Alexander the Great

I'm aware of the loans that Greeks and Egyptians had from Mesopotamia and between them. For example look at the "Kouros" and "Kore" type of statues. Their origin is disntingtly Egyptian. Imobile, rough figures always with the hands glued to the side and one foot projecting infrond of the other. That was the Egyptian style for milleniums and was brought over to Greece as well. Look at waht has happened to this style within less than a hundered years after it was introduced to Greece. It evolved to one of the best schools of sculpture that ever existed!

Mathematics were also introduced from Mesopotamia and geometry from Egypt where it was usefull to calculate the fields. Look how it evolved by the Greek mathematicians to calculate the perimeter of the Earth almost exactly, the movements of the planets, the distance  between earth and moon etc...

It's no accident that Physics, Biology, Mathematics, Geometry etc are Greek words. It's not because the Greeks have invented them, far from it, it's because they have evolved them almost to modern day standards and they have set the basis on which modern scientific research is based upon.

No, I'm not overlooking other civilization's achievement. I'm just proud about ours (plus I'm not very familiar with other countries achievements so I can't speak of them that often)

These are not universal words people in different part of world use different words to refer to these. These words are used in English and a few other European languages. Today it is more chic to be European than it is to be middle eastern but in reality Greeks were part of and at the western edge of the grater civilization that emerged toward the end of bronze age in the middle east. Greeks later on functioned as the conduit taking the know how of the old world to the western Europeans which later on got ahead of middle Easterns and Mediterraneans. 

Nah, there were a whole lot more Asians than Greeks.  The Greeks had become pretty insignificant, comparatively, in the empire by the time of his death.

You do realize that the theorem is named after the Pythagoreans because they were the first to prove the theorem, not discover it, don't you?

Which is why Xerxes burned down all of the temples in Athens   .  You do misjudge Alexander though.  He had a tendency of ultimately destroying those who resisted him and betrayed him, not that with which he didn't agree.  Persepolis was an odd example, and I can't give any good reason why he burned the city to the ground (unless the story of his drunkenness is true, which it doesn't seem to be).

Touche.  They could always be replaced by Asians, though, in a tight spot.

Good questions... here are some answers.

First of all, Alexandros deployed three types of cavalry (actually it was more than four, but the rest fall under these categories as well).

- Heavy cavalry (hetairoi and some Thessalian segments)

- Medium cavalry (southern Greeks and some Thessalian, Prodromoi cavalry)

- Light cavalry (Paeonian scouts, some southern Greeks, some other allied cavalry)

The equipment was different for every type, except on thing: none of them had stirrups (those were invented a few centuries after Alex's times).

Hetairoi cavalry wore thorax (linen with metal stripes attached, or even full metal - but that was more seldom), helm and carried in battle the renowned xyston spear (about 3 m. long) and as secondary weapon a sword called kopis or cavalry kopis (appearently there was also a infantry version). The tactical use of the hetairoi cavalry and the heavy thessalian cavalry was similar: they would fight anything, anywhere, they would even charge against organized infantry (of the Persian types, of course - charging against hoplite phalanx head on was not expected nor carried out by those marvelous cavalrymen). There is quite a controversy as to how effective they could be without stirrups, couched lance and couched saddle, when charging (like lancers). Well, the accounts we have suggest they have been used as the first actual shock cavalry in history.

The question remains though, how could they deploy shock tactics (charging en masse against cavalry and infantry irregardles) without the gear mentioned? We really don't know. But Alexander's cavalry was not the only one that used similar tactics before the invention of stirrups and couched saddle.

The Thessalian had similar equipment, but lesser cuirasses and might not've carried the kopis sword.

The southern Greeks used varied type of equipment, depending on where they came from.

The Prodromoi did not wear any kind of armor, but carried the cavalry sarissa, a shorter version of the famed extra long (up to 6 meters) pike. The cavalry version could be even four meters long.

The Paeonian and the other light cavalry were equipped with javelins and maybe a short sword and a buckler.

No other cavalry typed deployed by Alex carried any shield.

That's all I can tell you without resorting to my library.

Very good, Romano.  Just a few touchy points though.  The Thessalian cavalry were probably better troops than the Hetairoi, overall.  They developed a hexagon formation to ride in that proved to be extremely effective, though difficult to deploy.  The Thessalians had it perfected and employed it well.  The Hetairoi tended to fight in a wedge.

Fighting without stirrups was extremely difficult.  It was likely that a cavalryman would get unhorsed at some point if he joined the general melee.  Generally, the cavalrymen had to hold onto the horse with both thighs and maybe one hand.  You would not hold on with your calves.  This was because if you didn't just leave the lower portion of your leg dangling then it would likely get broken or cut more easily if you bumped into something or someone hit you.  The Paeonians developed someway of better holding onto the horse with their legs so that they could free up both hands for fighting with their spear.  This was abnormal when compared to the normal one handed, overthrust of other cavalrymen.  It gave them much more power with which to strike.

The Prodromoi were not armed with sarissas.  The sarissaphoroi were, though they were probably considered a subdivison of the prodromoi, can't remember off the top of my head.  The sarissaphoroi seemed to have been a pet division of Alexander's, and their usefulness is debated.  Alexander is often depicted in the dress of a sarissaphoroi, e.g. the famous mosaic of Gaugemela, and it's thought that the sarissaphoroi were considered very dashing to be in, and it was popular to be depicted that way in paintings, much like many people used to like to be portrayed in hussar dress in paintings even though they obviously weren't hussars.

Any other questions and I'll be glad to get back to you .

Him "just wanting to pray" was a pretext for submission. The temple he requested to sacrifice was the one that only Tyrian kings were allowed to. The Tyrians, by allowing him to sacrifice there, would effectively recognize Alexander as their master. It's all politics

But the Tyrians also committed sacrilege, when they slaughtered Greek prisoners and thrown their bodies over the city walls and into the sea. There wasn't any greatest sacrilege in the eyes of the Greeks, because they believed that if the body was not properly burned or buried, it would never find rest in the underworld (killing of prisoners wasn't so important as much as the refusal of burial). After that they really wanted revenge.

so you are related to ancient Macadonia? not the modern Macadonia?

because  as far as i know they are not the same people

I won't reply to that, I'll judge you to be innocent due to complete and utter ignorance on the matter. However, I'd like to let you know that your efforts to provoke arent effective on me.

Zeus and Ra are one and the same thing in Greek mind. The Greeks always made parallelisms between their gods and those of other nations, especially with the Egyptians with whom they had connections for a long time. That is why Alexander went to pay his respects to Ammon. There're temples of Ammon Ra in Greece. In any case, you could have the argument that even if Macedonians and Greeks worshiped the same gods, they were still not related etc...