ellauri099.html on line 190: Aristotle was not much loved by the Athenians. This might have been because he was a tricky customer or because he was an immigrant: a metoikos or metic, resident alien, an ancient green card holder; Greek, but decidedly not an Athenian citizen, something like an American in London. Given his close ties to the Macedonian aristocracy, which was extending and tightening its military and political control across Greece, perhaps the Athenians were right to be suspicious of Aristotle.
ellauri099.html on line 199: Famously, Aristotle was asked by Philip II of Macedon to be the tutor of his 13-year-old son, Alexander. Aristotle set up school in the Macedonian fortress of Mieza, and the young prince was taught together with his companions, who probably numbered around 30 students. A big class. This was a closed school, a boarding school of sorts. A sense of the seriousness with which Aristotle performed his duties can be gleaned from the fact that he composed two treatises in honor of Alexander, “On Kingship” and "On Colonies" as guidebooks for the prince, as well as editing a copy of Homer’s “Iliad” specifically for Alexander’s use — the so-called “casket copy” (presumably because it was small enough to fit inside his casket).
ellauri099.html on line 201: Very little is known about Aristotle’s stay in Macedonia, but it is thought that he was there for quite some time, possibly seven years, and became very friendly with powerful members of Philip’s court. In 336 B.C.E., Philip was assassinated (in a theater, of all places), and Alexander was declared king at the age of 20. Sensing the instability of political transition, the mighty city of Thebes rebelled against the new Macedonian king. In order to set an example, Alexander besieged and then wholly incinerated the city, wiping it from the map. Its citizens were either killed or sold into slavery.
ellauri099.html on line 203: Athens didn’t make the same mistake as Thebes and meekly submitted to the Macedonian pike. It is in this context that Aristotle returned to the city at around age 50. And he came back big time. Because of his metic status, Aristotle was not allowed to buy property. So — as one does — he rented. He took over a gymnasium site sacred to Apollo Lyceus (the wolf-god) and transformed it into the most powerful and well-endowed school in the world.
ellauri099.html on line 215: The Lyceum was clearly the intellectual projection of Macedonian political and military hegemony. In 323 B.C.E., when news of Alexander the Great’s death in Babylon at the age of 32 reached Athens, simmering anti-Macedonian sentiment spilled over, and the popular Athenian leader Demosthenes was recalled. Aristotle left the city for the last time, in fear of his life, after a little more than a decade in charge of the Lyceum. Seeing himself justly or unjustly in the mirror of Socrates and fearing charges of impiety, Aristotle reportedly said, “I will not allow the Athenians to sin twice against philosophy.” Aristotle withdrew to his late mother’s estate at Chalcis on the island of Euboea and died there shortly after of an unspecified illness, at age 63.
ellauri115.html on line 1081: Vaknin moved to Skopje, Macedonia, where he married Macedonian Lidija Rangelovska. They set up Narcissus Publications in 1997, which publishes Vaknin's work.
ellauri190.html on line 353: Darius I was the third king of the Persian Achaemenid Empire. Also called Darius the Great, he ruled the empire at its peak, when it included much of West Asia, the Caucasus, parts of the Balkans (Thrace-Macedonia and Paeonia), most of the...
ellauri190.html on line 360: Alexander the Great, Macedonian Empire |
xxx/ellauri091.html on line 528: 36. North Macedonia
xxx/ellauri091.html on line 530: Perhaps no nation is worse off now than North Macedonia, which you’ve never heard of and will never visit. Next.
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