Macedonians fought together with the rest of the Greeks
GREEK CLAIM: “Macedonians fought together with the rest of the Greeks. Macedonians always fought along with the other Greek city-states against enemies from Asia”.
REPLY:
This is an extremely week try to portray the Macedonians as Greeks. Actually it would be correct to call Darius’ army – Greek army, since 50,000 Greeks were fighting on Darius’ side
against Alexander and his Macedonians, while
only 7,000 Greeks served as ‘hostages’ the ambitions of the Macedonian king From
Quintus Rufus“The History of Alexander” Patron, the Greek commander, speaks with Darius:
“Your Majesty”, said Patron, “we few are all that remain of
50,000 Greeks. We were all with you in your more fortunate days, and in your present situation we remain as we were when you were prospering, ready to make for and to accept as our country and our home any lands you choose. We and you have been drawn together both by your prosperity and your adversity.
By this inviolable loyalty of ours I beg and beseech you: pitch your tent in our area of the camp and let us be your bodyguards. We have left Greece behind; for us there is no Bactria; our hopes rest entirely in you – I wish that were true of the others also! Further talk serves no purpose. As a foreigner born of another race I should not be asking for the responsibility of guarding your person if I thought anyone else could do it.” [p.112-13]
50,000 Greeks serving with Darius’ army and fighting
against Alexander’s Macedonians. A legitimate and a very obvious question: If Alexander’s army was in fact a ‘Greek army’, as the modern Greeks claim, then how is it possible for a ‘Greek king’- Alexander, to hire mercenaries – Greeks, from his ‘own’ country?
50,000 strong Greeks were with Darius fighting the Macedonians, while Alexander took only 7,000 Greeks next to his Macedonians which served him as “hostages” and “were potential trouble makers” (
Green), which he got rid of only when he learned that the rebellion in Greece against the Macedonian occupation forces there was suppressed (Green, Badian, Borza). The fact that
50,000 Greeks were fighting Alexander’s Macedonians shows clearly that their loyalty and their numerical superiority lies with Darius and his Persians, not with Alexander and his Macedonians. As Peter Green puts it: “
if this was a Greek conquest where were the Greek troops?” Alexander’s conquest can not therefore be at all a Greek conquest, but simply a
Macedonian conquest.