Alexander the Great
Alexander III of Macedon known as Alexander the Great, was a king of the ancient Greek kingdom of Macedon and a member of the Argead dynasty. He was born in Pella in 356 BC and succeeded his father Philip II to the throne at the age of 20, he spent most of his ruling years on an unprecedented military campaign through Asia and northeast Africa, by the age of thirty he had created one of the largest empires of the ancient world, stretching from Greece to northwestern India. He was undefeated in battle and is considered one of history's most successful military commanders. During his youth, Alexander was tutored by Aristotle until age 16. After Philip's assassination in 336 BC, he succeeded his father to the throne and inherited a strong kingdom and an experienced army. Alexander was awarded the generalship of Greece and used this authority to launch his father's pan-Hellenic project to lead the Greeks in the conquest of Persia. In 334 BC, he began a series of campaigns that lasted 10 years. Following the conquest of Anatolia, Alexander broke the power of Persia in a series of decisive battles, most notably the battles of Issus and Gaugamela.
He subsequently overthrew Persian King Darius III and conquered the Achaemenid Empire in its entirety. At that point, his empire stretched from the Adriatic Sea to the Indus River, he endeavored to reach the "ends of the world and the Great Outer Sea" and invaded India in 326 BC, winning an important victory over the Pauravas at the Battle of the Hydaspes. He turned back at the demand of his homesick troops. Alexander died in Babylon in 323 BC, the city that he planned to establish as his capital, without executing a series of planned campaigns that would have begun with an invasion of Arabia. In the years following his death, a series of civil wars tore his empire apart, resulting in the establishment of several states ruled by the Diadochi, Alexander's surviving generals and heirs. Alexander's legacy includes the cultural diffusion and syncretism which his conquests engendered, such as Greco-Buddhism, he founded some twenty cities. Alexander's settlement of Greek colonists and the resulting spread of Greek culture in the east resulted in a new Hellenistic civilization, aspects of which were still evident in the traditions of the Byzantine Empire in the mid-15th century AD and the presence of Greek speakers in central and far eastern Anatolia until the 1920s.
Alexander became legendary as a classical hero in the mold of Achilles, he features prominently in the history and mythic traditions of both Greek and non-Greek cultures. He became the measure against which military leaders compared themselves, military academies throughout the world still teach his tactics, he is ranked among the most influential people in history. Alexander was born on the sixth day of the ancient Greek month of Hekatombaion, which corresponds to 20 July 356 BC, although the exact date is disputed, in Pella, the capital of the Kingdom of Macedon, he was the son of the king of Macedon, Philip II, his fourth wife, the daughter of Neoptolemus I, king of Epirus. Although Philip had seven or eight wives, Olympias was his principal wife for some time because she gave birth to Alexander. Several legends surround Alexander's childhood. According to the ancient Greek biographer Plutarch, on the eve of the consummation of her marriage to Philip, Olympias dreamed that her womb was struck by a thunder bolt that caused a flame to spread "far and wide" before dying away.
Sometime after the wedding, Philip is said to have seen himself, in a dream, securing his wife's womb with a seal engraved with a lion's image. Plutarch offered a variety of interpretations of these dreams: that Olympias was pregnant before her marriage, indicated by the sealing of her womb. Ancient commentators were divided about whether the ambitious Olympias promulgated the story of Alexander's divine parentage, variously claiming that she had told Alexander, or that she dismissed the suggestion as impious. On the day Alexander was born, Philip was preparing a siege on the city of Potidea on the peninsula of Chalcidice; that same day, Philip received news that his general Parmenion had defeated the combined Illyrian and Paeonian armies, that his horses had won at the Olympic Games. It was said that on this day, the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus, one of the Seven Wonders of the World, burnt down; this led Hegesias of Magnesia to say that it had burnt down because Artemis was away, attending the birth of Alexander.
Such legends may have emerged when Alexander was king, at his own instigation, to show that he was superhuman and destined for greatness from conception. In his early years, Alexander was raised by a nurse, sister of Alexander's future general Cleitus the Black. In his childhood, Alexander was tutored by the strict Leonidas, a relative of his mother, by Lysimachus of Acarnania. Alexander was raised in the manner of noble Macedonian youths, learning to read, play the lyre, ride and hunt; when Alexander was ten years old, a trader from Thessaly brought Philip a horse, which he offered to sell for thirteen talents. The horse refused to be mounted, Philip ordered it away. Alexander however, detecting the horse's fear of its own shadow, asked to tame the horse, which he managed. Plutarch stated that Philip, overjoyed at this display of courage and ambition, kissed his son tearfully, declaring: "My boy, you must find a kingdom big enough for your ambitions. Macedon is too small for you", an
Phrygians
The Phrygians were an ancient Indo-European people dwelling in the southern Balkans – according to Herodotus – under the name of Bryges, changing it to Phryges after their final migration to Anatolia, via the Hellespont. From tribal and village beginnings, the state of Phrygia arose in the eighth century BC with its capital at Gordium. During this period, the Phrygians extended eastward and encroached upon the kingdom of Urartu, the descendants of the Hurrians, a former rival of the Hittites. Meanwhile, the Phrygian Kingdom was overwhelmed by Cimmerian invaders around 690 BC briefly conquered by its neighbour Lydia, before it passed successively into the Persian Empire of Cyrus the Great and the empire of Alexander and his successors, was taken by the Attalids of Pergamon, became part of the Roman Empire; the last mention of the Phrygian language in literature dates to the fifth century AD and it was extinct by the seventh century. The Phrygians spoke an Indo-European language; some contemporary historians, among whom Strabo is the most known, considered the Phrygians to be a Thracian tribe, part of a wider "Thraco-Phrygian" group.
Other linguists dismiss this hypothesis since Thracian seems to belong to the Satem group of Indo-European languages, while Phrygian shared several similarities with other Indo-European languages of the Centum group. According to this second group of linguists, of all the Indo-European languages, Phrygian seems to have been most linked to Greek, suggesting that the two languages belonged to the same dialectal subgroup of early Indo-European. Although the Phrygians adopted the alphabet originated by the Phoenicians and from Ancient Egyptians, only a few dozen inscriptions in the Phrygian language have been found funereal, so much of what is thought to be known of Phrygia is second-hand information from Greek sources. Based on archaeological evidence, some scholars such as Nicholas Hammond and Eugene N. Borza argue that the Phrygians were members of the Lusatian culture that migrated into the southern Balkans during the Late Bronze Age. A conventional date of c. 1180 BC is used for the influx of the pre-Phrygian Bryges or Mushki, corresponding to the end of the Hittite empire.
Following this date, Phrygia retained a separate cultural identity. In classical Greek iconography the Trojan Paris is represented as non-Greek by his Phrygian cap, worn by Mithras and survived into modern imagery as the "Liberty cap" of the American and French revolutionaries. Phrygia developed an advanced Bronze Age culture; the earliest traditions of Greek music are in part connected to Phrygian music, transmitted through the Greek colonies in Anatolia the Phrygian mode, considered to be the warlike mode in ancient Greek music. Phrygian Midas, the king of the "golden touch", was tutored in music by Orpheus himself, according to the myth. Another musical invention that came from Phrygia was a reed instrument with two pipes. Marsyas, the satyr who first formed the instrument using the hollowed antler of a stag, was a Phrygian follower of Cybele, he unwisely competed in music with the Olympian Apollo and lost, whereupon Apollo flayed Marsyas alive and provocatively hung his skin on Cybele's own sacred tree, a pine.
It was the "Great Mother", Cybele, as the Greeks and Romans knew her, worshipped in the mountains of Phrygia, where she was known as "Mountain Mother". In her typical Phrygian form, she wears a long belted dress, a polos, a veil covering the whole body; the version of Cybele was established by a pupil of Phidias, the sculptor Agoracritus, became the image most adopted by Cybele's expanding following, both in the Aegean world and at Rome. It shows her humanized though still enthroned, her hand resting on an attendant lion and the other holding the tympanon, a circular frame drum, similar to a tambourine; the Phrygians venerated Sabazios, the sky and father-god depicted on horseback. Although the Greeks associated Sabazios with Zeus, representations of him at Roman times, show him as a horseman god, his conflicts with the indigenous Mother Goddess, whose creature was the Lunar Bull, may be surmised in the way that Sabazios' horse places a hoof on the head of a bull, in a Roman relief at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
The name of the earliest known mythical king was Nannacus. This king resided at Iconium, the most eastern city of the kingdom of Phrygia at that time, after his death, at the age of 300 years, a great flood overwhelmed the country, as had been foretold by an ancient oracle; the next king mentioned in extant classical sources was called Masdes. According to Plutarch, because of his splendid exploits, great things were called "manic" in Phrygia. Thereafter the kingdom of Phrygia seems to have become fragmented among various kings. One of the kings was Tantalus who ruled over the north western region of Phrygia around Mount Sipylus. Tantalus was endlessly punished in Tartarus, because he killed his son Pelops and sacrificially offered him to the Olympians, a reference to the suppression of human sacrifice. Tantalus was falsely accused of stealing from the lotteries he had invented. In the mythic age before the Trojan war, during a time of an interregnum, Gordius, a Phrygian farmer, became king, fulfilling an oracular prophecy.
The kingless Phrygians had turned for guidance to the oracle of Sabazios at Telmissus, in the part of Phrygia that became part of Galatia. They had been instructed by the o
Hellenistic period
The Hellenistic period covers the period of Mediterranean history between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the emergence of the Roman Empire as signified by the Battle of Actium in 31 BC and the subsequent conquest of Ptolemaic Egypt the following year. The Ancient Greek word Hellas is the original word for Greece, from which the word Hellenistic was derived. At this time, Greek cultural influence and power was at its peak in Europe, North Africa and Western Asia, experiencing prosperity and progress in the arts, literature, architecture, mathematics and science, it is considered a period of transition, sometimes of decadence or degeneration, compared to the enlightenment of the Greek Classical era. The Hellenistic period saw the rise of New Comedy, Alexandrian poetry, the Septuagint and the philosophies of Stoicism and Epicureanism. Greek science was advanced by the works of the polymath Archimedes; the religious sphere expanded to include new gods such as the Greco-Egyptian Serapis, eastern deities such as Attis and Cybele and a syncretism between Hellenistic culture and Buddhism in Bactria and Northwest India.
After Alexander the Great's invasion of the Achaemenid Empire in 330 BC and its disintegration shortly after, the Hellenistic kingdoms were established throughout south-west Asia, north-east Africa and South Asia. The Hellenistic period was characterized by a new wave of Greek colonization which established Greek cities and kingdoms in Asia and Africa; this resulted in the export of Greek culture and language to these new realms, spanning as far as modern-day India. However, these new kingdoms were influenced by the indigenous cultures, adopting local practices where beneficial, necessary, or convenient. Hellenistic culture thus represents a fusion of the Ancient Greek world with that of the Near East, Middle East, Southwest Asia; this mixture gave rise to a common Attic-based Greek dialect, known as Koine Greek, which became the lingua franca through the Hellenistic world. Scholars and historians are divided as to; the Hellenistic period may be seen to end either with the final conquest of the Greek heartlands by Rome in 146 BC following the Achean War, with the final defeat of the Ptolemaic Kingdom at the Battle of Actium in 31 BC, or the move by Roman emperor Constantine the Great of the capital of the Roman Empire to Constantinople in 330 AD.
"Hellenistic" is distinguished from "Hellenic" in that the first encompasses the entire sphere of direct ancient Greek influence, while the latter refers to Greece itself. The word originated from the German term hellenistisch, from Ancient Greek Ἑλληνιστής, from Ἑλλάς. "Hellenistic" is a 19th-century concept. Although words related in form or meaning, e.g. Hellenist, have been attested since ancient times, it was Johann Gustav Droysen in the mid-19th century, who in his classic work Geschichte des Hellenismus, coined the term Hellenistic to refer to and define the period when Greek culture spread in the non-Greek world after Alexander's conquest. Following Droysen and related terms, e.g. Hellenism, have been used in various contexts; the major issue with the term Hellenistic lies in its convenience, as the spread of Greek culture was not the generalized phenomenon that the term implies. Some areas of the conquered world were more affected by Greek influences than others; the term Hellenistic implies that the Greek populations were of majority in the areas in which they settled, but in many cases, the Greek settlers were the minority among the native populations.
The Greek population and the native population did not always mix. While a few fragments exist, there is no complete surviving historical work which dates to the hundred years following Alexander's death; the works of the major Hellenistic historians Hieronymus of Cardia, Duris of Samos and Phylarchus which were used by surviving sources are all lost. The earliest and most credible surviving source for the Hellenistic period is Polybius of Megalopolis, a statesman of the Achaean League until 168 BC when he was forced to go to Rome as a hostage, his Histories grew to a length of forty books, covering the years 220 to 167 BC. The most important source after Polybius is Diodorus Siculus who wrote his Bibliotheca historica between 60 and 30 BC and reproduced some important earlier sources such as Hieronymus, but his account of the Hellenistic period breaks off after the battle of Ipsus. Another important source, Plutarch's Parallel Lives although more preoccupied with issues of personal character and morality, outlines the history of important Hellenistic figures.
Appian of Alexandria wrote a history of the Roman empire that includes information of some Hellenistic kingdoms. Other sources include Justin's epitome of Pompeius Trogus' Historiae Philipicae and a summary of Arrian's Events after Alexander, by Photios I of Constantinople. Lesser supplementary sources include Curtius Rufus, Pausanias and the Byzantine encyclopedia the Suda. In the field of philosophy, Diogenes Laër
Turkey
Turkey the Republic of Turkey, is a transcontinental country located in Western Asia, with a smaller portion on the Balkan Peninsula in Southeast Europe. East Thrace, located in Europe, is separated from Anatolia by the Sea of Marmara, the Bosphorous strait and the Dardanelles. Turkey is bordered by Bulgaria to its northwest. Istanbul is the largest city. 70 to 80 per cent of the country's citizens identify as Turkish. Kurds are the largest minority. At various points in its history, the region has been inhabited by diverse civilizations including the Assyrians, Thracians, Phrygians and Armenians. Hellenization continued into the Byzantine era; the Seljuk Turks began migrating into the area in the 11th century, their victory over the Byzantines at the Battle of Manzikert in 1071 symbolizes the start and foundation of Turkey. The Seljuk Sultanate of Rûm ruled Anatolia until the Mongol invasion in 1243, when it disintegrated into small Turkish principalities. Beginning in the late 13th-century, the Ottomans started uniting these Turkish principalities.
After Mehmed II conquered Constantinople in 1453, Ottoman expansion continued under Selim I. During the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent the Ottoman Empire encompassed much of Southeast Europe, West Asia and North Africa and became a world power. In the following centuries the state entered a period of decline with a gradual loss of territories and wars. In an effort to consolidate the weakening social and political foundations of the empire, Mahmut II started a period of modernisation in the early 19th century, bringing reforms in all areas of the state including the military and bureaucracy along with the emancipation of all citizens. In 1913, a coup d'état put the country under the control of the Three Pashas. During World War I, the Ottoman government committed genocides against its Armenian and Pontic Greek subjects. Following the war, the conglomeration of territories and peoples that comprised the Ottoman Empire was partitioned into several new states; the Turkish War of Independence, initiated by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and his colleagues against occupying Allied Powers, resulted in the abolition of monarchy in 1922 and the establishment of the Republic of Turkey in 1923, with Atatürk as its first president.
Atatürk enacted numerous reforms, many of which incorporated various aspects of Western thought and customs into the new form of Turkish government. The Kurdish–Turkish conflict, an armed conflict between the Republic of Turkey and Kurdish insurgents, has been active since 1984 in the southeast of the country. Various Kurdish groups demand separation from Turkey to create an independent Kurdistan or to have autonomy and greater political and cultural rights for Kurds in Turkey. Turkey is a charter member of the UN, an early member of NATO, the IMF and the World Bank, a founding member of the OECD, OSCE, BSEC, OIC and G-20. After becoming one of the first members of the Council of Europe in 1949, Turkey became an associate member of the EEC in 1963, joined the EU Customs Union in 1995 and started accession negotiations with the European Union in 2005 which have been stopped by the EU in 2017 due to "Turkey's path toward autocratic rule". Turkey's economy and diplomatic initiatives led to its recognition as a regional power while its location has given it geopolitical and strategic importance throughout history.
Turkey is a secular, unitary parliamentary republic which adopted a presidential system with a referendum in 2017. Turkey's current administration headed by president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of the AKP has enacted measures to increase the influence of Islam, undermine Kemalist policies and freedom of the press; the English name of Turkey means "land of the Turks". Middle English usage of Turkye is evidenced in an early work by Chaucer called The Book of the Duchess; the phrase land of Torke is used in the 15th-century Digby Mysteries. Usages can be found in the Dunbar poems, the 16th century Manipulus Vocabulorum and Francis Bacon's Sylva Sylvarum; the modern spelling "Turkey" dates back to at least 1719. The Turkish name Türkiye was adopted in 1923 under the influence of European usage; the Anatolian peninsula, comprising most of modern Turkey, is one of the oldest permanently settled regions in the world. Various ancient Anatolian populations have lived in Anatolia, from at least the Neolithic period until the Hellenistic period.
Many of these peoples spoke the Anatolian languages, a branch of the larger Indo-European language family. In fact, given the antiquity of the Indo-European Hittite and Luwian languages, some scholars have proposed Anatolia as the hypothetical centre from which the Indo-European languages radiated; the European part of Turkey, called Eastern Thrace, has been inhabited since at least forty thousand years ago, is known to have been in the Neolithic era by about 6000 BC. Göbekli Tepe is the site of the oldest known man-made religious structure, a temple dating to circa 10,000 BC, while Çatalhöyük is a large Neolithic and Chalcolithic settlement in southern Anatolia, which existed from approximately
Güney
Güney is a town and district of Denizli Province in the inner Aegean region of Turkey. Güney district area neighbors those of four other districts of the same province from east to west, clockwise Buldan, Akköy, Denizli central district and Çal and ranges Eşme district of Uşak Province in the north. Güney district area is located at one of the sources of Büyük Menderes River. Güney town lies at a distance of 70 km north of the province seat of Denizli, it is situated on a steep hillside. A township depending Çal at first and Buldan, Güney was made into a district center in 1948. Pamukkale winery has many of its vineyards in Güney. Güney Falls, at a distance of 3 km from the district center is a visitor attraction and is under official protection. Adıgüzel Dam on the River Menderes further up, is between the townships of Güney and Bekilli, yet another dam in phase of being built is Cindere Dam on Büyük Menderes River. Güney is known for its vineyards, they produce one of the best wine grapes in Turkey.
It is labeled as the "Napa Valley" of Turkey. Many of the Turkish wine producers source a sizable portion of their grapes from local farmers in Güney. Wine producer "Pamukkale" has its own production center located in this town. Types of grapes grown in Güney include Shiraz, Cabarnet Sauvignon, Kalecik Karasi, Cabarnet Blanc and Chardonnay. What makes Güney wine grapes so popular is a combination of climate and soil properties. Epigraphic and numismatic evidence points at the existence of two ancient cities near Güney.
Buldan
Buldan is a town and a district of Denizli Province in the inner Aegean Region of Turkey. Buldan district area neighbors to the east and the south three other districts of the same province, namely Güney, Akköy and Sarayköy, to the west by the areas of three districts of Aydın Province, Buharkent and Karacasu, to the northwest by Sarıgöl district of Manisa Province; the town of Buldan is located at a distance of 46 km from the province seat of Denizli and lies at an altitude of 690 meters. The population of Buldan is 15,086, it extends along a pretty hilltop area, with hillsides covered with pomegranates, figs and blackberries. There are lovely views from the high meadows. Kestane Deresi is a favourite popular excursion spot situated in the upper parts of the main town. Buldan's depending township of Yenicekent is the site of ancient Tripolis of Phrygia; the town has been a important center of Turkey's textile industry, a tradition it pursues to this day, still based on independent craftspersons.
Sanjak of Denizli was the most vibrant center cloth production center in western Anatolia during the 19th century and the fame of the region rested at the time on the output of two of depending large villages and Kadıköy, as well as the neighboring town of Babadağ. Buldan was famed for a thin handwoven cheesecloth-type fabric, with laced edges and used chiefly for bed covers and table cloths, called as "Buldan bezi" under the name of locality. Back in the 19th century, the townspeople wove 40,000 pieces of all-cotton colored striped cloth used called alaca used for attires and a similar number of cotton and mattress clothes. Buldan weavers produced over one-half million handkerchiefs and a large number of cotton curtains. Another textile from Buldan that deserves mention is a vivid violet silk woven as a rectangular panel to be wrapped around the body, yet another is kaplama, colorful head coverings typical of Turkey's Aegean Region and worn by men and women alike with different colors associated with each gender and various regions.
Thanks to sizable production effort, the number of looms in Buldan had risen to 1,500 by the end of the 19th century. The town's expertise reaches further back in time and a sign at the town entry greets visitors with the pride expressed for having woven the kaftan of Beyazid I the Thunderbolt for his marriage with Hafsa Hatun, daughter of Aydinid İsa Bey, in 1390. Tripolis itself, a first-century AD Roman foundation, may have had the weaving industry as its reason for coming into existence. 17th century Ottoman documents mention Buldan's importance as a textile production center, informing that until circa 1650s, the cotton cloth woven in Buldan and Manisa was taken to Tire for dyeing, after which time that part of the operation started to be handled locally. Buldan's population grown since 1955; this is in great contrast to most Turkish cities. At it has lost population or grew in population although in the last decade the population has been growing a lot faster than average, it is the only city in Turkey with a population of at least 10,000 but less than 20,000 residents or the only of less than 10,000 that had a population of at least 10,000 in 1955
Çal
Çal is a town and a district of Denizli Province in the inner Aegean region of Turkey. Çal district area occupies a central position in the northern part of its province and neighbors the central district of Denizli to the south-west and the district areas of Güney to the west and Honaz to the south. To the east of Çal district lies clockwise the districts of Bekilli, Çivril and Baklan; the town of Çal is located 64 km north-east of the provincial seat of Denizli and is situated on a rocky hilltop overlooking a plain traced by Büyük Menderes River. The town lies at an altitude of 850 m; the population of the town is 3946 and the whole district is 22,249. Roman remains have been found in the area. Hançalar Bridge over Menderes River, at the level of the township of the same name, situated between Çal and Bekilli, is reminiscent of Roman bridges by its style, while the builder remains unknown, it was restored several times during the Ottoman era. The first Turks in the area were the Seljuk Turks in 1072, who settled in all parts of the present-day Denizli Province, including Çal.
The area is agricultural and is known for its vineyards. The local grape variety Çalkarası and grown takes its name from the district. Çal has an annual wine festival. There is a cement factory, a fruit-juice factory and various cold-stores for fruit. A notable sight of interest are the waterfalls near the depending village of Sakızcılar, on the slopes of the Mount Çal and at a distance of about 40 km when coming from Pamukkale. Water of a stream that joins Menderes River fall from 50 meters high at this locality and the whole area is covered with forests, making it a notable natural site, it is a large trout farm. The falls are alternatively called "Yeşildere Falls" or "Ağlayan Kaya"; the people of Çal acquired a fame for their alertness in the region. They are hard-working and stubborn, raised crafty horsethieves in the past. There is an old regional saying that goes, if you put a snake in a sack with a man from Çal, the snake will beg to be taken out; the renowned painter İbrahim Çallı was born here.
The award-winning author and poet Mahmut Alptekin is from Çal. He was spent some of his childhood in Çal; the award-winning academic and author Dr. Erol Göka is from Çal; the award-winning author and poet Hasan Ali Toptaş is from Çal. Çalkarası grape variety A local news website Website of the district of Çal
Media related to Denizli Province at Wikimedia Commons
