The Genesis Of The Greek Miracle
Alexander’s Empire
Alexander’s campaign had taken the best of male youth from the Greek population and made it incapable of holding at the center. Greco-Macedonian population at the time of Alexander’s campaign is estimated between 1.5 million to 2.5 million – including slaves. That gives us a number of 75,000-150,000 family units which could have contributed one soldier each.
These populations are largely backward projections from current populations. From the total eligible, excluding agricultural workers required for maintenance of basic economic activity, slaves who would not qualify for military duty (malnourished and /or low on motivation levels), and soldiers needed for defense of the Macedonia and Greece itself, left a Greco-Macedonian societies with very few men. Add to this shortage, most of Alexander’s soldiers either settled in the Asian regions or perished in war or due to injury and disease. Less than 20,000 soldiers (10%) of the Alexander’s soldiers finally returned home. Hence, availability of soldiers was a severe limitation.
Post Alexander
Alexander’s vast dominions and revenues were unprotected. Greco-Macedonian political leadership were engaged with Alexander abroad. Its armies were tied up in Asia. No ruler after Alexander’s death in 323 BC was in a position to consolidate the conquests or overcome Greek-Macedonian infighting. The Daidochi Wars took up all the attention of the Greeks and Macedonians.
The Rise & Blip Of Rome
Rome was sucked into the vacuum left behind by Alexander’s death. Roman generals consolidated in Asia Minor and expanded into Europe. In 306, BC, Rome allied with Carthage against the Greeks. Over the next 150 years, Carthage and Rome battled Greece, conquered Sicily – and finally, attacked each other. After three Macedonian wars and the war with Antiochus the Great of Syria, Rome established itself as a prime power.
Carthage was left as the sole challenger to Roman authority. Finally, the Roman senate sent a descendant of Scipio Africanus (of the Second Punic War), Scipio Aemilianus – and in 146BC, Carthage was defeated. Carthage city was destroyed, its fields plowed and salted, so that the city would never come up again. 50,000 residents of Carthage were enslaved. In parallel, in 146BC, Corinth suffered a similar fate.
50 BC. Alexander passed into mythology. Romans had taken complete hold of the Alexandrian Empire. Millions (men, women and children) were enslaved. Swollen by revenues from the inherited Alexandrian territories of Asia Minor; by loot and conquests from Europe, Roman society was rolling in wealth. Nearly a million slaves toiled to keep Roman population well fed and in luxury.
Greek Re-emergence
The Balkan and the Mediterranean kingdoms (the roots of Alexander) took 500-600 years to recover their populations and youth to mount a challenge to the Roman usurpers and the Western Roman Empire.
The split started between the Western Roman Empire and the Byzantine Empire on linguistic lines. Western Roman Empire using Latin, operating from Rome – and the Eastern Roman Empire, using Greek, with Constantinople as its capital.
A major step in this Eastern challenge was to declare Constantinople as the second capital of the Roman Empire. Thereafter, deprived of revenues from the prosperous Eastern Empire, the Western Roman Empire collapsed.
The Roman Empire lasted all of 500 years – from the fall of Carthage and Corinth (146 BC) till the invasion of Alaric, The Goth (410AD). This 500-year blip in human history, called the Roman Empire, could not hold onto the Macedonian Empire they had usurped.
The split of the Eastern Roman Empire from the Western Roman Empire happened, though initially on linguistic lines, around 400 AD – later, on religious and other political lines. Over the next 200-400 years, Greek language became the official language of the Byzantine Empire. The Balkans, the Mediterranean and Eastern Europe followed the lead of the Byzantine Empire and used Greek extensively – at a cost to their own language.
For the next 1000 years, the Byzantine Empire used Greek as the official language – and had some Greek Kings. The ‘Greek Miracle’ was rewritten by these ‘Greek’ historians – 800-to-1000 years later. Much like modern day propaganda by the West, the Greeks used their language to create a myth around the Greek civilization. Alexander, a Macedonian (from modern day Balkans), was usurped by the Greeks (from the Mediterranean region) as their own.
On the other side of the world, Alexander’s conquests had increased trade manifold. Indo-Byzantine-Roman trade flourished. Greco-Roman currency, laws started at Indian borders and led right to the heart of the world’s largest and most prosperous market. The creation of the Alexander mythos was essential to the whole propaganda effort, for the success of Greek rule over the Eastern ‘Roman’ Empire. For colonial Europeans also, the mythos of Alexander, in the 19th and 20th centuries, was useful – to prove Western ‘superiority’. Central to this Greek (and later the Western colonial) propaganda effort, was Alexander’s conquest of India – a ‘superpower’ for much of history.
The Assyrian Misadventure
The Assyrian Empire in Asia Minor, (1300 BC – 500 BC) expanded by the conquests of Semiramis their legendary Queen, was one of history’s largest and the longest lasting Empire.
Semiramis was possibly Queen Sammurammit /Sammurammat, ruling over Assyria and Babylon in late ninth and early eight centuries B.C. The identity of her husband is in question with different names like King Shamshi-Adad V, Adad-nirari IV (probably co-regent, son of ShamshiAdad V and Semiramis), and some say Rammannirar, and yet some others Vul Lush III.
Between Herodotus and Ctesias, we have Greek accounts of the rise of Semiramis. The Assyrian Empire in Asia Minor, of Semiramis, a forerunner of Alexander’s Asian territories. She was deposed by her son Ninyas /Ninus (probably co-regent, Adad-nirari IV, son of Shamshi Adad V and Semiramis), after her loss to the Indian king, Stabrobates.
Clearly a historical figure, Semiramis was elevated to godhood in the Assyrian pantheon of goddesses, deified and worshiped – much like cannonization of saints by the Christian Church.
To the Greeks and Romans, Semiramis was the foremost of women, the greatest queen who had ever held a sceptre, the most extraordinary conqueror that the that the East had ever produced. Beautiful as Helen or Cleopatra, brave as Tomyris, lustful as Messaline, she had the virtues and vices of a man rather than woman, and performed deeds scarcely inferior to those of Cyrus or Alexander The Great. (from The Seven Great Monarchies of the Ancient Eastern World By George Rawlinson).
For her achievements, Semiramis was personified in the cult of ‘Mother and Child’, which Vatican was at great pains to exterminate, as it was the continuation of the worship of the Mother figure of Gnosticism and other Christian streams.
Semiramis in modern history
Mired in legend and prejudice, Semiramis is discredited in modern Western history – especially starting from 1853-1857. Her very existence denied, accused of incest, Semiramis has been tarred and condemned to the rubbish heap of modern history – and the Bible.
For instance in Max Muller’s colonial propagandist history, when it comes to Indian triumphs over Semiramis, she becomes half legendary. Yet in another book, the same Semiramis becomes one of ‘the great conquerors of antiquity.’ In a matter of a few pages, he dismisses Indian history completely, in a half-Hegelian manner.
As far back as 1798, the Asiatick Researches By Asiatic Society (Calcutta, India), were able to trace references to the Semiramis campaign in the Indian Puranas also. And …
In the case of Semiramis, confusion may have been caused by the fact that her husband and her son were both named Ninus; but to classical and medieval readers it seemed quite plausible that a powerful woman ruler (and a barbarian to boot) would be tyrannical and transgressive in her lust and that her violent delights would have a violent end. (from Incest and the Medieval Imagination By Elizabeth Archibald).
Semiramis established an empire that lasted, practically till WW1. Some 300 years, after the reign of Semiramis, the Assyrian Empire passed into Persian hands. From the Persians, into Alexander’s lap. The Romans usurped Alexander’s Empire – and in turn, lost everything 500 years later. The Romans lost the Assyrian Empire which was then taken over by the Eastern Empire with its capital of Byzantium.
The last inheritors of the Assyrian Empire were the Ottoman Turks and the Austro Hungarian Empire. Behind the problems in the Middle East today, is the carve up of the Ottoman Empire by victorious Allies, handled by amateurs like TE Lawrence and Gertrude Bell, after WW1.
Alexander – Hagiography and /or Cultural Dacoity?
Alexander’s raid of the Persian Achaemenid Empire, finally turned out to be a overthrow of the Achaemenid dynasty, usurpers of the Assyrian Empire. The mythos surrounding Alexander ‘conquests’ calls for serious questioning of the sources themselves. What and who are these sources?
Our knowledge of Alexander … rests on histories produced long after the fact: a late first-century b.c.e. section of a world history written in Greek by Diodorus of Sicily; a Latin History of Alexander published by the Roman author Quintus Curtius Rufus in the first century c.e.; a biography in Greek by Plutarch of Chaeronea, … in the first century c.e.; a history written in Greek by Arrian of Nicomedia sometime in the second century c.e.; and Justin’s third-century c.e. Latin abridgment (Epitome) of a lost Greek secondary account by the first-century author Pompeius Trogus. Each of these five narrative treatments of Alexander’s reign claims to be a serious work of history or biography, but all five contradict one another on fundamental matters and cannot be considered absolutely reliable unless somehow corroborated by other evidence. Beyond these texts, we have little except a compilation of legendary material known as the Greek Alexander Romance, a wildly imaginative work filled with talking trees and other wonders that later thrilled the medieval world. (from Alexander the Great and the Mystery of the Elephant Medallions By Frank Lee Holt; ellipsis mine).
400 years after Alexander’s death, Arrian’s hagiography is today seen by the Western world as the last word on Alexander. One man’s word as history? This version of history alleges that Alexander conquered India by defeating King Porus. This is the foundation on which Westerners have based their version of Indian history.
Alexander’s shown with elephant headdress
Subsequently, to his Indian ‘conquest’ Alexander minted elephant coins – which is, to modern Western historians proof of Alexander’s conquest of ‘India’. Ptolemy, to create legitimacy for his rule, issued coins showing Alexander wearing a elephant head, looking like a mixed Zeus and Ammon.
It also became the butt of comedies. These Greek comedies about Alexander’s campaign survive through Roman writers. One such work is Plautus’ Curculio, a drama in which an ex-India soldier, Therapontigonus Platagidorus, boasts of his conquest of
the Persians, Paphlagonians, Sinopians, Arabs, Carians, Cretans, Syrians, Rhodes and Lycia, Gobbleollia and Guzzleania, Centaurbattaglia and Onenipplearmia, the whole coast of Libya and the whole of Grapejusqueezia, in fact, a good half of all the nations on earth, have been subdued by him single-handed inside of twenty days
and wants a golden statue – made with melted gold from Philip (of Macedon’s) gold coins. Other such unbelievable accounts were written in Greece and Rome about Alexander’s victory against Porus – “a popular subject in Greece and Rome for many centuries.”
The significance of these coins itself is questionable. Elephant units, managed by Indians, were a common feature in Central Asian region – and later Greek armies also co-opted elephant units. These elephant coins could well have been stuck to celebrate Alexander’s victory at Gaugamela over Darius.
Indian archaeology, writers and history do not know of any Porus. At best, Alexander raided and plundered some border districts of India. Why did Alexander’s undefeated troops, after the Indian campaign, suddenly feel homesick?
Indo-Greek colonies and kingdoms – at Indian borders
Modern historians refer to the Greek colonies in Bactria, Sogdiana (modern Afghanistan and Baluchistan) as proof of Alexander’s and Greek conquests in the Indian sub-continent. The truth – Herodotus informs us that the Persian rulers exiled rebellious Greeks to Indian borders – at Susa, Khuzestan (in modern Iran) and Bactria (modern Afghanistan). Among these exiles were citizens of Miletus, who were behind the Ionian revolt in 499 BC.
Alexander continued with this practice. After his death, we are informed by Diodorus of Sicily (World history, 18.7) veteran Macedonians and Greek exiles revolted against their externment – and the Daidochi had to send an expedition, under Peithon, to quell this revolt.
Consider
During the (nearly) half-year long siege of Tyre, Alexander received troop reinforcements from Macedonia. Before his India ‘campaign’, at Ecbatana, Alexander cashiered thousands of his Greek troops who wished to return home. After the death of Darius, at Ecbatana (330 BC), to all the Greek officers, wishing to return home, Alexander awarded one talent of gold (approx. 25k-60 kg).
Also at Ecbatana, Alexander dismissed the allied Greek troops he had requisitioned thus far under the powers granted him by the Greek league. The official goal of the invasion, the destruction of the Persian empire in revenge for its attack on Greece, had now been achieved, so the official duties of these troops were fulfilled. (from Alexander the Great By Arrian, James S. Romm, Pamela Mensch)
At this stage, Alexander also inducted into his army, fresh Persian soldiers, trained in Macedonian style of warfare. Again, after his marriage to Roxanne, 10,000 ‘new’ Persian soldiers joined his army.
Hence, the troops left were either fresh or those who decided to stay with Alexander. 326 BC was the year of the battle with Porus. The pleadings of Coenus, that Alexander’s men, “long to see their parents, wives, and children, and their homeland again.” were patently the cries of frightened soldiers. Once back in the folds of the secure Macedonian Empire, the same soldiers, joined the mutiny at Opis and revolted when they were released by Alexander to return to Macedonia, demonstrates that reason for the revolt in India, was not home sickness.
Amongst Alexander’s first actions in India were his attempts to cobble up alliances. His most famous one was with Ambhi – the ruler of Taxila. To cement this alliance, Alexander ‘gifted’ Ambhi with ‘a wardrobe of Persian robes, gold and silver ornaments, and 30 horses, 1000 talents in cash’. 1000 talents is anywhere between 25,000-60,000 kg of gold! Does this look like Ambhi accepted Alexander as the conqueror of the world – or Alexander ‘persuading’ Ambhi to seal an alliance?
The payment of 1000 talents in gold to Ambhi aroused much envy and outrage in Alexander’s camp. It prompted Meleager, to sarcastically congratulate Alexander for ‘having at least found in India a man worth 1000 talents.’ What seals this incident is Alexander’s retort to Meleager, “that envious men only torment themselves.” (C 8.12.17 & 18)
Ekkehard, a 12 century Benedictine monk and historian, a participant in the Crusade of 1101, had many such questions, in his updates of Chronicon Universale, (probably co-written by Frutolf of Michelsberg).
Coming so soon after the schism between the Greek and the Roman Church, Ekkehard must also be seen through the prism of Christian Church politics. After all, how could a monk of the Roman Church let go of such a juicy Greek target? Similarly, in 19th century environment, Alexander’s inflation must also be seen in the context of Western colonialism, which needed to show ‘Western’ superiority.

How Did This Miracle Happen? (Cartoonist - Sidney Harris; courtesy - sciencecartoonsplus.com). Click for larger image.
Modern Cultural Dacoity
Their own history being a barren cupboard, the BFAG countries (Britain, France, America and Germany) raided other cultures. For their guidance, they had the Greek model in place. They just extended that.
First, they sanitized the records of books that the Greeks borrowed from other cultures – and never returned. These ‘unreturned’ books were later ascribed to the Greeks. Then they sanitized the Greeks themselves. After the fall of Corinth, the Greeks disappeared from modern Western history.
A Balkan general, from an obscure part of Eastern Europe, Macedonia, was Hellenized. Alexander, became a Greek conqueror of the world. It would be similar to the Chinese claim to Genghis Khan’s Mongolian Empire.
All this so-called ‘Greek’ learning came from Babylon-to-Greek-to-Arabic-to-Latin/Greek manuscripts. Greeks, Romans, the Church major destroyers of books and learning, became voracious dacoits in the recent past – without as much as by your say so. Roman usurpers (of the Balkan Empire) were glamorized – to the point of becoming stars in the glam rock show of Anglo-French-German history.
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3 That Changed History – The Amarna Letters
A Thousand Miles up the Nile
A hundred and twenty years ago, in 1887 AD, a peasant woman of Tell el-Amarna, now a small village on the Nile and midway between Cairo and Luxor, was digging for sebakh (a form of natural, domestic fertiliser). Instead, what she came up with were 380 clay tablets from beneath the floor of a ruined mudbrick house. These were the “Amarna” letters – a treasure trove of clay tablets. These clay tablets, that survived, are now divided between the British Museum, the Berlin Museum, and Cairo Museum.
What were these letters
These were later identified as part of Tutankhamen’s lost “The Place of the Letters of the Pharaoh” or ‘Pharoah’s House of Correspondence’. These letters were from notables of the Levant or Pharaoh’s record copies of replies – including letters to both Akhenaten and his Queen Nefertiti. These letters were seemingly “lost” when Amarna was abandoned early in the reign of Tutankhamun. What these clay tablet letters showed was a significant Indo Aryan connection.
Enter The Mittanis
One series are letters written by a Mittani king named Tushratta (meaning ” of splendid chariots”, similar to Dashratha meaning ” of ten chariots”) writes to his son-in-law, Amenhotep III, the king of Egypt ( the letter reads much like an Indian father-in-law’s letter will). Amenhotep married Tadukhepa, Tushratta’s daughter.
In these letters Tushrutta reminds Amenhotep, how his father, Thutmose IV had sought marriage seven times, with Tushrutta’s daughter, before this marriage to, Tadukhipa, was agreed upon. Similarly, in order to marry Hattusil II’s daughter, the Amorite King Putakhi agreed, in the treaty of alliance for a specific clause “to the effect that the sovereignty over the Amorite should belong to the son and descendants of his daughter for evermore”.
What is it, about these Indic princesses, that made them so sought after?
Tushrutta’s (was an Indo-Aryan king) ‘grandson’ (son of his son-in-law) became Akhenathen (ऐकःनाथें, 1352-1336 B.C) – who formed a new monotheistic religion (apart from Sanskrit, in current Hindi also, one God is एकनाथ). He was one of the first few kings who differentiated between his kingliness and the Godliness of Aten (The One). His chief wife was Nefertiti – who was given an important position – much against the male centred kingdoms and religions that were to follow. He founded the city of Akhetaten (The Horizon of the Aten), at the modern Amarna – where these tablets were found. His mother was Tiye. And the name of their eldest daughter – Sita (full name Sita-amen; amen after the Sun god Amen Ra).
Akhenathen died in his seventeenth year on the throne and his reforms did not survive for much longer. His co-regent and successor Smenkhare, died after a short reign and power passed to the boy king, Tutankhamun (originally Tutankhaten).
Tutankhamen – The Boy King
During his reign the city of Akhetaten (modern Amarna) was abandoned and Amun and the other gods were reinstated. In Western terms, the “Atenist heresy” was overturned, Akhenaten´s image and names were chiseled from his monuments and his sun temples were dismantled. Modern Amarna, till then a glorious city, crumbled back into the desert and his name (and that of his two immediate successors) was left out of the Kings lists produced shortly after.
After Tutankhamen
Akhenathen’s successor for a short while was Tutankhamen (yes, of the Howard Carter fame). Tutankhamen was Akhenathen son (not by Nefertiti) by Kiya (possibly the mother of Smenkhare and Tutankhamun).
Tutankhamen (1336-1327 BC) ruled for a short while, and there are numerous theories swirling regarding his death. His widow, Queen Ankhesenamen, was widowed at an early age. The Kingdom was adrift. Akhenathen had cut away the rulers from the powerful nobles and priests with his new religion. And the Queen Ankhesenamen, sent an emissary to another Indo Aryan kingdom in that area.
And that is another story. And another nail in the old history coffin.
Tutankhamen’s dynasty (18th dynasty) was succeeded by Ramesses of the 19th dynasty. Ramesses name can also be transcribed as RaMeSein. We also know that Sin was the Assyrian moon goddess, popular in that area, hence Ramesses actually will be translated to Ramachandra in Sanskrit!
Who were the Mittanis
Were some Egyptian dynasties possibly related to the various Indian ‘chandravanshis’ ruler families?
The Mittanis, one of the at least three Indo Aryan groups (the other two were the Hittites and Elamites) were major players in West Asia sphere. The Mitanni worshiped Vedic gods, were connected by marriage across several generations to the Egyptian 18th dynasty – the most prominent dynasty during whose rule Egyptian power, prosperity and culture peaked – and to which Akhenaten belonged.
The first Mitanni king was Sutarna I (Sanskrit meaning “good sun”). Mitanni kings were named (who followed Sutarna-I) Paratarna I (Sanskritic meaning “great sun”), Parashukshatra (the Egyptian Parashurama, “ruler with axe”), Saukshatra (“son of Sukshatra, the good ruler”), Artatama or Ritadhama (“abiding in cosmic law”), Tushratta, (Dasharatha), and finally Matiwazza (Mativaja, “whose wealth is prayer”) during whose lifetime the Mitanni state was subordinated to Assyria.
The daughter of King Artatama was married to Tuthmose IV, Akhenaten’s grandfather, and the daughter of Sutarna II (Gilukhipa, – “khipa” of these names is the Sanskrit “kshipa,” night) was married to his father, Amenhotep III (1390-1352 BC), the great temple builder (alike the focus on temple construction in South East Asia 1000 years later).
In his old age, Amenhotep wrote to Dasharatha many (7 requests are documented and evidenced) times wishing to marry his daughter, Tadukhipa. It appears that by the time she arrived Amenhotep III was dead. Tadukhipa married the new king Akhenaten and she became famous as the queen Kiya (short for Khipa).
Other Linkages
There was a Sun Temple at Karnak in Egypt – and there is a sun temple at Konark in Orissa even today. There are many Pharaohs named Sheshonk /Sheshenq under various dynasties. Shashank शशांक (meaning moon) is common name in India even today – which ties in with the many names that Pharoahs took . This name also is also similar to Sheshnag, शेषनाग, the infinite serpent on whom Vishnu rests – and Egyptians revered snakes.
Apart from these archaeological finds, there is huge supporting body of philological and linguistic evidence (based on which most modern historical theories have been postulated) which point to significant presence and influence in the Middle East – between Turkey to Syria and Iran; right upto the borders of modern sub-continental India.
The Loyal Black Rat
Who is a witness to these path breaking adventures and long, lonely journeys across Asia, by these interpid Indians?
The Black Rat (Rattus rattus).
As per a new report by an Australian researcher, the Indian rat migration began 20,000 years – a corollary of human travel, and not natural migration. The route of this spread is through the Middle East – and later to Europe.
Speculatively speaking
When enterprising Indian traders set out from India and slowly spread across the Middle East to Turkey – spreading their languages, religion and social systems, travelling in caravans of bullock-carts. And ships of the fabled land of Ophir, from South India, known as Oviyarnadu, came to West Asia, carrying ivory, peacocks, monkeys, sandalwood (says the Bible).
These loyal rats travelled with the interpid Indian traders, on their ships and bullock carts, is how I think these rats spread. This is yet another part of the jigsaw – in which the Amarna letters, the Boghazkoi tablets and the DNA sampling of Indians (and Indian rats) disprove the AMT /AIT theory. These incidents point to another version of history.
History Re-write
Ancient history as we know it today is at the cusp of a major re-writing, Three independent developments, in the last 100 years completely invalidate existing versions of history – and will clear the way for a major re-write.
Current (euro-centric) history basically starts from: –
- Sumeria and Babylon (current day Syria, Iraq) where the world’s first civilisations were born.
- From there the action moved to Egypt. The Rise of the Egyptian civilisation thereafter.
- Meanwhile, Aryans from Siberia and Central Asia came to Iran and split in two directions. One came to India, defeated the Dravidians, set up the Vedic civilisation. Indians did not count much for much. (After all, they were not interested in massacres, killings, loot, plunder, persecution).
- The other branch went to Europe. Greece and Rome were the other Aryan civilisations. The Greeks and Romans learnt a few things from the Egyptians – but were generally great people and the rest is history.
- The Chinese civilisation started in 1000 BC and were also great guys.
- But the best were the Greeks and Romans – and modern Europe is the successor of Rome and Greece.
- Red Indians, Africans also have some history – but generally nothing much about these guys.
Some parts of this history are false. New history based more on archaeology and modern science is definitely getting re-written – especially about India, Middle East and Europe.
The first major re-write happened quietly. In this post, I will lay out the first major re-write.
Indian Gold Reserves – No Loot, Without Luck and No Slaves

Indo-Parthians send back Crassus - with molten gold down his throat
“Get gold, humanely if possible, but at all hazards, get gold.” (1511, King Ferdinand of Spain to his conquistadors).
The root of war
Gold is the root of war. That is gold in the hands of kings, generals and rulers.
The rise of nations and successful conquests have a history of either looting gold or hitting a gold mine. India, with the largest reserves of gold in the world, is the only exception. National Governments (like the US), have used gold looted from their own citizens (and others) to deprive other peoples of the world of gold – and wage war.
Any new financial architecture must work to disperse gold holdings among the citizens of the world – and dilute the ability of nations to wage war!
Alexander
Alexander’s campaign started with the gold reserves that his father had built from the mining operations at Mount Pangeus. The Macedonians were the first in the Hellenistic world to keep standing army – a luxury and big expense, in Greece at that time. (His first sexual experience was with a slave girl from these mines, Leptine from the slave camps of Mount Pangaion also written as Mount Pangaeus).
In 357 BC, Alexander’s father conquered Amphipolis in Thrace, an Athenian colony – and that gave him possession of the Mount Pangaeus gold mines. Gold from theses mines financed Phillip’s wars. (356 BC – captured Potidea in Chalcidice, Pydna on the Thermaic Gulf; 355 BC Crenides, a Thracian town (later re-named Philippi). 354 BC – Methone, advanced into Thessaly. 348 BC – Completed the annexation of Chalcidice, including Olynthus). His politics and financial muscle got him (346 BC) a seat in the Delphic council, a prestigious position in Greece.
Alexander set off on his campaign with this hoard of gold – and King Phillip’s standing army. The Persian conquest further added to his gold hoard.
Roman Empire
The Roman empire was similarly funded by gold mining and loot. Julius Caesar’s European conquests were funded by Gaellic loot. The Punic Wars with Carthage were fought over Spanish Gold. Roman conquest and love affair with Egypt was motivated by grain and Nubian gold. One of the first actions that Romans took in Wales, Britain was to build an gold ore refining system. Gold mined in Britain went to Roman coffers.
Charlemagne of France – The First Christian Emperor
Carolus Magnus, Karel de Grote, Karl der Grosse, Carlomagno, Charles the Great – or more commonly known as Charlemagne (ruled between 768-814) waged war for 30 years, spread over more than 50 battles. Charlemagne’s conquests were funded by the Saxony mines, the Haartz mountains, etc. His victory over Avars, (modern Hungary) gave him treasures which needed 15 carts, pulled by grey steppe oxen for transport.
Egypt
King Tushrutta (an Indic King) wrote to the Egyptian king in the Amarna letters about gold in Egypt – which came from Nubia. The Egyptian civilisation was funded by Nubian gold.
African Gold In The Middle Ages
From 10th AD, African north east, current Tanzania was the gateway for Zimbabwe gold. Shirazi Arabs (actually Persians) controlled gold trade. A 100-room palace with a gold mint ran this trade out of Africa.
European Renaissance
Europe’s Renaissance was funded with the loot from the (Red) ‘Indian’ gold, later the (Brown) Indian gold and lastly by the discoveries in California. In the twentieth century it was the South African, Australian and Canadian gold which funded the expansion of Europe.
Japan
The Sado mines, made Japan the 2nd largest producer of gold in the 16th-17th century – which funded the rise of Japan. Using prison slave labour, the gold output from Sado mines allowed Japan to make the necessary investments.
China and Mongolia
Have been traditional producers and exporters of gold.

Cecil Rhodes - the man behind colonization and enslavement of Rhodesia and South Africa (Photo - The New York Times).
South African Gold
The 20th Century was about mineral riches of South Africa – gold, diamonds. Cecil Rhodes set up, at the end of the 19th century, an entire colonial system for exploitation of South African minerals for the benefit of the British Empire.
Using forced African labour, British rulers and the subsequent Afrikaans created the system of apartheid to exploit these mines.
Spain & Portugal
Eldorado – South American continent was a large producer for gold and silver for 400 years. The Spanish king was clear with conquistadors – Get gold. Nearly the entire native Indian population was exterminated by massacres, slavery and (deliberate spread) of disease. After the native population was exterminated, slaves from Africa were imported to work mines and plantations.
Russia
Ekaterinburg gold mines were discovered in 1744. Since then Russia has been one of the major gold producers in the world.
America And The Great Depression
Roosevelt gave a New Deal to the Americans. He took away all their gold. WW2 followed soon thereafter. The British loot from Canada, Australia, South Africa – and India, gave the world, numerous wars and brought humanity “under the heel by means that will not bear scrutiny.”
It is these very same Gold reserves which gave birth to the Bretton Woods – and we know what happened after that!
Indian Gold Reserves
India had minor gold deposits in Karnataka (The Kolar Gold Fields).
India’s gold reserves through history has been built up by trade, commerce, technology, inventions. Not by loot, plunder or a stroke of luck. While nations and conquerors fell by the wayside, the Indian nation has survived and progressed.
The Rise & ”Fall” Of The British Empire
The rise of the British Empire was funded by slavery and gold exploitation from Australia, Canada, America and South Africa. In a short span of 50 years, after losing WW2 and the Indian colonies, British Empire, the greatest the world had known, nearly became a third world country by 1980.
A ramp up in North Sea Oil kept a “shell” of Britain at the edge of the developed world. There is no British Steel today. The coal industry is dead. There is no car industry worth its name. Britain and electronics are unknown to each other. British shipping is piece of history. British Engineering is a rarity.
But even today, the Anglo Saxon Bloc (of countries, colonies, companies) control 80% of world gold production. This gives the freedom to print money, flood the world with depreciating currency and buy limited resources. Over consume, over spend over pollute – and over-defraud.
Extant Indian society
Three elements of the Indian economic system were unique till the 19th century – property ownership by the commoners, widespread ownership of gold and absence of slavery (defined as capture, trade and forced labour by humans – without compensation).
The Indian social structure in pre-Alexandrian Indian had widespread gold and property ownership. With complete absence of slavery, wages could also rise above subsistence levels. This restricted the wealth of Indian rulers – and thus impressive monuments, buildings and palaces are rare or non-existent in pre-medieval India.
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