Empire of Alexander the Great as a meteorite momentarily illuminated the horizons of the Eurasian continent from Greece to Central Asia and India. Geopolitical consequences were of world-historical significance. A peripheral power becomes the ruler of the world. In the Middle Ages, this story repeated itself with Mongolia, which united the Great Eurasian Steppe.

Macedonian Kingdom (Ancient Macedonia) existed in the Balkans from the 9th century BC. NS. until 146 BC NS. This is a long time for the power of that time. Ancient Ancient Macedonia occupied a peripheral position in relation to Ancient (southern) Greece and the Persian Empire. The Macedonians (Darians) were perceived by the "enlightened" neighbors as "descended from the mountains" by the barbarians. But in the great river of history, everything flows, everything changes.
The Macedonian superpower appeared in the Earth, where a milestone creative energy was formed in a given place and time. Ancient Macedonia irradiated mpowerful centuries-old information exchange between Southern Greece and the Persian Empire. Gold and silver mines, fertile lands of the Macedonian plain created a solid foundation for the economy.

The Macedonian capital was first mentioned in the writings of Herodotus. During the Greco-Persian wars, Xerxes, at the head of a large army, crossed the Hellespont (Dardanelles), occupied Macedonia, and in 480 BC. defeated the Greeks at the Battle of Thermopylae.

Macedonian kingdom until the death of Philip II, father of Alexander the Great (336 BC)

After centuries of oblivion, archaeologists discovered Egesa (Vergina) and Pella - the first and second capital of Ancient Macedonia. Pella was the capital of the Macedonian state from the late 5th century to the middle of the 2nd century BC. NS. The ancient Greek playwright Euripides (480 - 406 BC) worked and was buried here. In 356 BC. Alexander the Great (356 - 323 BC) was born in the Macedonian capital.

According to legend, the future king of Macedonia and commander was born on the night when Herostratus set fire to (one of the Seven Wonders of the World). During the campaigns of the commander Alexander in Persia, the legend of this fire spread as a sign of a future catastrophe for the Persian Empire.

King Philip, busy with constant military campaigns, was not sure from whom his wife Olympias gave birth to a son - from God, from her husband or lover, and just in case he sent a courtier to the sanctuary of Delphi to find out the truth from the soothsayer (pythia). Thanks to the abundant gifts, the truth was secured, and Philip recognized the son of Alexander.

In the Ancient World, Delphi served as the "Navel of the Earth", kings and other satraps were poisoned there "for the truth". How puppets flock to Washington these days for "democratic" blessings and money.

Alexander's childhood was spent in the new Macedonian capital, he often visited the sacred Dion - the religious capital, where sports Olympiads were held annually.

In 343, the Macedonian king Philip II invites the philosopher Aristotle to become the teacher of his son Alexander. For three years, the greatest thinker of all time was the mentor and teacher of Alexander the Great. The future commander often repeated that he owed his father Philip that he lived, and Aristotle that he lived with dignity.

Olympias, as a loving mother, was concerned with the development of her son as a man in the right direction. The best courtesans were called in to help, in order to instill in Alexander the correct orientation. But to be honest, Alexander's main pleasure came from overcoming difficulties not on love fronts. Already in his youth, Alexander showed not the hefty abilities of a military leader and participated with his father in campaigns.

Then a banal story happened. King Philip fell in love with the young Macedonian beauty Cleopatra, who was 30 years younger than him. And after the birth of his son, Alexander would not have had a chance to become king, especially since his mother is not Macedonian by birth (from Epirus). In addition to age, Olympias had a significant drawback that many men, including kings, did not like. She was an intelligent woman, and even prone to mysticism. And during Philip's next wedding, the king was killed by a servant as a result of a conspiracy of an offended woman or for other reasons (historians continue to argue). And Alexander ascended the throne.
The belligerence of the father, the mysticism of the mother, the philosophy of Aristotle laid the ideological foundation of the future great commander.

In the ancient world, the cult of pagan gods was high. The ancient Greek gods, in contrast to the later correct gods, were not alien to something human. They even had wine as a god.

Before the eastern campaign, Alexander turns to the Delphic oracle for divine advice. He himself personally arrived at the sanctuary of Delphi in the winter, when the soothsayers were not serving. But he made him make an exception with the help of gifts. And he received the desired blessing - he was called to fulfill the will of the gods. On the way back, he visited the temple of Zeus in the sacred Dion in Macedonia, where he announced the beginning of a great campaign against Persia. Just after accession to the throne, Alexander spent several months in Macedonia in order to go with the army to his immortality.

If the ancient Greeks made a great discovery of the human soul, then the army of Alexander the Great was armed first of all the most invincible weapon is the strength of the spirit.

The main strategic task of his father, the Macedonian king Philip II, was the conquest of Greece. Alexander's father created a relatively small army, but the best in the world.

Macedonian phalanx. The basis of the military reforms of Tsar Philip II was the improvement of the traditional Greek phalanx, with the advent of which they stopped fighting in a crowd. A marching step appeared with a phalanx. Philip introduced for the phalanx "sarissa" - a long shock lance up to 7 meters long, which made huge shields unnecessary. An impenetrable forest of war spears was created. The phalanx played the role of a "tank" breaking through a gap in the enemy's ranks. The combination of the improved phalanx and cavalry made the Macedonian army invincible.

Macedonian phalanx

The Macedonian phalanx allowed Philip II to effectively organize a massive army of untrained peasants who did not have the opportunity to constantly train with weapons and acquire expensive armor. The king organized regiments welded together by discipline, grueling training, and constant campaigns.

The formation of the phalanx made it possible to have only a quarter of experienced and well-armed warriors, so that it turned into a formidable force. The strength of the Macedonian phalanx lay not in the heroism of individual warriors, as was practiced by the Hellenes, but in their subordination to a single combat mission. The warrior held a counterbalanced strike spear with both hands, and a small round shield, studded with copper, hung on his left elbow. There were also short swords in service. To make the soldiers afraid to expose their backs to the enemy, Alexander left only a chest armor made of iron chain mail. Thanks to his talent for leadership, the Macedonian phalanx became an invincible striking force.

Alexander formed an army of 30,000 infantry and 5,000 horsemen, of which 1,800 were Macedonians. And he conquered the Persian state, which was 50 times larger than Macedonia. Only in India did his army encounter war elephants - along with the phalanx, another terrifying "tank" of the ancient world.

Alexander the Great united the ancient East and West into the largest world empire, which became the basis for the formation of a single space of Hellenistic civilization. Raised by the great Aristotle in the spirit of high Greek humanism, Alexander conquered a vast geographic space not for pleasure and wealth. In the conquered lands, he realized his bold dream - he created the prerequisites for erasing the differences between Greeks and "barbarians", his own and others, paving the way for merging through consent and complimentary relationships (an act of understanding). The dream of reaching the "eastern end of the earth" culminated in the discovery of India.

The Hellenistic spirit spread to the Siberian borders. Alexander the Great cleared the way for a global trade exchange with his eastern campaign. By the end of the Alexandrian era, in the south of the Heavenly Mountains, the largest trade communication of antiquity will be laid -. The ancient world for the first time united within the common boundaries of the socio-cultural and geo-economic space of Eurasia, where the three greatest humanisms of the ancient world - Greek, Indian and Chinese - met.

Never before in the history of mankind has a dialogue between two great people - a translator-scientist who knows knowledge and a receptor-commander who knows how to listen - led to such grandiose consequences and discoveries of new horizons of the Earth's multidimensional communication space. But if the energy of the mind was required to open the horizons of the spiritual world, then the conquest of real space was carried out not only under the sign of humanism, but mainly with fire and sword.

The great commander not only fought on the battlefields, he founded numerous cities, created a single monetary system of a huge empire, could conduct philosophical conversations, corresponded with Aristotle, and staged the dramas of Euripides.

The ascent to the glory of Alexander the Great took place against the background of the extinction of the Hellenic world, and he, dreaming of a marriage fraternization between East and West, took practical steps in this regard. But more than two millennia have passed and a global geopolitical transformation between the West and the East is taking place again. And it is not obvious that prudence will prevail.

Thousands of years of human existence have passed under the sign of wars and expansion. Great states arose, grew and collapsed, which changed (and some continue to change) the appearance of the modern world. Empire is the most powerful type of state, where various countries and peoples are united under the rule of a single monarch (emperor). Consider ten of the largest empires ever to emerge on the world stage. Oddly enough, but in this list you will not find either the Roman, or the Ottoman, or even the empire of Alexander the Great - history has seen more.

Empire of Japan

Japan is the only empire on the modern political map. Now this status is rather formal, but even 70 years ago it was Tokyo that was the main center of imperialism in Asia. Japan - an ally of the Third Reich and fascist Italy - then tried to establish control over the western coast of the Pacific Ocean, sharing a vast front with the Americans. This time was the peak of the territorial scope of the empire, which controlled almost the entire sea space and 7.4 million square meters. km of land from Sakhalin to New Guinea.
Population: 97,770,000 State area: 7.4 million km2 Capital: Tokyo Beginning of rule: 1868 The fall of the empire: 1947

Persian Empire

One of the oldest empires, the foundation of which dates back to the middle of the 1st millennium BC. NS. Persian tribes conquered the territories of all the pre-existing empires of the Middle East: Egyptians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Medes. During the reign of the Achaemenid dynasty (VI-IV centuries BC), the possessions of the Persians occupied almost 8 million square meters. km, which is almost 2 times the area of ​​the empire of Julius Gaius Caesar. The majesty of the ancestors of modern Iranians passed to Alexander the Great, who captured most of the state. After the invasion of the Macedonians, the Persian Empire appeared several more times on the map of the ancient world, until its final defeat by the Arab conquerors in the 7th century AD. NS.
Population: 50 million (480 BC) / 35 million (330 BC) State area: - Capital: Persepolis Beginning of rule: 530 BC Fall of the empire: 334 BC NS

Portuguese Empire

Since the 16th century, the Portuguese have been looking for ways to break through Spanish isolation in the Iberian Peninsula. In 1497, they opened the sea route to India, which marked the beginning of the growth of the Portuguese colonial empire. Three years earlier, the Treaty of Tordesillas was concluded between the "sworn neighbors", which actually divided the world known at that time between the two countries, on the latter's unfavorable terms for the Portuguese. But this did not stop them from collecting more than 10 million square meters. km of land, most of which was occupied by Brazil. The handover of Macau to the Chinese in 1999 completed Portugal's colonial history.
Population: 50 million (480 BC) / 35 million (330 BC) State area: - Capital: Coimbra, Lisbon Beginning of reign: July 26, 1139 g Fall Empire: October 5, 1910

Arab Empire

The existence of this empire marked the so-called. "The golden era of Islam" - the period from the 7th to the 13th century AD. e. The Caliphate was founded immediately after the death of the creator of the Muslim faith, Muhammad in 632, and its core was the Medina community founded by the prophet. Centuries of Arab conquests increased the empire's area to 13 million square meters. km, covering territories in all three parts of the Old World. By the middle of the 13th century, the Caliphate, torn apart by internal conflicts, was so weak that it was easily captured, first by the Mongols, and then by the Ottomans, the founders of another great Central Asian empire.
Capital: 630-656 Medina / 656 - 661 Mecca / 661 - 754 Damascus / 754 - 762 El-Kufa / 762 - 836 Baghdad / 836 - 892 Samarra / 892 - 1258 Baghdad Beginning of reign: 632 g The fall of the empire: 1258 g

French empire

France became the third European power (after Spain and Portugal) to become interested in overseas territories. Since 1546 - the time of the founding of New France (now Quebec, Canada) - the formation of the Francophonie in the world begins. Having lost the American opposition to the Anglo-Saxons, as well as inspired by the conquests of Napoleon, the French occupied almost all of West Africa. In the middle of the twentieth century, the area of ​​the empire reached 13.5 million square meters. km, more than 110 million people lived in it. By 1962, most of the French colonies had become independent states.
State area: 13.5 million sq. km Capital: Paris Beginning of rule: 1546 The fall of the empire: 1940

Chinese empire

The oldest empire in Asia, the cradle of oriental culture. The first Chinese dynasties ruled from the 2nd millennium BC. e., but a single empire was created only in 221 BC. NS. During the Qing reign - the last monarchical dynasty of the Celestial Empire - the empire occupied a record area of ​​14.7 million square meters. km. This is 1.5 times more than that of the modern Chinese state, mainly due to Mongolia, now independent. In 1911, the Xinhai Revolution broke out, ending the monarchy in China, turning the empire into a republic.
Population: 383,100,000 State area: 14.7 million km2 Capital: Mukden (1636-1644), Beijing (1644-1912) Beginning of rule: 1616 g. Fall of the empire: 1912 g.

Spanish empire

The period of Spanish world domination began with the voyages of Columbus, who opened new horizons for Catholic missionary work and territorial expansion. In the 16th century, almost the entire Western Hemisphere was “at the feet” of the Spanish king with his “invincible armada”. It was at this time that Spain was called "the country where the sun never sets", because its possessions covered one seventh of the land (about 20 million sq. Km) and almost half of the sea routes in all corners of the planet. The greatest empires of the Incas and Aztecs fell before the conquistadors, and in their place a predominantly Hispanic Latin America emerged.
Population: 60 million State area: 20,000,000 km2 Capital: Toledo (1492-1561) / Madrid (1561-1601) / Valladolid (1601-1606) / Madrid (1606-1898) Beginning of rule: April 17, 1492 The fall of the empire : 1898 g

Russian empire

The largest continental monarchy in human history. Its roots reach the times of the Moscow principality, then the kingdom. In 1721, Peter I proclaimed the imperial status of Russia, which owned vast territories from Finland to Chukotka. At the end of the 19th century, the state reached its geographic climax: 24.5 million square meters. km, about 130 million inhabitants, over 100 ethnic groups and nationalities. Russian possessions at one time were the lands of Alaska (before its sale by the Americans in 1867), as well as part of California.
Population: 60 million Population: 181.5 million (1916) State area: 20,000,000 km2 Capital: St. Petersburg, Moscow Beginning of rule: October 22, 1721 The fall of the empire: 1917

British empire

For 400 years of its formation, it has withstood the competition for world domination with other "colonial titans": France, Holland, Spain, Portugal. During its heyday, London controlled a quarter of the world's landmass (over 34 million square kilometers) on all inhabited continents, as well as vast expanses of the ocean. Formally, it still exists in the form of the Commonwealth, and countries such as Canada and Australia, in fact, remain subject to the British crown.
Population: 458,000,000 (approximately 24% of the world's population in 1922) State area: 34,650,407 km2 (1922) Capital: London Beginning of rule: 1497 g The fall of the empire: 1949 (1997)

Mongol Empire

The greatest empire of all times and peoples, whose raison d'être was one - war. The Great Mongolian State was formed in 1206 under the leadership of Genghis Khan, having grown over several decades to 38 million square meters. km, from the Baltic Sea to Vietnam, and at the same time killing every tenth inhabitant of the Earth. By the end of the XIII century, its Ulus covered a quarter of the land and a third of the world's population, which then numbered almost half a billion people. The ethnopolitical framework of modern Eurasia was formed on the fragments of the empire.
Population: more than 110,000,000 people. (1279) State area: 38,000,000 sq. Km. (1279) Capital: Karakorum, Khanbalik Beginning of reign: 1206 Fall of the empire: 1368

In 336 BC. NS. his son Alexander (356-323 BC) came to power in Greece. Nowadays, the word is attached to his name Macedonian... Until the end of the 19th century, everyone called him Alexander the Great or Alexander III.

He was a slender youth with fair skin. His hair was almost red. Neither in his youth, nor in a more mature age, he did not wear a beard. There is an assumption that he did not grow at all. Since the king walked without a beard, then his entourage began to shave their beards.

However, the lack of a beard did not in any way affect the courage of the king. He went down in history as an extremely energetic and capable commander with a brilliant education. This is not surprising, since the future great conqueror was taught scientific wisdom by the philosopher Aristotle.

The ambitious plans of the newly-made Vladyka exceeded those of his father Philip II. The Greek leader who ascended the throne was only 20 years old, and he already dreamed of world domination. These dreams were translated into the conquests of Alexander the Great. Their scale shocked not only contemporaries, but all subsequent generations of human civilization. In just 10 years, a gigantic territory was conquered from Greece to India. Over the next centuries, not a single commander managed to do this.

The conquests of Alexander the Great on the map

War with Persia

The initial period of the war

The war with Persia began in 334 BC. NS. A relatively small army set out on a campaign to the East. Its number was 35 thousand people. But the soldiers were distinguished by iron discipline, training and combat experience. In their military skill, they were head and shoulders above the Persian troops. The army consisted not only of Macedonians, but also of residents of other Greek city-states.

At the very first clashes, the Greeks inflicted a number of serious defeats on the Persian army stationed near the border. At the same time, many noble Persians died. The owners of the eastern lands were shocked by this defeat. Meanwhile, the conquerors seized the lands of Asia Minor and reached the territory of Syria.

Image of Alexander the Great on an ancient mosaic

In 333 BC. NS. the Persian army led by Tsar Darius III came out against the Macedonian conquerors. The two armies met in northern Syria near the city of Issa. In this battle, the army of Darius III suffered a crushing defeat. The king himself fled, leaving his family in the camp (mother, wife and 2 daughters). Many other Persian warriors did the same (in military campaigns, the Persians took their wives with them). In addition to women, the winners also got abandoned rich camping property.

After the victory at Issa, the whole of Western Asia went to the Macedonians. But it was dangerous to go further east, as strong Persian garrisons remained in the rear. Therefore, the Greek army moved along the eastern coast of the Mediterranean. Here were the cities of the Phoenicians, who began to surrender one after another. According to legend, during this campaign, Alexander visited Jerusalem and even bestowed gifts on the Jewish god.

Image of Darius III on an ancient mosaic

Everything went smoothly until the Macedonian army was under the walls of the city of Tire. Its inhabitants refused to open the gates and surrender to the invaders. The siege lasted 7 months. Only in July 332 BC. NS. a walled city located on an island fell. The Greeks who broke into the city showed pathological cruelty towards the defenders. The conquerors mercilessly killed 8 thousand inhabitants, and the survivors were enslaved.

The city of Gaza also put up a worthy resistance. He bravely defended himself for 2 months, but in the end he fell. After that, Alexander the Great entered Egypt with his army. In this country he was greeted as a liberator from Persian slavery. Local priests declared the young king to be the son of the god Amun.

Alexander graciously accepted this honorary title and decorated his helmet with ram's horns, since they were considered one of the most important attributes of the Egyptian deity. It was in a helmet with horns that the face of the king began to be minted on coins, and in the east, the great conqueror received the nickname Two-horned.

The main period of the war

Having occupied Egypt, the Greco-Macedonian army moved into the central regions of Persia. Darius III sent ambassadors to the conquerors, offering to conclude peace. The Eastern ruler agreed to give the winners all the lands they had conquered and even offered to pay a huge indemnity. But Alexander refused to conclude peace, as he considered the fall of Persia inevitable.

The military leader Parmenion, present at the negotiations, upon hearing the size of the contribution, exclaimed: "If I were Alexander, I would agree immediately!" To this the king said mockingly: "And I would agree if I were Parmenion."

In 331 BC. NS. the army of the Greeks and Macedonians crossed the Euphrates and the Tigris and moved towards the Persian army. She, led by Darius III, was waiting for the invaders near the village of Gaugamela. Here in October 331 BC. NS. a grandiose battle took place.

The Persians gathered a huge army. There were many Bactrians, Sogdians and Scythians (peoples from the east of the state) in it. On the night before the battle, the Persian camp was illuminated by countless lights. The Macedonian commanders, fearing that this sight would frighten the soldiers, suggested that the king attack the enemy at night, without waiting for dawn. To this Alexander proudly replied: "I do not know how to steal victory."

Persian chariots

In the early morning, both armies lined up. The Persian warriors began the attack. They sent their war chariots forward. They had razor-sharp braids attached to their wheels. However, the ranks of the Macedonian army parted and let the madly rushing horses pass. And then arrows fell in the backs of the soldiers sitting in the chariots.

After that, the Persian infantry launched the attack. But she met the Macedonian phalanx. At the same time, heavy Macedonian cavalry attacked from the flanks. She sowed terror and confusion in the ranks of enemies. The Persians fled. King Darius III was one of the first to flee from the battlefield and did not stop for 2 days, fearing persecution.

The crushing defeat at Gaugamela broke the fighting spirit of the Persians. The army of Alexander the Great captured Babylon, Susa and the ancient Persian capital of Persepolis without a fight. Small military garrisons remained in the occupied areas, and the great commander himself continued to pursue the Persian ruler.

The fate of Darius III was unenviable. Those close to him killed him and delivered the body to Alexander. He ordered to execute the conspirators, and to bury the insidiously murdered tsar with all possible honors. The very same winner after that began to be called "the king of Asia".

Further eastward expansion was extremely successful. The Greeks subdued Bactria and Sogdiana, which put an end to the war with the Persian state. But the conquests of Alexander the Great did not end there. The richest lands of fabulous India lay ahead. It was there that the great commander decided to send his army.

Hike to India

Before the campaign in India, a conspiracy against Alexander the Great arose in the ranks of the Macedonians. The king was accused of violating Greek laws and striving for unlimited power. He surrounded himself with the noble Persians and Bactrians, and they were preparing to proclaim him a god. But the conspiracy was discovered, and the conspirators were killed.

In 326 BC. NS. the Greco-Macedonian army moved to India. A battle with the army of the Indian king Pora took place at the tributary of the Indus River Gidasp. Here the invaders first encountered war elephants. Each of them was driven by a charioteer sitting on the neck of the animal. And on the backs of the giants, towers were fixed in which spear throwers and archers were located.

Fighting Indian Elephant

At first, the formidable animals caused confusion in the ranks of the Macedonian soldiers, but, having injured several elephants, the invaders felt more confident. The Indian army was defeated in this battle.

Inspired by the victory, Alexander and his army went deep into the lands of India, but the soldiers got tired of the incessant 10-year war and raised a murmur. They refused to continue their march. Neither the king's authority nor his persuasion helped.

The way back began in the middle of 325 BC. NS. The army was returning across the desert. The transition was very difficult. Many soldiers died from thirst and overheating. In the spring of 324 BC. NS. the exhausted army reached the south of Iran and entered the city of Susa. This was the end of the conquests of Alexander the Great.

Return of the Macedonian troops from India

The last year of the life of the great commander

In 324 BC. NS. Alexander the Great settled in Babylon and proclaimed it the capital of his vast kingdom. Vladyka began to carry out reforms, trying to turn the conquered lands into a single and cohesive organism. In addition, he planned a campaign to the west against the Arab tribes and Carthage.

But further ambitious plans of the great commander were never realized. In the first half of June 323, Alexander the Great died of a fever. The huge kingdom turned out to be a giant with feet of clay. It disintegrated and was divided among the Macedonian generals (diadochi). They soon proclaimed themselves kings. So in 321 BC. NS. the era of the Hellenistic states began.

Let's continue.

When the remnants of Alexander's army came to the Gedros, they took pity on him and the frostbitten ragamuffins, but did not finish them off, but imposed an indemnity in the form of building a wall and the Copper Gate, against the evil people of the Gogs and Magogs.

This is mentioned by the Grand Duke Vladimir Monomakh, in his "Instruction" he expressed confidence that Alexander came to Ugra. The secretary of the Egyptian Sultan Al-Omari in the XIV century confirmed the words of Vladimir: "Behind the lands of the Yugorsk, which are on the outskirts of the North, there are no longer any settlements, except for the large tower built by Iskender."

In the Quran, a certain fee is mentioned in connection with the indicated construction. But Alexander was not an ordinary kalym worker who came to the North to earn money. It is logical to assume that the payment mentioned in the Qur'an is the essence of retribution for defeat, that is, an indemnity. Alexander built the Copper Gate and was released back home, but in fact, he was in captivity. And the selected weapons were drowned in the lake. The Nenets, living in the lower reaches of the Yenisei, have a legend that in Lake Turuchedo, which is northeast of the village. Potapovo, a huge number of various weapons are buried.

Released after the construction of the Copper Gates, Alexander and his invincible warriors embarked on carts and wandered around for a week. Honest Plutarch writes: "There were no shields, no helmets, no spears to be seen anywhere."

Rescued from inevitable death, Alexander, decided to arrange a triumphal procession. “Having regained their strength, the Macedonians marched in a cheerful procession through Karmania for seven days. Eight horses were slowly carrying Alexander, who continuously, day and night, feasted with his closest friends, sitting on a kind of stage, approved on a high, visible platform. and the offspring were amazed that the drunken soldiers went so through the lands, not yet conquered enough, and the barbarians took the obvious recklessness for self-confidence. "

But, in fact, there is nothing to be surprised at. The surviving soldiers and generals rejoiced at the end of the war and deliverance from imminent death. One should wonder how Alexander's shame turned into his glory? The army did not forgive Alexander for the defeat, conspiracies began to ripen and he was soon poisoned.

Alexander's Siberian route is being restored with great difficulty and only fragmentarily. The reason for this is the aforementioned confusion of the sequence of events and movements. We can confidently say that he was on the rivers Ural, Katun, Tom, near the Tutal rocks, was at the mouth of the Ob (Indus) in the city of Tavala (the Tovopogol pier has been preserved from it); was at the mouth of the Yenisei (Ganges). The nature of his movements between these points is ambiguous.

Suffice it to say that we do not know which river Alexander floated to the ocean, along the Ob (Indus), or along the Yenisei and Angara (it was previously believed that the Yenisei (Akesin?) Flows into the Angara (Ganges)). It is very possible that he was on the Messoyakha River, where the city of Massaga, the capital of Siberian Muscovy, stood and in the area of ​​modern Norilsk, where the city of Nora was.

The presence of tunnel place names and legends associated with the tunnels confirm the correctness of this assumption.

In the very first approximation, Alexander advanced from the Ural River in the winter of 329-330 through the South Siberian steppes to the Ob River, which he took for the Indus. Deep snow lay on the banks. In the summer and autumn of 329, he fought with the local people, gradually moving east. He wintered in the south of the Minusinsk depression in the foothills of the Western Sayan. In the spring, his army crossed the Western Sayan from north to south along the so-called Genghis Khan road, with India on the right, and went to rest in Samarkand, from where in the spring of 327 it again moved to India.

Also from time immemorial in Russia there was a legend that Alexander the Great with a small detachment rushed to the North in search of the legendary White Island (Hyperborea) in order to find the secret of immortality.

To facilitate his journey, he hid part of the weapon.

On the map of the Siberian cartographer Semyon Remezov at the mouth of the largest Siberian river there is an inscription: (Tsar Alexander the Great reached this point, and hid the weapon, and left the bell with people). This information refers to the Tyr Temple, the ruins of which and a wall with inscriptions in 4 languages ​​were discovered by Russian Cossacks in the winter of 1655-1656. The content of this inscription testifies to the fact that at the end of the campaign Alexander did part with his weapons. Only it happened not at the mouth of the Amur, as indicated on the map of Remezov, but at the mouth of the Yenisei. Here, according to Nenets legends, a huge number of various weapons are hidden near Lake Turuchedo. Alexander, setting off for India, decorated the weapons and armor of ordinary soldiers with silver, and officers with gold. So, when the weapon is found near Lake Turucedo, it will not be difficult to prove that it belonged to Alexander's army.

Another war of Alexander with the Rus, described in detail in ancient sources, is a war with the Wendian king Por, who owned a vast and rich kingdom on the banks of the Gidasp (Irtysh) River. Curtius Rufus calls Pora the smartest and most enlightened king of all Indian peoples.

So from Pliny the Elder and Strabo it follows that in the region of Syrastrana (Sarauceans) there was the territory of the ancient city of Aseni, in the area of ​​which the Macedonian founded his next Alexandria (Bucephaly) and where he crossed the Hydasp River during the war with the king of the Siberian Indians, Poros.

Asine, this is undoubtedly, Asino, a city in the Tomsk region on the banks of the Chulym (Us) river. From the Greeks who wrote about Alexander's campaign in India, we know that Alexander, after defeating Por (Por, Poros), founded another city on the site of the battle - Nicaea, just on the other side of the river, opposite Alexandria Bucephalian. Today we see that the village of Pervomaisky (Pyshkino-Troitskoe) is located opposite the city of Asino.

On the site of the village. Belyay at the end of the 1st millennium BC there was a fortified city (settlement). After the battle with Poros and the world, Alexander granted Poros the lands he had previously conquered from other Indian princes. Today, south of Asino, in the area of ​​the city of Tomsk, there is a river that bears the name Pora - the river Poros. The same rivers flow a little further to the south, in the Novosibirsk region - Poros and Porosik. It seems that these are the borders of the new land granted to Poros.

Well, let's summarize the results of the Siberian - Indian toponymy. India is a state in the south of Asia, on the Indian subcontinent. The country got its name from the Indus River (Sindh, Hind). Hydronym ind was introduced to the south of Asia in the middle of the 2nd millennium BC. migrants Indo-Aryans who came from the Ural-Siberian regions. This is common knowledge. So well known are the maps where India is located quite far from today's Hindustan. According to the data of ancient authors, in antiquity there were several regions with the name "India". On the map below, we read the names: India Superior, India Meridion, India Gangptic and also India on the Indochina Peninsula. We are interested in India Superior - India Upper (Prehistoric, Initial) is located in the northeast of Hindustan, in Siberia. This is described in more detail in the posted post: (White pages of the history of Siberia (part-6). Serbs).

Scientists do not deny the existence of cartographic material with India located in Siberia. Yes, there are such materials. But they are not taken into account when building a map of the Ancient World, since the whole picture of the world changes, the whole history changes. We not only recognize these cartographic materials, but we will build on them. So, medieval cartography testifies: India existed on the territory of modern Siberia. Even in the Russian North to this day one can find the names of rivers clearly associated with Sanskrit, explained only with the help of the ancient Aryan language - Sanskrit, as well as the names of many villages and villages. Here are the Indian names of the rivers of the Arkhangelsk and Vologda regions: Ganga, Gavinga, Gangreka, Gangozero, Gavyana, Indoga, Indiga, Kalia, Lala, Lakshma, Sumera, Tara, etc., etc. (the names are given according to the maps taken from pre-revolutionary editions).

The most significant place names left by the Indo-Aryans in Siberia are the names of rivers (hydronyms). Let us mention some: the Changara, Bolshaya, Srednyaya and Malaya rivers, r. Sala (g) ir and Salair ridge, Shegarka river, Chigara river, Ob (both), Tom (tom), Vakh, Pur (pond), Poros, Indigirka. Let's turn back centuries, when India was the only one, in the ancient sources of the Indo-European peoples Rig-Veda and Avesta it was called Semirechye (Belovodye), Hapta-Hindu (Sapta-Sindhu). There was such a time, I noted it more than once: Belovodye, Pyatirechye, Semirechye. Hapta-Hindu is the Avestan name for the geographical area in which the Aryan tribes lived before their exodus to Iran and India. Khapta-Hindu is Semirechye, literally from the Avestan: seven rivers. But if you focus on historical and mythological materials, then Hapta-Hindu should be considered India Prehistoric (India Superior).

Popular rumor tells us that, being in captivity, the Macedonian was enlightened by the wise men and wizards, who he really is, where the roots of his family come from. His father was a Macedonian (Tracanin), and his mother was Ilirka, both of these peoples were Serbian, where their distant ancestors had their historical roots in Siberia. The Macedonian wanted revenge on the Scythian peoples for the murdered father of Philip II, but this was a false slander. The malicious intent of those who set the Macedonian against the Scythian peoples remained sealed and erased from history.

Philosophers estimate that about 20 thousand large and small wars have swept across the Earth. Over the past three thousand six hundred years, peacetime has totaled only 292 years. Some wars were so bloody and devastating that they are remembered to this day. The names of the most odious conquerors are on everyone's lips: Alexander the Great, Attila, Genghis Khan, Tamerlane, Napoleon Bonaparte, etc. And the names of the generals and the names of the peoples who rebuffed the aggressors are practically unknown. For example, the whole world knows Napoleon, and Mikhail Illarionovich Kutuzov is known only in Russian schools. Regarding World War II, many American schoolchildren believe that Hitler was defeated by the United States of America.

Meanwhile, our ancestors were famous precisely for the fact that they rebuffed any enemy, as the father of history Herodotus spoke about: (Among all peoples known to us, only the Scythians possess one, but the most important art. It consists in the fact that not a single enemy who attacked their country, they do not allow escape). The reason for the invincibility was apparently that our ancestors defended themselves by the whole world, everyone was involved in the Patriotic War, young and old, including women and children. So Semiramis, Cyrus, Darius, Alexander the Great, Napoleon, Hitler were defeated. And almost always the ancestors used the peculiarities of their climate. Arrian writes that the Scythians said to the Great Conqueror: (Alexander Filippovich! Before you, Semiramis and Cyrus came here with weapons. The first took away only twenty living people, and Cyrus fled with only seven companions. It would be better for you to see us as friends than enemies). Alexander arrogantly disobeyed and lost his best warriors in the battle with the Scythian peoples, some of whom froze while fleeing. The same flight of Napoleon's army from Moscow is extremely reminiscent of the flight of demoralized Macedonians described by Rufus. Before the Battle of Borodino, Napoleon had an army of 135,000, and only thirty thousand pitiful frostbitten cripples fled across the Berezina. This seems to resonate with the losses of Alexander the Great, after his campaign in Siberia, only 30 remained of Alexander's 120,000-strong army.

Well, let's sum up and talk about the secrets left after the Macedonian.

The circumstances of the death of Alexander the Great are described in sufficient detail, which, however, does not add clarity about its causes. At the end of May 323 BC, a great feast took place in Babylon, the capital of the huge state created by Alexander on the basis of the conquered Persian Empire. The reason for the feast was a military campaign to the Arabian Peninsula, appointed a few days later. However, already during the feast, the Macedonian became ill - he felt a fever, acute pain in the stomach and neck, as well as a general agitated emotional state. Outwardly, his behavior resembled an acute attack of fever. Then, within two weeks, his condition steadily worsened, the attacks recurred, he increasingly fell into delirium and lost consciousness. During periods of awareness of his behavior, Alexander recognized the people around him, but could no longer communicate - soon after the onset of the illness, he lost his voice. Versions about the causes of death must be considered together with the question of who could benefit from the death of the Macedonian, but as I noted above, this secret will remain sealed.

Until the remains of Alexander are found and accurately identified, which could be subjected to the necessary analyzes, scientists cannot assert about the poisoning, but according to the exact surviving descriptions, he was poisoned. Here some riddles begin, there is an opinion that it was no longer Macedonian and they tried to get rid of the body as quickly as possible.

In the IV century, Alexandria became one of the centers of religious struggle; the influence of Christianity was very strong here. Local Christians, who for a long time endured persecution by the pagan authorities, fiercely began to oppose the symbols of the former religion when Christianity became the state religion of the empire. As a result, many ancient monuments were destroyed - and, most likely, it was then that the Macedonian tomb was destroyed.

Roman historians drew attention to the fact that in the return campaign from India to Babylon, Alexander lost consciousness for a whole day, suffered from physical impotence and loss of voice. In a stretcher, when he was being taken to Babylon, he tried to pronounce lines from the Iliad, which he previously knew by heart, but now he was confused, fell into a heavy oblivion. It is impossible that no one would have guessed that the wrong Alexander was being brought from India, but the real one was buried somewhere.

However, in Tajikistan, the former Sogdian state, in the Pamirs there are many places associated with Alexander: the Sogdian rock and the Iskander-kul lake, 300 km from Nurek. There is nothing surprising in this, because, having departed from Egypt, the Macedonian army fell into the rugged Sogdian mountains.

Another thing is surprising - according to the Tajik legend, Alexander left his army in the gorge of the Great Sphinx, and he himself went to talk with the gods for some reason underground, in the kingdom of the dead. What gods were meant? Are not those mysterious inhabitants of Shambhala who today excite the imagination of the mystics and travelers of the 21st century? Maybe the priests in the Siwa oasis gave him precise instructions on this matter, and he knew well what he was looking for? Alexander returned in a completely different way - according to legend, he rose from the bottom of the Iskander-Kul lake inside a large transparent ball, and since then the lake bears his name.

The Gorge of the Great Sphinx is also not a fiction, it was destroyed quite recently, after the construction of the Nurek hydroelectric power station. A world-renowned scientist, hydraulic engineer Konstantin Yuryevich Sevenard recalled that as a child he saw a giant image of the Sphinx, carved on one of the rocks at the foot of Mount Fifth Step. The image was about 200 meters long and about 70 meters high. At the front paws of the Sphinx, the entrance to the cave was black.

Konstantin Yuryevich's father at that time was the head of the construction of the Nurek hydroelectric power station, he sent a group of climbers to explore the sphinx and the cave. They unequivocally concluded that both the cave and the drawing of the Sphinx were artificial. The cave was the beginning of a hundred-meter flat tunnel, which ended with a wall made of a different material than the walls. The Sacred Plane Grove began at the entrance to the cave. Reported upstairs. In the end, at the highest state level, it was decided to continue construction, and the Sphinx and the mysterious tunnel went under the waters of the reservoir. Was it not in this tunnel that the end of the Indian legend's campaign should have been sought?

Alexander the Great was one of the greatest military leaders in the history of mankind, and his tragic death left behind many questions that have not yet been answered.

Alexander the Great and Ancient Russia

Iskander wall.

Rumor has it that Alexander the Great turned north in search of an ultimate weapon and a source of eternal youth. Shielding himself from sudden attacks by yajuj and majudj (Gog and Magog), Alexander the Great creates at the same time the basis for the realization of the main goal of his campaign to the North - the acquisition of an absolute weapon. However, it is difficult to say which of the goals of Alexander's northern wanderings was the main one. After all, there was also a third component of the Great Triad - the secret of eternal youth and immortality. Therefore, the great commander continued to relentlessly advance to the North to the arctic ancestral home that once died under the water column, where the source of "living water" - the elixir of immortality and eternal youth, may have been kept behind the Arctic Circle, in the kingdom of the polar night.

Nizami describes it as follows:

There is a veil before the Extreme North;
and somewhere behind the veil is a key,
full of life and light. Eternal Darkness -
this is the name of this dark wilderness,
And Living Water flows in this silence.
Whoever touches the source will be in power -
Will save your days from a deadly misfortune ...
Into complete darkness, leaving the harsh dregs,
For the Living Water, everyone set off on their way.

And here, perhaps, the most interesting thing begins for us. It was on this previously invariably victorious path that the army of Alexander the Great met and fought with the ancient Rus, here we are talking about our distant ancestors who stood in the way of the conqueror of the world. As established by modern researchers, the name of the leader of the Russian army Kintal - in the original Nizami sounded like Ki-niaz-i Rus, meaning a Russian prince, but later it was changed by scribes. The scale of the battle between the Rus and the Macedonians is comparable only to the Mahabharata

During this bloody battle, the Russians, in order to achieve a turning point in the battle, used some kind of secret weapon. It was something that came out of the sea and killed Iskander's warriors with the help of some kind of energy discharge:

And when a fierce fire raged in him,
He softened the diamonds by squeezing his palm

As a result, having reached the shores of the Arctic Ocean, Alexander crossed over to the cherished island called Macarius, which in Greek means blessed (which fully corresponds to the information of ancient authors about the Blessed Islands, where the Titans lived and the Golden Age reigned). Here the Macedonian found a true paradise (researches by Valery Nikitich Demin): Seeing in the father the tree is tall, green, red, adorned with vegetables, united in vain. Friendship is blooming, I despise another, but their many fruits are lying on the ground. Birds are red on the tree with various sweet songs poyahu. Under the foliage of those trees, people lie and springs sweet to the roots of those trees. Maybe this is the former land of Sannikov?

But it was not sweet springs and milk rivers with jelly banks that attracted Alexander the Great - he needed the elixir of immortality in order to remain the ruler of the Universe until the end of the world. Having visited the Solar City with copper towers and roofs, Alexander finally found a source of eternal youth, or rather, a whole lake, which revived the dried fish thrown into it.

And although in real life the king of Macedonia and the whole world did not find the desired immortality, fate prepared for him a different eternal life: having died at the mystical age of 33 (the age of Christ), Alexander the Great remained forever young in the memory of subsequent generations.

Leaving the shores of the Arctic Ocean, the Macedonian managed to dictate and leave for preservation a letter of gratitude about unshakable privileges for ever and ever to the entire family of Slavs (or Moschs, that is, (Siberian) Muscovites, - so it is said in one of the versions of the extant text):

We, Alexander, the son of the Supreme God Jupiter in the sky and Philip, King of Macedon on earth, the ruler of the world from sunrise to sunset and from noon to midnight, the conqueror of the Median and Persian kingdoms, Greek, Syrian and Babylonian, etc. To the enlightened Slavic family and its language, mercy, peace, respect and greetings from us and from our successors in the management of the world after us. Since you have always been with us, sincere in loyalty, reliable and brave in battle and have always been tireless, we favor and freely give you forever all the lands from the midnight sea of ​​the great Arctic Ocean to the Italian rocky southern sea, so that no one in these lands would dare settle or settle, but only your family, and if someone from outsiders was found here, he will become your serf or servant with his offspring forever.

Well, at least something to feel like a winner.

The secret of the chest from the land of darkness.

It is known that the innermost secrets of Babylon, dating back to the ancient Northern civilization, as well as the sacred knowledge obtained in the northern campaign, were kept by Alexander the Great in a special cypress chest, always locked. After the sudden death of the ruler of the world, the chest went to one of his successors, the commander Seleucus Nicator, who became the ruler of the Babylonian satrapy, and then the king of the vast surrounding lands. He had to open the cypress chest with an ax. The documents stored in it turned out to be so invaluable that the new owner ordered them to be hidden as far as possible. And not in vain.

Alexander's successors, who divided among themselves the huge empire so unexpectedly inherited by them, immediately entered a bloody war among themselves. Seleucus was treacherously stabbed to death with a dagger by the son of the commander Ptolemy - his former associate and comrade-in-arms, who, like him, became a king. For a long time, their heirs, who were constantly sharing power and expanding the boundaries of the new kingdom, were simply not up to the contents of the cypress chest. And when they remembered Alexander's papers, the reaction of their new owners was the same as that of all their predecessors: to hide everything as far as possible from prying eyes, which was strictly followed.

Valery Nikitich Demin tried to trace the further fate of the cypress treasury. Byzantium became the heir to the Seleucid kingdom, which then surrendered its Middle Eastern territories to the Baghdad Caliphate. And the priceless gifts kept in the cypress chest of Alexander the Great seemed to have been forgotten forever. Meanwhile, according to some reports, along with other relics and jewels, they were quietly kept in the underground structures of the Jerusalem temple.

After the capture of Jerusalem in 1099, the Temple Mount was leased by the founders of the Knights Templar. For several years, secret excavations have been carried out here. Their result was a fabulous enrichment of the order, which grew (after the death of the Kingdom of Jerusalem under the onslaught of Muslims) into one of the most influential forces in medieval Europe. Here I would like to note: the Macedonian, conquering and subjugating everyone, for some reason passed by Jerusalem, as if it did not exist.

The defeat of the Knights Templar by the French king Philip the Fair, the burning of the master and the total destruction of ordinary knights became the food of numerous historical novels and serious scientific research. However, they could not give an answer to the question where the fabulous treasures of the Templars disappeared. As well as what happened to the handwritten archive of the order, which included the papers and maps of Alexander the Great.
They surfaced only after a few centuries. In the XV-XVII centuries, in different places and at different times, maps and diagrams appeared, which depicted either territories hitherto unknown to Europeans, or mysterious lands and states that existed in ancient times.

The most famous maps that surfaced in the era of the great geographical discoveries include the image of the disappeared arctic continent of Hyperborea, made by the most famous cartographer of that time - the Flemish Gerardus Mercator (1512-1594). Hyperborea is mapped as a huge continent surrounding the North Pole and with a high mountain in the middle. It is clear that in the hands of Mercator there was some kind of ancient map (dating back precisely to the era of Alexander the Great).

On this map that has not survived to this day, the Arctic Ocean was listed as navigable, which played a tragic role in the search for sea routes around the northern coast of Eurasia. Captains and navigators, relying on the authoritative opinion of Mercator, stubbornly stormed the polar ice, where many of them, for example, Willem Barents (1550-1597), found their death. The existence of such a map allows us to understand why in the 16th century at the mouth of the Ob, called the Ob Sea, there were often significantly more English ships than Russians. The British owned a map on which the route to China through the Irtysh was indicated. By the way, theoretically, it is so, since the Black Irtysh originates in China. From this we can conclude that the climate of those times in the polar zones was much warmer.

The above facts testify: in the hands of Mercator there was a map that reproduced such ancient polar realities, when the Arctic Ocean was indeed navigable. Apparently, from the same distant era (namely, from the manuscripts captured by Alexander the Great in the book depositories of Babylon), Mercator's information about Hyperborea itself was gleaned.

Another map that uses the legacy of Alexander the Great is the map of the Turkish admiral Piri Reis. Like the Mercator map, it was copied from an ancient source dating back to the Hellenistic era. This map was apparently discovered by the Turks in the imperial book depository after the capture and sack of Constantinople. Piri Reis himself talked about twenty schemes of Alexander the Great, which he saw with his own eyes and used for his own purposes. One of them depicted not only the coast of Brazil, which was not yet known in Europe, redrawn by the Turkish admiral in 1513, but also Antarctica in all its details. In his own handwritten postscript in the margins, Piri Reis reports that Christopher Columbus used a similar cartographic source at one time and, therefore, the famous navigator did not discover any America, but only followed the route known long before him: (Unfaithful named Colombo, Genoese, discovered These lands. ”In the hands of the named Colombo came a book in which he read that on the edge of the Western Sea, far in the West, there are shores and islands. There were found all kinds of metals and precious stones. The aforementioned Colombo studied this book for a long time).

Historians have found out how the "book" not named by Piri Reis got into the hands of Columbus. It turns out that the wife of a successful Genoese was the daughter of the Grand Master, who by that time had changed the name of the Knights Templar, which was not affected by cruel repression in Spain and Portugal. Therefore, it can be assumed that the "discoverer of America" ​​had access to the maps from the cypress chest of Alexander the Great, which passed to the knights-templars from the Jerusalem temple.

There is even a hypothesis that the Templars, who had one of the most powerful fleets in medieval Europe, sailed to North America in the 13th-14th centuries, and shortly before the defeat of the order, which they had been warned about in advance, they managed to secretly take their fabulous treasures there. and at the same time they redeployed their entire fleet.

That is why the Piri Reis map was not the only one where the southern continent had not yet been discovered by Europeans was depicted in detail, and the depicted Antarctica was free of ice. Known, for example, is the map of the French mathematician Orontius Phineus in 1531. Finally, in 1507, the famous map of Lorraine cartographer Martin Waldseemüller was published, on which the name America first appeared - after the name of Amerigo Vespucci, who allegedly discovered the New World. There is no Antarctica on it, but the Far North of the Eurasian continent is depicted in sufficient detail with contours, for the most part, corresponding to modern data, and the Arctic Ocean, free of ice for navigation. All this proves once again: the most ancient cartographic primary sources existed and were available to a sufficient number of the elect and dedicated. And these initiates hide these secrets in Jerusalem, which for some reason the Macedonian did not notice, passing by twice and not even looking into this glorious city. Why? How could this happen? There is something to think about, isn't it?

Most likely, the maps of Alexander the Great exist to this day, deeply hidden in secret archives, which are not declassified only because other information may become known, the disclosure of which is still considered undesirable.

Information from other documents belonging to Alexander the Great spread through Masonic channels and began to appear in doses in the second half of the 18th - early 19th centuries. This meant that the Templar archives did not perish and, apparently, were inherited by the French masons. Through their foreign "brothers" information about the Arctic ancestral home - Hyperborea, leaked to Russia and became known to Catherine the Great, who, with the help of Lomonosov, organized two secret expeditions to the North Pole. The peak of the dissemination of information about the secret knowledge of mankind fell on the Napoleonic era, when it became known about the incredibly high technical development of the ancient (Hyperborean) civilization, which owned, in particular, aircraft and rocket vehicles. In the 70s of the XIX century, a very popular writer Vasily Ivanovich Nemirovich-Danchenko (1845 - 1936), the brother of the great theater director (Stanislavsky's associate), appeared in the future on the Kola Peninsula. Vasily Ivanovich was not only a famous writer, but also a famous freemason, who linked his fate with the Moscow representatives of the order, even while studying at the Alexander Cadet Corps. Did he see the originals of ancient documents? One way or another, he knew much more about the Russian North than mere mortals. That is why he strove so stubbornly to the most remote and practically inaccessible corners of the Kola Arctic, where no man's foot had set foot for a long time. One of the first, for example, he penetrated - alone and practically without supplies - into the then completely uninhabited Khibiny (Kola Peninsula).

Many secrets associated with the Macedonian are still awaiting their discovery, but many already today understand that it is just a puppet in someone's skillful hands. The same applies to other initiators of all kinds of wars and revolutions, such as Napoleon and Hitler. And if some puppet, like Hitler gets out of control, unite all countries against one, and then again play off each other. Therefore, history must be known and lessons must be learned from it.

Also in our time, interest in the ancient ancestral home of mankind has grown immeasurably not only thanks to the planet's current global climate change, one of which destroyed Hyperborea in the distant past, but also thanks to the disinterested efforts of the patriots of their country. Among them are such selfless researchers of world and national history as Valery Nikitich Demin (1942 - 2006) and a scientist and writer from the Tomsk branch of the Russian Geographical Society Nikolai Novgorodov.

Literature:

Alexander the Great and Ancient Russia. V.N. Demin

Siberian route of Alexander the Great. N. Novgorodov

Alex: White pages of the history of Siberia PART - 9th

Empire of Alexander on the physical map of the world.

Why did Alexander the Great set out to conquer not the granaries of the Northern Black Sea region, but the mountainous and barren Asia Minor?

Historical science does not teach us to ask questions, preferring to present the material as if we were talking about some axioms in which there is no room for doubt. So the famous character of the ancient world, Alexander the Great, made his axiomatic conquests, despite the fact that they contradicted common sense. And do not look for explanations for his actions in history, they are not there.

According to the canonical version, everything was like this. In the 4th century BC. Macedonian king Philip, having put together an army from the shepherds of his small and mountainous country, defeated the troops of the Greek states and subdued almost all of Greece. His son Alexander, at the head of a huge Greek army, set out to conquer Persia, which then included the territories of Asia Minor and Central. Having conquered Asia Minor and the Middle East, he moved on. Babylon and Susa have fallen ... But this is not enough for Alexander, and with manic persistence he moves into the depths of Asia. The Persian campaign smoothly passed into the Indian, a little more and - the Greek army is already on the banks of the Indus. Alexander would have gone further, but the soldiers refused - the obsessions of their commander turned the campaign into madness. Satisfied with the view of the Indian Ocean, the newly made King of Asia turned back.

The empire created by Alexander the Great, nicknamed the Great for his victorious campaigns, was also great. Alexander conquered vast territories, but all of them, with the exception of Greece, were in Asia. For some reason, he tried to capture only them and did not at all intend to expand the borders of the state he inherited further into Europe. But it is there, just north of Macedonia and the Black Sea, that the most fertile places in Europe are located. However, the young king chose to move in a completely different direction. As a result, we see on the map the world he conquered, where Macedonia is at its very edge.

All wars are always waged for resources, that is, for obtaining economic benefits. And only in ancient times this law is somehow violated. As if in the past there were people of some other nature who did not obey the natural and social laws of development. Here is Alexander the Great. Historians suggest believing that he carried people into the largest military-political adventure, beckoning them with some kind of wealth from the East. There was no need for Macedonia and the rest of Greece to think about the economy, about new arable land and pastures, about food. It turns out that you had to get gold, gems or just adventure. That is, these countries reached such a high economic level that the economy was already working on its own, ready, in addition, for any exorbitant load, such as supplying new armies, campaigns, new territories, etc.

Naturally, such a picture does not correspond to any realities and is an ordinary fantasy. And no gold will replace the economy, and indeed, it is the economy that gives gold, and not vice versa. You might, of course, think that the Asian territories just stored the necessary resources, but this is not so. Let's look at Alexander's path of conquest.

First, Asia Minor was conquered. This is the Asian territory of modern Turkey, one continuous mountains. Bread is the main source of food - you cannot sow and reap here. Turkey produces all bread on its European territory. Further - the Middle East, that is, mountains and deserts. The heavenly groves of Palestine, which the Bible tells about, bloom only on its pages. Either these are ordinary fairy tales, or one has to look for these lands in a completely different place. That is, even here Macedonia acquired not a feeder, but a parasite.

Further there is a small Mesopotamia, and after it huge spaces, but as far as India itself it is again sheer mountainousness, not very suitable for agriculture. Today these lands are occupied by Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan - everything is clear with regard to natural resources, except for oil. And so all these useless territories were the goal and result of great conquests. Why was this necessary?

The question of why Alexander went to conquer barren mountainous lands, moreover, distant, instead of those that were rich in black soil, and even nearby, is complicated by another moment. Asia belonged to the Persians, who more than once demonstrated the power of their weapons to the Greeks and subjugated almost half of the Asian world to their power. On the other side of Greece, there was no powerful state. Scattered nomadic peoples, unable to offer serious resistance, lived on the beautiful, rich lands. This, in general, found its confirmation: Alexander easily defeated the Danubian tribes, but he limited himself to this.

We see that the plans of conquest and actions of Alexander the Great, as well as the rest of the Hellenic world that supported him, are paradoxical and inexplicable. So what is the reason for the Asian campaign? Maybe it's the Persian gold after all? Well, you never know, all of a sudden the Greeks really didn't need anything else, because, as you know, Greece has everything. However, the fabulous wealth of the East is just a fairy tale. There are no innumerable treasures there and never have been, and where do they come from in these poor places. And even if it did, where did it go? It is not in museums. So, some crumbs, which, moreover, are no more than gold-silver from other regions.

In the same way as the biblical Promised Land rich in nature, in other places it is necessary to look for the king of Asia Minor Croesus, whose name has become a household name because of his wealth. Either in the wrong place or at the wrong time. So, perhaps, the history of Alexander the Great, if it is already difficult for her to get along in an already strange ancient world, did not happen there or then. Geography in this case is difficult to imagine otherwise - the whole of Central Asia is strewn with Alexandria, built in honor of the winner. But the time frame is possible.

The fact that Alexander was unable to expand the borders of the Hellenic world in the north may indicate one thing - there were already states that simply did not allow him to do this. All the best places come first, and human history is no exception. Well, those who are late are forced to live in mountains, deserts, jungles and other conditions less suitable for life. And, of course, such a people will not be able to squeeze out their neighbor, located on a fertile land: there will not be enough resources.

Accepting this position, we must move the history of Alexander and his empire (by the way, which did not even have a name) to the late Middle Ages, when rather developed states had already formed in the north of the Balkans and the Black Sea. And here you don't have to choose, because the political geography in this case is unambiguous. For several centuries, the territories of the Balkans, Asia Minor and other eastern territories were part of one huge state - the Ottoman Empire.

The most famous and great Turkish sultan was Suleiman Qanuni, who in Europe was called Suleiman the Magnificent and the Great Turk. Under him, Turkey achieved the greatest power and prosperity. If we compare the geography of the two empires - Alexander and Suleiman - we can see that they are remarkably similar. The only difference is that in the east, the Ottoman state did not stretch as far as the Greeks. But if we make allowance for the exaggeration of the Alexander conquests, as well as of its entire history, overgrown with legends, then the territorial identity of the two Eurasian empires is obvious.

In the case of Alexander's identification with Suleiman, it becomes clear why the military expansion of the former acquired such a strange one-sided orientation, and his homeland found itself on the edge of the conquered world. In fact, the conquest spread in all directions from the metropolis, which was Asia Minor - the ancestral lands of the Ottomans.

There is nothing surprising in the fact that Alexander the Great, having conquered the East, suddenly adopted Asian customs and turned into a classic Eastern ruler. If you imagine him as a Turkish sultan or military leader, this gets its own explanation.

And it does not seem strange that it is in Istanbul-Constantinople that Alexander's sarcophagus is kept. There is also his famous marble bust, made by his court sculptor, the famous Lysippos.