4th BC Century Defensive Wall Unearthed

An anonymous reader writes "Yahoo News is reporting that Greek archaeologists have discovered a 2,600 meter defensive wall whose design was 'inspired by Alexander the Great.' In addition to the wall itself 4th-century BC bronze coins were also found inside the structure. From the article: 'The discovery was made in the archaeological site of Dion, an ancient fortified city and key religious sanctuary of the Macedonian civilization, which ruled much of Greece until Roman times.'"

Comments

Alexander as a God

[Quirk]

Alexander, a pupil of Aristotle (neither had much if anything to say about the other), was worshiped as a God by many ancient kingdoms. His conquests to the east, starting with his famous cutting of the Gordian Knot before his conquests in ancient Persia, lead to the adumbration of the Old Silk Road which was to become the first major conduit between the far east and the west.

Upon his death his generals squabbled over the conqured lands, individually taking control of various areas. The Ptolemy reign of Egypt ended with the conquest of Egypt by Julius Ceasar and his taking of Cleopatra as his lover and mother of their child.

The true legacy of Alexander was the Hellenization of the ancient world. The ancient Greek culture was idealized and emulated by the Macedonians, (hence Aristotle as teacher to Alexander), and Alexander spread the idealized version of the ancient Greek culture throughout the lands he conqured.

Re:"Macedonian civilization"

[CRCulver]

I knew it was only a matter of time until someone came with the Greek nationalist view. Too bad that no one outside of Greece cares. Yes, Alexander and his father spoke Greek, but the simple fact of the matter is that only the upper crust of Macedonia was educated in the Greek language. The peons spoke only their local vernacular, an Indo-European language too far removed from Greek for mutual intelligibility. Archaeological evidence shows that Macedonia had its own pottery and jewelry traditions which were different than those of Greece, so the culture was not Greek. Saying that Macedonia was a part of the Greek nation is like calling present-day India part of England just because the upper classes there speak English.

Re:Alexander the great

[luvirini]

Actually the two great conquerors are more like: Alexander the Great and Genghis Khan.

People like Napoleon or Hitler get a lot of style points reduced because of the short time(historically speaking) it took to beat them.

it's more complicated than that

[Trepidity]

Whether Alexander was Greek depends on what you consider Greek. You're correct that there is a distinction between classical Greeks (i.e. Athenians, Spartans, and others) and classical Macedonians. However, modern Greeks are actually in large part descendents of Macedonians and Hellenized non-Greeks; it's not as if modern Greeks are somehow purebred descendents of ancient Athenians.

To the extent that the Macedonian Empire created much of what would become the "Hellenic World", Alexander was certainly Greek almost definitionally.

Re:News for Nerds?

[nwbvt]

On a more serious note,

Would it be possible to create a new 'history' topic to post stuff like this under? I mean currently its listed under 'Science', and I don't think the Einstein picture is really relevant. I'm not saying it isn't interesting, just that it can be classified better.