The Strand Study Bible

BETWEEN THE TESTAMENTS arm of a Persian soldier who had sneaked up behind Alexander to slay him. Only slightly wounded, with an arrow in his thigh and wounds upon his neck and head, Alexander overwhelmed his Persian enemy, killing over 22,000 Persian soldiers. He then proceeded along the Asia Minor coast, freeing the Greek cities (from Sardis to Lycia) from Persian rule, and making sure his lines of supply and communication were in place, all the way back to Greece. There was no turning back for Alexander. One of his finest assets was his determination to achieve what he could in the lifetime he had, no matter what it cost him personally. * Good leadership learns to give it’s best (Eccl 9:10) Because of this ambition, Alexander would often forget his duties as a general and plunge headlong into the hottest part of a battle. Time and again his soldiers pleaded with him to go to the rear, lest they lose their beloved leader, but he resisted the idea. Not to go first was not to lead in Alexander’s mind. Alexander was wounded nine different times during his eleven-year campaign with the world. He was wounded in the thigh and on the neck and head at the Granicus River, in the thigh at Issus, on the shoulder at Gaza; the fibula of his leg was broken in Turkestan, thrice he was wounded in Afganistan, and in India an arrow pierced his lung. For all this he was not a great general, but a great soldier and leader . * Good leadership learns to go first before the people (Exo 17:9) From Lycia Alexander continued to march his troops, wintering in the region of Pisidia. The year was still 334 BC.

CASPIAN SEA

BLACK SEA

GREECE Pella •

Ionia • Miletus

• Gordium

Halicarnassus • Caria •

• Issus

• Pisidia

Tigris River

• Lycia

Euphrates River

Crete

Cyprus

MEDITERRANEAN SEA

EGYPT

While wintering in Pisidia, awaiting the greatest battle of his career that next spring, Alexander allowed every soldier who had just gotten married to return to Greece for the winter. Alexander realized that the human life was short and his men needed to enjoy that life before risking their lives in the battle to come. Although he was only twenty when he took control of Greece, Alexander’s character was by this time almost completely formed. A creative person, full of contrasts, Alexander was affectionate, generous, and loyal. Plutarch, the old chronicler who, no doubt, gives us the best picture of him, makes a strong point of how gentile he usually was. He never spared himself, he liked to do services for others, and he loved his friends. Two of his closest friends were Hephaestion, Alexander’s aide-de-camp, and “Black” Cleitus, one of Alexander’s tough battalion commanders, who had saved his life at the Granicus River. * Good leadership learns to show compassion for others (Deut 20:7 & 24:5) After wintering in Pisidia, Alexander traveled north into Gordium. It was said that a famous mythological king named Midas had once ruled Gordium. He had been so wealthy that his name is still synonymous with great riches. Carefully guarded in a sacred building, since the days of Midas, was an old chariot. Its shaft was fastened to the axle by a knot of enormous complexity, called the Gordian Knot. And there was a legend that if any man should loose it, he would become King of Asia. Alexander is said to have pulled out his sword and with a single stroke sliced it apart.

1460