Macedonian Criticism of Oliver Stone’s film Alexander

Alexander directed by Oliver Stone. Colin Farrell as Alexander The Great.

Macedonian Criticism of Oliver Stone’s film Alexander (Letter Sent to Movie Critics – November 2004)

1) Where are the Historical Errors in the film?

Stone has Collin Farell (the actor playing Alexander) saying to the Macedonians before the battle of Gaugamela against the Persians that they are fighting for “the glory of Greece.” Ancient sources do not write that Alexander fought for the “glory of Greece” but for that of Macedonia. Three ancient historians detailed Alexander’s address to the army before the battle.  And each one of them made a clear distinction between Macedonians, Greeks, Illyrians, and Thracians, as four separate ethnicities that composed Alexander’s army.  Here are the words of the Roman historian Curtius Rufus: “Riding to the front line he (Alexander the Great) named the soldiers and they responded from pot to spot where they were lined up. The Macedonians, who had won so many battles in Europe and set off to invade Asia … got encouragement from him – he reminded them of their permanent values. They were the world’s liberators and one day they would pass the frontiers set by Hercules and Father Liber. They would subdue all races on Earth. Bactria and India would become Macedonian provinces. Getting closer to the Greeks, he reminded them that those were the people (the Persians on the other side) who provoked war with Greece, … those were the people that burned their temples and cities … As the Illyrians and Thracians lived mainly from plunder, he told them to look at the enemy line glittering in gold” (Curt.3.10.4-10)

Notice what Alexander told the Macedonians – “Bactria and India would become Macedonian provinces”.  It is for the glory of Macedonia, not for the glory of Greece. The Greeks, are here a second nation of importance to Alexander. Throughout Oliver Stone’s film there is confusion whether the Macedonians were distinct people or just another Greeks. Ironically the original Synopsis of the film makes the clear distinction between Macedonians and Greeks. There we read: “Alexander led his virtually invincible Greek and Macedonian armies through 22,000 miles…His extraordinary journey begins when Alexander launches his invasion from Macedonia…” Yet although in the Synopsis the Macedonians are separate from the Greeks, and they left from Macedonia and not from Greece, Stone has them fighting for the “glory of Greece”?!  The error is obvious.

Aleksanteri Suuri ja Hellenismi – Makedonian Nousu

Aleksanteri Suuri ja Filippos II

Kaupunkivaltioiden keskittyessä vaihtamaan liittolaisiaan ja taistelemaan keskenään ylivallasta nousi 300-luvulla eKr. kreikkalaisen maailman pohjoisilta rajoilta uusi voimatekijä. Makedonia oli suuri ja väkirikas valtakunta, jonka hovin tavat olivat täysin helleeniset. Useimmat kreikkalaiset eivät olleet halukkaita tunnustamaan sukulaisuuttaan makedonialaisiin, jotka olivat sekoitus Illyrialaisia, Traakialaisia ja Kreikkalaisia. Makedonialaisia pidettiin barbaareina muun muassa siksi, että he elivät vielä kuningasvallassa kuten persialaiset ja muut muukalaiskansat. Kreikkalaiset ylenkatsoivat ja aliarvioivat Makedonialaisia, jotka olivat karaistuneet taistellessaan Illyrialaisia, Traakialaisia ja muita ei-kreikkalaisia kansoja vastaan. Kreikkalaiset saivat huomata, että monarkialla oli poliittiset ja sotilaalliset puolensa, vaikka se ei vastannutkaan heidän käsitystään hyvästä elämästä. Valtaistuimella valtion johdossa piti vain olla oikean miehen.

Makedonian nousu

Oikea mies oli kuningas Filippos II. Hän oli perinyt valtaistuimen vuonna 359 eKr. Filippos hankkiutui eroon kilpailijoistaan, hän lahjoi ja karkotti barbaariset naapurinsa. Tämän jälkeen hänen huomionsa kiinnityi eripuraiseen Kreikkaan. Kaupunkivaltiot käyttivät mielummin palkkasotureita kuin kävivät sotaa omilla joukoillaan. Filippoksella oli armeija, johon kuului karaistuneita, koulutettuja ja ryöstönhaluisia makedonialaisia sotilaita, joiden vahvistuksena olivat vakinaiset ammattisotilaat. Armeijan ylläpito oli kallista jopa niiden kulta- ja hopeakaivosten tuotoilla, jotka Filippos omisti. Tarve saada joukoille sotasaalista antoi Filippokselle aiheen hyökätä.

Filippos eteni hitaasti ja varovasti. Hän yhdisti oveluuden häikäilemättömään vallankäyttöön. Hän teki rajoitettuja hyökkäyksiä, jotka eivät liikaa pelästyttäneet Kreikkalaisia valtioita, jotta ne olisivat yhdistyneet häntä vastaan. Filippoksen suosikkitaktiikka oli saada kaupunkivaltiot pettämään toisiaan lyhytaikaisten voittojen vuoksi. Hän luotti siihen, että jokainen valtio joka teki niin, huomasi pian olevansa yksin kun Makedonia siirtyisi sitä vastaan.

Ateena ei poikennut muista kaupunkivaltioista, vaikka Filippoksen hyökkäyksiä arvosteltiin toistuvasti ns. filippolaispuheissa, joita Demosthenes piti Ateenan kansankokoukselle. Demosthenes oli suurin kaikista kreikkalaisista puhujista. Hänen puheitaan on usein verrattu Winston Churchilin sotaa edeltäviin varoituksiin Hitlerin Saksaa vastaan, joita ne myös muistuttivat siinä, että ne otettiin huomioon vasta viime hetkellä.

Filippoksen arkku. Se on koristeltu hallitsijasuvun tähtitunnuksella, jollainen on kuninkaan haudassa Verginassa.

Kahdenkymmenen vuoden taitavasti johdetun laajenemisen jälkeen Filippoksella oli vahva ote pohjoiseen Kreikkaan. Vasta silloin ateenalaiset ja teebalaiset liittoutuivat estääkseen Makedonian uudet valloitukset. Khaironeian taistelu vuonna 338 eKr. muodosti käännekohdan Kreikan historiassa: liittolaiset voitettiin ja kaupunkivaltion suuri aikakausi päättyi lopullisesti. Teebaan ja muihin kaupunkeihin sijoitettiin makedonialaisia varuskuntia. Ateenan sallittiin tehdä erillisrauha, vaikka sen ja muiden kreikkalaisten valtioiden oli liityttävä uuteen Filippoksen johtamaan valtioliittoon.

Korintin liiton tarkoitus oli marssia muinaista vihollista Persiaa vastaan. Se kruunaisi Filippoksen ponnistelut, ja Aasiasta saatu sotasaalis maksaisi hänen varustautumisvelkansa. Persian valtavasta koosta ja sen sotajoukkojen ylivoimaisuudesta huolimatta Filippoksen hanke oli vähemmän harkitsematon kuin miltä se näyttää. Menneisyydessä Kreikkalaiset olivat osoittaneet olevansa Persialaisten veroisia. Joonian vapauttaminen ja pitemmällekin ulottuva valloitussota olivat monien kreikkalaisten unelma. Niiden toteuttaminen oli jäänyt Kreikan hajanaisuuden vuoksi. Koottuaan kreikkalaisten voimat Filippos oli lähdössä sotaretkelle, kun hänet puukotettiin kuoliaaksi juhlakulkueessa. Murhaaja oli Filippokselle katkera mies, joka surmattiin juuri sopivasti ennen kuin hän ehti paljastaa ketään muita. Persialaiset saattoivat olla murhan takana, mutta on yhtä mahdollista, että Filippoksen vaimo kuningatar Olympias tai Aleksanteri olivat syypäitä murhaan. Filippos oli hylännyt Olympiaksen ja hänen uusi vaimonsa odotti lasta. Tämä seikka teki Aleksanterin asemasta epävarman. Ehkä Aleksanteri halusi raivata isänsä tieltään ennen kuin tämä ehti voittaa persialaiset. Suuruudenhulluuteen taipuvaiselle Aleksanterille ei olisi enää jäänyt maailmaa valloitettavaksi.

Khaironeian leijona on taisteluissa kaatuneille pystytetty muistomerkki vuodelta 338 eKr.

Lähde: Nathaniel Harris : History of Ancient Greece

Hephaestion’s career

Hephaestion

Sharing Alexander’s upbringing, Hephaestion would have learned to fight and to ride well from an early age. His first taste of military action was probably the campaign against the Thracians while Alexander was regent (followed by Philip II’s Danube campaign 342 BC) and the battle of Chaeronea 338 BC while he was still in his teens. His name is not mentioned in list of high ranking officers during the early battles of Alexander’s Danube campaign 335 BC, or the invasion of Persia, and nor are the names of Alexander’s other close friends and contemporaries, suggesting that their promotions, when they achieved them, were earned by merit.

Hephaestion’s career was never solely a military one. Right from the start, he was also engaged in special missions, sometimes diplomatic, sometimes technical. The first mention of his career in the sources is a diplomatic mission of some importance. After the battle of Issus 333 BC, when Alexander was proceeding south down the Phoenician coast and had received the capitulation of Sidon, Hephaestion was “… authorised to appoint to the throne the Sidonian he considered most deserving of that high office.” Hephaestion took local advice, and chose a man distantly related to the royal family, but whose honesty had reduced him to working as a gardener. The man, Abdalonymus, had a successful royal career, fully justifying Hephaestion’s choice.

After the siege of Tyre 332 BC, Alexander entrusted his fleet to Hephaestion, who had orders to skirt the coast and head for Gaza, their next objective, while Alexander himself led the army overland. Hephaestion’s task was not an easy one, for this was not the Athenian fleet with which Alexander had started, and had earlier disbanded, but a motley collection of semi-reluctant allies of many nationalities, who would need holding together with patience and strength. Furthermore, on arrival at Gaza, the cargo of siege engines had to be unloaded, transported across difficult terrain, and reassembled.

Plutarch, while writing about Alexander’s correspondence, reveals an occasion when Hephaestion was away on business, and Alexander wrote to him. The subject matter suggests that this took place while they were in Egypt. What business Hephaestion was attending to we do not know, but Andrew Chugg has suggested that it was concerned either with his command of the fleet or Athenian diplomacy. He quotes sources which suggest that Hephaestion had been approached by Aristion of Athens to effect a reconciliation between Alexander and Demosthenes, and certainly, Athens’ inaction during the revolt of the Spartan king, Agis, would seem to support the idea. As Chugg says, “If he did persuade Alexander to reach an accommodation with Demosthenes at this critical juncture, as would seem likely from the circumstances, then he was significantly responsible for saving the situation for Macedon in Greece by preventing the revolt of Agis spreading to Athens and her allies.”

It is likely, though not certain, that it was Hephaestion who led the advance army from Egypt to bridge the Euphrates river. Darius of Persia sent Mazaeus to hold the opposite bank while the bridging work was in progress. This Mazaeus was the commander who threw away what looked like certain victory on the Persian right at the battle of Gaugamela 331 BC, and later became Alexander’s governor of Babylon. Robin Lane Fox has an interesting suggestion that conversation with Hephaestion may have won Mazaeus over: “It is conceivable that the battle of Gaugamela was partly won on the banks of the Euphrates and that Mazaeus’ reinstatement was less a sign of magnanimity than of a prearranged reward.”

It is at Gaugamela that mention is first made of Hephaestion’s rank. He is called the “… commander of the bodyguards (somatophylakes).” This is not the Royal Squadron, whose duties also included guarding the king in battle, and which was at that time commanded by Cleitus—a man of the older generation—but a small group of close companions specifically designated to fight alongside the king. Hephaestion was certainly in the thick of things with Alexander, for Arrian tells us he was wounded, and Curtius specifically mentions that it was a spear wound in the arm.

After Gaugamela, there is the first indication that Alexander intended reconciliation with the Persians, and that Hephaestion supported him in this unpopular policy. One evening in Babylon, Alexander noticed a high-born woman obliged to dance as part of the entertainment. Curtius explains: “The following day, he (Alexander) instructed Hephaestion to have all the prisoners brought to the royal quarters and there he verified the lineage of each of them.”Alexander had realised that people from noble families were being treated with little dignity, and wanted to do something about it. That he chose Hephaestion to help him shows that he could rely on Hephaestion’s tact and sympathy. Yet Alexander could also rely on Hephaestion for firmness and resolve. When his policies had led to a plot against his life, the possible involvement of a senior officer, Philotas, caused much concern. It was Hephaestion, along with Craterus and Coenus, who insisted on, and actually carried out, the customary torture.