THE STORY OF

THE GORDIAN KNOT

At one time the Phrygians were without a legitimate king. An oracle at Telmissus (the ancient capital of Phrygia) decreed that the next man to enter the city driving an ox-cart should become their king. This man was a poor peasant, Ahmidasson of Gordias, who drove his parents into town on his father's ox-cart. He was declared king by the priests. This had been predicted in a second way by a sign of the gods: before Ahmidas' birth, an eagle had once landed on that ox-cart. In gratitude, he dedicated the ox-cart to the Phrygian god Sabazios(whom the Greeks identified with Zeus) and either tied it to a post or tied its shaft with an intricate knot of cornel(Cornus mas) bark. An oracle further prophesied that the one to untie the knot would become the king of Asia.

The ox-cart, often depicted as a chariot, was an emblem of power and constant military readiness. It still stood in the palace of the former kings of Phrygia at Gordion in the fourth century BC when Alexander arrived, at which point Phrygia had been reduced to a satrapy, or province, of the Persian Empire.

In 333 BC, wintering at Gordion, Alexander attempted to untie the knot. When he could find no end to the knot, to unbind it, he sliced it in half with a stroke of his sword, producing the required ends (the so-called "Alexandrian solution", taken by the Hellenic Army IV Army Corps as their motto). Plutarch disputes this, relating that according to Aristobulus, Alexander pulled the knot out of its pole pin rather than cutting it. Either way, Alexander did go on to conquer Asia, fulfilling the prophecy.