Their Last Suppers: Legends of History and Their Final Meals Read Online Free PDF Page B

acquiesce, and so in 334 B.C., with about 32,000 infantry, 5,000 horses, and 160 ships, Alexander crossed the Hellespont waterway into Asia.
    Standing on the prow of the first galley, he threw a spear into the approaching beach, shouting, “I now declare all this land to be mine by right of spear!”
    Marching quickly, Alexander took Phoenicia, Syria, Tyre, then Egypt, which promptly surrendered, placing all its treasuries and grain at his disposal. In fact, Alexander named Egypt, which hadpreviously been known to its inhabitants as Khem. Asia Minor fell quickly, and the Persians were soundly routed at the battles of Granikos and Issus, mysteriously declining to combine all their forces against him until much too late, when a massive battle on the fields of Gaugamela showed them the brilliance of Alexander and the end of their empire. They were finished, and within weeks the Emperor Darius was murdered by his own subjects, who were eager to replace him with this young, godlike king whom no force could seemingly resist.
    While building the first of many cities called Alexandria on the coast of Egypt, he began work on the famous library, which became one of the Wonders of the World. But the creator himself did not live to see its completion, or indeed any of his cities, always heading for the next horizon and another conquest.
    Passing back through Syria into Persia, he marched up the valley of the Tigris into Mesopotamia and advanced to the Caspian Sea. He had conquered all of Central Asia by 382 B.C., but because he showed no signs of slowing down, his army was becoming increasingly restless. The idealistic warriors who had followed their golden-haired leader had now marched and fought for 6 long years and still saw no sign of returning to their homes and families. Amazingly, they blamed only their officers. Alexander, the driving force behind all their adventures and hardships, was seemingly blameless in their eyes.
    Alexander became increasingly authoritarian and began to see himself more as a god, dispensing global solutions. The empire was formed into Greek-like provinces, and its people were commanded to speak Greek and follow Greek customs. Whole Greek populations were relocated to Asia at his command.
    Historian Diodorus reliably recorded some of Alexander’s plans: “the building of seven great temples to himself, three in Greece, one at Troy, and three in Macedonia, huge population transfers between Europe and Asia, a pyramid dedicated to his father, bigger than anything seen in Egypt, and a fleet of 1,000 triremes to be built for a campaign against Carthage in North Africa,” to be followed by the conquest of Africa itself.
    Like most of the Greeks of the day, Alexander was occasionally bisexual and delighted in outrageous drinking parties and orgies.One of his generals, Medius of Larissa, was particularly fond of extremely wild events and introduced Alexander to banquets in which they drank continuously for days on end. Participants stopped only when they became comatose.
    In 326 B.C. Alexander launched his conquest of India, which was confined mainly to modern-day Pakistan. But in one particularly vicious battle at Hydaspes against King Porus and his elephants he was nearly killed, although he was finally victorious. In 326 B.C. he founded the city of Bucephala in India, named after his favorite warhorse, Bucephalus, who had died in the battle.
    His troops became increasingly depressed by the heavy and continual Indian rains, and not sharing Alexander’s passion for infinite novelty and conquest, they finally mutinied on the River Beas. To appease them, he reluctantly turned back down the Indus River to the Arabian Sea. The march back to Persia saw his exhausted army finally begin to crumble. At Opis just outside Babylon, another argument erupted, and although several of his officers were killed, Alexander, whom they still perceived as a god, was never threatened. Regaining control of his troops with huge