Gordian Knot And How Alexander The Great Managed To Outmaneuver The Problem

A. Sutherland – AncientPages.com – The Gordian Knot is a metaphorical expression that means a complicated problem or deadlock when we have an unsolvable problem, which is our “impossible knot”.

It has its beginnings long time ago, when the Phrygians had no ruler and they plunged into a civil war, an ancient prophecy of the oracle was announced at Telmissus (the ancient capital of Lycia).

Alexander the Great slicing the Gordion knot with a sword-stroke.

It said that the new king would be the one who would enter the city in a simple ox-cart.

The first through the gates of the city was Gordias, a poor peasant who with his wife came to the city with a cart drawn by an ox. Gordias was declared king and his grateful son, Midas dedicated the ox-cart to the Phrygian god Sabazios (identified with Zeus). He tied its yoke to a post with an extremely sophisticated knot called the Gordian Knot.

The knot was later described by Roman historian Quintus Curtius Rufus as a masterwork. It comprised of “several knots all so tightly entangled that it was impossible to see how they were fastened.”

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