Personal Branding : Chapter 3; Go For It
I am war, I am fight, I am Indaboski Bahose’ — The Man who preached war
I’m not a man of love, I am a man of war would have been some of the words from the mouth of King Alexander the Great when King Darius offered his daughter and half of his kingdom to him so they could put an end to the constant battles between both kingdoms but King Alexander was having none of that.
He wanted not half but all of the Persian Kingdom. Holding his golden cup, He said to King Darius III
‘There can only be one sun, two ‘Suns’ would cause instability to the world’s order. He then told King Darius to prepare his army for another battle if He was going to save his Mother, wife, and daughters who were already in captivity in Macedonia.
With so much at stake, both men declared to face the greatest battle in King Alexander the Great’s history for the third time in their reigns as Kings. They decided to go for it; one for pride, and total control of the biggest and most powerful kingdoms of the world, while the other for family, ego, and hatred for the Macedonian Empire.
King Darius III gathered the largest army ever recorded in the Hellenistic period numbering between 50,000 — 1,000,000 soldiers armed to teeth for battle in contrast to an army of 47,000 highly skilled and experienced men sworn to serve and die for King Alexander the Great.
It was glaring before many that King Alexander was going to lose the battle, and the defeat would bring an end to one of the most dominant reigns ever seen, but He didn’t care a bit about the odds stacked up against him.
The battleground was set on the terrain of Gaugamela; one large enough to fit in massive numbers of the dead and alive. Alexander had thought to march towards Babylon before receiving words that King Darius III had set his army at Guagamela. Not only did He changed his route, he also changed his approach to the battle.
Alexander gave a thunderous speech to his soldiers, a speech void of fear and full of the word ‘invincible’ He told them they were going to attack first as waiting for their enemy to attack first leaves them with no chance of survival, and in this case, they were only going to concentrate on the soldiers of the Babylonian kingdom alone and not the whole bunch(a coalition of kingdoms) spread on the terrains of Guagamela that stood for Darius III as support.
Alexander and his host advanced toward Darius’s Soldiers skilled in arrows and harpoons positioned on the left flank of the battlefield instead of facing the army as a whole, thus creating confusion in the enemy’s camp.
The allies got confused. Who are we up against? They asked themselves as they saw that no soldiers advanced towards them instead advancement was to the position of King Darius many didn’t like but swore allegiance to for different reasons.
In the midst of this confusion, Darius made a call that was to become his greatest undoing, giving a call to a part of his army to attack further creating an opening for a few thousand of Alexander’s soldiers to gain access to where He was, and as they say in the East ‘ a hole for the devil to creep in introduces chaos and confusion.
Alexander the Great had already positioned a reserve flank guard to distract their enemy’s camp making the opening bigger. Darius was exposed! Staring death in the face, He took to flight, his camp panicked, and the allies broke away in retreat.
This event led to the fall of the Mighty Persian Kingdom, and King Darius would eventually die by one of his provincial governors; one who wasn’t ready to serve a cowardly king.
Alexander the Great stands for you trying to impress your persona on the Internet space. King Darius III and his Persian Army represent your audience; service and product users.
The Terrain of Gaugamela is the internet, and if you narrow it down, we can call it your social media space.
Now let us look at this battle in the light of Personal branding.
To be continued…
