"The ancient wedding ceremony was simple: a loaf of bread was split with a sword and given to the bride and bridegroom to taste it (until now the ceremony of 'splitting the flat bread' as a sign of engagement is used in some families in the Orient). But the wedding party was arranged with grandeur peculiar to kings especially since on that very day along with Alexander ten thousand warriors from his army also got married to the local girls. Until then mounted troops hired by Alexander from amongst the Parthians, Sogdians, Bactrians and other Central Asian nations acted as independent military units. Such mass weddings between the local and Hellenic people enabled these units to join the Graeco-Macedonian army on equal terms. Moreover, eminent Sogdian citizens, among them Roxana's brother and the sons of other satraps, formed the privileged units - agema.
Introducing such a policy Alexander reckoned for certain results. He realized that by the sword one could create a huge empire but 'sword' was not enough to keep it from disintegration. He wanted as far as possible to mix all tribes and nations subjected to him in order to create the common eastern nation."
Book Talk
Naagin 7
Cricket
