Macedonia March 29, 2024
Mount Olympus
Alexander the Great. We are still in awe of the youthful leader, the supreme general. We admire his compassion to the conquered Persians and desire to unite the civilized world. Oliver Stone carefully researched his film and showed us the beautiful man in his white armor. It always amazes me how time, and in our own lives propaganda colors our view of the great men of history. No one would take issue with a school named after someone like Alexander the Great, or in more modern times Woodrow Wilson and Winston Churchill. Then we have the unquestioned villains like Attila the Hun, Genghis Kahn, and Columbus. In modern times Stalin and Hitler, whose names we speak only with caution. Or how about Putin and Netanyahu? I submit that if you plotted them on some grand chart of evil humanity, there is not all that much space between them. Is one a hero because he brought our side a to victory? Is one more evil because he caused incrementally more deaths in the millions? Wars waged by powerful leaders always seem to come out the same, any amount of destruction, pain and death can be either condemned for all time or in turn celebrated as the price of victory. But in reality war always is the same, whatever side you’re on. It starts with a portrayed noble cause and quickly degenerates to genocide and the murder of innocents. There is no righteous war, there is no heroic leader. We grind our moral teeth over how to feed the hungry, how to rescue the poor, and spread the wealth, and yet we flirt with the brink of war and begin a conflict with little sense of its guaranteed and enormous loss.
Ruins of the expansive Aigai Palace
The city of Aigai in northern Greece, the land of Macedonia, was the first capital and heart of the Macedonian Empire. Its ruins were lost to the ages but rediscovered and excavated starting in 1977 and now is a Unesco site. This is where Philip II met his end, and where his son Alexander was crowed king.
It was a mornings drive from Sofia Bulgaria to see it. The way in is poorly marked and the access roads are very rural. The local infrastructure at the site is poor. You need to do some walking and uphill at that. This is because the excavation and restoration of the entire archeological site is still very much a work in progress. None the less, the natural setting on a hillside, amoung the columns and blocks of the old palace makes a beautiful setting on a sunny day.
The theater where Phillip II was murdered
A short walk away is the city’s theater, which looks arena shaped. This is where Philip II, the mastermind of the Macedonian army and strategist who planned to conquer all of Persia met his fate, stabbed to death in his prime as he entered the theater to the cheers of the crowd. The intrigue of his murder was never settled and theories have been debated ever since. But never mind the motive, this act resulted in his young son stepping into his father’s place at the mere age of 20.
Being a young and unproven leader, he was soon put to the test by the now hostile neighbors and more importantly by Macedonia’s surrounding puppet Greek city states that saw a timely weakness. The great city of Thebes, ever impressed with itself, and underestimating the young king, decided this was the perfect opportunity to regain its independence. Freedom seeking, pro democratic patriots spoke openly swaying public support. The other city states made a start to help but one by one thought better of it. Athens, their immediate neighbor initially encouraged and supported them, but kept their soldiers at home. Insulted and ridiculed by the Thebans, Alexander non the less having brought a great army of 30,000 soldiers, initially positioned them outside the city gates in a spectacle. He hoped to prevent a battle and bring Thebes to its senses. The Thebans being a proud, athletic people were emboldened by their righteous cause. It was they with the moral high ground, the God’s were surely at their side.
They were all in. Now the facts, the statistics have a way of winning the day. Emotion and courage only go so far. The Macedonian army was larger, was much better trained, and employed the latest technology and tactics (the Phalanx developed by Philip II). Not to mention Alexander had demonstrated his battle prowess before, and he would as we know turn out to the potential “GOAT” of historic generals. It was a doomed contest. The Theban army fought courageously to exhaustion. They did everything to save their families inside the citadel. In the span of a day, Thebes was overwhelmed first in the field outside the walls, then in the city streets.
What stands out about this battle is that the Macedonians killed every soldier they could get their hands on, and any women, children, senior citizens, you name it they happened to encounter. The pure carnage finished only at nightfall, and then in the following days they proceeded to take what remained of the population, virtually every last Theban, into slavery. The city, its civilization, its culture all were erased. Alexander even had soldiers and slaves see to it that every building was burnt and its stones knocked down flat. Nothing remained, it was as complete a genocide as the world has ever seen.
His rationale is not hard to speculate on. He was pissed, he wanted to make an example to anyone else thinking of independence, etc. Maybe he even rationalized that the lives lost would ultimately save many more Greeks by securing his puppets with fear. Whatever; a city of 40,000 was crushed like a nuclear bomb hit it, and in those times, that was a large city. The second largest in Greece.
Compared to this great historic figure, this great ancient leader and conquerer, guys like Putin are just playground bullies. Alexander’s grand vision of first uniting the Greek peoples and then turning this into a world power can be contrasted to modern day conflicts such as the war in Ukraine. Consider too that the Ukrainians are as close in ethnicity, language and culture to Russia as Thebes was to Macedonia.
Maybe walking about the ruins and resting on stones from the ancient palace made me a bit philosophic. I admit I get overly agitated and annoyed with all the news and editorials everywhere that make emphatic and passionate judgements about our current world leaders. Often ignorantly comparing them to those of our relatively recent past without much perspective of who those leaders really were, the times they lived in, and what they were responsible for. So tear down a statue, rename a street, write a book about one great man and cautiously try to explain the devil in another. What does it improve?
Skopje is situated in a beautiful position to the surrounding mountains are valley
Back to Macedonia, the modern nation of Northern Macedonia is located just north in what is former Yugoslavia. After it recently achieved statehood, a dispute arose with the Greeks, who remain proud of the Macedonian Empires heritage. They didn’t like the new guys using the name. The “Northern” piece as added as a compromise. Continuing on my trip, I stopped in Skopje, the capital of Northern Macedonia.
The Old Bazaar area packed with stores and restaurants
Travce Gravce in the bazaare, one of the traditional dishes of Skopje, simple sausage and beens, but quite good
Hard to recall an uglier piece of architecture
Nestled in the midst of beautiful mountains with the Vardar River running through its center, it is a bit of a strange city. Ex-Soviet cities often suffer from ugly architecture, naked squares and a lack of parks. Skopje, perhaps feeling it’s historical association with it’s proximity to Greece, over time made an attempt to put up a monument or a statue just about anywhere it can fit one. The hodgepodge of varied cheap looking styles, the graffiti and the general bad artwork makes it look more like a Vegas casino or an amusement park. Too bad, because under all that is a culture and cuisine that wants to pop out. Maybe someday it will be a tourist destination worth visiting, but not today.