The arrow hit Alexander on his right shoulder as he let his guard slip for a fraction of a second. Fortunately, it only managed to put an impressive dent on his bronze armor. Alexander however did not notice, let alone feel it. His full attention was on Darius, Monarch of all Persia, who he saw withdrawing, preparing to flee from the battlefield of Issus. Quickly mounting a horse at the head of a Companion cavalry, Alexander gave chase at full gallop, with his mind galloping at a faster pace, furiously analyzing the situation. It did not add up, it did not add up at all. The Persian army was much larger and the battle was nowhere near its end. It all seemed too premature and seems somewhat unnatural and contrived.
What was Darius trying to accomplish by withdrawing now? A headless army was bound to get demoralized and quickly defeated. Everyone knew that. Moreover, Darius was fleeing alone, leaving even his family behind to uncertain fate, possibly even slaughter.
The Persians had this curious habit of bringing their families along to the battlefield, as if it were a picnic. Why did they do that? It was all too middle-eastern for his straightforward soldier mind. Then it struck him. Perhaps it was a trap—a sly middle-eastern one at that—to draw the unsuspecting enemy flushed with a sense of victory, in a hot pursuit, deep into enemy country. If it was, it surely was working, for every fiber in his body willed him to give chase. With great difficulty, he reigned in and let that Persian fox run, disappear into the darkness.
Instead, Alexander proceeded to capture Egypt.
Why did Darius prematurely run away from a battle that was far from over and one that he could just as easily have won? For that matter, why did Alexander let Darius go? Why did he go instead to Egypt, which was after all, 600 miles away, far removed from the middle-eastern arena, actually on another continent? None of it makes sense.
Are we perhaps missing something here?
If Egypt was right around the corner, say, in the Syria region… yes, then of course, it would all make perfect sense. Only then would it have seemed an attractive alternative to Alexander. Only then would Alexander’s abandoning his chase after Darius add up. After all, Egypt was the then Persian capital and Alexander had come on ships with just a small army. Finding an immediate base in the middle-eastern arena would fit in well as his primary agenda.
Having Egypt right around the corner, in the near eastern arena would also explain Darius’ anxiety to lead Alexander away from Egypt. Egypt was his new capital and even he could well see that all would be lost, if Alexander were to capture Egypt.
Brilliant though this explanation is, we cannot have it. There is a minor problem. Someone has gone and stuck Egypt a good 600 miles away from this arena—on a different continent actually. In short, our options are - either Alexander did not attend a single class in strategy under the tutelage of the able Aristotle and the great Darius was a coward, or, some idiot has misplaced ancient Egypt on the map.
The matter does not quite end here. Although it is indisputable that Alexander did go to Egypt, curiously there is no detailed record of this long and arduous journey. His return from Egypt too is lacking in detail and modern-day historians are not quite sure which route he took back. Did he cut across the Saudi-Arabian desert, or did he trace his route along the Mediterranean coast?
Distance discrepancies such as the one described above, which appear to suggest that Egypt has been wrongly positioned on the map, will fill a sizable, if sonorous book. Reconstructed history of this region is teeming with such instances. The Persians, the Scythians and Assyrians, and a host of other marauding armies are said to have attacked Egypt, but when one considers the prodigious distances that these armies would have had to march to reach Egypt located in Africa, one is left in some doubt. These armies, on an average, would have had to cover an approximate two-way distance from the point of origin to Egypt-in-Africa of around 2000 miles! This does not make business sense. Furthermore, the said journey involved crossing the barren and unforgiving Sinai desert. That all these armies did go to Egypt cannot be denied. What is in dispute is the incredible distance involved, all of which clearly points to a reconstruction discrepancy. Indeed, all of the above–mentioned encounters would become viable if we give the archaeologist’s sensibilities a pass and re-engineer but a single change. Reposition Egypt, move it into the middle-eastern arena where all and sundry can easily reach it and cross swords with it at will.
So, whose sensibilities do we go by here? With that of a master strategist like Alexander, who in a blitzkrieg military campaign won all Asia or his equally astute enemy, Darius, the Persian Monarch—or with that of our man with his pocket full of shard?
Diagram above: Alexander’s logic. From Issus to Egypt to Persia. This is how Alexander decisively moved his army to capture all Asia. He would not have succeeded had he taken the loopy, 2800 odd miles (dotted line) grueling journey through desert terrain suggested by the modern-day scholars. Egypt in the Near Eastern arena will resolve this discrepancy. The thick arrow represents the real route.
Diagram below: Distance Discrepancies.Similarly, marauders would have to travel prodigious distances to reach Egypt and Ethiopia located in the Africa continent. It does not make good business sense to expend so much energy, travel 6 to 7 thousand kilometers to raid a kingdom, and as such, puts the spotlight on Egypt’s faulty position.
COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Copyright © 1998 by James Natchurivalapil Rappai. All rights reserved. James Natchurivalapil Rappai (also known as James Rappai or N. R. James) has asserted his rights under the Indian and International Intellectual Property Rights (Copyright & Related Rights and Industrial Property Rights including patents) to be identified as the author, discoverer, and creator of this body of work. The material contained in this website, including the text, including the reinterpretation of ancient texts, all of which has also been codified into diagrams, maps, charts, tables, diagrams, & photographs and altogether gives this work its uniqueness of expression, cannot be copied, communicated, transmitted, reproduced, adapted, translated or cinematographically reproduced, in part or in full, or in a reconstituted manner. Any manner of infringement will swiftly and legally be dealt with to the full extent of the law.