![]() at age thirty-two, his vast empire comprised more than two million square miles, spanning from Greece to India. ![]() Alexander was a born warrior and a ruler of passionate ambition who understood the intense adventure of conquest and of the unknown. "There were thunderclaps and flashes of lightning that very night," conveniently signifying that Zeus approved, so Alexander offered sacrifice to the "gods who had sent the signs and ratified his loosing of the knot. He also managed to arouse an interest in what he had done.” ![]() The aged Aristobulus (one of Alexander's early historians)…later claimed that Alexander had pulled a pin out of the chariot-link and drawn the yoke out sideways through the knot, but the sword-cut has the weight of authority behind it and is preferable to an eighty-year-old historian's apology either way, Alexander outmaneuvered, rather than unravelled, his problem. Drawing his sword, he slashed the knot in half, producing the necessary end and correctly claiming that the knot was loosed, if not untied. When no end could be found, Alexander began to lose patience, for failure would not go down well with his men. But one way or another, he untied or "cut the Gordian knot."įox relates the tale this way: ”On the day before leaving Gordium he went up to the acropolis meaning to try the chariot which he had saved for his farewell friends gathered round to watch him, but hard though he pulled, the knot round the yoke remained stubbornly tight. ![]() Some say that Alexander cleverly untied the knot, others that he simply unsheathed his sword and cut it. ![]()
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