Alexander the Great’s letter to Persian King Darius

Various sources reference that Alexander the Great considered himself a Macedonian Greek representing all Greeks.

In a letter to Persian King Darius I, Alexander says “Your ancestors came into Macedonia and the rest of Greece and treated us ill…”. By saying "the rest of Greece", it shows that Alexander considered Macedonia and the rest of Greece as two parts of a whole Greek region.

When his generals protested Alexander’s decision to burn down the palace and temples of Persepolis: “Alexander said that he wished to take vengeance on the Persians, in retaliation for their deeds in the invasion of Greece, when they razed Athens to the ground and burnt down the temples” though this may have been a political statement and not the real reason Alexander destroyed Persepolis, he said it as though the Persian destruction of Athens was a personal matter to him, an oddity if Alexander did not consider himself Greek.

The situation can best be explained and understood by looking at other Greek locations.

The Sicilian city of Syracuse was founded as a Greek colony. The Syracusians had a distinctive culture that was unique to Syracuse, but they were also undeniably Greek. They spoke Greek; they worshiped similar gods, and they fought in a Greek style. They had an undeniably Greek culture.

The same is true of Massalia, modern Marseille, which was a bastion of Greek culture in southern Gaul. They kept their Greek culture all the way to the time of Caesar.

The Ionian Greeks in modern Western Turkey were Greeks. Alexander’s fractured empire included Bactria, Seleucia, Egypt, and Macedon. All of these factions were known as Hellenic factions because of the overwhelming Hellenic influence of Alexander and his conquests.

Lastly, Alexander was ethnically Greek, and the modern inhabitants of the Republic of Macedonia are overwhelmingly Slavic.

The Slavic history did not begin in the region of Macedonia until about 1,000 years after Alexander’s death. The Slavic people originated far more to the north, in Eastern Europe and Russia, and only migrated to modern-day Macedonia in the middle ages.

Leonidas of Sparta Original.

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