Macedonian Quotes

And that, ...is the story of our country, one invasion after another...Macedonians. Saddanians. Arabs. Mongols. Now the Soviets. But we're like those walls up there. Battered, and nothing pretty to look at, but still standing.

For all their attempts to impose their rule on one another, they succeeded only in losing their ability to rule themselves,” was a late historian’s somber but accurate comment.1 In 338, at the battle of Chaeronea, the Macedonians under Philip II defeated the Greeks and curtailed their cherished freedoms forever.

He beat back the Greeks and reclaimed Rome for our people. Indeed, he was the one who destroyed the Macedonian threat and who single-handedly annihilated the greatest Greek general who had ever lived. Kyrian of Thrace.” Real hatred gleamed in his eyes, but she wasn’t sure who it was meant for. His grandfather or Kyrian. “You mean Kyrian Hunter?” she asked. “The guy with the minivan who lives a few blocks over?” Valerius’s eyes sparked at that. “He’s driving a minivan?” There was no mistaking the humor in his tone.

The Ptolemies were in fact Macedonian Greek, which makes Cleopatra approximately as Egyptian as Elizabeth Taylor.

Youths of the Pellaians and of the Macedonians and of the Hellenic Amphictiony and of the Lakedaimonians and of the Corinthians… and of all the Hellenic peoples, join your fellow-soldiers and entrust yourselves to me, so that we can move against the barbarians and liberate ourselves from the Persian bondage, for as Greeks we should not be slaves to barbarians.

To the Greeks [the Macedonians] were uncouth, semi-civilized barbarians. The Macedonians for their part despised the Greeks as effete, wishy-washy Greeklings. Both regarded the Thracians as scarcely capable of walking on their hind legs.

- What do you want to be when you grow up?, asked a Macedonian father his child. - A foreign citizen.

For ten generations her family had styled themselves pharaohs. The Ptolemies were in fact Macedonian Greek, which makes Cleopatra approximately as Egyptian as Elizabeth Taylor.

I would rather live a short life of glory than a long one of obscurity,

So they cut their hair short in front, that their enemies might not grasp it. And they say that Alexander of Macedon for the same reason ordered his generals to have the beards of the Macedonians shaved, because they were a convenient handle for the enemy to grasp.

The Ptolemies were in fact Macedonian Greek, which makes Cleopatra approximately as Egyptian as Elizabeth Taylor. The word ‘honey skinned’ recurs in descriptions of her relatives and would presumably applied to hers as well, despite the inexactitudes surrounding her mother and paternal grandmother. There was certainly Persian blood in the family, but even an Egyptian mistress is a rarity among the Ptolemies. She was not dark skinned.

Macedonian or Bactrian Greeks were most usually intended is not

The temple of Diana was, however, admired as one of the wonders of the world. Successive empires, the Persian, the Macedonian, and the Roman, had revered its sanctity and enriched its splendor.

Afra and I have reached Leros and hope we will be leaving for Athens soon. If the Macedonian border is closed, then I will find another way. Don’t worry, Mustafa, I will not stop until I get there

In short, Aristotle destroys the soul in order to give it immortality; the immortal soul is "pure thought," undefiled with reality, just as Aristotle's God is pure activity, undefiled with action. Let him who can, be comforted with this theology. One wonders sometimes whether this metaphysical eating of one's cake and keeping it is not Aristotle's subtle Way of saving himself from anti-Macedonian hemlock?

Alexander the Macedonian and his groom by death were brought to the same state; for either they were received among the same seminal principles of the universe, or they were alike dispersed among the atoms. Consider

The Ptolemies were Macedonians, with an admixture of a little Greek and via marriage with the Seleucids a small element of Syrian blood…Cleopatra may have had black, brown, blonde, or even red hair, and her eyes could have been brown, grey, green or blue. Almost any combination of these is possible. Similarly, she may have been very light skinned or had a darker more Mediterranean complexion. Fairer skin is probably marginally more likely given her ancestry.

Less than two centuries later, the Macedonian Greek Alexander the Great conquered Egypt, completing this task in a matter of months, but remaining long enough to found the city of Alexandria, whose site he selected in 331 BC at what was then the western mouth of the Nile delta. After this, in what appeared to be a characteristic act of hubris, but was in fact an attempt to win over the local priesthood, Alexander sacrificed to the sacred bull Apis and had himself crowned pharaoh.

Men lie injured and dying between the old headstones: Macedonians, Albanians, Wallachians, Serbians, some in so much agony that they seem reduced to something less than human, as though pain were a leveling wave, a mortar troweled over everything that person once was.

Just before they were in range of enemy arrows, Alexander halted his army and rode down the entire Macedonian line encouraging his men. He not only cheered on his generals and officers, but the common soldiers as well. He called these by name and reminded them of their bravery in past battles

There is no doubt that a really first-class fire, when no fear for human life intrudes, is one of the great atavistic joys still known to man. Today it is very shocking to think of archaeological treasures burning; to Macedonians and still more to Greeks, the significance of Persepolis was rather different.

Resistance has a fatal weakness, though. We can turn the tables on it. It can be defeated.

Great minds have purposes, others have wishes. Little minds are tamed and subdued by misfortune, but great minds rise above it.

Well, Jack, we have taken the Macedonian, and your share of the prize, if we get her in safely, may be two hundred dollars; what will you do with it?” Stephen Decatur, commanding the frigate United States, North Atlantic, near the Azores Islands, 1812. “One hundred will go to my mother, sir, and the other I shall spend on schooling.” Jack Creamer, aged ten.

It’s about how we can empower ourselves to bring true meaning to our lives and the lives of others in ways most people would consider impossible.

Just as nothing produces paralyzing apathy like doubt and resignation, nothing produces cleverness like staring down a crisis with a lionhearted snarl.

Azita Ghahreman, is an Iranian poet.[1] She was born in Iran in 1962. She has written four books in Persian and one book in Swedish. She has also translated American poetry. She is a member of the Iranian Writers Association and International PEN. She has published four collections of poetry: Eve's Songs (1983), Sculptures of Autumn (1986), Forgetfulness is a Simple Ritual (1992) and The Suburb of Crows (2008), a collection reflecting on he exile in Sweden (she lives in an area called oxie on the outskirts of Malmö) that was published in both Swedish and Persian. Her poems directly address questions of female desire and challenge the accepted position of women. A collection of Azita's work was published in Swedish in 2009 alongside the work of Sohrab Rahimi and Christine Carlson. She has also translated a collection of poems by the American poet and cartoonist, Shel Silverstein, into Persian, The Place Where the Sidewalk Ends (2000). And she has edited three volumes of poems by poets from Khorasan, the eastern province of Iran that borders Afghanistan and which has a rich and distinctive history. Azita's poems have been translated into German, Dutch, Arabic, Chinese, Swedish, Spanish, Macedonian, Turkish, Danish, French and English. A new book of poetry, Under Hypnosis in Dr Caligari's Cabinet was published in Sweden in April 2012. [edit]Books Eva's Songs, (persian)1990 Autumn Sculptures,(persian) 1995 Where the sidewalk ends, Shell Silverstein(Translated to Persian with Morteza Behravan) 2000 The Forgetfulness has a Simple Ceremony,(persian) 2002 Here is the Suburb of Crows,(persian) 2009 four Poetry books ( collected poems 1990-2009 in Swedish), 2009 under hypnosis in Dr kaligaris Cabinet, (Swedish) 2012 Poetry Translation Center London( collected poems in English) 2012

Following Alexander the Great in his conquest, and challenging two most ancient European historical assumptions: Firstly, Is the Ancient Europe’s progressive scientific drive the result of the Roman’s or Greek’s ancient cultural heritage?, and the Second: Why is the question - are the Macedonians, Greeks or Slavs, so troublesome, in the minds of both commoners and historians?

For her beauty, as we are told, was in itself not altogether incomparable, nor such as to strike those who saw her; but converse with her had an irresistible charm, and her presence, combined with the persuasiveness of her discourse and the character which was somehow diffused about her behaviour towards others, had something stimulating about it. 3 There was sweetness also in the tones of her voice; and her tongue, like an instrument of many strings, she could readily turn to whatever language she pleased, so that in her interviews with Barbarians she very seldom had need of an interpreter, but made her replies to most of them herself and unassisted, whether they were Ethiopians, Troglodytes, Hebrews, Arabians, Syrians, Medes or Parthians. 4 Nay, it is said that she knew the speech of many other peoples also, although the kings of Egypt before her had not even made an effort to learn the native language, and some actually gave up their Macedonian dialect.

In the Roman psyche the East had long been a place of danger, but also a place of plenty. The first Emperor Augustus famously said of Rome that he found a city built in brick but left it in marble – all that money had to come from somewhere. India was repeatedly described in Roman sources as a land of unimaginable wealth. Pliny the Elder complained that the Roman taste for exotic silks, perfumes and pearls consumed the city. ‘India and China [and Arabia] together drain our Empire. That is the price that our luxuries and our womankind cost us.’ It was the construction of the Via Egnatia and attendant road-systems that physically allowed Rome to expand eastwards, while the capture of Egypt intensified this magnetic pull. Rome had got the oriental bug, and Byzantium, entering into a truce with the Romans in 129 BC following the Roman victory in the Macedonian Wars that kick-started Gnaeus Egnatius’ construction of the Via Egnatia, was a critical and vital destination before all longer Asian journeys began.

Opportunities are whispers, not foghorns. If we can’t hear their soft rhythms—if we are too busy rushing about, waiting for thunderclaps of revelation, inspiration, and certainty—or if we can spot them but can’t nurture them into real advantages, then we might as well be blind to them.

Aristotle was the son of Nicomachus and Phæstias, a citizen of Stagira; and Nicomachus was descended from Nicomachus, the son of Machaon, the son of Æsculapius, as Hermippus tells us in his treatise on Aristotle; and he lived with Amyntas, the king of the Macedonians, as both a physician and a friend. II. He was the most eminent of all the pupils of Plato; he had a lisping voice, as is asserted by Timotheus the Athenian, in his work on Lives. He had also very thin legs, they say, and small eyes; but he used to indulge in very conspicuous dress, and rings, and used to dress his hair carefully.

Gentlemen,” he said, “I invite you to go and measure that kiosk. You will see that the length of the counter is one hundred and forty-nine centimeters – in other words, one hundred-billionth of the distance between the earth and the sun. The height at the rear, one hundred and seventy-six centimeters, divided by the width of the window, fifty-six centimeters, is 3.14. The height at the front is nineteen decimeters, equal, in other words, to the number of years of the Greek lunar cycle. The sum of the heights of the two front corners and the two rear corners is one hundred and ninety times two plus one hundred and seventy-six times two, which equals seven hundred and thirty-two, the date of the victory at Poitiers. The thickness of the counter is 3.10 centimeters, and the width of the cornice of the window is 8.8 centimeters. Replacing the numbers before the decimals by the corresponding letters of the alphabet, we obtain C for ten and H for eight, or C10H8, which is the formula for naphthalene.” “Fantastic,” I said. “You did all these measurements?” “No,” Aglie said. “They were done on another kiosk, by a certain Jean-Pierre Adam. But I would assume that all lottery kiosks have more or less the same dimensions. With numbers you can do anything you like. Suppose I have the sacred number 9 and I want to get the number 1314, date of the execution of Jacques de Molay – a date dear to anyone who, like me, professes devotion to the Templar tradition of knighthood. What do I do? I multiply nine by one hundred and forty-six, the fateful day of the destruction of Carthage. How did I arrive at this? I divided thirteen hundred and fourteen by two, by three, et cetera, until I found a satisfying date. I could also have divided thirteen hundred and fourteen by 6.28, the double of 3.14, and I would have got two hundred and nine. That is the year in which Attalus I, king of Pergamon, joined the anti-Macedonian League. You see?

Think not lightly, therefore, O Hadrian, of what I am saying. Boast not that you alone have encircled the world in your travels, for it is only the moon and stars that really make the journey around it. Moreover, do not think of yourself as beautiful and great and rich and the ruler of the inhabited world. Know you not that, being a man, you were born to be Life’s plaything, helpless in the hands of fortune and destiny, sometimes exalted, sometimes humbled lower than the grave. Will you not be able to learn what life is, Hadrian, in the light of many examples? Consider how rich with his golden nails was the king of the Lydians. Great as a commander of armies was the king of the Danaans, Agamemnon; daring and hardy was Alexander, king of the Macedonians. Heracles was fearless, the Cyclops wild and untamed, Odysseus shrewd and subtle, and Achilles beautiful to look upon. If fortune took away from these men the distinctions that were peculiarly their own, how much more likely is she to take them away from you?

Is there a meaning in history? I do not wish to enter here into the problem of the meaning of ‘meaning’; I take it for granted that most people know with sufficient clarity what they mean when they speak of the ‘meaning of history’ or of the ‘meaning or purpose of life’10. And in this sense, in the sense in which the question of the meaning of history is asked, I answer: History has no meaning. In order to give reasons for this opinion, I must first say something about that ‘history’ which people have in mind when they ask whether it has meaning. So far, I have myself spoken about ‘history’ as if it did not need any explanation. That is no longer possible; for I wish to make it clear that ‘history’ in the sense in which most people speak of it simply does not exist; and this is at least one reason why I say that it has no meaning. How do most people come to use the term ‘history’? (I mean ‘history’ in the sense in which we say of a book that it is about the history of Europe—not in the sense in which we say that it is a history of Europe.) They learn about it in school and at the University. They read books about it. They see what is treated in the books under the name ‘history of the world’ or ‘the history of mankind’, and they get used to looking upon it as a more or less definite series of facts. And these facts constitute, they believe, the history of mankind. But we have already seen that the realm of facts is infinitely rich, and that there must be selection. According to our interests, we could, for instance, write about the history of art; or of language; or of feeding habits; or of typhus fever (see Zinsser’s Rats, Lice, and History). Certainly, none of these is the history of mankind (nor all of them taken together). What people have in mind when they speak of the history of mankind is, rather, the history of the Egyptian, Babylonian, Persian, Macedonian, and Roman empires, and so on, down to our own day. In other words: They speak about the history of mankind, but what they mean, and what they have learned about in school, is the history of political power. There is no history of mankind, there is only an indefinite number of histories of all kinds of aspects of human life. And one of these is the history of political power. This is elevated into the history of the world. But this, I hold, is an offence against every decent conception of mankind. It is hardly better than to treat the history of embezzlement or of robbery or of poisoning as the history of mankind. For the history of power politics is nothing but the history of international crime and mass murder (including, it is true, some of the attempts to suppress them). This history is taught in schools, and some of the greatest criminals are extolled as its heroes.

Alexander the Great was not worried about what other people would think if he made a deal with a woman. It helped that the woman was very smart and knew how to benefit both sides by striking that deal. Ada of Caria negotiated with the Macedonian conqueror by making him her adoptive son and her heir. She got her power back and ruled for a total of nineteen years.

Ambition shows you the path to success, but drive is what gets you through it.

Purpose is the primary fuel of ambition. Purpose creates a destination. We can only become fully engaged in life when we feel that we are doing something that really matters. Purpose is what inspires us, lights us up, and floats our boats. Washington Irving—the famous author, historian and essayist—said, “Great minds have purposes, others have wishes. Little minds are tamed and subdued by misfortune, but great minds rise above it.

When death became a daily occurrence, real and palpable like hunger in the gut, friends dying one after another, soldiers stopped fighting for a cause, a flag, or a piece of land. They did it like the Spartans, Macedonians, or Romans had: for the man next to them. They fought for their lives and for the lives of those they knew would either die for them or avenge their deaths if need be.

Dr. Liam Hudson, a British psychologist that headed up Cambridge’s Research Unit of Intellectual Development in the sixties, compared IQ to basketball. If you’re five foot five, your prospects

Dr. Liam Hudson, a British psychologist that headed up Cambridge’s Research Unit of Intellectual Development in the sixties, compared IQ to basketball. If you’re five foot five, your prospects of becoming even an NBA bench warmer are slim-to-none. The fact is if you’re less than six feet tall, you can pretty much forget about your dreams to challenge King James

As the Macedonian conquest, by breaking up the Achaemenian Empire (i.e. the Persian Empire of Cyrus and his successors), prepared the soil for the seed of Hellenism, so the Arab conquest opened the way for the Umayyads, and after them the 'Abbasids, to reconstruct a universal state which was the equivalent of the Achaemenian Empire.

The result of Alexander the Great’s victory over Darius in 330 BCE not only shifted the balance of power in the ancient world to the Macedonian general but also instigated a political and cultural transformation that has shaped the course of Western history down to the present day. Although the fall of Constantinople in 1453 brought an end to Greek cultural dominance in the Mediterranean world, the legacy of Greek thought never met the same end.9 As we shall come to see, it was this singular event in world history that led to the translation of the Hebrew scriptures into Greek, which paved the way for the creation and expansion of Christianity. For many centuries, the fortunes of the church would be tied intimately to those of Greek culture, and the direction of Western history would be closely related to that of the church.

That valiant Macedonian supreme commander and emperor Alexander, in his thirties and the future Indian captain-general and emperor Chandragupta just on the threshold of his twenties, but as yet merely a wandering nonentity stood face to face sizing up each other for a few moments! It appeared as if two lustrous suns, one fast approaching his zenith and the other not as yet risen fully out of the misty shroud of the early dawn, were staring at each other's eyes.

Thucydides observed how advancing troops tended to edge out towards their right,{18} their unshielded side. They had an instinctive desire to feel themselves more protected by the shields of their right-hand neighbours. Thus the right wing of a hoplite phalanx was apt to some degree to outflank the enemy’s left wing. The Spartans exploited this tendency by being able after outflanking their enemy’s left to wheel round and roll up the enemy line. This was the more possible because the Spartans advanced, as Milton says, “to flutes and soft recorders” rather than charged at speed. Their disciplined steadiness was not borne down by the impact of the enemy charge, their skill in front-line fighting compensated for its lack of momentum. The

The army that I wish to raise from the wealth that we’ve acquired is to fight the Macedonian intrusions, as well as to create a glue that can consolidate the fractious petty kingdoms that never seem to unite on any issue—not even critical ones,’ he elucidated.

There is nothing impossible to him who will try.

TO CAST OFF STYES ANCIENT MACEDONIAN CHARM A small wart, which sometimes appears on the lower eyelid and which, from its shape, is known as a little grain of barley, is cured if someone bearing a rare name barks at it like a dog.

The scenes reminded me of a Macedonian satirist’s brilliant summation of the ethos behind the killing: “Why should I be a minority in your state when you can be a minority in mine?

The army mustered by this new Macedonian Perseus, in 171 BCE, according to the Roman historian Livy,

Thousands of those who had fought alongside the Macedonians were sold into slavery.

Та изм’кна из торба си – страх ме е да кажем. Нек ви кажам! – Тја изм’кна крвава кошуља, моми, синовна кошуља! Бе исшарена кошуља од грло до поли, бе исшарена кошуља сос крвави капки! Капки крвави, о моми, г’сти, та големи, срце ми од них застина, очи, уста – неми! Тешка ти година, бабо, немаш вече сина!

What we once called jugoslavistika at the university—that is, Slovenian, Croatian, Bosnian, Serbian, Montenegrin, and Macedonian literature—had disappeared as a discipline together with its country of origin.

he laid siege to the occupants. Seven months later, his Macedonian troops had breached the walls,

Constantine was also rather fond of likening himself to the ancient Macedonian pagan Alexander the Great.

A Serbian, Bulgarian and Macedonian phenomenon the zmajevit covek , snake-men or snake-magicians, were born with cauls that looked like snakeskins over their faces or even literal snakeskin over them. Many were said in addition to their reptilian characteristics to have secret wings, usually of an eagle. These allowed them to participate in supernatural flight. When a storm with hail in it was approaching they fell into trances and fought fiery battles using lightning against darker, watery serpents that brought destructive storms.

As expected of a Macedonian warrior king, he led the attack and was always in the thick of fighting to set the right example to his men. Alexander would do likewise, often at his own peril.

term rendered “generosity” is haplotēs, which most fundamentally signifies “singleness of mind and heart” (see 1:12). Here it refers to the Macedonians’ unwavering commitment to follow the way of God, as the reference to “the will of God” in verse 5 makes clear.

Dicaearchus, the Macedonian general, who, as Polybius tells us, openly erected one altar to impiety, another to injustice, in order to bid defiance to mankind; even he, I am well assured, would have started at the epithet of FOOL, and have meditated revenge for so injurious an appellation. Except the affection of parents, the strongest and most indissoluble bond in nature, no connexion has strength sufficient to support the disgust arising from this character. Love itself, which can subsist under treachery, ingratitude, malice, and infidelity, is immediately extinguished by it, when perceived and acknowledged; nor are deformity and old age more fatal to the dominion of that passion. So dreadful are the ideas of an utter incapacity for any purpose or undertaking, and of continued error and misconduct in life!

is worth pausing a moment to make explicit something that lies implicit in 2 Cor 8, for Paul hints at an important feature of Christian †anthropology. In verses 1–3 he suggests that God’s †grace (charis) has borne fruit in the generosity freely offered by the Macedonians. In verses 16–17 he intimates that God’s gift of “concern” in Titus’s heart has moved the latter to freely return to Corinth. What Paul implies in these passages is the catalyzing role that grace plays in the empowerment of human freedom. Indeed, it is when we submit ourselves to the Spirit’s promptings to obey God’s will that we are most free. That is why he claimed earlier, in 3:17, that “where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

Perhaps her father should stop fighting for secretaries and Macedonian warlords.

The Macedonians, in their invasion of the East, had scarcely any nation to contend with but the Persians, an effeminate people, previously

Thousands of geniuses live and die undiscovered.

history. Henry Ford

carpe diem—seize the day—like

Linguistic "technology" in the form of sophisticate grammatical structures is not a prerogative of advanced civilization, but is found even in the languages of the most primitive hunter-gatherers. As the linguist Edward Sapir memorably put it in 1921, when it comes to the complexity of grammatical structures "Plato walks with the Macedonian swineherd, Confucius with the head-hunting savage of Assam".

the most slavish thing was to “luxuriate,” whereas the most royal thing was to “labor.

I do not think there is any other quality so essential to success of any kind as the quality of perseverance,” wrote John D. Rockefeller.

Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” -Howard Thurman

Nobody can love what they don’t feel in their hearts.

An extra year of play against players younger than you is a huge advantage. Your body becomes bigger, stronger, and faster every day, giving you an opportunity to truly stand out from your birthday-handicapped peers. This extra developmental time predisposes you for selection onto more elite teams, which in turn leads to more ice time and better coaching, which advances your abilities even further.

Customs of the Egyptians.       Chapter I. Concerning The Kings And

When it comes to linguistic form, Plato walks with the Macedonian swineherd, Confucius with the head-hunting savage of Assam.

Go back 2,400 years, and you can hear it from the Athenian orator Demosthenes as he chastises his fellow citizens for responding to Macedonian aggression by “forever debating the question and never making any progress” and issuing “empty decrees.” “All words, apart from action,” Demosthenes warned, “seem vain and idle, especially from Athenian lips: for the greater our reputation for a ready tongue, the greater the distrust it inspires in all men.” We’ve had several years now of watching Obama and his foreign policy team prove this eternal truth as they have feebly and fecklessly responded to crisis after crisis in Ukraine, Syria, and a dozen other venues.

In 63 B.C., a young Roman quaestor in Spain approached a statue of Alexander to pay homage to the commander, who had never lost a battle in his remarkable career. He broke down and wept before it. The 30-year-old realized that the Macedonian had already conquered the world at his age, while he was a mere administrator in a backwater Roman province who had frittered away his youth. The stone face smiled back at him, satisfied in his reputation as a military colossus.   This young man, Julius Caesar, eventually found his bearings and went on to his own successful career of conquest. He would raise up his own empire and lead armies to extraordinary victory. But it was to Alexander whom his knee bent, perhaps the only human worthy of such an act of praise by a Caesar.

Thousands of geniuses live and die undiscovered—either by themselves or by others.” -Mark Twain If I could write one sentence that would magically increase your IQ by thirty points, would you be interested in reading that sentence? Probably. But why? What would be in it for you? Do you think it would help you make more money? Make a name for yourself? Find love, happiness, or fulfillment? I’ve asked many people these questions and their answers are invariable. “Of course it would.” The cultural correlation is undeniable: we’ve been indoctrinated to believe

If My People Pray If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land. —2 CHRONICLES 7:14     Among the many myths associated with Alexander the Great is the tale of a poor Macedonian soldier who was leading before Alexander the Great a mule laden with gold for the king’s use. The mule became so tired that he could no longer carry the load, so the mule driver took it off and carried it himself, with great difficulty, for a considerable distance. Finally Alexander saw him sinking under the burden and about to throw it to the ground, so he cried out, “Friend, do not be weary yet; try to carry it to your tent, for it is now all yours.” This blessing is much better than the lottery. Who says good guys finish last? Humility certainly has its blessings. Ezra, the writer of 1 and 2 Chronicles, certainly knew the importance of humility, because he directed this passage to his people, people whom God called by name. He states that in order for God’s people to receive His blessings, there are four basic requirements: • humility • prayer • devotion • repentance This is an appropriate prayer for all of us. We shake our heads in disbelief at the depravity of mankind. Each day the headlines in the media scream out stabbings, shootings, murder, rape, and betrayal. Where have we gone wrong as a nation? Are our families breaking apart along with the moral fiber of this country? How can we get back on track to recapture the blessings of God? Ezra says we are to humble ourselves, pray, seek God’s face, and repent of our sins. Then God will • answer our prayers, • forgive our sins, and • heal our land. As you guide your family spiritually, may you recognize the truths of this passage and come to God with all humility, committing your lives again to the righteousness of God. Make a vow that in your

Defiantly do the work instead and Resistance withers.

Yet neither those celebrating Alexander as a protoimperialist nor those condemning him as such do justice to his history. Both tend to understand him by reading history backward, extrapolating from later, better-documented empires to that of the Macedonian king.

Despite the efforts of some Turkish historians to claim her as an ethnic Turk and a Muslim, the strong probability is that she was a Western slave, taken in a frontier raid or captured by pirates, possibly Serbian or Macedonian and most likely born a Christian – a possibility that casts a strange light on the paradoxes in Mehmet’s nature.

The Macedonians and Greek has been raised to despise Persians and all Asians as barbarians, fit only to be slaves, and the defeat of Darius and his great armies can only have reinforced their immense sense of superiority. They were master over subjects whose language and culture held no interest or value for them, apart from its luxury, wealth, and famously beautiful women.

Alexander, the son of the Macedonian King Philip II, was born in the year 356 BCE.

Aristotle’s father was actually the court physician for Philip’s own father and from here Aristotle had developed strong ties to the Macedonian kingdom.

Michael’s decision to invite an ambitious wrestler known as Basil “the Macedonian

(who was not truly Macedonian) into his inner circle proved disastrous for himself and Bardas,

Democracy throughout most of the history of the West was an anomaly. After the suppression of Athenian democracy in 322 BC by the Macedonians—and this democracy was only for men and excluded slaves—it was two thousand years before another democratic government came into existence. It has only been in the latter part of the twentieth century that democratic governments were able to flourish, however imperfectly. Our own system of government, if one takes into consideration the exclusion of African Americans, Native Americans, men without property, and women, could not be defined as a full democracy until the middle of the last century. And we are now rolling back toward a more familiar despotism.

But thirty years after that, at the battle of Pydna in 168, the Roman general Aemilius Paullus remarked he had never been so fearful as when he faced the Macedonian phalanx in battle array (pp. 166–167).

In 381, he attended the general council held at Constantinople, and joined the other bishops in condemning the Macedonian heretics.

They demanded the inhabitants of the four new Macedonian republics continue to pay taxes,

Ptolemy was distantly related to the Macedonian royal family,

Ptolemy was a Macedonian,

The Macedonians were not an homogenous people

Nonetheless, Parmenion may have given Alexander a valuable idea. The king would not attack that night, but why not let the Persians think he would? The ancient sources say that Darius was expecting Alexander to launch an assault in the dark and kept his men ready and awake all night in preparation. It could be that Alexander allowed word to spread through the ever-present network of Persian spies that the Macedonians were planning a surprise attack. Thus while his own men rested and prepared for the fight that was coming the next day, the Persian soldiers would be forced to remain awake all night under arms, waiting for an assault that would not come until sunrise. They would be exhausted, but the Macedonians would be ready to fight.

Many of the most characteristic Macedonian names are transparently formed from Greek words.

the highest levels of Macedonian society were thoroughly Greek-speaking by the mid-fourth century BCE.

Macedonian centres of population began to look like Greek cities.

This view of Alexander is much too simplistic. He was a man of his own violent times, no better or worse in his actions than Caesar or Hannibal. He killed tens of thousands of civilians in his campaigns and spread terror in his wake, but so did every other general in the ancient world. If he were alive today, he would undoubtedly be condemned as a war criminal—but he did not live in our age. Like the heroes of Thomas Love Peacock’s marvelous satirical poem “The War Song of Dinas Vawr,” Alexander conquered much of the ancient world simply because he could: The mountain sheep are sweeter, But the valley sheep are fatter; We therefore deemed it meeter To carry off the latter. We made an expedition; We met a host, and quelled it; We forced a strong position, And killed the men who held it. Alexander himself would not have disputed such reasoning nor would those who fell beneath his sword. If the Great King Darius could have crossed the Hellespont and slaughtered every Macedonian in his path to add their land to his empire, he would have done so without remorse.

He had four whole Macedonian legions situated in the region,

Mark Antony was ready and arrived shortly thereafter with his Macedonian troops.

I’ve asked many people these questions and their answers are invariable. “Of course it would.” The cultural correlation is undeniable: