My big fat gay history lesson: Alexander the Great

When I was in 6th my teacher told us to go to the library and find a person in history and then learn about their life and write a report about them, for some reason I chose to write about Alexander the Great. I never really cared much for him, in fact I was still in my awkward anime stage in life and wanted to write about some samurai guy, but I could not find any books on him so I just settled for Alexander The Great. Ever since then he’s always been a topic of interest for me, the whole ideas and history of him is quite fascinating. So here’s a brief history lesson on Alexander the Great just incase you were asleep your sophomore year of high school.

Ahem: Alexander the Great, the King of Macedonia and conqueror of the Persian Empire and has been considered one of the greatest military geniuses of all times. Born from Phillip the second and his fourth wife Olympias, Alexander’s parents are pretty interesting people in themselves his mother for example was a devout member of a snake-worshiping “cult” and is even rumored to sleeping with snakes, and Phillip was a war-machine of death and destruction, and had seven wives. Not the most ideal parents, but through them Alexander gained traits like any kid does through their parents, through his mother he achieved a great sense of the ideas of destiny and paranoia, and through his father a competitive drive to always beat Phillip no matter what.

So lets gets into more cool shit about Alexander, he was tutored by philosopher Aristotle , succeeded Phillip after his assassination in 336 BC, after Phillip died all hell broke loose, countries that Phillip had taken over and united began to revolt. Once Alexander got wind of this he rouse 3,000 men to go and look into Thebes, Athens, Thessaly, and the Thracian tribes to the north of Macedon, once they came upon the Thessians, surrender and became part of Alexander’s troops as they rode towards Peloponnese, this continued until he reached the cities of Thermopylae, Corinth, and Athens. Once, in Corinth he heard of news of Thracian rising to the north, and that’s a no-no. So, you kind of get a brief idea that he does not put up with shit, he hears something is going down he gets to the bottom of it.

At 22 he now controls all the areas in Macedonia, and now has decided it is time to venture into Asia, with an army of 25,000 Macedonians, 7,600 Greeks, and 7,000 Thracians and Illyrians, soon the army went against theforces of King Darius III. There were 40,000 Persians and Greeks (20,000 each) waiting for them at the crossing of the river Granicus, near the city of Troy. (These Greeks had joined the Persians in the years following the defeat of the Greek army by Philip II at Chaeronea). He won, losing only 120 men, and destroying the Persian army, and the survivors? They were sent off to be laborers.

I could sit here all night telling you the stories of his battles so lets just condense them into bullets now:

The Campaigns in Asia Minor
-Alexander then led the army south across Asia Minor. The Greek coastal cities gave the greatest resistance to the Macedonians. Commander Memnon and his men slowed down the advance of Alexander and many Macedonians died during difficult sieges of the Greek cities of Halicarnassus, Miletus, Mylasa. But at the end the Macedonian army defeated the enemy and conquered the coast of Asia Minor. Alexander then turned northward to central Asia Minor, to the city of Gordium

The Battle of Issus
-30,000 Greeks again formed a sizable addition to the Darius' army as elite fighters and were positioned directly against the Macedonian phalanx. Darius's army outnumbered the Macedonians, but the Battle of Issus ended in a huge victory for Alexander. Thousands of Persians, Greeks, and other Asiatic soldiers were killed and King Darius left in panic before the Macedonian phalanx, abandoning his mother, wife, and children behind. (Alexander treated them with the respect out of consideration for their royalty)

The Sieges of Tyre and Gaza
-The victory at Issus opened the road for Syria and Phoenicia. In early 332, Alexander sent general Parmenio to occupy the Syrian cities and himself marched down the Phoenician coast where he received the surrender of all major cities except the island city of Tyre which refused to grant him access to sacrifice at the temple of the native Phoenician god Melcart. A very difficult seven-month siege of the city followed. In an enormous effort, the Macedonians begun building a mole that would connect the island-city with the coast. Tons of rocks and wood were poured into the water strip separating the island from the coast but its construction and the attacks from the city walls cost Alexander many of his bravest Macedonians. Although seriously tempted to lift the siege and continue marching on Egypt, Alexander did not abandon the project and continued the siege, surrounding the island with ships and blasting the city walls with catapults. When the walls finally gave in, the Macedonians poured their anger over the city defenders - 7,000 people were killed, 30,000 were sold as slaves. Alexander entered the temple of Melcart, and had his sacrifice. ( Pause real quick: During the seven-month siege of Tyre, Alexander received a letter from Darius offering a truce with a gift of several western provinces of the Persian Empire, but he refused to make peace unless he could have the whole empire. ) He continued marching south toward Egypt but was again held up by resistance at Gaza. The Macedonians put the city under a siege which lasted two months, after which the scenario of Tyre was repeated. With the fall of Gaza, the whole Eastern Mediterranean coast was now secured and firmly in the hands of the Macedonians. The mainland Greeks were hoping that the Persian navy and the Greek commander Memnon would land in Greece and help them launch a rebellion against Antipater's Macedonians, transfer the war into Macedonia itself, and cut off Alexander in Asia, but the sealing of the coast prevented this from happening. Then, Memnon fell sick and died while attempting to regain the lost Greek city of Miletus on the Asia Minor coast, and the Persian plan to transfer the war into Europe well apart.


Alexander in Egypt
-Alexander entered Egypt in the beginning of 331 BC. The Persian satrap surrendered and the Macedonians were welcomed by the Egyptians as liberators for they had despised living under Persian rule for almost two centuries.

The Battle of Gaugamela
-At Tyre, Alexander received reinforcements from Europe, reorganized his forces, and started for Babylon. He conquered the lands between rivers Tigris and Euphrates and found the Persian army at the plains of Gaugamela, near modern Irbil in Iraq, which according to the exaggerated accounts of antiquity was said to number a million men. Later on his troops spotted the lights from the Persian campfires and encouraged Alexander to lead his attack under cover of darkness. But he refused to take advantage this because he wanted to defeat Darius in an equally matched battle so that the Persian king would never again think to raise an army against him.At the beginning of the battle the Persian forces split and separated the two Macedonians wings. The wing of general Parmenio appeared to be backing down, but Alexander's cavalry rode straight after Darius and forced again his flight like he did at Issus. Darius fled to Ecbatana in Media, and Alexander stayed in Babylon, the Persian capital Persepolis, and was henceforth proclaimed king of Asia. Four months later, the Macedonians burned the royal palace in Persepolis, completing the end of the ancient Persian Empire
HUZZAH

Suppression of the Greek Rebellion, Discharge of the Greeks, and the Death of Darius
-Meanwhile in Greece, the Greeks under the leadership of Sparta rose to a rebellion against the Macedonian occupation.Antipater was in Thrace at the time and the Greeks took the opportunity to push back the Macedonian forces. But the victory did not last long as Antipater returned with a large army, defeated the rebels, and regained Greece. 5,300 Greeks, including the Spartan king Agis were killed, while the Macedonians lost 3,500 men. In Asia, the news of the Greek rebellion had Alexander so worried, that he immediately sent money to Antipater to counter it. And when he learned that the Greeks were defeated hedischarged all-Greek forces in his army. Alexander continued his pursuit of Darius for hundreds of miles from Persepolis. When he finally caught up to him, he found the Persian king dead in his coach. He was assassinated by Bessus, the satrap of Bactria which now proclaimed himself "King of the Kings", assuming the title of the Persian kings. Alexander gave Darius a royal funeral and set out for Bactria after his murderer.

The March on India
- In the spring of 327 BC, Alexander and his army marched into India invading Punjab. The greatest of Alexander's battles in India was at the river Hydaspes, against king Porus, one of the most powerful Indian rulers.In the summer of 326 BC, Alexander's army crossed the heavily defended river during a violent thunderstorm to meet Porus' forces. The Indians were defeated in a fierce battle, even though they fought with elephants, which the Macedonians had never seen before. The army continued advancing as far as the river Hydaspes but at this point the Macedonians refused to go farther as reports were coming of far more larger and dangerous armies ahead equipped with many elephants and chariots. General Coenus spoke on army's behalf to the king. Reluctantly, Alexander agreed to stop here. Not too long afterwards Coenus died and the army buried him with the highest honors. The army agrees to march towards south to which they construct a 1,000 ships were constructed to sail home, while battling local villages.

Now the big Finale, his death, he died in 324 BC from what’s to assumed Alcohol poisoning from partying to hard with his bros. He was 33 and conquered the largest amounts of land known at the time.

So, Alexander the Great is a big deal right? Any Military service would kill to have him in their services right? Well wrong, not the good ole USA. Why, you may ask? Well now even though Alexander can be blamed for a widespread of Christianity, education, and other forms of culture as well as just uniting so many people together, he believed in uniting his men with women from other countries. Most of he men were married to women from countries they visited, he actually promoted it, but I’m sorry I’m getting distracted. Back to why the United States would not want him, he was a dirty homosexual, it has been proven through writings that his friend, captain, and body guard Hephaestion, was his greatest emotional relationship with another person. The death of Hephaestion drove Alexander to period of grieving at while visiting his tomb it has been written that he gnarled over the tomb as the same of lost lovers in the means of how his emotional, physical, and vocal portrayals came out. There are other facts and tidbits in Alexander’s life that can point to the fact he was one for homosexual tendencies, and at that time in Greece the practice of homosexual sex was accepted, and was not really that big of a deal, this is why in the history books there are no mentions of his relationships, because the Greeks are too busy preaching about how much a beast he is on the battle field.


Now, it’s 2010 and we can not even have Pop star be famous with out outing them, we as a society do not care about talent we care about petty things in people personal lives. We send our troops across the waters, they fight for our freedom and a terror, but on side we got citizens fighting for freedom of marriage and terrors of unnatural behaviors. A marine is a marine, their rifle is the same as the man next to them, and their uniform is the same from stitch to stitch, and at the end of the day they have a loved one at home laying in a empty bed praying for a safe return.

So here’s my question to society and the DON’T ASK DON’T TELL gang, if a young adult man like Alexander the Great can take over half of Asia and be having an affair with his captain, can’t our troops come from loving relationships or just a lifestyle that fits them best?