was the strongest man on the earth.

On the wings of the war, there's no limit for the bravest reign
Through the wilderness and on trails of sand
He was conquering the Persian throne, the vision of a life.

Alexander The Great, you'd been chosen by gods
Alexander The Great, glorious power and golden lord

With many thousand men and chargers, his campaign set off to the east
Taking Gaza and the fortress' gold, reaching roads of Babylon
Battle after battle, his territory (was) growing on
When he arrived at the pyramids, the holy land was gift.

In the eye of the storm, Athena gave him strength and power
No mercy for the enemies, king of kings, he was the strongest man on the earth.

On the wings of the war, there's no limit for the bravest reign
Through the wilderness and on trails of sand
He was conquering the Persian throne, the vision of a life.

Alexander The Great, you'd been chosen by gods
Alexander The Great, glorious power and golden lord

[Acoustic/spoken:]
On the shore of the Egyptian sea, building the city of Alexandria.
And in the oracle of Zeus-Ammon, the old priest told him
You're the chosen one, the son of god

In the eye of the storm, Athena gave him strength and power
No mercy for the enemies, king of kings, he was the strongest man on the earth.

On the wings of the war, there's no limit for the bravest reign
Through the wilderness and on trails of sand
He was conquering the Persian throne.
On the wings of the war, there's no limit for the bravest reign
Through the wilderness and on trails of sand
He was conquering the Persian throne, the vision of a life.

Alexander The Great, you'd been chosen by gods
Alexander The Great, glorious power and golden lord

He was the son of one Phillip The King, ancient lord on the dawn of time
Olympias, his mother was a witch, dedicated to the rites and spell
She killed the king and he became the master, Leading hordes of Macedonia
Furious army of barbarians, taking Greece and all cities of Zeus.

Alexander The Great, you'd been chosen by gods
Alexander The Great, glorious power and golden lord

Listen to the song here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXhD4g7sWr0&playnext=1&list=PL55509FED03AE084C

[magicmountain]

Alexander the Great and his knights battling dragons. The dragons have emeralds set into their foreheads.
One of the dragons seems to have been killed. From Le Livre et la vraye hystoire du bon roy Alixandre

According to legend when Alexander the Great and his army were invading India he was shown a cave which contained a large hissing serpent that Indians worshipped. The serpent was said to measure about 120 feet long and had huge eyes the size and shape of a Macedonian shield.

[magicmountain]

The Hellenistic world, ushered into existence by Alexander the Great, took in a vast region, stretching from Iraq in the east to Sicily in the west. Within this area, society was multicultural but the dominant culture was Greek, developed from the culture of classical Greece, and carrying on the legacy of classical Greece in the visual arts, literature, science, technology, and daily life. Narrative chapters guide the reader though the vast conquered lands of Hellenistic Greece, exploring marriage customs; festivals, sports, and spectacles; symposia ("drinking parties"); the agricultural and urban components of the polis (city-state); food; drink; education; science; technology; and the legacy of the Hellenistic age in the modern world.

[Macedon]

[Macedon]

[Macedon]

[magicmountain]

L'entrée d'Alexandre dans Babylone (Print on display at the British Museum)

Two etchings by French artist Sebastien Leclerc (1637-1714), displayed at the Louvre Museum, will be delivered to the Archaeological Museum of Dion, in northern Greece, by the French consul general to Thessaloniki, Christian Thimonier. The site, near the border of the Greek provinces of Macedonia and Thessaly, owes its name to the important ancient Greek sanctuary.
 
The items were donated by French authorities. Both works, inspired by Alexander the Great, were created for Louis XIV and have already been on display at Dion during the "Louvre at Dion" exhibition, held within the framework of the annual Olympus Festival last summer.
 
The works are entitled "Entry of Alexander the Great into Babylon" (1704), and "Academy of Sciences and Fine Arts" (1698) dedicated to mythical Zeus.

[magicmountain]

This photo gives some idea of the immensity of the statue of Alexander (oops Warrior on Horseback)
recently installed in Skopje.

[magicmountain]

Eratosthenes of Cyrene was a Greek mathematician, elegiac poet, athlete, geographer, astronomer, and music theorist. He invented the discipline of geography and invented a system of latitude and longitude. He was the first person to calculate the circumference of the earth by using a measuring system using stades, or the length of stadiums during that time period (with remarkable accuracy). He was the first to calculate the tilt of the Earth's axis (also with remarkable accuracy).

Eratosthenes created a map of the world (see below) based on the available geographical knowledge of the era. Alexander’s conquests and his decision to split his army into three segments for his return from India via ocean, coastal and inland routes greatly expanded Greek knowledge of the east.  The various reports from Alexander’s exploits were examined by Eratosthenes who was born half a century after Alexander’s death which assisted him create the following map.



Eratosthenes' Map of the World

Eratosthenes believed Alexander was responsible for a new attitude towards civilization and barbarism. The geographer Strabo quoted the following extract from Eratosthenes in his treatise Geography.

"Now, towards the end of his treatise - after withholding praise from those who divide the whole multitude of mankind into two groups, namely, Greeks and Barbarians, and also from those who advised Alexander to treat the Greeks as friends but the Barbarians as enemies - Eratosthenes goes on to say that it would be better to make such divisions according to good qualities and bad qualities.

"For not only are many of the Greeks bad, but many of the Barbarians are refined - Indians and Arians, for example, and, further, Romans and Carthaginians, who carry on their governments so admirably. And this, he says, is the reason why Alexander, disregarding his advisers, welcomed as many as he could of the men of fair repute and did them favors - just as if those who have made such a division, placing some people in the category of censure, others in that of praise, did so for any other reason than that in some people there prevail the law-abiding and the political instinct, and the qualities associated with education and powers of speech, whereas in other people the opposite characteristics prevail!

"And so Alexander, not disregarding his advisers, but rather accepting their opinion, did what was consistent with, not contrary to, their advice; for he had regard to the real intent of those who gave him counsel."

[magicmountain]

Alexander’s name emerged next in association with mapmaking with the creation of the Piri Reis map, a pre-modern world map compiled in 1513 from military intelligence by the Ottoman-Turkish admiral and cartographer Piri Reis. The half of the map that survives shows the western coasts of Europe and North Africa and the coast of Brazil with reasonable accuracy. Various Atlantic islands including the Azores and Canary Islands are depicted, as is the mythical island of Antillia and possibly Japan. The historical importance of the map lies in its demonstration of the extent of exploration of the New World by approximately 1510, perhaps before others.

Piri Reis had made a study of some of the charts which represented the world, and according to his personal statement, he had studied and examined the maps prepared at the time of Alexander the Great, the 'Mappa Mundis' and the eight maps in fragments prepared by the Muslims.

Piri Reis himself plainly explains, in one of the marginal notes in his map, how his map was prepared:

"This section explains the way the map was prepared. Such a map is not owned by anybody at this time, I, personally, drawn [sic] and prepared this map. In preparing this map, I made use of about twenty old charts and eight Mappa Mundis, i.e. of the charts called Jaferiye by the Arabs and prepared at the time of Alexander the Great and in which the whole inhabited world was shown; of the chart of [the] West Indies; and of the new maps made by four Portugueses [sic] containing the Indian and Chinese countries geometrically represented on them. I also studied the chart that Christopher Columbus drew for the West.
 
"Putting all these material [sic] together in a common scale I produced the present map. My map is as correct and dependable for the seven seas as are the charts that represent the seas of our countries."



                    The Piri Reis Map

http://www.sacred-texts.com/piri/pirikey.htm

[magicmountain]

1832 Delamarche Map of the Empire of Alexander the Great

An excellent example of Delamarche’s map of the conquests of Alexander the Great. Depicts Alexander’s empire at its height, extending from Macedonia eastward all the way to India and south To Egypt. Notes archaic place names, roadways, and destinations. Click on the inset box for enlargement of a specific area.

http://www.geographicus.com/P/AntiqueMap/AlexandriMagni-delamarche-1832


1854 Spruner Map of the Empire of Alexander the Great

This 1854 historical map of the Empire of Alexander the Great. Shows Alexander's conquests at their fullest extent covering from Italy to the mouths of the Indus River and from the Black Sea to the Nile Valley. A series of insets in the lower quadrants of the map depict various sites associated with Alexander's most important battles. Click on the inset box for enlargement of a specific area.

http://www.geographicus-archive.com/P/AntiqueMap/AlexandriMagni-spruner-1854

[magicmountain]

Bridge of boats on river Indus, near Attock, Pakistan, 1878

The skill and adaptability of Alexander's engineering corps remains unsurpassed by any army in history. Whatever the terrain, from tropical to freezing, scorching desert to waterlogged marshland, they met every challenge they were set and overcame every difficulty they encountered. Whilst their siege towers breached the most impregnable of strongholds, their bridge-building skills were equally outstanding and allowed them to cross ravines and rivers alike.

When Hephaistion and Perdiccas were sent on ahead of Alexander's main force with instructions to bridge the Indus, they took with them the chief engineers. Although neither of his main sources Ptolemy and Aristobulus explains how they managed to achieve this, Arrian states that the great depth of the Indus would have prevented them constructing a permanent bridge in the short time they had. Instead he assumes they must have made a more temporary arrangement by lashing together a large number of small boats, in the same way Herodotus reported Xerxes had crossed the Hellespont and Darius the Great both the Bosphorus and Danube (Ister), and indeed, Arrian's own Roman countrymen would later use to great effect. Whatever form the boat-bridge took, it was certainly sturdy enough to allow at least 76,000 soldiers, their supplies, equipment and endless numbers of camp-followers.

Opinions have differed concerning the location of the bridge over the Indus, and most writers have been inclined to place it at Attock where the river is narrowest. But the recent investigations of M. Foucher have clearly established the fact that the bridge, probably constructed of boats, must have been at Ohind, or Und, sixteen miles above Attock.

[magicmountain]

Alexander's boat bridge over the Indus must have been similar to this Roman bridge of boats
which crossed the Danube during Trajan's Dacian Wars (early 2nd century AD)

[magicmountain]

The Indus river near Attock

[magicmountain]

Attock Fort today