Alexander of Macedon the Great

The Great Tsar Alexander of Macedon – The Liberator

Olympias' decision to visit the Sanctuary of Dodona1 was the result of a strange premonition that had come to her as she slept alongside her husband, Philip II, King of the Macedonians2, who lay that night in a wine - and food - sated slumber3. She had dreamed of a snake4 slithering slowly along the corridor outside and entering their bedchamber silently.

She could see it, but she could not move, and she could not shout for help. The coils of the great reptile slid over the stone floor, its scales glinting copper and bronze in the moonlight that penetrated the room through the window.

1

The Oracle of Dodona, which was seen as Pelasgian ever since archaic times, was originally related to the Great Mother Diane, or as the Demotic text of the Rosetta stone suggests, Dea, as well as the Derveni Papyrus, Deio.

Actually following the Syllabic system of the ancient Macedonian language: Dea-E-Ona would be the true form of the Great Mother’s name to Olympia, or Myrtale, who was an Epirote princess, the fourth wife of the king Philip II of Macedon, the mother of Alexander the Great and queen consort of Macedon. A devout worshipper of the Greek god Dionysus, she was said to have kept pet snakes. Olympias apparently was originally named Myrtale (or 'Mistilis'). Later she may have been called Olympias as recognition of Philip's victory in the Olympic Games of 356 BC. As a child she was called Polyxena and then, at marriage, Myrtale; later she was also known as Olympias and Stratonice.

Dea, Deo, Teo, Tea, all these represent a word for God or Goddess, E Ona, means She is , in both ancient and modern Macedonian. Therefore Dea-E-Ona would mean She-Is-Goddess to Olympia. It matches the Diane in Dodona, and Deio in the Derveni Papyrus. Thus Deo-E-Nis would be God-Is-Ours, to the ancient Macedonians, Nis meaning Ours, in modern Macedonian represented as Naš [nash].

Of course this is just the closes guess based on what we have as linguistic material in the modern Macedonian language, which is of the Indo-European Slavic Family, and the written sources, which I assume come from other languages rather than the Macedonian, and could be interpretations into Hellenic of the true names of the Macedonians, as that of Cheops to Khufu.

I am telling all this because the meaning of these names must have had strong resonance in the subconscious minds of the ancient Macedonians, to bring forth an endeavor such as that of Alexander the Great’s to this world. The mythology that shaped the Macedonian mysteries, are much more ancient than what any Greek source can provide information about. The information of the Orphic Mysteries and the Dionysus cult must have been passed internally from generation to generation, and only if we look at the folklore of the modern day Macedonians, and compare it to that of the Kalash people of Pakistan, who seem to be descendants of those ancient Macedonians, and must have been the Tsar’s personal suite of cooks, craftsmen, blacksmiths, educators, scribes, artists, and all those common people who would provide for the Macedonian army during their conquest – then, we can get a touch of authenticity on the ancient Macedonian lore.

2

According to Appian, Argos Orestikon (in modern Orestida) was the homeland of the Argead dynasty and their God and Goddess, as well as all their Children. If we assume that the ancient Macedonians were the descendants from the Peloponnesian Argos, as Alexander I claimed, then again we can see a reference in his claim that he held distant relation to the Mycenaean Kingdom, which was situated on the Peloponnese in the prefecture of Argolis, and which was very close to that in Macedonia, given tradition and customs, as the golden-mask funerary ritual suggests.

Those Pelasgians - or aborigines - from Peloponnese, who would not become Danaos, according to some accounts, moved north to the plains of Macedonia. They were accepted by the Orestae who lived around Ohrid and Prespa lakes. They were lead by Tsar Caranus across the Mountain – which matches the song recorded in “The Collection of Macedonian and Bulgarian folk songs” from 1909 -1910. The song goes: Hey Old Mountain, who will now guide our army across you, when we do not have a proud Tsar like the Tsar Caranus. The Old Mountain seems to have originally referred to Mount Olympus. The Argeads moved north across the Old Mountain, and settled in Argos Orestikon, as the name suggests. Argos, might be a Hellenized form of yet another Slavic word for Ar-Gea, Ar means Land, in both ancient and modern Macedonian and has survived as a measure unit for land (ar, hekt-ar, dekar), and Gea is the Earth name for Dea. Therefore, Ar-Gea would mean the Land of the Goddess Earth. This was

For a moment she wanted Philip to wake up and take her in his arms, to hold her against his strong, muscular chest, to caress her with his big warrior's hands, but immediately she turned to look again on the drakon5 the huge animal that moved like a ghost. A magic creature, like the creatures the gods summon from the bowels of the earth whenever the need arises.

Now, strangely, she was no longer afraid of it. She felt no disgust; indeed, she felt ever more attracted and almost charmed by the sinuous movement, by the graceful and silent force6.

The snake worked its way under the blankets, it slipped between her legs and her breasts.

She felt it take her, light and cold, without hurting her at all.

only another form of worship of the same deity known as the Great Mother to the Macedonians, or Make-Dea-OnaE or Make-Dea-E-Ona. Make in ancient Macedonian corresponds to Makea (Majka) in modern Macedonian, meaning (foster) mother, as the Macedonians saw their Land, as a Great Mother to all the children from the Land of the Mother Earth. Make-Dea-Ona-E or Makedonae, meaning She is the Mother Goddess. Thus Macedonia is the Land of the Mother Goddess, the Land of Mother Earth.

3

Both Kalash and modern Macedonians dance to the same traditional music of 7/8 rhythm pattern; they both have the same instruments like the tapan and the zurla; they both drink home-made wine; the Kalash believe in the Creator God Dezau, which is very close to Dze as represented in the Rosetta stone Demotic, which in modern Macedonian had survived in the word dze used in kids talk for light, or visible, something you can see (on the Greek side this would turn into Zeus); Kaleš [kalesh] means black in Macedonian, and Kalash women usually wear long black robes, often embroidered with cowrie shells. For this reason, they are known in Chitral as "The Black Kafirs".

Kafir is an Arabic word meaning "rejecter" or "ingrate." In the Islamic doctrinal sense, the term refers to a person who does not recognize God. Kalash therefore means Black, both in Kalash and in modern Macedonian. Therefore, the Kalash Kafir would be the Black Pagans. They also believe in the Great Mother, whom they call Jestak, the goddess of domestic life, family and marriage. Her lodge is the women's house. In modern Macedonian there is the term Jastuk, meaning ‘pillow’ or a place to put the head. So I assume that if the man was seen as the head of the house, than the woman was seen as the pillow.

4

The snake played a major element in the Macedonian mysteries. As the Paeonian stones show, Dyalus or Deo-ENis, or Dionysus, meaning Our God, was often depicted with the image of two snakes which surround his rod on top of which a pinecone sits. In the Orphic Mysteries this rod served the High Priest for sacred initiation. If we assume that the pinecone is related to the Pineal Gland or the Third Eye, than we might say that the Dionysus mysteries were focused on guiding the Earth’s snakes, or according to Vedic and Indian mythology, the Kundalini of the Earth - its very Soul, across the cultures of the world until they all manage to see the truth with their Third Eye. The Mysteries with the Orphic segment as the core of it were secret knowledge related to the earliest myths that have ever shaped the imagination of all people, the Creation and the Flood. If we perceive the symbolic meaning of the snakes and the pinecone associated to Dyalus, then it seems that these people were conscious of the spiritual evolution of mankind in a direction directly shaped by their inner knowledge and heritage, which they must have inherited from the Royal Houses of the legendary heroes back in mythical times.

5

The snake therefore, must have represented the Earth’s Kundalini, or spirit, the word for it being Ka, which has survived in modern Macedonian as kal, meaning mud, at the same time represented with the image of the snake, as zmija,[zmiya] in modern Macedonian, very close to zemja [zemya] meaning Earth. This would correspond to Ka, meaning both Earth and Snake.

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To Olympia or Myrtale, it would be Ka that she saw in her dream – the Earth’s Life Force.

Olympias dreamed7 that its seed mingled with the seed her husband had already thrust into her with the strength of a bull8, with all the vigor of a wild boar, before he had collapsed under the weight of exhaustion and of wine.

The next day the King9 had put on his armor, dined with his generals on wild hog's meat and sheep's milk cheese, and left to go to war against the Triballians. A people more barbarous than his Macedonians, they dressed in bearskins, wore hats of fox fur and lived along the banks of the Ister, the biggest river in Europe.

All Philip said to Olympias was, "Remember to offer sacrifices to the gods while I am away and bear me a man-child, an heir who looks like me."

Then he had mounted his bay horse and set off at a gallop with his generals, the courtyard resounding with the noise of the steeds' hooves, echoing with the clanging of their weapons.

7

Dream in ancient Macedonian would be San, or Son (S’n) in modern Macedonian, as in almost all Slavic languages.

8

The Bull represented Dionysus, and the Taurus age that marked his time. The Maenads, or the Sacred Priestesses, Myrtale being the High Priestess, were particularly attached to the image of the Bull, since in ancient times it was its might that brought them into the sacred state of trance, which gave rise to the Earth force in them. The following age was the epoch of Aries, or the Ram, which is why Alexander was revered as the Horned God. The Maenads had abandoned the earlier rites of tearing apart the Bull at resurrection festivals, and had changed it with its higher form, a sexual ritual. In Vedic view, the Kundalini had risen from the first chakra of Survival into its second seat of Desire. The Ram was supposed to bring it to the next level of Power, or Will, which he did in the name of the Mother Goddess.

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To the Macedonians this would be Tsar, which later survived in Latin as Caesar, as well as in Byzantine Slavic, Tsar. If we use the syllabic reading of the Macedonian roots T-S-Ar, it turns out that the Emperor’s title would mean You-Are-With-the Land. Ti/tebe te, meaning You/to you, in modern Macedonian, S, implying so (preposition meaning ‘with’), as in Sonce [sontse] (sun), it would mean S-On-T-Se, With-Him-You-Are, On being used as the pronoun for God, meaning He/Him, and Ar/Er meaning Earth, Land, therefore, T-S-Ar would mean literally You Are with the Land – Tsar, ruler of all the land! Or if we assume that S stands for Si, second person singular of “to be” in modern Macedonian, than Ti-Si-Ar would mean You are the Land.

The title Caesar would give similar outcome: Ka could mean “land”, or “snake”, the “force of the Earth” in Macedonia, while in ancient Rome “sometimes a classical Latin word was kept alongside a Vulgar Latin word. In Vulgar Latin, classical caput, "head", yielded to testa (originally "pot") in some forms of western Romance, including French and Italian. But Italian, French and Catalan kept the Latin word under the form capo, chef, and cap which retained many metaphorical meanings of "head", including ‘boss’… Southern Italian dialects likewise preserve capo as the normal word for ‘head’ … The copula (that is, the verb signifying "to be") of Classical Latin was esse. This evolved to essere in Vulgar Latin by attaching the common infinitive suffix -re to the classical infinitive.” Again just a mere speculation…

Thus, Caesar, would be Capo-Essere, or the Head to the Vulgar Latins, Ca-Esse-Ar - the Head of the Land. Since the Caesarians considered themselves to be descendants of “Iulus, son of the legendary Trojan prince Aeneas”, the term Ar might have survived in their nickname, or cognomen, with the same meaning as it has been preserved in Macedonian language. Later, the original cognomen of the Caesar patrician family, from the gens Julia, must have been Latinized to meet the requirements of the Latin language.

Olympias took a warm bath following her husband's departure, her maidservants massaging her back with sponges steeped in essence of jasmine and Pierian roses. Still deeply troubled, she sent for Artemisia, the woman who had been her wet nurse.

Artemisia was aged now, but her bosom was still ample, her hips still shapely, and she came from a good family; Olympias brought her from Epirus when she had come to marry Philip.

She recounted the dream and asked, "Good Artemisia, what does it mean?"

Artemisia helped her mistress out of the warm bath and began to dry her with towels of Egyptian linen.

"My child, dreams are always messages from the gods, but few people know how to interpret them. Go to the most ancient of the sanctuaries in Epirus, our homeland, to consult the Oracle of Dodona.

Since time immemorial the priests there have handed down the art of reading the voice of the great Zeus10, father of the gods and of men11.

10

“Zeus (Greek: nominative: Ζεύς Zeús, genitive: Διός Diós) in Greek mythology is the king of the gods, the ruler of Mount Olympus and the god of the sky and thunder. His symbols are the thunderbolt, eagle, bull and oak.”

(Wikipedia) “The ideal of the kouros (a beardless youth), Apollo has been variously recognized as a god of light and the sun; truth and prophecy; archery; medicine and healing; music, poetry, and the arts; and more. Apollo is the son of Zeus and Leto, and has a twin sister, the chaste huntress Artemis.”

“In Greek mythology the Sun was personified as Helios (Greek: Ἥλιος, Latinized as Helius). Homer often calls him simply Titan or Hyperion, while Hesiod (Theogony 371) and the Homeric Hymn separate him as a son of the Titans Hyperion and Theia (Hesiod) or Euryphaessa (Homeric Hymn) and brother of the goddesses Selene, the moon, and Eos, the dawn… Selene (Σελήνη, ‘moon’ was an archaic lunar deity and the daughter of the titans Hyperion and Theia. In Roman mythology, the moon goddess is called Luna, Latin for ‘moon’…Selene is mentioned in Nonnus, Dionysiaca 48.581; Pausanias 5.1.4; and Strabo 14.1.6…Nonnus' principal work is the Dionysiaca, an epic in fortyeight books, the main subject of which is the expedition of Dionysus to India and his return. The earlier portions treat the rape of Europa, the battle of Zeus and Typhoeus, and the mythical history of Thebes; it is not until the eighth book that the birth of the god is described. Other poets had already treated the subject, and since the time of Alexander the Great it had gained popularity from the favorite comparison of the king with the god and of his enemies with the giants.” (Wikipedia) “Helios, Helion, Helius (Greek) The Sun God, son of Hyperion and Theia, brother of Selene (the moon) and Eos (the dawn). He drives the chariot of the sun across the sky. Generally identical with Apollo or Phoebos; sol in Latin, sun in English, assimilated etymologically with the Hebrew 'El and 'elohim, the Chaldean Bel, and the Phoenician Ba`al. Helios is paired with Selene the moon, as Sol is with Luna.”

(From the Theosophy Dictionary) 11

There seems to be an early correlation between these deities (Zeus, or Deus -the father god of thunder; Apollo the god of sun and light; Helios or Helion - the personification of the Sun), which have assumed separate roles in the later Classical period of Greece. The term Helion is used in chemistry today to denote the stable helium-3 nucleus.

The voice speaks when the wind passes through the branches of the age-old oaks of the sanctuary. It makes their leaves whisper in spring and summer, and stirs the dead leaves into movement around the trunks during autumn and winter."

And so it was that a few days later Olympias set off toward the sanctuary which had been built in a most impressive place - in a green valley nestled among wooded mountains.

Tradition had it that this was among the oldest temples on earth. Two doves were said to have flown from Zeus's hand immediately after he chased Cronus, his father, from the

If we assume that Deonis, or Dionysus in Greek, meant Our God to the ancient Macedonians, and its symbol was the bull, than it turns that the earliest Zeus meant Our God, or Dionysus, Deo-E-Nis. This was in the Taurus age, or the matriarchate. He later assumed the thunder and the eagle and fused with Dze, God of Light and Sun, the God of Thunder, the Liberator later celebrated in the Biblical character of St. Elijah, a very important Saint for the Macedonian history.

The name Elijah corresponds to Ilija or Ilion in Macedonian, and Helion in Greek. Helion represented the visible light, while Apollo the spiritual light. This can be clearly seen if we apply the syllabic system of the Macedonian Slavic root morphemes. Thus, IL-I-ON means Light-is-He, IL being the root morpheme for ‘light’, as in the word SVETIL (meaning ‘to shine’ in modern Macedonian), which comprises of two morphemes: SVET-IL (SVET meaning ‘world’, and IL meaning ‘light’, thus the Light to the World); I is a conjunction meaning ‘and’ in modern Macedonian, while ON means ‘HE’ in Macedonian, thus IL-I-ON would mean He is the Light.

A-Po-L-O means The One of the Town from the Heavenly Light. A has a titular meaning denoting ‘the One’, as singled out from the rest. Po was the root morpheme for ‘town’, out of which later the morpheme ‘pol’ derived, as in Constantinopol. Apo is used today signifying ‘relative’ or ‘brother’ in some dialects of modern Macedonian. L[∂] (as in English ‘learn’), denotes a term for Sunray, as in Lač, pronounced ‘latch’ [latʃ] in English, meaning Sunray in modern Macedonian, or L’ča [l∂’tʃa], as it was recorded in the Demotic of the Rosetta stone. While O, denotes the vowel syllable for sky, as in V-O-Da, meaning ‘water’, in modern Macedonian, or Gift-from-the-Sky in ancient Macedonian, from V – meaning ‘in’, O – denoting ‘sky’, and Da – meaning ‘Gift’, as in dava, dar (Macedonian, ‘to give’, ‘gift’), or dare (Italian, to give). Thus, A-Po-L-O would mean the One from the Town of the Sky Ray, which intereprets as the One from the Town of the Heavenly Light, thus corresponding to the function of Apollo as the god of sun and light.

Similarly, De-Ze-Ve, which later fused into Dze, as recorded in the Demotic of the Rosetta stone, would mean the God who holds the thunder. De, meaning Deo, or God, Ze meaning ‘to take’, ‘to hold’, as in modern Macedonian zema (to take), Ve, meaning lightning, as in modern Macedonian veda (lightning), and at the same time meaning ‘to see’, ‘visible’, as in vedi (‘to see’ in old-Slavic), or vidi (‘to see’, in modern Macedonian). De-Ze-Ve actually is the God who Holds the Light(-ning), or the Thunder God, known as Zeus to the Greeks.

To the Greeks it was the sky and the thunder that dimmed the light and the sun of the Macedonians. The thunder was his weapon against the vile, and the manifestation of his divine wrath - he was the protector of his children against the people who raided the Land, the Mother Goddess. They recognized his might in his wrath and that is how they celebrated him. As mighty Zeus, the Thundermaker. To the Macedonians he was something more: Our Father, the Protector, the Creator, the Sun God, the Liberator…

An interesting etymology rises with the names of Artemis and Selene. Artemis or Artemida, the twin sister of Apollo, would consist of the following root morphemes: Ar-Te-Mi-Da. Ar – means ‘land’; Te – means ‘you, to you’; Mi – means ‘me, to me’, the same had survived in modern Macedonian as the short form of the indirect object pronoun mene mi (to me), or it can be seen as ‘we’, ‘to us’, as in most of the Slavic languages, where mi signifies ‘us’, while in modern Macedonian has changed into nie, to make a distinction from the morpheme used for the first person singular, while in Church Slavic it was still used in its original meaning, and has survived in the western dialects of modern Macedonian as mie, meaning ‘us’; and Da – means ‘a gift’. Thus, Ar-Te-Mi-Da could mean You

skies. One dove had lighted on an oak at Dodona12, the other on a palm tree at the Oasis of Siwa13, in the midst of the burning sands of Libya. And ever since then, in those two places, the voice of the father of the gods had made itself heard.

"What is the meaning of my dream?" Olympias asked the priests of the sanctuary.

They sat in a circle on stone seats, in the middle of a green meadow dotted with daisies and buttercups, and listened to the wind through the leaves of the oaks. They seemed rapt in thought.

One of the priests spoke, "It means that the child you will bear will be the offspring of Zeus and a mortal. In your womb the blood of a god has mixed with the blood of a man.

are my/our Gift to the Earth, or simply a Gift to the Earth.

Selena, would be composed of the following morphemes: Se-Le-Na, Se - meaning ‘all’, the same morpheme is used in modern Macedonian; Le – was a form to denote a title, something like Sir/Madam today, which has survived in some dialects of modern Macedonian in a neutral form, such as ‘Goce le Vojvoda’ (meaning Goce Thou Duke), or ‘mome le ubavo’ (Thou beautiful girl), the same morpheme can be found in the Macedonian word lee, meaning ‘to flow’, thus Le – would mean ‘Thou’ or ‘flow’; while Na – means a preposition in modern Macedonian meaning ‘on’ or ‘above’. Thus, Se-Le-Na could mean All-Flows-On, or On All Flows, either that or All-Thou-On, Thou on All, meaning You Above All. The term had later accepted the prefix Vo in Church Slavic, denoting the preposition ‘in’, thus in modern Macedonian there is the term Vselena, denoting the Universe (V-O-Se-Le-Na, In the Sky Above All).

The moon indeed flows in the sky above all.

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This refers to the Omphalos stone, or the Belly-button of the World. The doves signify markers, and the point is an important centre, or a spiritual vortex, or a channel between this and the Other World. The Oracle was identified with the dove, which clearly shows that the Oracle was reading from that vortex, or in other words was seeing from the Other World.

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The Oasis Siwa: “Although the oasis is known to have been settled since at least the 10th millennium BC, the earliest evidence of connection with ancient Egypt is the 26th Dynasty, when a necropolis was established. The ancient Egyptian name of Siwa was Sekht-am "Palm Land". Greek settlers at Cyrene made contact with the oasis around the same time (7th century BC), and the oracle temple of Ammon (Zeus Ammon) was already famous during the time of Herodotus.”

However, we can assume that the Macedonians knew about the Siwa oracle ever since the Trojan epoch, and even earlier, before the intrusion of the Danaos from Egypt, as part of the oral tradition and the Dionysus heritage. It has been part of the common myth, the one that connected all the Sun cultures of the world. After all Olympia must have known about the expedition of Dionysus to India, and had brought up her son to see those myths as real history.

Egypt and Macedonia were thus connected, since it was Dodona that was the axis of the spiritual vortex for the Macedonians, just as Siwa was for the Egyptians. Dodona was dedicated to the Great Mother, Dea or Dione, Dea-EOna. Later it assumed the voice of Dze from Deus, Deonis, Dionysus, and it became Zeus to the Greeks, the Thundermaker. In Egypt it would be Zeus-Ammon, meaning Our Sun God. Therefore relates to Dze, to the god of Sun and Light to the Ptolemies, Dezau the Creator for the Kalash, Apollo the god of sun and light, and Helion the personification of the sun, rather than merely the Thundermaker, as he was seen by the Greeks in Classical time.

"The child14 you bear will shine with a wondrous energy. But, just as the most brightly burning flame consumes the walls of the lamp and quickly uses up the oil that feeds it, his soul may burn up the heart that houses it.

"Remember, my Queen, the story of Achilles, ancestor of your great family: he was given the choice of a brief but glorious life or a long and dull one. He chose the former; he sacrificed his life for a moment of blinding light."

"Is this fate inevitable?" Olympias asked apprehensively.

"It is but one possibility," replied another priest. "A man may take many roads. But the strength that comes as a gift from the gods seeks always to return to those who bestowed it. Keep this secret in your heart until the moment comes when your child's nature will be fully manifest. Be ready then for everything and anything, even to lose him. Because no matter what you do you will never manage to stop him fulfilling his destiny, to stop his fame spreading to the ends of the earth."

He was still talking when the breeze that had been blowing through the leaves of the oaks changed, almost suddenly, into a strong, warm wind from the south. In no time at all it was strong enough to bend the tops of the trees and to make the priests cover their heads with their cloaks.

The wind brought with it a thick reddish mist that darkened the entire valley. Olympias, too, wrapped her cloak around her body and her head and sat motionless in the midst of the vortex, frozen like a statue of a goddess.

The wind subsided just as it had begun, and when the mist cleared, the statues, pillars, and altars that embellished the sacred place were all covered in a thin layer of red dust.

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Olympia has seen the Snake or the Force of the Earth rise and mix with her husband’s semen to conceive a Son, of both God and Man. She knew the child was special; it was a gift both to her but also to the world as the oracle foresaw. In modern Macedonian the term for Gift is Dar, the same in ancient Macedonian I would assume, since “the god Daron was the ancient Macedonian god of healing. Its etymology is known, and it means ‘he that gives health’. This means that the name of this god contains the Macedonian noun “dar” (a gift). The names Darun, Dare, Dara and others are present in today’s Macedonian onomasticon.” (Wikipedia) The same can be attested in the root morpheme of the name Demeter, or DA-MA-TE, as recorded in the Linear B. “The 'DA' element in each of their names is seemingly connected to a Proto-Indo-European root relating to distribution of land and honors (compare Latin dare "to give").” (Wikipedia) Therefore Da would mean ‘to give’ or ‘gift’, Ma would mean ‘mother’, and Te would imply ‘you’, the same form in modern Macedonian. Again this is all an improvised explanation. However, it makes sense to say that DA-MA-TE-R, or later Demeter, meant Mother’s Gift. If we ad eR meaning Earth, then we get Gift from the Mother to the Earth (for Da-Ma-Te-eR), or Mother Earth’s Gift.

Ammon: Greek name of an Egyptian oracle god, whose main sanctuary was at Siwa in the Libyan desert.

Ammon became famous because Alexander the Great claimed to be his son.

The priest who had spoken last touched the dust with his fingertip and brought the finger to his lips: "This has been brought here on the Libyan wind, the breath of Zeus Ammon whose oracle sits among the palms of Siwa. This is an extraordinary happening, a remarkable portent! The two most ancient oracles on earth, separated by enormous distances, have spoken at the same moment. Your son has heard voices that come from far away and perhaps he has understood the message. One day he will hear them again within the walls of a great sanctuary surrounded by the desert sands."

The Oracle of Siwa The Libyan Sibyl, named Phemonoe, was the prophetic priestess presiding over the Zeus Ammon Oracle (Zeus represented with the horns of Ammon) at Siwa Oasis in the Libyan Desert.

After listening to these words, the Queen returned to the capital, to Pella15, the city whose roads were dusty in summer and muddy in winter, and there she waited in fear and trembling for the day on which her child would be born.”

(From Alexander: The child of dream16 by Valerio Massimo Manfredi) (Dreamtime…)

My dear Child of the Earth Dream,

15

Pella’s popular name was Bela, and it was a name used for Capitals or important centers across the Slavic world, thus Beograd, or Belgorod. The Aegean region of Macedonia is known as Belomorska (White Sea) Macedonia. The title of the city was eR-Po-Tol meaning Earth-Town-Seat. Po means ‘town’, which later changed into poli, polis.

Tol means a ‘seat’, which has survived as Stol in modern Macedonian, meaning ‘chair’. Therefore, eR-Po-Tol would mean the Chair Town of the Earth, or in other words, the Capital of the World. In Alexandrian Greek it was transcribed as Ptolemaiyo, Ptol meaning Town, and Mayio was the Earth Goddess for the Greeks, also known as Rea, Gaea, Deio. Er-Po-Tol later turned into Postol, the Slavic name of Pella, Po meaning ‘town’, Stol meaning ‘chair’. A-Postol would imply the One from the Chair Town, since A was added to personal nouns to signify distinction, as separate from the rest. Thus Apostle Paul received his nick name meaning The One from the Capital.

This is what Postol sounds like to the Macedonian ear even today, the Capital. However, since the morpheme Po had lost it is original meaning due to northern influences (the term for ‘town’ is grad in modern Macedonian), the suffix Pre, meaning ‘above’, or ‘elevated’, or ‘high’ was added to the Stol root morpheme to get Prestol in Macedonian, or ‘throne’ in English. The logical equation I want to draw here is the following: Bela (popular name of the Macedonian Capital) – Pella (Greek) - erPoTol (the title of the town, meaning The Chair Town of Earth), or later Postol which gave birth to Apostle, meaning - The One from the Chair, which evolved into Prestol in modern Macedonian, meaning - Throne.

16

In this light, the name of Alexander can be rendered to A-Le-Ka-San-Dar. A – meaning ‘the one’; Le – meaning ‘thou’, used as a title; Ka – meaning both ‘earth’ and ‘snake’, San – meaning ‘dream’; and Dar- meaning ‘gift’.

Thus, A-Le-Ka-San-Dar means the One Gift from the Earth Dream, or the Gift from the Snake Dream. This totally coincides with the allegorical story of Olympias dream.

The Dream of the Snake is an allegory that developed in time to explain the meaning of the name A-le-ka-san-dar.

The first mention of this name is in Linear B, a-le-ka-san-da-ra. It means that the name meaning Gift from the Earth (snake) Dream, signified a divine intervention to the conception of a child, one of the core mysteries in Dionysus Creed. It has been a practice for women in Magna Mater cult, even in Rome, who could not have children to go to a Holy Rock or Cave and sleep over the night. It was believed that the Spirit of the Earth would rise and conceive a child with the woman, which will be half-god, half-man.

"Mountains and caves were sacred to Magna Mater, and her temples were often built near them. By sleeping in a temple many women hoped to get help from the goddess, who was said to help mothers and children." (www.sacred-texts.com) Therefore, it is not that Olympia had this dream first. It is rather that people used this allegory to explain the name of Alexander, giving it a special note of divinity, thus explaining his godly nature.

Of course the name was used by his previous ancestors, so Olympia did not invent a new name, she applied the traditional name, with the meaning that she had received a Gift from the Spirit of Mother Earth. Since she was a devotee to the Great Mother Cult, as well as Dionysus Creed, which were inter-related, unlike the Greek cults which had lost its original meaning, this was due to the fact that the Mysteries were transmitted orally and internally, that is why we have so little knowledge of them.

I am writing this letter to you, now that you have become what the oracle had foretold even before you were born, not to plea for your return to your motherland, since I know this would never happen, but to offer you a blessing from the womb that once was your home and haven.

I remember the first time I say your beautiful blue eyes, and those golden locks on your face that veiled the image of a god to my own delight. I knew that destiny would take you away from me, and I knew I had very little time to bestow you with the Nectar of Wisdom of the Great Mother’s ancient lore, since the day was closing and there were dark clouds clinging on the sky. Do you remember the story of Our God - Deo-E-Nis that I used to tell you every night before going to bed? You loved to hear of all those magical places he had visited on his missionary journey to India.

Do you remember that night when you told me that you wanted to be like me, and I told you that I was not like you and your father, since I am a woman and I gave you birth, therefore you were going to be like your father, the Tsar of Macedon? All of a sudden, you started crying17. I felt "From indisputable facts such as these it is evident that philosophy emerged from the religious Mysteries of antiquity, not being separated from religion until after the decay of the Mysteries."

"The question may legitimately be propounded: If these ancient mystical institutions were of such "great pith and moment," why is so little information now available concerning them and the arcana they claimed to possess? The answer is simple enough: The Mysteries were secret societies, binding their initiates to inviolable secrecy, and avenging with death the betrayal of their sacred trusts."

"The book to which this is the introduction is dedicated to the proposition that concealed within the emblematic figures, allegories, and rituals of the ancients is a secret doctrine concerning the inner mysteries of life, which doctrine has been preserved in toto among a small band of initiated minds since the beginning of the world." (www.sacred-texts.com) Therefore the Gift of the Earth Dream is a mystery symbol that can be analyzed only within the inner circles of initiates, and since oral tradition has survived in folklore, we can understand these symbols only if we analyze the Macedonian folklore.

"Far-sighted were the initiates of antiquity. They realized that nations come and go, that empires rise and fall, and that the golden ages of art, science, and idealism are succeeded by the dark ages of superstition. With the needs of posterity foremost in mind, the sages of old went to inconceivable extremes to make certain that their knowledge should be preserved. They engraved it upon the face of mountains and concealed it within the measurements of colossal images, each of which was a geometric marvel. Their knowledge of chemistry and mathematics they hid within mythologies which the ignorant would perpetuate, or in the spans and arches of their temples which time has not entirely obliterated. They wrote in characters that neither the vandalism of men nor the ruthlessness of the elements could completely efface, Today men gaze with awe and reverence upon the mighty Memnons standing alone on the sands of Egypt, or upon the strange terraced pyramids of Palanque. Mute testimonies these are of the lost arts and sciences of antiquity; and concealed this wisdom must remain until this race has learned to read the universal language--SYMBOLISM." They were so far-sighted that I can confidently claim that they knew exactly where the water had come from, and that it was a Gift from the Sky, which they incorporated in the linguistic symbolism of their own language, which has survived in modern Macedonian, thus V-O-DA, would clearly sound as the Gift from the Sky to the Macedonians.

A-Le-Ka-San-Der would sound as the One Gift of the Earth (Snake) Dream, meaning the Sacred One.

something aching in my stomach then, and I knew that at that very moment the bond between us was broken. The snake had let loose its tale18 and the circle had been disentangled.

After that you changed. You were not that committed to me any longer, you took a refuge in the shadow of your own Self. I remember, you would often sneak from behind the curtains, and although I pretended I did not see you, I knew you were there, watching me perform my rites with the snakes19, and I always wandered if you secretly still desired to be like me, even though your father made everything in his power to move you away from the Earth’s Force, the one that begot you, since he wanted to have “a man-child, an heir who looks like him”, a warrior, not an Orphic priest. But I knew you were more than simply a ruler.

Your face looked just like Dionysus’, when he watched the nymphs, and shivered just before “he grasped a rosy palm, and felt comfort for his love as he squeezed the snow white hand. He did not wish so much to give the maid a throw as to touch the soft flesh, entranced with his delightful task”20.

17

Commentary: In real life, male children often take some time to realize how anatomically different they from their mothers and assume women too have penises. According to psychoanalytic theory, if women do not have penises, that is a potential source of anxiety for males because it is clear evidence of non-identity with the mother.

And if women do not have penises, it must be because they have been castrated, a fate which could befall the young male too. He could lose the precious token of his individual identity. Fetishism arises when a substitute object takes the place of the “missing” female phallus, serving to reassure the child and later adult that women are not really that different from men and can be safely approached.

(All commentaries are taken from Nonnus’ Dionysiaca: Summary and Discussion of 18 articles by R. F. Newbold) Web page: http://www.nonnus.adelaide.edu.au The epic poet Nonnus (Greek Νόννος), a native of Panopolis (Akhmim) in the Egyptian Thebaid, probably lived at the end of the 4th or early 5th century. He produced the Dionysiaca, an epic tale of the god Dionysus, a paraphrase of the Gospel of John, and two poems which are lost: the Battle of the Giants and the Bassarica. (Wikipedia) 18

Commentary: Nonnus describes an ouroboros, a snake swallowing its own tail. This image can be symbol for the infantile, primordial union with the mother and the lack of self-awareness that it is the challenge of Nonnus' characters to emerge from.

19

Commentary: One explanation of voyeurism is a compulsive checking and rechecking to see if phallic women/mothers really exist. Dionysus employs such strategies to reduce the distance between himself and women, and their serpentine powers of suffocation and incorporation. Another strategy is to become effeminate. By doing this and by wearing serpents he becomes like a phallic woman himself.

20

Commentary: The five episodes illustrated in this article clearly contain some paraphiliac elements but they may not be sufficient to prove any deep fear of sex, in that they could be said to be required by the mythological tradition and by the logic of a narrative steeped in literary convention. Although one of the hallmarks of infantile and anxietyproducing notions of sexuality, viz. the blending of sex and violence (or, to put it another way, of aggressive and erotic drives), is clearly present, this may be thought to be unexceptional and part of an attitude that if persuasion fails, rape should follow. However, both the Nicaea and Aura episodes contain clear references to the primal scene, a major source of such a notion. The description of Dionysus' wrestling with Pallene (48.124-171, another somewhat masculine woman, and compared with Atalanta, 111,182) in order to win her as a bride is patently erotic, e.g., 'He grasped a rosy palm, and felt comfort for his love as he squeezed the snow white hand. He did not wish so much to give the maid a throw as to touch the soft flesh, entranced with his delightful task' (132-136).

Then I would leave the chamber, and I would return secretly to find you dancing entranced with the snakes21, entangled22 to their smooth bodies. At times, I feared that all those stories I told you had shaped your fancy to become that which your father loathed most, a deformed abomination, a woman in a male body23. Therefore, unwillingly though, I accepted your detachment from my womb, thus taking you out of the Hidden Temple into the Light of the World, and Apollo became your childhood hero, as the others saw you. However, the dream of Dionysus’ journey never ceased to live in you, and never gave you rest.

Maybe you blamed me for that, but what could I do? Your father, the One who Drank from the Light24, was constantly away25. All those wars and all the waiting were devastating to me. I saw in you the image of Dionysus and I told you the stories of his life to console your troubled little

21

Commentary: A major motif in Nonnus, and one that reveals much about the abiding strength and nature of separation anxiety, is the serpent. Draken occurs 70 times, ophis 28 times, acidna 5 and orphster 10. Serpents in the Dionysiaka, as they do in mythology generally, stand for some deep, primal fears. They are richly polyvalent. They represent contrarieties, chthonic and involutionary, wise and evolutionary, mysterious and terrible and protective, always associated with Great Mother deities. Because of their ability to shed old skin (41. 179-182), to penetrate holes, and to constrict, swallow, engulf, incorporate large creatures, serpents readily evoke boundary anxiety.

Serpents can convey both aspects, which one may term female and male, and it is the incorporative aspect that is probably more important in Nonnus. Separation fear in the poem is indicated in a general way by the prevalence of borderline narcissism (the clinical term for the preoedipal stage of precarious identity), the self-absorbed, fatalistic, curiously passive, weakly individuated, characteriologically largely indistinguishable personnel, the porosity of so many surfaces, the ubiquity of spouting and eruption, and, more pointedly, by the number of earth-born, Gaiagenerated serpentine monsters who do, or who threaten to, inflict destruction, deformation, 'castration', strangulation, engulfment and submergence back into the earth, the mother and the unconscious.

22

Commentary: The salience in the Dionysiaca of sado-masochistic scenes and fantasies of whipping and being whipped, binding and being bound, may betray a desire to be treated like a helpless child. They may not be overtly sexual (if one discounts references to desire being whipped up by the cestus or strap of Aphrodite, e.g., 7.203-204, 33. 198, 42. 438) but they comprise a current in a stream of fantasy that is not only characterized by infantile notions of sexuality, but fed by infantile anxieties thereof.

23

Commentary: Close association with serpents, or becoming one, as Zeus does with Persephone and Semele, can be seen as counter-phobic, counter-incorporative strategies, a 'resolution' of separation anxieties that does not, however, resolve all sexual fears and conflicts. The seemingly phallic/incorporative female warrior and hunter poses a different threat and challenge that for Dionysus requires resistless rape and, for two Indians, involves failed rape.

Given that Dionysus would never encounter what he sought, a 'real' phallic woman, his response was, in its way, deft. By becoming effeminate and wearing serpents he became like a phallic woman himself.

24

Philip, or F-IL-I-PI as rendered in syllabic morphemes, indicates that the name meant The One who Drinks of the Light. F/V (voiceless/voiced) – meaning ‘in’, IL – meaning ‘light’, I – conjunction meaning ‘and’, PI – from the verb PIE (in modern Macedonian), meaning ‘to drink’. Thus, F-IL-I-PI would mean the One who Drinks from the Light.

25

Commentary: The case of Dionysus is instructive. Father-figures, who can facilitate the transition to a secure masculinity, are largely absent from his childhood. As child and adult he was harassed and threatened with destruction by the baleful stepmother figure of Hera. He was also nursed and protected by a succession of surrogate good mothers, the daughters of Lamos, Ino, Mystis and Rheia, surrounded and cherished by Bacchants who chastised for him aggressive brutes such as Lycurgus, and opposed by earth-born Giants and Indians.

heart, while we were both waiting for your father to return from his conquests. I still cherish the moments of intimacy we shared at that time. It was as if we were among the gods, and the pages of destiny were being written for us at that very moment. For you certainly…

Then you met Hephaestion26, and I was so delighted to see you two wrestle27 in the courtyard, your young bodies entwined in vigorous passion to win over the other, equally lifted and equally lifting each other. Just like your ancestor Achilles28 and his beloved Patroclus. You two were born to win the world, together as one.

Yet it was also the might of Heracles29 - whose blood ran in your veins besides that of Achilles that shaped his image on your young face. You were such a rascal, yet a wise little angel, who could see through human souls, and see the beauty from within, as well as the foulness in people.

Lanike30 would always complain about your recklessness and how you smeared the new linen.

She loved you dearly and she glistened with bliss every time she held your hand on you walks back home. Little did she know that out of that very hand her beloved brother would die one day - little did you know of what was ahead of you too.

I still cannot help laughing to the expression on the face of Leonidas31 when you sent him the incense from Gaza. He was in such anguish that I think he would have buried himself in it, if it was not for his pride. Aristotle however was your favorite, and I remember your joy when reading from the Iliad with him, you were such a blissful child. You would walk and talk for 26

Hephaestion (Greek: Ἡφαιστίων, alternative spelling: "Hephaistion"; c. 356 BC – 324 BC), son of Amyntor, was a Macedonian nobleman and a general in the army of Alexander the Great. He was "... by far the dearest of all the king's friends; he had been brought up with Alexander and shared all his secrets." This friendship lasted their whole lives, and was compared, by others as well as themselves, to that of Achilles and Patroclus. (Wikipedia) 27

Commentary: Erotic too is the description of Dionysus wrestling Ampelus (10. 339- 372), e.g., 'Bacchus was in heaven amid this honeyed wrestling, and love gave him a double joy, lifting and lifted' (343-346).

Ampelos (or Ampelus) was a handsome, young Thracian Satyros loved by the god Dionysus.

28

Olympias was daughter of Neoptolemus, king of Epirus, descent from the lineage of Aeacidae (a well respected family of pre-Archaic Greece). Neoptolemus was named after the son of Achilles, from whom the family claimed descent. Achilles (also Akhilleus or Achilleus; Ancient Greek: Ἀχιλλεύς) was a hero of the Trojan War, the central character and the greatest warrior of Homer's Iliad, which takes for its theme the Wrath of Achilles. (Wikipedia) 29

Heracles or Herakles ("glory of Hera", or "Glorious through Hera," Alcides or Alcaeus (original name) "Ἥρα + κλέος, Ἡρακλῆς)" was a divine hero, the son of Zeus and Alcmene, nephew of Amphitryon and great-grandson (and half-brother) of Perseus. He was the greatest of the Macedonian heroes, a paragon of masculinity, the ancestor of royal clans who claimed to be Herakleidae and a champion of the Olympian order against chthonic monsters.

(Wikipedia) 30

31

In his early years, Alexander was raised by his nurse Lanike, who was Cleitus' older sister. (Wikipedia)

Alexander was educated by a strict teacher: Leonidas, himself a relative of Olympias. Leonidas' frugal ways are known to us through the extant record: reportedly, when Alexander threw a large amount of sacrificial incense into a fire, Leonidas reprimanded him, telling him that he could waste as much incense as he wished once he had conquered the spice bearing regions. Years later, following Alexander's conquest of Gaza, a city directly on the Persian spice trade route, the young king sent back over 15 tons of myrrh to Leonidas as a retort. (Wikipedia)

hours, only God knows what images shaped your young mind, but I know that you would not leave the old man take his rest from all the questions you needed answers to. You were learning the middle way with the old master, and he did a good job with you. He compensated for Philip’s absence, and he showed you the wisdom of temperance, although I think it was my responsibility for not being able to tame your spirits fully and make you a civilized man. Your barbaric soul would always find a way to thrash you into a fit of ecstatic fury or delight, and I knew the reason for that. You desperately wanted Philip to accept you as his rightful heir, and it did not happen until you met your beloved Bucephalus32. Only then you found peace in his arms. That bullheaded33 stallion had truly boosted the spirit of the man in you, no wander you loved him so dearly. He was your male spirit, and you relied on it during all of your endeavors.

I loved Philip dearly, from the first moment I lay my eyes on him at the initiation into the Mysteries34. However, his manly affairs, and the Kingdom, were the main reason that our relationship turned into a vile frenzy, rather than what I envisioned as set by the vows we took in the Mysteries. He admired Dionysus, but he needed the God of Thunder, for that was his call of manhood he so desperately needed to meet. The same zeal possessed you too, but tore your heart in two, a rift that would take a whole world under your feet to bridge it over.

You pursued Dionysus’ Quest, guided by the dreams that you received in the initiations, however, it was a new universe35 that was brought to life the day you were born. You were born as the Bringer of the Dawn, for the New Age to come. Even Artemis36 new it, which cost her the Temple in Ephesus. You were born to bring new light into this world, a new way for the Word37 32

When Alexander was ten years old, a Thessalian brought a horse of such quality to sell to Philip that it was labeled a prodigy. As it turned out, though, the horse was so wild that no man could mount him. Young Alexander, recognizing that the horse's own shadow was the source of its fear, went to the steed and turned him towards the sun.

Upon doing so, the horse calmed down, and the young king easily mounted and rode him. His father and other people who saw this were very impressed; Philip kissed him with tears of joy and said "My son, seek thee out a kingdom equal to thyself; Macedon has not room for thee." This horse was named Bucephalus, meaning "oxheaded"—though there is the possibility that the name refers to the brand that denoted the horse's origin. Bucephalus would be Alexander's companion throughout his journeys, and was truly loved: when the horse died (due to old age, according to Plutarch, for he was already 30; other sources claim that Bucephalus died of wounds sustained in a battle in India), Alexander named a city after him called Bocephia or Bucephala. (Wikipedia) 33

Interestingly the term BIK is today used for ‘bull’ in modern Macedonian (while in Greek it is ‘ταύρος’ [tauros]), and KEFALO is a word used for ‘cleaver head’ in modern Macedonia, which is the same in Greek.

34 It is said that Philip II had first fallen in love with Olympias when they were among the initiates into the Kabeiria Mysteries of Dionysus in the Greek island of Samothrace.

35 Commentary: One perspective on the Dionysiaca is that its author has, however imperfectly, grasped the essential nature of the universe, where space is a vibrant, resounding plenum and where everything is alive and a-dancing.

36

Another odd coincidence is that the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus was set afire on the night of his birth.

Plutarch's explanation is that the Gods were too busy watching over Alexander to care for the temple. (Wikipedia) 37

Commentary: Parallels between Dionysus and Christ have been drawn. For example, Nietzsche saw them both as suffering, persecuted saviors, and one can see in Dionysus a liberator, boon-giver and advancer of civilization, a divine being who subverted and challenged old ways. Several times in the poem Dionysus changes water into wine and the Christian Eucharistic consumption of bread and wine, the symbolic body and blood of Christ , may have some relationship to what occurred in Dionysian cultic practice, that is, ingestion of flesh and blood in order to partake of the god's divine power. But resemblances which are often adduced are insufficient to outweigh key differences. Dionysus is not really a savior god in Nonnus. He does not use the word soter at all of Dionysus.

to spread across the cultures and open new gates for the spirit to enter the Great Mother’s body, and shape the Sons of Man’s vision. However, just like Dionysus, you had a sacrifice to offer, and that was your youth, your life you put at stake for the Holy Quest. But it was a call and a sacred one I admit, even though I could not see what you saw, and I could not hear what you heard that night when the Oracle of Siwa spoke to that of Dodona.

I know that many will wonder of the miracles you performed on your way to restoring the Sun Kingdom on Earth. They will try to understand your ways, but there will be no-one to tell them the Truth, since after you, the Truth will scatter across the lands of the world like millions of pieces of broken glass, and it will take them ages to collect all the little bits and put it all together to see the true picture. This emptiness38 that the world has entered, this void of many shadows, can only be brought back to light if you put all your efforts to harmonize your dual nature, the masculine and the feminine forces in you, since you have been equally bestowed with both to maintain the balance of the Cosmos.

It was long ago when the land was still peaceful and the Great Mother nurtured all our ancestors on her mountain bosoms, nourishing them with the Nectar of Wisdom so that they may never forget. And then - the bad people came. They raided from the deserts, ravaged our land, and shed the darkness upon our Sun, and made no peace ever since. I have learned the Truth from my own tradition, the Maenads were my Great Mother’s voice, and I also had the same dream of gathering all my priestesses and all the Orphic priests to set off on the journey that Dionysus39 once took, in order to proclaim the Truth and save the world from the Shadow, but it was impossible to even conceive such a vision, less to fulfill it.

Although there are instances of love and compassion in the epic, much behavior, including that of Dionysus and his followers, is simply heartless and cruel. There is no evidence of any behavioral advance. There is nevertheless in the poem a vision of the cosmos as a great sounding dance and revel. A gospel that began with "In the beginning was the Word (logos)" may have appealed to an author who sensed the eternal vibration that underlies all life.

38 Commentary: The thesis of this paper is that the void, the sense of emptiness, created by some form of loss, is, to a considerable extent, filled and bridged by a number of activities and motifs that pervade the Dionysiaca. Nonnus projects a vision of life so resonant, full and fertile that it mostly overwhelms forces and behavior that make for sterility and emptiness. However, constant effort is needed by various individual entities to harmonize polarities, and to keep the cosmos orderly and busy spinning cycles of germination, growth, death and reseeding/rebirth. Immortals, especially deities, have a greater capacity to relieve their own bereavements, separations and loss, including the gaining of forms of immortality for favored individuals. For most mortals, reminders of the nature and power of life's eternal flow is no guarantee of individual post-mortem survival or of the healing of wounds incurred by the loss of someone or something precious. But the intimations of immortality and the resources for solace and recovery are persistent and insistent in Nonnus' narrative.

39

Euripides admits the universality of the religion of Dionysus, which the god himself, escorted by his Maenads, had propagated all over the East before returning to implant it in the place of his birth. The Greeks explained the similarities in the cults of Shiva and Dionysus by a journey of Dionysus to India. Dionysus' mission to the Orient to propagate his cult there became a fabulous conquest of India by him and his army of Maenads and Satyrs. The expedition lasted two years and the god returned through Boeotia after three years. He celebrated his victory riding on an elephant. According to Diodorus, it is due to the memory of his expedition to India that (the Macedonians), the Boeotians, the other Greeks and the Thracians instituted trieteric sacrifices to Dionysus. (From Gods of Love and Ecstasy: The Traditions of Shiva and Dionysus by Alain Danielou)

To you it seemed a child play to dream of the great temples, once worshiping the Sun Our Father and the Great Mother, now shred among the Desert Princes, their wicked Snake that dimmed our Sun in Troy, Siwa, Nysa the city of Dionysus‌ But Our God returned home after three years, what took you so long, my dear San-Dar (Dream Gift)? Was your mission thus fulfilled, never to return home? Did you too ride the Indian elephants to celebrate your victory or did you receive a different bounty?

The Children of the Sun40 will sing hymns in your name, Oh Liberator, Oh Savior of Man. They proclaimed you the Horned God41, since they saw the Light in you, and they revered you with all the honors of a God. You were their dream-come-true.

The Horned God Alexander, Son of Zeus-Ammon You did hear the voice of Zeus-Amon in the mist of the desert, and the message was complete.

What you received at Dodona was fulfilled at Siwa. You know it well now, he is your Father, and you are the Son of Man.

40

In late 332 BC, Alexander moved from Gaza along the coast into Egypt. There was little opposition, no attempt to hold the border fortress and defence wall at Pelusium, where the deciding conquering "battle" took place, In fact Alexander's arrival in Egypt appears to be more of a triumphal procession than an invasion, Alexander visited the Sun Temple at Heliopolis, before sailing up the eastern arm of the Delta to reach the main artery of the Nile. (http:// www.egyptologyonline.com/alexander.htm) 41

The key political question for Alexander was how to be acknowledged as the new leader of Egypt, He journeyed to the Siwa Oasis, in the far western desert, to visit the temple of the oracle on the hill of Aghurmi. Apparently, according to the Greek historian Plutarch, the priests at the temple proclaimed him the "son of Amun" and "king" as they would have greeted an Egyptian pharaoh.

Whilst we'll never know exactly what took place at Siwa, Alexander returned from the desert and successfully consolidated Macedonian power throughout Egypt. He marked out the foundations of a new great city on the Mediterranean coast of Egypt that was to bear his name, the first of over thirty cities that would do so, sited between central Asia, the Indus Valley and North Africa. Alexandria was born. (http://www.egyptologyonline.com/alexander.htm)

Long after you are gone they will reap the fruits of your Holy Quest that the Sun will bestow onto them. The city42 you built will be the Light House for many to receive the ancient Wisdom and initiate themselves into the Mysteries of Our God, the Savior. Your Quest would thus be complete, my dear San-Dar. But not to you, as it seems. It was not fame43 that you were after.

There were other dreams that shaped your mission, and you pursued them, to the end. You had to go to that Great Mountain44 of glory; you had to reach the top of the world.

But when you reached it, spellbound by your dreams, you thrust yourselves into the arms45 of demons, not even daring to question their false candor, and you trusted them with your life. Their sweet words46 had been but a poison to your soul, yet you stayed on your course, and proceeded 42

The founding of Alexandria would bring a shift in the centre of gravity of Egypt's intellectual and economic life, For the next few centuries, Egypt would now look to the Mediterranean and a wider world. Alexandria was known as "Alexandria by Egypt" not "in Egypt" as one would expect. It became the city through which the wealth of Egypt would flow, and the crossroads of the entire world. Today, only fragments remain of that wonderful age, tombs, theatres, mosaics, and the works of Greek philosophers and historians who lived there. (http://www.egyptologyonline.com/alexander.htm) 43 Commentary: Winning fame that endures in human memory, being honored and respected when dead, graven epitaphs, metamorphosis into an ongoing form, such as a river or plant, offer partial victories over death. Otherwise, apart from catasterism in a celestial vault that can accommodate new arrivals, mortals can only assume that the sounds they utter, the patterns their movements create and the rituals they perform really do harmonize with the macrocosm and align with the higher levels, and thus hope that they will thereby remain a sentient part of some greater living whole. Imitating cosmic creators means participating in activity that sustains life everywhere. It is a generalized, diffuse immortality that is on offer, not a guaranteed abode in a discrete heaven or paradise. It is a celebration of transcendent life. Those who, like Silenus, dance into death, who death-leaps into a new life, or who were initiated into the mysteries, would appear to have fair or good prospects of being reborn on the wave of an ever-flowing cosmos.

44

Commentary: In the Dionysiaca, only Dionysus reaches Olympus and only a favoured few live on as stars, plants, rivers or landmarks, in some cases thereby cushioning immortals from a sense of loss. Hades is the presumed destination of the rest but the supercharged power of the drive towards rebirth, possibly in a new shape, suggests that sojourns there will only be temporary, unless something happens in heaven or from above to render barren and infertile the soil that contains the seeds that are like celestial gateways to new life.

45

Dionysus was already considered by the ancients as a god who was analogous to Shiva under one of his main aspects, as evidenced by the practices of left hand Tantrism." (Julius Evola, Le Yoga tantrique, note p. 15.)

Megasthenes, a Greek who lived in India in the fourth century B.C., identifies Dionysus with Shiva, whose cult, according to him, was particularly widespread in the mountains where the vine is cultivated. He refers to the similarity between the expeditions of the king (Chandragupta) and the processions of Dionysus. When the soldiers of Alexander rushed to the Shivaite sanctuary of Nysa (near modern Peshawar, in the north of present-day Pakistan) to embrace their brothers in Dionysus, it did not enter their minds that this may have been another divinity, or a different cult. (From Gods of Love and Ecstasy: The Traditions of Shiva and Dionysus by Alain Danielou) 46

As soon as Alexander arrived at Nysa with his army, the citizens sent Aculphis, with thirty of their chief men, to him, to beseech him to leave the liberties of their city entire, for the sake of their god. The ambassadors being introduced into the royal pavilion, saw the king all besmeared with dust and sweat, sitting in complete armor, for he had not yet put them off, his helmet was yet on his head, and his lance in his hand; at which sight they were dreadfully terrified, and failing prostrate, observed a long silence; but when Alexander condescended to bid them rise up, and be of good cheer, Aculphis thus accosted him: "The Nysaeans entreat thee, O king, for the reverence thou bearest to Dionysus, their god, to leave their city untouched, and not to infringe their customs and liberties. For Bacchus having subdued the Indians, and determining to return to Greece, as an eternal monument of the toils he underwent and the victories be acquired, built this city for a habitation for such of his soldiers as age or accidents had rendered unfit for further military service, in the same manner as thou hast raised Alexandria nigh Mount

with the mission, even though you knew you have achieved more than any other man would ever do. “Thou hast already achieved higher and greater things (even) than Bacchus.�47 You have already reached the top of the world. How deep must have been the rift that opened in your heart that night when the snake let loose of her tail?

I knew you were guided by the Force of the Great Mother to take this Holy Quest, yet I prayed each night and day for your safe return. It seemed that God had hidden his face far away from people, and you had to go all the way to see him. The Quest seemed without an end. There was more to it each time you looked at the sky. The snake that begot you, had driven your spirit to the outmost parts of the world, for you to find what you needed, so that the Golden Age would be proclaimed to the people of the Earth. Did you find what you needed, my dear San-Dar? Did the

Caucasus, and another city of the same name in Egypt, besides others which thou hast and wilt hereafter build in different parts of the earth, to the glory of thy name; for thou hast already achieved higher and greater things than Bacchus. He called this city Nysa, after the name of his nurse, and the province depending thereupon, the Nysasan territories. The mountain also which is so near us, he would have denominated Meros, or the thigh, alluding to (the fable of) his birth from that of Jupiter. From that time, we, the inhabitants of Nysa, have been a free people, and lived peaceably under the protection of our own laws. And as an undoubted token that this place was founded by Bacchus, the ivy, which is to be found nowhere else throughout all India, flourishes in our territories." (Arrian's History of Alexander's Expedition by Arrian, John Rooke, Jean Le Clerc) 47

THIS oration was very grateful to Alexander, who had a mighty mind that the story of Bacchus and his travels should pass for truth, and that he might be deemed the founder of Nysa, that himself might be believed already to have reached the utmost limits of Bacchus's journey, and yet still to be advancing forwards. And he imagined that the Macedonians would be easily persuaded to join with him herein, and boldly undertake fresh adventures, after the laudable example of Bacchus and his followers ; for which reason he granted the citizens of Nysa the privilege of being governed by their ancient laws, and a full confirmation of their liberties. And when he came afterwards to know the tenor of their laws, and that their republic was governed by the chief citizens, he commended the institution, and ordered that three hundred choice horse should be sent him, besides one hundred of those principal citizens who had the administration of affairs in their hands (their whole number being three hundred); Aculphis himself was one of those who were chosen out of the magistracy, and him he appointed president of the province. * At these demands of Alexander, Aculphis is said to have smiled; and being asked the reason, made this answer: "After what manner, O king, should a city be afterwards well governed, when she is deprived of a hundred of her chief counselors ? If thou hast the welfare of the Nysaeans at heart, take three hundred horse, or more, if it be thy pleasure; but if for one hundred of the best citizens, thou wilt condescend to accept of two hundred of the worst, thou mayst, at thy return hither, expect to find this city in a flourishing condition." This speech being excellently adapted for the purpose, satisfied Alexander; insomuch that he ordered the three hundred horse to be sent him, but freely gave up his former demand of the hundred magistrates, without requiring any equivalent. However, Aculphis sent his son and his nephew with him, to learn the art of war. Alexander had then an ambition of visiting the place where the Nysaeans boast of some monuments of Bacchus, and of ascending Mount Meros, with his auxiliary horse and a squadron of his foot, that he might see a hill overspread with laurel and ivy, and thick groves of all sorts of trees, well stocked with all kinds of wild beasts. The sight of ivy was pleasing to the Macedonians, they not having seen any in a long time (for no parts of India produce it, not even those where vines are common); wherefore they immediately applied themselves to making garlands, wherewith they crowned their heads, singing, and calling loud upon the god, not only by the name of Dionysus, but by all his other names. Alexander there offered sacrifices to Bacchus, and feasted with his friends; and some authors relate (if their relations deserve credit) that many Macedonians of the first rank, during the banquet, having their brows encircled with ivy, and seized with a sort of enthusiastic raptures, ran about with loud and long-continued acclamations of Evoe and Hacche: but these, and such like stories, I leave for everyone to receive or reject, as he thinks convenient. (Arrian's History of Alexander's Expedition by Arrian, John Rooke, Jean Le Clerc)

face of God reveal upon you the ultimate Truth? Did you reach the Crown, or was it yet another Promethean48 ordeal, in the hands of the eagles that preyed off your spirit?

They could not fool you, those demons of Nysa, not even with all the gold and silver they bestowed onto you. You could see the falsity of their assertions49, their false beliefs in the One God, the Light of the World, and the Great Mother of ours. I could not care less “what laws they are governed by, nor what strange animals the country produces; neither how many kinds of fish, nor of what bigness, either Indus, or Hydaspes, or Ganges, or other rivers of India nourish; nor shall I make a long detail of the ants which are here said to dig up gold; nor of the griffins which guard it; nor of many other things which are written chiefly to amuse, and seem to have little foundation of truth. But let the writers of the Indian affairs impose never so gross falsehoods 48

ERATOSTHENES the Cyrenian reports, (but I cannot altogether agree with him therein), that whatever honours were ascribed to that deity by the Macedonians, and whatever joyful acclamations were made, all was done for the sake of their king, to put him upon a level with these gods themselves. He also adds, that the Macedonians found a certain cave upon a mountain in the country of Parapamisus, which the inhabitants, by tradition (or rather themselves, to curry favour with their prince), affirmed to be that wherein Prometheus was formerly chained, and that an eagle usually came thither to prey upon his liver; but at last, Hercules passing through that country, slew the eagle, and released him from his imprisonment, lie proceeds to tell us, that they transferred Mount Caucasus, in their speeches, from Pontus, to the most easterly parts of the earth, and the country of Paropainis, us to India; and called Paropamisus, Caucasus, for no other reason but to enhance the glory of Alexander, who had now passed beyond it; and when they accidentally saw some oxen in that part of India, marked with a brand in the form of a club, they immediately concluded, from that circumstance, that Hercules had penetrated thus far. The same author asserts the like stories of Dionysus, which I shall omit, as hardly worth the relating. When Alexander arrived at the river Indus, he found the bridge fully perfected by Hephaestion, and two large vessels built with thirty oars, besides many more small ones. He also received the presents of Taxiles the Indian, being two hundred talents of silver, three thousand oxen, above ten thousand sheep, and thirty elephants; seven hundred Indian horse were sent to his assistance by that prince, who also made him a surrender of his capital, the largest and most populous of all the cities between the rivers Indus and Hydaspes. Alexander there sacrificed to the gods, after the custom of his country; and having exhibited gymnic and equestrian sports on the banks of that river, the entrails promised him a safe passage over. The Indus is the largest of all the rivers of Europe or Asia, except the Ganges, which is also in India: it receives its rise from the skirts of Mount Parapamisus, or Caucasus, and discharges its waters southwards, into the Indian Ocean. It has two mouths in a low marshy soil, like those five of the Ister; and it forms the figure of the Greek letter A (Delta), by its course through India, as the Nile does in his passage through Egypt; which island is in the Indian language called Pattala. (Arrian's History of Alexander's Expedition by Arrian, John Rooke, Jean Le Clerc) 49

However, Alexander and his followers found out the falsity of their assertions, in abundance of instances; for those parts of India, through which he penetrated with his army, were destitute of gold, and their diet was no ways delicate. But the inhabitants were strong built and large limbed, and taller in stature than all the rest of the Asiatics, many of them being little less than five cubits high. Their complexion is swarthier than any yet known, except the Ethiopians; and their skill in military affairs far surpasses all the inhabitants of Asia besides. Even those warlike Persians, by whose valor Cyrus the son of Cambyses deprived the Medes of the empire of Asia, and brought many other nations under subjection, partly by force and partly by voluntary surrender, are by no means to be compared with those Indians. For the Persians in these times were a poor people; their country was mountainous and uncultivated; and their laws and customs bore some resemblance to the severe Lacedaemonian discipline. And as to the overthrow they at last received in Scythia, I cannot certainly affirm, whether it happened on account of the disadvantage of their station, or any other oversight of Cyrus; or whether those Persians were really inferior in military affairs to the Scythians by whom they were defeated. (Arrian's History of Alexander's Expedition by Arrian, John Rooke, Jean Le Clerc)

upon us, they imagine we will swallow them all, rather than take a journey so far, to prove them liars.”50 Then what was it that moved you forward my dear San-Dar? Where did you want to see God? God is where your heart is, and only in your heart you can find his true abode. Some say that in the Garden51 to the woman came a curse, but pain is not the worst, desire is my curse, for it is now directed toward the image of the man that God has made, and not the God who beckons from the Home we have never known. A woman's heart should be so hidden in God that a man has to seek Him just to find her.52 Which direction did your desire take my dear San-Dar, whose heart was hidden in the image you sought that took you as far as India? Since you had it all in you, both the man and the woman, where did your journey end? What did you find? Did you find yourself?

I am an old woman now, a widow to a dead Tsar, and a mother to an undead one, let all alone, weeping over my misery, hiding from the Truth. I do not believe you are dead53, even though they told me so. Aristotle wrote to me and he never spoke like he did this time. He told me of the bad omens, but there was a cloud of mystery veiling his speech. He was the last one to see you, I know. But I never got to talk to him face to face. I believe you are just hiding in your own Heavenly Dome, looking down on this world, watching the people come and go, and 50

From Arrian's History of Alexander's Expedition by Arrian, John Rooke, Jean Le Clerc

51

“To the woman he said, ‘I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing; with pain you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.” Genesis 3:16 52 Max Lucado 53

The death of Alexander the Great is still shrouded in mystery to this day. It seems hard to believe that a 33-yearold man could die of natural causes that spring up out of the blue, and consequently, modern historians have made many attempts to explain exactly what happened. According to Plutarch, the events leading up to his death are as follows: Alexander proceeded to Babylon, even after receiving word of several bad omens, such as ravens fighting each other over the city wall with some falling dead right in front of him, a man with a deformed liver being sacrificed in the king's honor, and his best lion was kicked to death by an ass. The god Serapis told a man to put on the king's robes and sit upon the throne. These all served as warnings to Alexander about what may lie in store for him, but they did not deter him. Once in Babylon, he drank heavily at several banquets. One such banquet was hosted by his friend, Medius. In the Armenian version of the story, Psuedo-Callisthenes wrote that this banquet was a conspiracy involving Iollas, Cassander, and others who were unhappy with Alexander. They gave him poisoned wine, and immediately after drinking it, Alexander felt as if he had "been hit in the liver with an arrow." When he tried to throw it back up, he was given a poisoned feather, which ensured that the poison would reach his blood stream. He proceeded to get very sick and his condition deteriorated until his death. Plutarch did not believe this version, saying the sudden pain Alexander felt after drinking was a detail "with which certain historians felt obliged to embellish the occasion, and thus invent a tragic and moving finale to a great action. Aristobulus tells us that he was seized with a raging fever, that when he became thirsty he drank wine which made him delirious."

We will probably never know the truth, even though new theories are still coming out. We do know that on the 7th of June, 323 BC, the Macedonians were allowed to file past their leader for the last time and finally, three days later, he succumbed to the illness. Thus, on June 10, 323 BC, Alexander the Great died at the age of 33. (by Jed Untereker, James Kossuth, Bill Kelsey)

civilizations rise and fall, all because of you. You did it well, son, and you withdrew at the right time, just as Dionysus had before you, at the age of thirty-three. The Mystery has been fulfilled.

The world will never be the same‌ I look upon the image of my Gift from the Earth Dream, and tears shape my words. Not even the menace of time can spoil your beauty and might. You are the resurrection, and the life.54 I wait for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come.55

I solemnly close my eyes and say a prayer to the wind, hoping that you will hear my sigh and send a blow in return, where ever you are: Let your mind start a journey through a strange new world. Leave all thoughts of the world you knew before. Let your soul take you where you long to be...Close your eyes let your spirit start to soar and you'll live as you have never lived before.56 Myrtale, the Mother of Alexander

54

The Bible

55

The Nicene Creed Erich Fromm

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(Awakening‌)

THE MOTHER'S HYMN57 Lord, who ordainest for mankind Benignant toils and tender cares!

We thank Thee for the ties that bind The mother to the child she bears.

We thank Thee for the hopes that rise, Within her heart, as, day by day, The dawning soul, from those young eyes, Looks, with a clearer, steadier ray.

And grateful for the blessing given With that dear infant on her knee, She trains the eye to look to heaven, The voice to lisp a prayer to Thee.

Such thanks the blessed Mary gave, When, from her lap, the Holy Child, Sent from on high to seek and save The lost of earth, looked up and smiled.

All-Gracious! Grant, to those that bear A mother's charge, the strength and light To lead the steps that own their care In ways of Love, and Truth, and Right.

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by William Cullen Bryant