How old is Alexander the Great?

According to Plutarch, a famous historian in ancient Greece, in the 4th century BC, Alexander the Great, king of Macedonia, led an army eastward expedition and built more than 70 towns, all named after himself. I have been to some areas he conquered, looking for those towns, and found that most of them have disappeared in the dust of history; The remaining few are unparalleled. This is not disappointing, but it is very interesting: which towns did he build in the military operations in West Asia and North Africa 12, and why did he build these towns in military arrogance?

Alexander the Great, formerly known as Alexander III, was born in Pella, the capital of Macedonia, in 356 BC. His father, Philip II, was an accomplished king, who not only conquered many city-states all over Greece, but also determined to defeat the Persian Empire which dominated West Asia and North Africa. Unfortunately, he was assassinated in 336 BC. At this time, 20-year-old Prince Alexander III succeeded to the throne. He studied martial arts since childhood, learned riding and shooting skills from his father, and learned scientific and cultural knowledge from the famous philosopher Aristotle. In the name of the commander-in-chief of Macedonian and Greek armies, he claimed that Persia invaded Macedonia and Greece twice in the 5th century BC, killing people and setting fires, and this revenge will be repaid. In the early spring of 334 BC, he handed over the power to govern the country to his mother Olympias and Antipat, and led an army to war.

Alexander led 40,000 infantry and 6,000 cavalry, took 160 warships and a large number of cargo ships, crossed the ancient Hellers Strait, now the Da Daniil Strait, and set foot on the vast land of Asia. He led his troops south along the east coast of the Mediterranean, and in the following year 165438+ 10, he joined forces with Persian troops in the Isu region in southern Turkey. Alexander's army was unstoppable and soon defeated four times his own enemy. In order to prevent the enemy from fighting back, he immediately ordered to build a castle on the high ground on the south side of the battlefield. The castle was hastily built and named Alexandria in Isum after him (suffix "Leah" means "city"). A Turkish friend said that this castle is located on the northeast coast of the Mediterranean, and its specific location is controversial. There is no doubt that this castle later evolved into a prosperous town, which is considered to be the first town built by Alexander the Great in this expedition.

Alexander left some soldiers stationed, and then led his troops south to Syria, Phoenicia and Palestine. In 332 BC, he occupied Egypt almost without fighting in 1 1. In April of the following year, he arrived at the estuary delta where the Nile flows into the Mediterranean. He found that it was low-lying, fertile and convenient for irrigation, so he decided to build the capital of the future empire on the spot. The city of the future is named after him and designed and built by the famous architect Tino Claudius according to the traditional Greek style. Although he didn't see the completion of the city, the location he chose, backed by rivers and the sea, has great development advantages, and soon developed into a land and sea transportation hub connecting Europe, Asia and Africa, an important economic and cultural center in the Eastern Mediterranean, and has been the capital of Egypt for nearly a thousand years. This is the second largest city in Egypt today, Alexandria. It is the most influential city that Alexander the Great decided to build and named after him more than two thousand years later.

In 33 1 BC, Alexander led his troops back to Asia and headed for the hinterland of the East. King Darius Iii of Persia assembled hundreds of thousands of troops and set out for GoGameira in Mesopotamia. Alexander's army quickly defeated the Persian army, occupied famous cities such as Babylon, Susa and Persepolis, and burned the palace of Persepolis to avenge the Persian army's burning of Athens more than 50 years ago. Rebel Darius Iii fled to the northeast. Alexander led his army to pursue him, crossing present-day northern Iran and entering Afghanistan. He occupied Herat, the city where Arians lived, and renamed it Alexandria in Ariane. From there, it turned to the southeast, occupied the important town of Kandahar, and renamed it Alexandria in Ala Hosia. Then, he marched north and captured Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, and Kabisha, an important town in the north. Kapisa, now Bagram, is located at the southern foot of Hindu Kush Mountain, with dangerous terrain. He immediately ordered a castle to be built nearby, and under his command, 7,000 troops and 3,000 mercenaries were stationed. At that time, the Hindu Kush was called the Caucasus, so he renamed the Caucasus to Kabisha Alexander and decided to cross the Hindu Kush and enter Central Asia northward.

In July 330 BC, Darius Iii was killed by his men on the way to escape. The Persian Empire, which lasted for more than 200 years, was declared dead. In order to eliminate the remnants of the Persian army, Alexander led the army to continue northward and enter southern Central Asia. The following summer, he captured Malakun, the famous city of Samarkand in Uzbekistan now occupied by Persian remnants. There are rivers here, and things enrich the people. He decided that it was worth long-term operation, so he built walls, palaces, theaters and temples at the intersection of the Uhur River (now Amu Darya) and the southern Corkcha River, and named a reconstructed ancient Persian city Alexandria on the Uhur River. In the southwest, he led troops to capture the ancient city of Merv on the Murgab River and named it after himself. This oasis city is located on the east-west trade route, and later developed into the second largest city in Turkmenistan, Mare. On the south bank of the upper reaches of the Syr Darya River in the east, he built a 6-kilometer-long wall and established a new Alexandria in Essay. "Esat" means "farthest" because he thinks this town is located in the northernmost part of his campaign and can firmly control this transportation hub in Eurasia.

In the early summer of 327 BC, Alexander led his army to turn south, crossed the Hindu Kush and entered northern India (now Pakistan). Along the way, he occupied many towns and renamed them after himself. In May of the following year, in the upper reaches of Jielumu River, a tributary of the Indus River, the local people met with stubborn resistance, and they were seriously injured and their beloved mounts died. Here, he ordered the construction of a city on both sides of the river. In the East, Alexandria was named Nikaya, which means "the city of victory in Alexandria". Alexander, named bushfalas in the west, commemorates his beloved war horse Bushfalus who fought alongside him for more than ten years. After that, he continued to go south and built cities at the intersection of the Indus River and the Sinis River in accel and at the mouth of the Indus River flowing into the Indian Ocean, all of which were named after himself. In addition to stationing infantry, he also built ports and docks in the two places to control waterways and sea routes. At this point, his troops occupied almost all the territory of Pakistan today.

Alexander wanted to go south and conquer all India. However, the weather is hot and the materials are in short supply. The soldiers have been fighting for years and feel very tired. In view of the complete destruction of the Persian Empire and the achievement of the main purpose of the Crusade, in 325 BC 10, he decided to return to the west in two ways. He led the main force to land and returned to Babylon through today's southern Iran. Along the way, he established several towns named after himself and left some garrisons. In Alexandria, Karmania, which is now built in southeastern Iran, he erected a stone pillar, symbolizing the southern border of his empire. The other route will be led by Tony Achatz and returned from the sea. Achatz followed the example of the Commander-in-Chief and named a natural harbor and landing site at the northwest end of the Persian Gulf as Alexandria. In 324 BC, the land and sea armies joined forces in Susa. Alexander and nearly 100 generals under his account recruited Persian women as their wives and held a grand "collective wedding" to celebrate the victory. Unexpectedly, a few months later, in June of 10, Alexander the Great died in Babylon at the age of 32.

Things came suddenly, Alexander the Great had no children, and the throne was temporarily suspended. Disputes over power and territory broke out between ministries. The Alexander Empire, which he worked so hard to build in nearly 12 years, soon fell apart. In the vast territory of the empire, three Hellenistic countries were finally formed: Ptolemy dynasty in Egypt, Seleucus dynasty in West Asia and Antioch dynasty in Southeast Europe. The rulers of these dynasties began to build towns in their respective names on the land under their jurisdiction. The phenomenon of "Alexander" in the town came to an abrupt end.

Alexander the Great's practice of building a city while fighting is of pioneering significance in the history of world fighting. Most of the fighters in ancient countries burned and looted wherever they went, not to mention building new towns. Unlike Alexander, before he became king, when his father went to Thrace in eastern Macedonia, he built a new city in his own name-Alexandria. When he left Europe for Asia, his slogan was to surrender to the Persian Empire, but his dream was actually to "build a world empire". His strategy is not a "stopgap measure", but to occupy the conquered land forever. Therefore, while conquering and seizing strategic places by force, he built towns on strategic passages and traffic arteries as support points for long-term rule. According to Greece's long-term experience in building a city-state, towns are "multifunctional centers" for administration, transportation, trade and cultural exchanges. Alexander is keen on both war and urban construction, which is the general plan to realize his "building a world empire". Some western historians say that he is "obsessed with building cities", which is obviously a superficial discussion. But every city he built should be named after himself, hoping to spread it from generation to generation, which is indeed a "hobby" of his pursuit of fame.

At first, Alexander relied mainly on his Ministry to build towns in the campaign. However, with the expansion of the campaign, the Ministry was not enough, so he used some Persian empire to surrender to ministers and local leaders. Every time a new city is established, it will be organized and managed by them, and at the same time, some Greek military forces from Macedonia will be stationed to resettle some Greek immigrants. At first, he thought that only Greeks belonged to "civilized people", others were barbarians, and barbarians could only be ruled by civilized people. The long battle changed his mind. Therefore, he gradually changed the policy of ethnic discrimination and hatred into a policy of ethnic integration and affinity. He recruited more than 50,000 Persian youths to join his expeditionary force, took the lead in marrying Persians and other locals, and tried to integrate the Greeks and all their subjects, including Persians, into a unified nation. Ethnic integration has promoted the consolidation and development of cities and towns. A large number of newly-built towns are not only military fortresses, but also gradually develop into the center of the blending of Greek culture and Persian culture. A·R· Boone, a British historian, believes that Alexander the Great's greatest achievement may not be his martial arts, but "injecting Greek culture into Asia in the fastest and deepest way" and "the influence of the East has also swept to the West". This opened a new period of "Hellenistic civilization" that lasted for more than 300 years in the ancient history of the world. I'm afraid all this was unexpected by Alexander the Great himself.