Miscellaneous by: RexMundi'. Reads: Likes: 0 Shelves: 0 Comments: 0. More Details. Add to Read List. Current mood: artistic. Category: Blogging. Alexander III of Macedon and his magnificent army worked assiduously, in exhausting and trying conditions, for seven months in order to win the protracted siege of the island City of Tyre in July, B.
A vigorous, wily, inventive and patient military commander and King, Alexander always achieved his objectives, no matter how long it took him. Since the people of Tyre furiously resisted to the agonizing end, and thus depleted Alexander's stores of men, weapons and gold, he ordered his army to raze the city to the ground and enslave every surviving woman and child, in all -- 30, Men who were of fit age to serve in an army were crucified for miles along the coast. Alexander was an elegant, refined savage, a divine Monster.
This conclusion was not his original intention. He had hoped Tyre would submit without resistance. Because of its naval power and location, Tyre had to be under Alexander's control while he waged his war against Darius II, King of Persia.
Despite the rumors of Tyre's impregnable fortress, the Macedonian King proved once again he was invincible and could not be stopped. I have been working on a small painting of him for 60 days now. And yet I have labored, six hours per day, for almost two months. All I have at my disposal are several ancient statues which are believed to be adequate copies of contemporary originals, created by his court sculpture, Lysippus. Suddenly, today, perhaps due to a fortuitous stroke of serendipity and slight of mind, his face loomed out at me at last.
Formed of at least a dozen attempts, skittish, recalcitrant paint, broken brush tips, overtaxed canvas, slips and near misses, the King of All Asia presented himself while I was intrepidly concentrated, still hunting the nuances of human expression among shadows and light, line and shape, scraping and sifting through a palimpsest of layer upon layer of oils, accidents, spills, smears. Alexander has been characteristically obstinant, at war with me, his most devoted Priestess.
