It was retribution for the Persians' burning of Athens in 480BC. Plus, Alexander had encountered this when he entered the magnificent Persian city, "At this point in his advance the king was confronted by a strange and dreadful sight, one to provoke indignation against the perpetrators and sympathetic pity for the unfortunate victims. He was met by Greeks bearing branches of supplication. They had been carried away from their homes by previous kings of Persia and were about eight hundred in number, most of them elderly. All had been mutilated, some lacking hands, some feet, and some ears and noses. They were persons who had acquired skills or crafts and had made good progress in their instruction; then their other extremities had been amputated and they were left only those which were vital to their profession. All the soldiers, seeing their venerable years and the losses which their bodies had suffered, pitied the lot of the wretches. Alexander most of all was affected by them and unable to restrain his tears." (Diodorus Siculus)
Few lives change nearly every other. Plus, overwhelming power awes, mesmerizes and seduces, as long as you're not threatened, that is. Alexander will forever fascinate, as will Quin Shih Huang, Genghis Khan, Charlemagne or Napoleon, etc. AAA males are so rare, how can us tick-like wusses, fearful of our own shadows even, not buckle our knees?
Another reason for North Macedonians' identification with Alexander is our basic need to feel intrinsic to a place, because it's jarring to admit we're just squatters, more or less, anywhere.
In Belgrade, a woman told me Serbs sprung from the VinÄ a Culture, which dates to 5700BC, so her ancestors didn't only arrive in the Balkans in the 8th century, after all. They've always been there. She also claimed there were Serbs among Alexander the Great's troops, with many of their descendants now living in Pakistan.
In Laos, there are hundreds of huge, ancient stone jars half buried in the ground that can't be linked to current Laotians, but still, they're proud. Vietnamese identify with 2,600-years-old bronze drums they can't explain.
Skopje has been inhabited for at least 6,000 years, but there have been so many wars, not to mention earthquakes, few old structures remain. There are beautiful mosques, with their mixed stone and brick walls, and stately stone minarets, so unlike the newer concrete ones. Less constrained by cost and gravity, they've become thinner and taller. Haughtily, they starkly rise. There's a large 15th century Turkish bath, with its gorgeous booblike domes. Spanning the Vardar (or Axios as mentioned by Homer), there's a 702-foot-long, 13-arched stone bridge, built by the Ottomans no later than 1469. A plaque on it commemorates the 1689 impalement of Petar Karposh, a local Slav rebel. There's also an equestrian statue of him, next to the bridge.
Crossing it often, I've come to recognize its beggars. One man has bulging, nublike feet, which he sticks out. There is a Gypsy boy, undersized but no older than six, who always wears a FC Barcelona jersey. An older boy has piercing and alert eyes, darkly rimmed.
The Old Town boasts new storefronts, so doesn't look too ancient, but if you study the more seasoned flagstones on its lanes, you can see the cracks, cavities and slightest indentations left by so many feet down the centuries. Nobodies, we too leave our marks.
Never bombed, Prague's historical center is magnificent, a bitter reminder of what much of Europe has once been. Haplessly resurrecting this hard-earned splendor, Skopje has become a joke, but what's done is done. Leave it, and let the world come and witness, before the cheaply built monuments peel, flake, crumble and collapse.
A nude Prometheus had his penis spat on by disgusted old ladies, so now must wear a sculptural loin cloth. Ancient Greeks digged naked males. Again, North Macedonians are mostly Slavs.
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