Nor was Macedonia’s record in the Persian and Peloponnesian Wars liable to improve her standing with patriotic city-state Greeks. Alexander I had collaborated whole-heartedly with the Persians, marrying his sister to a Persian satrap, and accompanying Xerxes’ army as a kind of liaison officer – though he was not above hedging his bets discreetly when a Greek victory seemed possible.
After Plataea, he turned on the retreating Persians and carved up a large body of them at Nine Ways (Ennea Hodoi) on the lower Strymon. From the spoils he then set up a gold statue of himself at Delphi, to emphasize his having (even at the eleventh hour) fought on the right side, against the Barbarian.
As though to add insult to injury, he profited by the Persian retreat to subjugate the tribes of the Pindus in the west and the Thracian Bistonae and Crestonians in the east, thus almost quadrupling his royal territory.
Source:
Green, Peter. “Philip of Macedon.” Alexander of Macedon: 356-323 B.C.: A Historical Biography. Univ. of California Press, 2005. 7. Print.
Original Source(s) Listed:
Green, The Year of Salamis, 480-479 B.C. (1970), pp. 258-60.
Desmouth. 23.200.
[Demosth.] 12.21, cf.
Hdt 8.121.2.
Edson, AM, p. 26, with nn. 50-53.
Further Reading:
Greco-Persian Wars / Persian Wars
Ἀλέξανδρος ὁ Μακεδών (Alexander I Philhellene [Friend of Greeks]) / Alexander I of Macedon
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