Into The Land Of Bones : Alexander The Great In...
The kingdom of Macedonia was situated along the Haliacmon and Axius rivers in Lower Macedonia, north of Mount Olympus. Historian Robert Malcolm Errington suggests that one of the earliest Argead kings established Aigai (modern Vergina) as their capital in the mid-7th century BC.[17] Before the 4th century BC, the kingdom covered a region corresponding roughly to the western and central parts of the region of Macedonia in modern Greece.[18] It gradually expanded into the region of Upper Macedonia, inhabited by the Greek Lyncestae and Elimiotae tribes, and into regions of Emathia, Eordaia, Bottiaea, Mygdonia, Crestonia, and Almopia, which were inhabited by various peoples such as Thracians and Phrygians.[note 2] Macedonia's non-Greek neighbors included Thracians, inhabiting territories to the northeast, Illyrians to the northwest, and Paeonians to the north, while the lands of Thessaly to the south and Epirus to the west were inhabited by Greeks with similar cultures to that of the Macedonians.[19]
Into the land of bones : Alexander the Great in...
The earliest known government of ancient Macedonia was that of its monarchy, lasting until 167 BC when it was abolished by the Romans.[209] The Macedonian hereditary monarchy existed since at least the time of Archaic Greece, with Homeric aristocratic roots in Mycenaean Greece.[210] Thucydides wrote that in previous ages, Macedonia was divided into small tribal regions, each having its own petty king, the tribes of Lower Macedonia eventually coalescing under one great king who exercised power as an overlord over the lesser kings of Upper Macedonia.[16] The direct line of father-to-son succession was broken after the assassination of Orestes of Macedon in 396 BC (allegedly by his regent and successor Aeropus II of Macedon), clouding the issue of whether primogeniture was the established custom or if there was a constitutional right for an assembly of the army or of the people to choose another king.[211] It is unclear if the male offspring of Macedonian queens or consorts were always preferred over others given the accession of Archelaus I of Macedon, son of Perdiccas II of Macedon and a slave woman, although Archelaus succeeded the throne after murdering his father's designated heir apparent.[212]
Young Macedonian men were typically expected to engage in hunting and martial combat as a by-product of their transhumance lifestyle of herding livestock such as goats and sheep, while horse breeding and raising cattle were other common pursuits.[277] Some Macedonians engaged in farming, often with irrigation, land reclamation, and horticulture activities supported by the Macedonian state.[note 38] The Macedonian economy and state finances were mainly supported by logging and by mining valuable minerals such as copper, iron, gold, and silver.[278] The conversion of these raw materials into finished products and the sale of those products encouraged the growth of urban centers and a gradual shift away from the traditional rustic Macedonian lifestyle during the course of the 5th century BC.[279]
The reigns of Philip II and Alexander the Great witnessed the demise of Classical Greece and the birth of Hellenistic civilization, following the spread of Greek culture to the Near East during and after Alexander's conquests.[345] Macedonians then migrated to Egypt and parts of Asia, but the intensive colonization of foreign lands sapped the available manpower in Macedonia proper, weakening the kingdom in its fight with other Hellenistic powers and contributing to its downfall and conquest by the Romans.[346] However, the diffusion of Greek culture and language cemented by Alexander's conquests in West Asia and North Africa served as a "precondition" for the later Roman expansion into these territories and entire basis for the Byzantine Empire, according to Errington.[347]
A fierce contest ensued with the Aspasioi, in the course of which Alexander himself was wounded in the shoulder by a dart, but eventually the Aspasioi lost the fight; 40,000 of them were enslaved. The Assakenoi faced Alexander with an army of 30,000 cavalry, 38,000 infantry, and 30 elephants.[24] They had fought bravely and offered stubborn resistance to the invader in many of their strongholds such as the cities of Ora, Bazira, and Massaga. The fort of Massaga could only be reduced after several days of bloody fighting in which Alexander himself was wounded seriously in the ankle. When the Chieftain of Massaga fell in the battle, the supreme command of the army went to his old mother, Cleophis, who also stood determined to defend her motherland to the last extremity. The example of Cleophis assuming the supreme command of the military also brought the entire population of women of the locality into the fighting.[25][26] Alexander was only able to reduce Massaga by resorting to political strategem and actions of betrayal. According to Curtius: "Not only did Alexander slaughter the entire population of Massaga, but also did he reduce its buildings to rubbles".[27] A similar slaughter then followed at Ora, another stronghold of the Assakenoi.
Upon this the elephants, applying to good use their prodigious size and strength, killed some of the enemy by trampling under their feet, and crushing their armour and their bones, while upon other they inflicted a terrible death, for they first lifted them aloft with their trunks, which they twisted round their bodies and then dashed them down with great violence to the ground. Many others they deprived in a moment of life by goring them through and through with their tusks.
Alexander, using the incorrect maps of the Greeks, thought that the world ended a mere 1,000 kilometres (620 mi) away, at the edge of India. He therefore spoke to his army and tried to persuade them to march further into India, but Coenus pleaded with him to change his mind and return, saying the men "longed to again see their parents, their wives and children, their homeland". Alexander, seeing the unwillingness of his men, agreed and turned back.
The second and third were the kind of narrow gave-and-take frames that turn good fights into great fights, with each man having their moments and a case to be made for either man deserving to land on the happy side of the 10-9 scores being turned in by the judges.
Heading into the championship rounds, it was difficult to say with any certainty which of the two sweat-drenched combatants was ahead on the scorecards. Gustafsson clearly won the first, landing the more damaging blows and putting Jones on the canvas ever so briefly, but the next two frames were a toss-up.
A century and a half had passed, but the Branchidae still spoke Greek, although the local language was gradually supplanting it. Among the Greeks, the treason of the Branchidae was infamous. Alexander called upon the Milesians present in his army, since the harm was done to them especially, to render a judgment on what should be done with the city. The soldiers from Miletus debated, but were unable to reach a decision. Finally, Alexander reached his own decision. The next day, he met with a delegation of the Branchidae and entered the city through the gate with some lightly armed troops. The battalions of the Macedonian phalanx, in the meanwhile, were deployed all around the walls. He gave a signal and the remorseless Macedonian war machine sprang into action. The walls were thrown down and the city sacked. The inhabitants were slain with the utmost savagery and even sacred groves were uprooted so that there should be nothing but a wasteland afterwards.
Other data on the scaling of bone geometry further illuminate how bone strength is influenced by internal architecture, enabling the support of land giants. Trabecular struts within bones become thicker but more widely spaced in larger land mammals, suggesting that trabecular tissue stress remains constant in joints (Doube et al., 2011). Bone osteons (the primary structural unit of cortical bone) and remodelling capacity follow an analogous trend: osteons and the Haversian canals that run through the centre thereof are reduced in area in larger animals, maintaining overall cortical porosity and thereby strength (Felder et al., 2017). At the level of the whole bone, giant land animals have repeatedly evolved thicker limb bone cortices and filled more of their marrow cavities with cancellous bone. This is sometimes associated with aquatic ancestry (as it confers density and negative buoyancy benefits, facilitating diving; Houssaye et al., 2016a,b). Regardless, these more solid bones should increase skeletal strength; hence, such bones in land giants are either exaptations or adaptations sensuGould and Vrba (1982).
LDWF biologists survey habitat on land enrolled in the program and provide program participants recommendations for harvest quotas and strategies as well as habitat management. LDWF issues DMAP tags to participants to use during the entire deer season. Participants collect physical data from harvested deer, including sex, weight, antler development, and lactation, and submit it to biologists. Biologists examine these data and evaluate the growth and development of deer by age class. They identify trends in growth and development and use this information to refine their management recommendations. Biologists combine data reports from individual participants from the same parish and/or habitat type to develop parish and regional perspectives. They also combine parish reports into a state population report that managers use to develop hunting regulations.
And swoop they did. Very quickly the human-to-horse-sized tyrannosaurs grew into supersized monsters, longer than a bus and weighing more than a ton. Their heads became giant killing machines and their arms, now unnecessary, shrunk down to nubbins. By 80m years ago these mega tyrannosaurs were terrorising what is now North America and Asia, spreading into all ecosystems on land, displacing smaller predators, and eating whatever they wanted. 041b061a72