Ep. 89: Alexander the Great – Top 5 Battles

June 12, 2023 Peter Jans

Intro

Hello and Welcome to this episode of the podcast, "The Mnemonic Tree", where we add a single mnemonic leaf to our Tree of Knowledge.

Today's episode, is on the Floyd Mayweather of the battlefield, Alexander the Great. After 15 years of constant battle, Alexander the Great remained undefeated with many of his victories coming where his army was significantly outnumbered.

His military tactics and strategies were genius, even breaking standard accepted combat rules such as charging up hill to gain a surprise and ascendency. As a result, military academies around the world have studied and dissected his battles to this day.

He did however have quite an ego and believed he was of divine origin and named no less than 70 cities in his own name.

Today’s mnemonic is on Alexander the Great top five battles.

So, with no further ado, we will begin with a summary from Wikipedia.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Alexander_the_Great_mosaic.jpg

Wikipedia Summary

Alexander III of Macedon (Ancient Greek: Ἀλέξανδρος, romanized: Alexandros; 20/21 July 356 BC – 10/11 June 323 BC), commonly known as Alexander the Great,[a] was a king of the ancient Greek kingdom of Macedon.[a] He succeeded his father Philip II to the throne in 336 BC at the age of 20, and spent most of his ruling years conducting a lengthy military campaign throughout Western Asia and Egypt. By the age of 30, he had created one of the largest empires in history, stretching from Greece to northwestern India.[2] He was undefeated in battle and is widely considered to be one of history's greatest and most successful military commanders.[3][4]

Until the age of 16, Alexander was tutored by Aristotle. In 335 BC, shortly after his assumption of kingship over Macedon, he campaigned in the Balkans and reasserted control over Thrace and Illyria before marching on the city of Thebes, which was subsequently destroyed in battle. Alexander then led the League of Corinth, and used his authority to launch the pan-Hellenic project envisaged by his father, assuming leadership over all Greeks in their conquest of Persia.[5][6]

In 334 BC, he invaded the Achaemenid Persian Empire and began a series of campaigns that lasted for 10 years. Following his conquest of Asia Minor, Alexander broke the power of Achaemenid Persia in a series of decisive battles, including those at Issus and Gaugamela; he subsequently overthrew Darius III and conquered the Achaemenid Empire in its entirety.[b] After the fall of Persia, the Macedonian Empire held a vast swath of territory between the Adriatic Sea and the Indus River. Alexander endeavored to reach the "ends of the world and the Great Outer Sea" and invaded India in 326 BC, achieving an important victory over Porus, an ancient Indian king of present-day Punjab, at the Battle of the Hydaspes. Due to the demand of his homesick troops, he eventually turned back at the Beas River and later died in 323 BC in Babylon, the city of Mesopotamia that he had planned to establish as his empire's capital. Alexander's death left unexecuted an additional series of planned military and mercantile campaigns that would have begun with a Greek invasion of Arabia. In the years following his death, a series of civil wars broke out across the Macedonian Empire, eventually leading to its disintegration at the hands of the Diadochi.

With his death marking the start of the Hellenistic period, Alexander's legacy includes the cultural diffusion and syncretism that his conquests engendered, such as Greco-Buddhism and Hellenistic Judaism. He founded more than twenty cities, with the most prominent being the city of Alexandria in Egypt. Alexander's settlement of Greek colonists and the resulting spread of Greek culture led to the overwhelming dominance of Hellenistic civilization and influence as far east as the Indian subcontinent. The Hellenistic period developed through the Roman Empire into modern Western culture; the Greek language became the lingua franca of the region and was the predominant language of the Byzantine Empire up until its collapse in the mid-15th century AD. Greek-speaking communities in central Anatolia and in far-eastern Anatolia survived until the Greek genocide and Greek–Turkish population exchanges of the early 20th century AD. Alexander became legendary as a classical hero in the mould of Achilles, featuring prominently in the historical and mythical traditions of both Greek and non-Greek cultures. His military achievements and unprecedented enduring successes in battle made him the measure against which many later military leaders would compare themselves,[c] and his tactics remain a significant subject of study in military academies worldwide.[7]

Extracted from: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_the_Great]

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Statue_of_Alexander_The_Great_at_Leoforos_Vasillis_Olgas,_Athens.jpg

Mnemonic

Alexander the Great – Top 5 Battles Mnemonic – PIGGS

(Picture Alexander the Great riding a big pig rather than his beloved horse Bucephalus)

1. Battle of the Persian Gate

2. Battle of Issus

3. Battle of Gaugamela

4. Battle of the Granicus

5. Siege of Tyre

Five Fun Facts

1. Alexander the Great had a bit of a head start and was born into royalty as the son of King Phillip II of Macedonia. His education was second to none being tutored by one of the biggest names in philosophy Aristotle.

Some still say though his mother Olympias had the biggest effect on Aristotle continually telling him that his true father was Zeus and hence he possessed God like qualities.

2. Alexander had naturally curled, reddish, blond hair whilst his eyes were blue and brown. Yes, that’s right one was blue and the other brown suffering from heterochromia iridium which is multicoloured eyes.

3. Alexander had many strategies in battle but his favourite military tactic was the Phalanx which was a rectangular mass military formation where the soldiers used a spear called a sarissa which was up to five metres in length, which had a sharpened wood or metal tip.

4. After defeating the Persians Alexander realised that the best way to control and appease them was to dress like them. While the Macedonian faithful were not at all happy with this, he even went as far as to hold a mass wedding where he forced 92 Macedonians to take Persian wives. Alexander held up his end of the bargain and took two!

5. Alexander’s death is still a mystery with suspicion falling on his general Antipater and Antipater’s son Cassander. Even Aristotle has been thrown in the mix as he had connections with Antipater’s family. However, the possibility of malaria, lung infection, liver failure and typhoid are also possibilities.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:AlexanderTheGreat_Bust_Transparent.png

Three Question Quiz

Q.1. What modern day country was Alexander the Great born in?

Q.2. Alexander the Great had a horse called Bucephalus. What does Bucephalus mean or stand for? Options are Great One, Victory or Ox Head

Q.3. How old was Alexander the Great when he died?

Bonus Q. Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, Julius Caesar, Adolf Hitler, Napoleon Bonaparte and Benito Mussolini all suffered from Ailurophobia. What is Ailurophobia?

Bonus Q. What do Alexander the Great, Winnie the Pooh, Ivan the Terrible and William the Conqueror have in common?

Mnemonic Recap

Alexander the Great – Top 5 Battles Mnemonic – PIGGS

(Picture Alexander the Great riding a big pig rather than his beloved horse Bucephalus)

1. Battle of the Persian Gate

2. Battle of Issus

3. Battle of Gaugamela

4. Battle of the Granicus

5. Siege of Tyre

Three Question Quiz Answers

Q.1. What modern-day country was Alexander the Great born in?

A. Greece. Pella was the capital of ancient Macedonia, which now sits within modern Greece

Q.2. Alexander the Great had a horse called Bucephalus. What does Bucephalus mean or stand for? Options are Great one, Victory or Ox Head

A. Ox Head

Q.3. How old was Alexander the Great when he died?

A. 32 years old

Bonus Q. Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, Julius Caesar, Adolf Hitler, Napoleon Bonaparte and Benito Mussolini all suffered from Ailurophobia. What is Ailurophobia?

A. A fear of cats

Bonus Q. What do Alexander the Great, Winnie the Pooh, Ivan the Terrible and William the Conqueror have in common?

A. The same middle name!

Word of the Week

gazetteer

[ gaz-i-teer ]

noun

a geographical dictionary.

Example

Alexander the Great would have had to compile a gazetteer to keep track of all the land he had conquered.

Extracted from: [https://www.dictionary.com/]

Website: https://www.themnemonictreepodcast.com/