Jun 13

Anniversary of the death of Alexander the Macedonian, who married with three Iranian girls

Alexander Based on almanac calculations and the Babylonia line of longitude (south-west Iran) contemporary historians have estimated three days in the month of June (Khordad) as the death anniversary of Alexander the Macedonian, famous as Alexander the great: One group of them believe 10 June to be the day of his death, another group (majority) 11 June and the third group (very few) 13 June (23 Khordad). According to the writings of the majority, Alexander died on 11 June 323 BC at the age of 32 (one month before becoming 33), in Babylonia. He had gone from Hamedan and Assyria to Babylonia and there he got a fever that never left him.     Historians have given three reasons for the early death of Alexander (in fact Alexander the 3rd). One group believe his death was due to malaria fever from his expedition to India, another group write that Casander, his deputy, had sent a type of poison (which would kill slowly) from Macedonia, for the cook of Alexander, who was his friend, to mix with his food, and so Alexander died after some days. The third group believes that Alexander was inflicted with typhoid from Hamedan, which he did not take care of.      Roxana On the last day, before his death, his generals asked him about his choice for his successor and expected him to name his brother or his son, whom his Iranian wife, Roxana, was pregnant of, but Alexander said “select the most suitable person”. Alexander wanted to draw the friendship of Iranians so that they do not consider him as a stranger, but one of their kin, and not to stab him from behind, and so married three Iranian girls from high rank families, but only got a child from Roxana (Rowshanak), and this child, which was a boy and named Alexander the 4th, was born after his father’s death. Roxana was the daughter of Satrap (governor) of Bacteria (Tajikestan and areas of Afghanistan where the Tajik live). The other two wives of Alexander were Satira (Setareh), daughter of Dariush the 3rd and Parisatis (Parisa) an Iranian princess. Roxana and her son were killed by Casander shortly after being transferred to Macedonia, because he feared them to be his rivals.     After Alexander’s death, his generals could not come to an agreement for his successor and therefore divided his possessed lands among themselves. In the main lands of Iran, the influence of Alexander’s successors was not much, because in every city that Alexander would conquer he would appoint the previous Iranian governor to be in charge of the city. Noting the nature and virtues of Iranians, he would encourage his officers to marry Iranian girls.     Alexander, whose house teacher was Aristotle and at the age of 20 succeeded his father who was ruling over the Greek, beside Macedonia, intended to spread the Greek philosophy all over the world, and in the name of freeing the Greek of Anatolia (today’s Turkey) from the influence of Iran, led a military expedition of 30 thousand infantry and 5,000 cavalry to the East and in 334 BC entered Anatolia and in three wars with Iran, who had 15 times more forces, gained victory.     During his wars with Iran, he conquered Egypt and built the Alexandria port. He proceeded in the north-east upto Samarghand and in south Asia upto India. Then he returned to Babylonia to prepare himself for geographic expeditions in far away seas, when he died.     Alexander’s invasions in the East took 10 years and a few months. One of his destructive deeds was destroying the greatest and the most magnificent construction of the ancient era and the symbol of glory and flourish of Iranians, Takhte Jamshid. The reasons for victory of Alexander over the king of the time of Iran (Dariush the 3rd), has been written as prevalence of corruption in the Achamenian court after the assassination of Ardeshir the 3rd and appointment of unqualified managers and using foreign hired soldiers for defending Iran and the reluctant and coward personality of Dariush the 3rd.     Hegel (the German philosopher and historian), one of the possessors of philosophy in history, has compared the different eras of Iran and believes that each era and dynasty, after the spread of government corruption, spread of negligence of law, order, and customs, weakness in the judiciary and weakness of the personalities of government officials and civil conflicts to remain in power, has ended. Imaginary Drawing of Roxana          Translation by Rowshan Lohrasbpour (AmordadNews Writer)