____no5
Free Man
I suspect you have some niche opinions there!
Not niche, at least not for ATG.
As a runner I find Loneliness kind of fake. It seems to me how a non-runner would describe it, only mind, no heart, no experience. Funnily and predictably, I liked it before I start running long distances.
For ATG is even worse; the story-line is all over the place with many inaccuracies and constant back and forths. Especially in this forum it's not regarded as a lyrical masterpiece to put it mildly, therefore not a niche opinion!
'alexander The Great'
I was still carefully growing attached to Maiden sometimee in 2000, having only "The Number Of The Beast" and "Brave New World" at that time, when I noticed one song in their discography named "Alexander The Great". I was a total nut on that subject at that time, and couldn't wait to hear it. I was totally blown away by the music, but I didn't quite like the lyrics. I had expected something more subtle, maybe from the eyes of someone who experienced it, much in the same way as "Invaders" or "The Trooper" (which I didn't know at that time). Lyric-wise, it's the worst of Maiden's historical epics, while music-wise, it was their best until "Paschendale", with its magnificent guitarwork and the great vocals. It proved to me that what I was hoping for was true: There was more where "The Nomad" came from.
Apart from the fact that the lyrics are at best in the league of a better children's encyclopedia article -which is more than most people would expect from a Metal song anyway- it bears some historical inaccuracies as well as some common omissions that would stain the hero image and throw a different, disturbing light on the much-fabled "greatest conqueror of all times".
To be picky, the second line is already questionable. "In a part of ancient Greece, in an ancient land called Macedonia". It depends on your subjective point of view whether Macedonia was ancient Greek or not. Historically, the Macedonians regarded their country as Greek, whereas the Greeks didn't. There had been profound Hellenization since the days of Alexander I (495-450 BC) and had become an integral part of the Greek world ever since, after they became independent from Persian rule. They adopted the Greek language, lifestyle and religion, and every once in a while attempted to become a cultural centre of Greece.
Note that geographically, ancient Macedonia is not the same as today's Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. This has lead to some disputes between Greeks and Macedonians. Note that also, modern-day Macedonians are Slavs, who arrived in Europe in a second great wave of migrations in the European Dark Ages.
The song then runs through a very quick but historically correct description of Alexander's early career. Maybe the line "and swore to free all of Asia Minor" needs to be elaborated a bit. Asia Minor, roughly speaking modern-day Turkey, had many Greek cities lined on its coast which were first conquered by the Persians in the 540ies BC. Before that, they had been more or less part of the powerful Lydian empire based around Sardis. They had been more of tributary dependancies at that time, but the Persians sought to bring them under more direct control. Fourty years later, many of them revolted in what became known as the Ionian Revolt, which started the classic Greek-Persian Wars culminating in the battles of Marathon (490 BC), Thermopylae (480 BC), Salamis (480 BC) and Plataeae (479 BC), but dragging on until 449 BC, when finally a peace treaty was signed between Athens and Persia. The Greek cities in Asia Minor came free of Persian rule until the Pelopponesian and Corinthian Wars. In 386, the Greeks and Persians signed a treaty which not only gave the Persian back the Greeks cities in Asia, but also de facto control over most of the Aegean world, i.e. Greece. This resulted in some very strong nationalist anti-Persian movements in Greece, the biggest one led by the demagogue Isocrates, who found pupils like Iason of Pherai and Philipp of Macedon who vowed to unite Greece and lead a big war against Persia. Iason failed due to an untimely death, and Philipp managed to unite Greece and begin preparations for a Persian campaign (in fact, some troops were already dispatched in the Persian empire), but was murdered shortly before he could begin.
Alexander needed two years to secure his power as hegemon (de facto ruler) of Greece, entirely destroying the city of Thebes in the course, and could launch the Persian campaign in 334 BC. He "utterly beat the armies of Persia" at the battle of Granicus. This defeat was of minimal importance to the vast Persian empire, which stretched from the Aegean to the Indus, because only a small force hastily set up by the local satraps (governours) was beaten; the "real" Persian army had not yet seen action.
King Darius the third defeated fled Persia the Scythians fell by the river Jaxartes
Then Egypt fell to the Macedon King as well and he founded the city called Alexandria
These lines are a bit sad, because they are so glowingly inaccurate that they ruin a bit of the song for me.
Darius did not care for Alexander after the battle of Granicus. He did not take the threat seriously, and half-heartedly assembled an "imperial body", an army consisting of units from all over the Persian empire, and faced Alexander himself, on bad terrain, at the battle of Issus in 333 BC. The Persians were barely defeated, only because Darius, commander of the army, fled the battlefield after seeing that Alexander himself was after him in person. He did not "flee" Persia, but he went back to Persia to assemble an even greater army to face Alexander two years later on favourable terrain- more about that later.
Why the Scythians are in here beats me. The people living by the river Jaxartes (modern-day Amu-Darya in Uzbekistan) were related to the Scythians, who lived in modern-day Ukraine, but were commonly known as the Sacans. To make it even worse, Alexander faced them in 329/28 BC, a whole three years after he took Egypt (332 BC). Alexandria in Egypt (one of more than seventy cities founded by him, and most of them named Alexandreia) was founded under supervision of Alexander himself, a rather surprising move given the fact that there were more important things to consider at that time. During Alexander's lifetime, the city had little significance, but became the capital of Egypt shortly after Alexander's death, and, eventually, the biggest centre of Greek culture in the world.
Note that there is no mention of the bloody and atrocious sieges of Tyrus and Gaza here.
By the Tigris river he met King Darius again and crushed him again in the battle of Arbela
Entering Babylon and Susa treasures he found took Persepolis the capital of Persia
It is surprising that the battle is called "battle of Arbela" here, because it is commonly known as the Battle of Gaugamela. The battle was the turning point of Alexander's campaign. The Persians had chosen a battlefield in the north-Mesopotamian plains, where they had full space for their dreaded cavalry. Once again, Darius had assembled an "imperial body", this one being even bigger than the one at Issus. He even had a contingent of war elephants! The Persians were once again close to winning this battle, with the cavalry already looting the Macedonian camp, when Darius fled again, after Alexander went after him, again.
As in Egypt, Alexander was hailed as a liberator in Babylon. Ironically, the Persians had been hailed as liberators too, when they conquered the city in 529 BC under Cyrus the Great, who also ended the Babylonian captivity for the Jews.
"Treasures he found" is a bit of an understatement for Susa. There are detailed descriptions of the treasures in the royal palaces of Susa, the value of which was probably inestimable, both in monetary and artistic fields. According to Greek writers, the Macedonians even found the myth that the Persian king slept with a million gold pieces under his pillow to be true!
In Babylon, Alexander did not find so much in terms of treasure, because the city had not been a capital of the Persian empire (there were four) since the days of Xerxes I (480-465 BC). Nevertheless, it was the biggest city in the world at that time with a population of over one million people.
Alexander did find treasures in Persepolis, though. The treasure house of Persepolis, one big palace in the midst of many magnificent palaces, was filled beyond its capacity, even though it had been expanded twice! There were so many treasures in Persepolis that the Macedonians could not steal them all, and some were unearthed in excavations during the 1930ies.
Claiming that Persepolis was the capital of Persia is not entirely correct. It was one of four, strictly speaking. The other three were Susa in southwestern Iran, close to the modern-day Iraqi border, Ecbatana (modern-day Hamadan) and Pasargadae, north of Persepolis. Pasargadae had no significance other than being the religious and ceremonial capital of Persia, where the kings were crowned. The royal tombs were between Persepolis and Pasargadae, in Naqsh-e Rostam. The last two predecessors of Darius of importance, Artaxerxes II (404-359 BC) and Artaxerxes III (359-338 BC) were buried in Persepolis, and the unifinished tomb of Darius III has been found there too.
The song does not mention the needless and tragic destruction of Xerxes' palace in Persepolis. This was supposed to be a revenge to the destruction of the Acropolis of Athens under Xerxes in 480 and 479 BC (which in turn was a revenge for the destruction of Persian shrines in Sardis by the Greeks in 498 BC). This destruction has had no archaeological impact, because the fires only ate away those parts of the palace made of wood and cloth, which would have disappeared anyways.
There is some evidence of the burning though. The palace seems to have been cleared up before that, with the throne and everything of value being removed carefully. Maybe this is the origin of the Iranian myth that Alexander had destroyed the Persian throne.
A Phrygian King had bound a chariot yoke and Alexander cut the 'Gordian knot'
And legend said that who untied the knot he would become the master of Asia
This part has no chronological significance. The Gordian Knot was cut in 334 BC in, well, Gordium, close to modern-day Ankara.
Whether Alexander really cut it or not is subject to dispute. Most historians agree that the cutting in this sense never took place; some say that it crumbled of old age and he could simply untie it then; others believe the entire incident is just a myth.
The Phrygians were a people of Asia Minor who had established a relatively powerful empire with the capital of Gordium after the mysterious fall of the Hittite empire in the late 13th century BC. The Phrygians could never make a real breakthrough in the Middle Eastern world and were eventually succeeded by the Lydians.
Hellenism he spread far and wide the Macedonian learned mind
Their culture was a western way of life he paved the way for Christianity
Historically, Hellenism is regarded as the era of Greek history which succeeded the Classical age and began with Alexander's death in 323 BC. This is just a landmark date, and human reason allows us to regard Hellenism as an epoch that gradually evolved before and after Alexander's death. Likewise, some Classical ideals survived long into the Hellenistic era.
Some trademarks of Hellenism as opposed to the Classical age are:
-Absolutely realistic and mass-produced plastics and carvings
-Paedophilia was condemned. Gradually.
-The woman became a symbol of human beauty, while in the Classical age, it had been the man
-Bigger states in Greece
-More contact to the non-Greek world, mostly Rome and Carthage, but also the Middle East
Note that the Greek culture could set foundations in the Middle East and Central Asia but gradually died out. There was a strong Hellenistic empire in Bactria (mostly
modern-day Afghanistan) for a long time, and the Gandhara culture in India (mostly modern-day Pakistan) had deep Hellenistic influences, combining them with Buddhism. In Iran and Mesopotamia, Hellenism was long present, but it never had a real chance of becoming the predominant culture. Therefore, Alexander did not pave "the way for Christianity". The Greek culture was no more receptive to Christianity than any other Mediterranean culture. It was only the first to get Christians because of the geographic location, being the easiest accessable to the Christians in Roman times.
There were Christian communities in Mesopotamia and Iran, but they were of minor importance and could not destroy the deeply-rooted Zoroastrian faith there. Even Islam needed more than a thousand years for that, and Zoroastrianism still exists in parts of Iran.
The battle weary marching side by side Alexander's army line by line
They wouldn't follow him to India tired of the combat, pain and the glory
This refers to the mutiny of Alexander's troops at the river Hyphasis in modern-day India, close to Pakistan. In ancient times, India began at the Indus river in modern-day Pakistan, so at the understanding of these times, the Macedonians were already deep in India. But Alexander wanted to go further, as he had heard tales about the Ganges and rich empires beyond the desert of Tharr in Rajasthan. The homesick and tired troops, who were mostly Iranians now, did not want to go any further, and after sulking for three days (no joke!), Alexander gave in. His entire madness now showed, as he lead them into bloody battles and sieges in the Indus Valley, and made them march through the Gedrosian desert in Beluchistan, where more than a third of his army died. He could have avoided this by taking a route more north, as he had instructed his general Krateros to do, but he was so obsessed with crossing the desert because he had been told that no other army ever had done so, and because his army refused to march further into India that he lost all reason. After weeks of torture, a band of half-starved, thirsty and broken men, who had lost their families and all they had plundered in this dreadful march, arrived in the city of Pura in southern Iran. This is a part of Alexander's history that many like to leave out.
There is much more to Alexander, and the above article barely scratched the surface. If you speak German, you are welcome to visit my homepage on this subject that I have made for a school project at: [a href=\'http://www.alexanderthegreat.de\' target=\'_blank\']http://www.alexanderthegreat.de[/a]
In conclusion, this is a great song despite the somewhat questionable lyrics, and I, like most other Maiden fans, would love to hear it live.
Rating: 4
