Who Ever Heard Of The Italian Empire?

[dean]

Dean said,

Without wishing to rattle anyone's cage,

Please don't apply your Vulcan grip!!!!
Over and out!!!

Best wishes,
Dean

[Paralus]

For the Gods' sake Jim! I'm a phalangite not a hoplite!

[Paralus]

Where Argead Empire and the Hellenistic world to last a thousand years; men will stay this was a Macedonian Empire!

[dean]

Hellooo,

This discussion seems to be just about the Greek Macedonian debate which i don't think we are going to be able to resolve in this or any future discussions, are we? I always remember the long, very long posts in upper case by one of the members that seemed to longer than the bible and I just found it to be an exercise in futility.

Come on guys

Alexander was given a Greek education- Homer ran in the man's veins- also Philip had spent several years albeit against his will in Thebes. There were links and perhaps Green's analogy of England and Scotland is useful to describe the bond. But there were differences, Philip/Alexander were kings- and so that could never be accepted in the heart of Greece. Their lot was making war/subjugation and not just "talking things over".

This leads on to a very interesting thought.. what if the Persian empire had remained? and Alexander had not "done the demolition"????

Would any other Greek have taken the battle onto Persian soil?
Best wishes,
Dean

[amyntoros]

There’s relevance in the statement said earlier that it is the British Empire that is known to have "ruled the world" rather than the English Empire, the reason being (I believe) that a collective image rather than an individualization was necessary at the time. As Paralus pointed out, the military forces were replete with Scots, Irish, and Welsh soldiers who had to believe that when they fought For King and Country it did not mean for England only. The political and/or military songs of the empire are indicative; the British Grenadiers and Rule Britania being excellent examples. It is the perception of being British rather than English that is important here.

In Greek antiquity, a person would have distinguished himself as being from the city/polis rather than the collective “Hellas”; i.e., he would have described himself foremost as being an Athenian, Theban, Cretan, etc. even though he knew himself also to be an Hellene. It’s a descriptive means to distinguish oneself (or others) from within the collective rather than to separate oneself from the collective. So when we read of the “Greeks and Macedonians” in the sources it merely distinguishes the Macedonians from the rest of the fighting forces. Both the world and our perceptions have changed since then and it is the carefully delineated country of birth that defines one’s nationality and not one’s city of birth. Someone will tell you he is Greek first and then tell you his city afterwards (if you ask), as would a person from any other country. Yet since new borders were created in Europe within the last couple of centuries, ones “country of origin” has changed in many cases. This is where the whole Greek versus Macedonian debate on Alexander originates. One couldn’t even have had this discussion in the seventeenth century! It's unlikely anyone would have cared whether Alexander was Greek or thought of himself as Greek because those borders had not been defined.

In ancient times it wasn’t so and I have reason to believe that Alexander’s empire WAS known as Macedonian rather than Greek. Lucan, (although born in Spain in 39 AD) was the Roman nephew of Seneca; he served under Nero who became jealous of his growing reputation and forbade him to write anymore. Lucan later took an active part in a conspiracy to dethrone and murder Nero. Obviously a man with little regard for emperors, Lucan’s work, although wonderfully entertaining, shows an equal Republican distaste for both Caesar and Alexander. (The excerpts on Alexander are regrettably brief.) In the Loeb translation of his Pharsalia (Civil War) everything connected with Alexander is Macedonian. Alexander is the Macedonian Captain or simply the Macedonian. And more than that, Alexandria is called the Macedonian city and Lucan often uses the epithet Pellaeus of the Egyptian king and court, thereby not only distinguishing the line of Ptolemy as Macedonian, but also by Soter's perceived city of birth. To Lucan, the last Ptolemy and his sister, Cleopatra, are neither Egyptian nor Greek, but distinctly Macedonian – this being centuries after Alexander died!

Although not really relevant to this thread, I simply can’t resist excerpting Lucan’s words on Alexander during Caesar’s visit to his tomb. Various emperors may have delighted in Alexander, but those who served under them didn’t necessarily share the same opinions!

Lucan. X. 20-52 There lies the mad son of Macedonian Philip, that fortunate freebooter, cut off by a death that avenged the world. The limbs that should have been scattered over the whole earth they laid in a hallowed shrine; Fortune spared his dead body, and the destiny of his reign endured to the last. For if Freedom had ever made men their own masters again, his body would have been preserved for mockery – a man who was born to teach this bad lesson to the world, that so many lands may obey one lord. He left his own obscure realm of Macedonia; he spurned Athens which his father had conquered; driven by the impulse of destiny, he rushed through the peoples of Asia, mowing down mankind; he drove his sword home in the breast of every nation; he defiled distant rivers, the Euphrates and the Ganges, with Persian and Indian blood; he was a pestilence to earth, a thunderbolt that struck all peoples alike, a comet of disaster to mankind. He was preparing to launch his fleets on the Ocean by way of the outer sea. No obstacle to him was heat, or sea, or barren Libya, or the Syrtes, or the desert. Following the curve of the earth, he would have marched round to the West, and gone beyond both the poles, and drunk of the Nile at its source. But Death stood in his way, and Nature alone was able to bring his mad reign to this end: the power, by which he had seized the whole world, he carried away with him in his jealousy, and left no successor to inherit all his greatness, but exposed the nations to be torn asunder. He died, however, in Babylon he had conquered; and the Parthian feared him. Shame is it that the peoples of the East shrank more from contact with the phalanx than they shrink now from contact with the legion. Though Roman rule extends to the North and the home of the West wind, though we oppress the lands that lie behind the burning South wind, yet in the East we shall yield precedence to the lord of the Parthians.(1) Parthia, that brought doom on the Crassi, was a mere peaceful province of little Pella.(2)
(1) I. e. Alexander.
(2) I. e. of Macedonia under Alexander.

I’ll take my wooden spoon away now . . .

Best regards,