Talk:Alexander the Great/Archive 2

message: I removed this section because it didn't seem appropriate for an encylcopedia article about Alexander to cover the dissolution of his empire in such depth and so far in time (to 250 BC and beyond), particularly when there is a fine article on the [Diadochi]. This would be equivalent to ending an entry on Lenin by giving a history of the Soviet Union from his death to the fall of Communism in Europe--it's related, but not really appropriate. I put the text here so we can talk about it, and perhaps rescue pieces for here or there. I'm not going to fight a revert war over this. But I will revert if the reverter doesn't give a defense in the change description, or, preferably, here. [Lectiodifficilior; can't remember how to add that automatically] —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Lectiodifficilior (talk • contribs).
:Well, Alexander's legacy helps better understand the scope and the consequences of his actions during his brief lifetime. In a sense, his legacy defines the true meaning of his life. However, to you point, I think there's no meaning in going into the details of the Diadochi War. A "Main article:Diadochi" link should help. 
:Historically, the Hellenistic period (3rd-1st century BCE) is considered as the period of history directly affected by Alexander's conquests. It brought radical political and cultural changes to three continents as a direct consequence of Alexander's actions. That part is probably necessary, but maybe we should try to simplify and structure it. PHG 08:04, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wars of the Successors, etc.

message: I'm a senior in Highschool and I did a research project on Alexander and I just wanted to add some information to the site. 
Alexander’s army was one of the first to successfully use siege weapons. His father, Philip did have siege material but never figured out how to utilize his new powerful weapon. After his father’s death Alexander had to squelch revolts from neighboring city/states during his first months as king. He had to deal with the city-state Thebes. When he arrived at Thebes, he gave them a chance to surrender but they refused, so he used his siege weapons to attack the city’s walls. The weapon he used is called a catapult. The catapult is a machine, which throws huge rocks. This weapon is very useful for destroying walls and buildings. They also had a weapon that launched huge arrows. Both of these siege weapons used torsion to launch their ammo (Fox 104-105). Alexander’s army also had many other dimensions to it such as a great Calvary. The Calvary was considered the heart of Alexander’s army. The well-trained Calvary was an important factor, which helped turn the battle in Alexander’s favor. His Calvary was made up of two types or units. The first had long spears, which were used to pierce enemy ranks. The second were units that carried long two-handed swords. These units had to be well trained because these riders did not have stirrups yet (Fox 108-111). His army also consisted of spearmen that carried weapons that were thirteen feet long (“The Real” n.p.). These spearmen were very effective against Calvary and charging footmen. These soldiers were trained to wave their spears up and down while charging, this helped deflect any arrows that were shot in their direction. This type of infantry was very competent in the open battlefield but had trouble turning their ranks in battle. They also had difficulty maneuvering in certain terrains. Unfortunately for Alexander these weapons had many constraints on them and could only excel in certain conditions. His army also had archers and slingers that helped Alexander with his long-range attack. These troops proved to be very useful against the Persian archers. One of the more effective infantries he had were the shield bearers. These men carried shields as well as swords. This type of infantry was useful to Alexander he kept these men on the far left and right ranks of his men just in case of ambush. If he was flanked by his enemies he had men who were well armed and protected to defend the interior. Alexander also had certain units that could be compared to America’s Special Forces unit. These men were called Gurkhas and they carried javelins. Alexander used Gurkhas for rough climbs and night attacks. During this time period no other army had such diversity. Alexander was well known for his skill in balancing armies (Fox 108-111).
—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Spencsoc23 (talk • contribs).
:Where did you get the Gurkha idea? I suspect you got it here—a previous version of Alexander the Great included that (very silly) notion. See Gurkhas. Apparently someone misunderstood a reference in a secondary source, comparing some unit of Alexander's army to the Gurkhas. Alexander no more had Gurkhas in his army than he had the French Foreign Legion. Lectiodifficilior 21:18, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  I just wanted to add some information 

message: Regardless of anyone's positions on the Greek/Macedonian controversy, deleting the Greek name and inserting the Macedonian name for "Alexander the Great" is not useful. No ancient text in the Macedonian language is known, none referring to Alexander; and the modern Macedonian phrase is of Slavic etymology, postdating Alexander by a thousand years: i.e., not a phrase anyone would have said in Antiquity. All the ancient historical documents refer to him in either Greek or Latin (later: Persian, Arabic, etc. — still no Macedonian), making it useful to have the man's name in Greek, the language he and his entourage spoke, but not in Macedonian. A Macedonian equivalent is theoretically useful in an English article, but only as useful as remarking that it's "Alessandro Magno" in Italian. — Bill 23:07, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Greek name relevant, but not Macedonian

message: A previous edit inserted two references to the ancient Macedonian language: one valid, to Plutarch's Life of Alexander, and one that to me at least appears spurious, to "Curtius, VI.9.37", which I therefore removed. A quick examination of the text of Curtius shows that Book VI Chapter 9 ends in section 36; a somewhat slower trawl thru all of Book VI has me not finding any reference to the Macedonian language being incomprehensible to Greeks. That doesn't mean Curtius didn't write such a thing (sorry if it's there but I have just been unable to find it) but the burden is on the editor to provide a valid citation. — Bill 23:40, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Apparently spurious reference to Quintus Curtius

message: This question keeps coming up not least because it has relevance to certain modern nationalist debates.  It was however a live debate at the time but  posed in a very different way in that at the time it was  those Greeks who opposed the Philip and Alexander hegomony who disputed their Greekness.  The relavance to this article is that a lot of the opposition to Alexander-Philip was framed in a discourse that the Macedonians were aliens.    On the other hand Philip and Alexander were very keen to define themselves as Greek.  The conquerer adopting the culture of the conquered was very much par for the course in the pre-print world and see we Alexander doing same thing when he tried to make Persians out of Macedonians.  What is striking to me is not the opposition but the extent that the Macedonians were ready go along with it.  
It seems to be that the whole Greekness question needs a wider coverage but it should really be part of the Philip article with a link back on the lines of how 'the belief that the Macedonians were non Greek was a key aspect of Greek opposition to Macedonian hegemony'.Dejvid 13:32, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Was Alexander Greek?

message: (from description of changes)
Three exclusively ethnic edits, including addition of favoring sources and removal of non-favoring sources. I find this unacceptable. Can we add a short section the issue and keep it out of the the article?
I am not of the opinion that the ancient Macedonians were "racially" distict from other Greeks in any meaningful way, or spoke a very different tongue--certainly not a Slavic one. But the degree of "Greekness" of the ancient Macedonians was something Antiquity argued over. They saw cultural differences, and differences of speech, and sources from every period use Macedonian and Greek as terms which could oppose each other. To avoid this common usage is to efface something genuinely ancient in the interest of political advantage.
More broadly, I don't think we should be using Wikipedia to score our narrow little ethnic points. I would not approve of someone going into articles about Palestinians and adding "Arab" in front of the word "Palestinian" everywhere. For, although the Palestinians ARE Arabs, calling them Arabs over and over again is a well-known tactic for denying that they can have an additional or sub-identity anyone is entitled to respect. The situation is much the same here. Adding "Greek," "Greek," "Greek" everywhere is an effort to score points against the current country of Macedonia and its people. It is a very childish and obvious thing to do, like a child putting a lollypop up his nose to spite his parents. The child proves his point—lollypops can indeed fit up a nose—but the activity is nevertheless to be discouraged by adults. Lectiodifficilior 03:30, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm just weighing in here on a subject I know little about, but surely the best thing to do is to write a section for the article headed 'Alexander's nationality' or something like that, and explain both sides of the question there. Clearly the question of whether Alexander was Macedonian or Greek was a controversial one in his own time as well as in ours. If this issue was actually explained somewhere near the beginning of the article, casual readers would be less likely to be misled by the occasional additions of Greek or Macedonian-biased editors, which are probably inevitable. The Singing Badger 14:41, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I can live with that. (Indeed, I think I suggested it.) But let's just note, you wouldn't find that in a "real" enyclopedia. As an alternate how about a totally new page devoted to the "Ethnicity of the ancient Macedonians"? I'd rather get the topic off the page and onto somewhere else—although that page would swiftly degenerate into name-calling—than keep revisiting some compromise wording on this page. After all, we could have this argument on every single ancient Macedonian's wikipedia page. There are hundreds of such pages on Wikipedia! I understand there's some debate about the ethnic and linguistic origins of the Japanese. I know, let's fight it out on the Seiji Ozawa page! Lectiodifficilior 06:27, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: the discussion should be restricted to Talk:Macedon as much as possible. We say on Macedon that it was a (literally) borderline case of 'Hellenic'. It may be said without doubt, otoh, that Alexander spread "Hellenic" rule etc., since by the 4th century, Macedon was almost completely Hellenized itself. Macedon in 550 BC may not have been "Hellenic" by any definition, but its upper class (which is what counts for the 'spread of Hellenism') was entirely so by 350 BC. dab (ᛏ) 11:37, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

text:  I disagree that a 'real' encyclopedia wouldn't discuss this; I think a m,odern one probably would, perhaps when discussing Alexander's modern legacy. I also disagree that the discussion should be restricted to other pages. Alexander is the most famous Greek-Macedonian (or whatever!) and this page will thus always be a target for pro-Greek bigots and pro-Macedonian bigots to try to promote their agendas. It's much better to explain the controversy openly on the page, as it would at least mean that the bigots would concentrate on one section. This has worked in the past. I myself wrote a 3-sentence section entitled 'Alexander's sexuality' a few months ago in order to concentrate the endless edit wars over whether Ax was gay or not. Now the section has been expanded by others into a long and NPOV examination of the subject and there have been less annoying edits to the main article. I believe a section on 'Alexander's ethnicity', perhaps with a link to a longer article on Macedonian ethnicity, might well solve the current problem. Unless there is a strong disagreement, I will be happy to start the ball rolling, although I've no expertise in the area. The Singing Badger 15:52, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Okay, Badger, you've convinced me. I like to avoid playing with fire, but your sexuality example looks like a good one to follow. I'm going to revert the latest ethnic reversion and add a section referencing Macedon and Talk:Macedon. I'm leaving it raw; first, I don't want to write it (as I said); second, I don't think I should be trusted to write it. Let's see how that goes. Lectiodifficilior 08:28, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

text:  OK, I wrote something. But I don't know my Aristotle from my Euboea, so it's going to need some checking by the wiser. The Singing Badger 16:59, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: A separate section is probably the best but it is not just a modern debate.  The anti Macedon party in Greece as vehemently denied his Greekness as the supporters of Macedon were to say they were.  In the ancient world it was Greeks who were foremost in rejecting the idea that he was Greek but they often focused on things that the modern debate ignores.    It is different from the sexuality question because no one really cared much about that but whether the Macedonians were Greek is relevant to the politics of the time.  It explains why the the Greeks took every chance to rebel and why the Greeks held so few high up positions under Alexander.Dejvid 19:15, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  On the three ethnically-based changes 

message: Obviously this web page has been created by prejudiced individuals that seem to ignore facts on purpose. Alexander was Hellene, Greek from Macedonia, period. The adjective Macedonian is used similarly to Athenian, Ionian, and Spartan etc. You choose to exclude Herodotus and you include quotes from Demosthenes an adversary of Macedonians that in fact criticized their different political system. I am sick of this propaganda from the Slavs that seems to be quite welcomed by a bunch of ignorant individuals for different reasons. In particular the ethnicity part is a joke. 
Ancient Macedonians were one of more than the 230 Hellenic tribes, sub-tribes, and families of the Hellenic Nation that spoke more than 200 dialects.  For more information see Herodotus, Thucydides, Titus Livius, Strabo, Nevi'im, Ketuvim, Apocrypha (Macabees I, 1-2).  It was not until 1945 that their Hellenism has been challenged by the Slavs for expansionistic reasons. 
What Alexander said about himself?
"For I (Alexander I) myself am by ancient descent a Greek, and I would not willingly see Hellas change her freedom for slavery." (Herod. IX, 45, 2 [Loeb]) 
"Tell your king (Xerxes), who sent you, how his Greek viceroy (Alexander I) of Macedonia has received you hospitably."  (Herod. V, 20, 4 [Loeb]) 
 
"Now, that these descendants of Perdiccas are Greeks, as they themselves say, I myself chance to know." (Herod. V, 22, 1 [Loeb]) 
The country by the sea which is now called Macedonia... Alexander, the father of Perdiccas, and his forefathers, who were originally Temenidae from Argos" 
(Thucydides 99,3 (Loeb, C F Smith) 
"But Alexander (I), proving himself to be an Argive, was judged to be a Greek; 
so he contended in the furlong race and ran a dead heat for first place."
(Herod. V, 22, 2) 
After the battle of Granicus, Alexander sent the Athenians 300 full suits of Persian armor as a present, with the following inscription:  "Alexander, son of Philip, and the Greeks, except the Lacedaemonians, dedicate these spoils, taken from the Persian who dwell in Asia.
The fact is that Alexander the Great considered himself and his Macedonians, Greek.  He claimed ancestry on his mother’s side from Achilles and on his father’s side from Hercules (Heracles).  His ancestor, Alexander I, stated that he was Greek (Herodotus, Histories, V, 20, 22; VIII, 137; IX, 45)
Ethnicity:
Participation in the Olympic Games was unequivocally and definitely a function that only athletes of strictly Hellenic origin could partake.  Archelaus had won in the Olympic and Pythian Games (Solinus 9, 16) and Alexander I had also won in the Olympic Games (Herodotus, Histories, V, 22).
"The Macedonian people and their kings were of Greek stock, as their traditions and the scanty remains of their language combine to testify."   
` {John Bagnell Bury, "A History of Greece to the Death of Alexander the Great", 2nd ed.(1913)
"Clearly, the language of the ancient Macedonians was Greek"
{Prof. John C. Roumans Professor Emeritus of Classics Wisconsin University}
"There is no doubt,  that Macedonians were Greeks." 
(Robin Lane Fox "Historian-Author"
—Preceding unsigned comment added by  Necono (talk • contribs) 04:33, April 24, 2005 (UTC)
:Obviously, the ancient Macedonians spoke a language in the Hellenic family.  My understanding was that it was probably different enough from Attic or Doric as to be mutually incomprehensible, but the evidence is of course rather sparse.  At any rate, I find the theoretical claims of Slavic Macedonians utterly incomprehensible in this - whatever Alexander may have been, he certainly was not a Slav. john k 04:57, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Obviously this web page has been created by prejudiced individuals 

message: If there is any serious claim about the language of Alexander the Great, or the dialect spoken in Macedonia at or before his time, being other than Greek, I offer to pay a ticket to any museum for a non-expert (but educated) speaker of this language and see if he/she can understand more scriptures from that place and period than a non-expert Greek as myself. See also Ancient Macedonian language. The comment that modern Greeks are not 100%, pure descendants of classic Greeks is correct but irrelevant. The fact that the population of Great Britain is different from what it was 3 or 4 centuries ago is not an argument for denying the "Britishness" of Shakespeare.
Ulixes 19:52, April 30, 2005 (UTC)
:The Macedonians spoke a language which was similar to Greek, certainly, and were seen by the Greeks as a related people.  The Ancient Greeks were pretty divided, however, as to whether the Macedonians were actually Greeks, or merely a related people.  Of course, the Macedonians were not modern Macedonian Slavs, but I don't think anyone (except a few vandals) has argued that.  But it is just as problematic to describe him as a Greek, imo.  Certainly, as someone pointed out above, the terms "Greek" and "Macedonian" were often used exclusively of each other.  "Eumenes was a Greek, not a Macedonian," or whatever. john k 20:25, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Language of Alexander