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Alexander the Great

Alexander the Great ({{lang-el|Ἀλέξανδρος ὁ Μέγας} or Μέγας Ἀλέξανδρος, Mégas Aléxandros; July 20, 356 BC June 10 or June 11, 323 BC), also known as Alexander III of Macedon (Ἀλέξανδρος Γ' ὁ Μακεδών) was an ancient Greek king (basileus) of Macedon (336–323 BC). He was one of the most successful military commanders of all time and is presumed undefeated in battle. By the time of his death, he had conquered most of the world known to the ancient Greeks.

Alexander assumed the kingship of Macedon following the death of his father Philip II, who had unified most of the city-states of mainland Greece under Macedonian hegemony in a federation called the League of Corinth. After reconfirming Macedonian rule by quashing a rebellion of southern Greek city-states and staging a short but bloody excursion against Macedon's northern neighbours, Alexander set out east against the Achaemenid Persian Empire, which he defeated and overthrew. His conquests included Anatolia, Syria, Phoenicia, Judea, Gaza, Egypt, Bactria and Mesopotamia, and he extended the boundaries of his own empire as far as Punjab, India.



Alexander died after twelve years of constant military campaigning, possibly a result of malaria, poisoning, typhoid fever, viral encephalitis or the consequences of alcoholism. His legacy and conquests lived on long after him and ushered in centuries of Greek settlement and cultural influence over distant areas. This period is known as the Hellenistic period, which featured a combination of Greek, Middle Eastern and Indian culture. Alexander himself featured prominently in the history and myth of both Greek and non-Greek cultures. His exploits inspired a literary tradition in which he appeared as a legendary hero in the tradition of Achilles.

Early life

Born in Pella, the capital of Macedon, Alexander was the son of King Philip II of Macedon and his fourth wife Olympias, an Epirote princess. On his mother's side, he was a second cousin of Pyrrhus of Epirus, who himself would become a celebrated general. There are, then, notable examples of military genius on both sides of the family.

According to Plutarch, Alexander's father was descended from Heracles through Caranus of Macedon and his mother from Aeacus through Neoptolemus and Achilles. Plutarch relates that both Philip and Olympias dreamt of their son's impending birth: she claimed to have seen thunderbolts portending of Zeus; he, on the other hand, dreamed of sealing her womb with the seal of the lion. Alarmed on waking, Philip consulted the seer Aristander of Telmessos, and learnt that his wife was pregnant and that the child would have the character of a lion. Another odd coincidence (probably vamped by expedient Greek historians, ever sensitive to coincidence) is that Herostratus burnt down the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus on the night of his birth. Hegesias joked that this was only to be expected, as Artemis, the goddess of childbirth, was too busy attending Alexander's nativity to save her temple.

According to five historians of antiquity (Arrian, Curtius, Diodorus, Justin and Plutarch), after his visit to the Oracle of Amun (a deity adopted from Egyptian religion) at Siwa, rumours spread that the Oracle had revealed Alexander's father to be Zeus. The legends of his divinity are manifold: Aristoxenus, for example, claimed that, unlike most in those pre-deodorant times, Alexander was ever a delight to the olfactory senses. This was taken to be a sign of his superhuman nature.

Philip was away in Potidaea (which he had just seized) when Alexander was born. The king was thus brought three pleasant messages on the very same day — the first of Parmenion's great triumph over the Illyrians, the second of his racehorse's win at the Olympics and the third of the birth of his son. He was naturally overcome, especially after the prophets' assurance that a man whose birth coincided with three victories would prove himself invincible.

In his early years, Alexander was raised by his nurse, Lanike, who was Cleitus's older sister. He was later educated by a strict teacher, Leonidas, himself a relative of Olympias. Leonidas's frugal ways come down to us through extant record: reportedly, when Alexander threw a large amount of sacrificial incense into a fire, Leonidas reprimanded him, saying that he could waste as much incense as he wished once he had conquered the spice-bearing regions. It was Aristotle, though, who gave Alexander his most famous and important tutoring. The philosopher from Stageira was the foremost thinker of the period. A student of Plato, who in turn had been a student of Socrates, he now extended the illustrious chain by taking on Alexander as a student of his own.

Aristotle trained the youth in rhetoric and literature, and stimulated his interest in science, medicine and especially philosophy, which formed the greater part of his lessons. These took place outdoors in relaxed informality, probably after the manner of Socrates, but with more ordered and scholarly content. Aristotle's influence played a considerable role in forging Alexander's renowned bibliophilia. His gift to his student, a copy of the Iliad, came to be one of the young king's most-prized possessions and was always kept, along with a dagger, under his pillow. The text, annotated by Aristotle, came to be known as the "casket copy", so called because it was so large as to be kept in a casket. Quite how practical (and, indeed, possible) it was for Alexander to sleep with it beneath his pillow is a contentious matter.

When Alexander was ten years old, Philoneicus of Thessaly, which adjoined Macedon to the south and renowned for its horsemanship, brought to sell to Philip a specimen of such quality that it was labelled a prodigy. As it turned out, however, the horse was so wild that no man could mount it. Young Alexander, recognising its shadow as the source of its fear, went over and turned it towards the sun. At this it calmed down, and the young man easily mounted and rode it. His father and the others who saw this (having moments before been in turns sceptical, derisive and concerned for his safety) were most impressed. Philip, overjoyed at this display of courage, intellect and ambition, kissed him tearfully: "My boy, you must find a kingdom big enough for your ambitions. Macedonia is too small for you." In accordance with a pre-arranged bet, Alexander was allowed to keep the horse. Its name was Bucephalus, meaning "ox-headed" — but it is also a possible reference to the brand that denoted its origin. Bucephalus would be Alexander's companion throughout his journeys and was truly loved: when he died (due to old age, according to Plutarch, for he was already thirty), Alexander named a city after him called Bucephala. It would not be a ridiculous flight of fancy to say that the horse was the closest friend Alexander ever had.

On another occasion, when Persian ambassadors arrived in Macedon and Philip was not there to receive them, Alexander did the honours and fairly won them over by his mature, friendly and natural manner. According to Plutarch, they came away convinced that the father's renowned perspicacity had nothing on the ambition and hardihood of the son.

While his peers celebrated Philip's victories, Alexander always felt a brooding impatience. "Boys," he declared, "my father will forestall me in everything. There will be nothing great or spectacular for you and me to show the world." Desirous less of luxury and wealth than of excellence and glory, he knew that the more he inherited from his father the less he would have to take for himself. Philip's successes, he felt, were opportunities wasted on an inferior.

Ascent of Macedon

In 340 BC, Philip led an attack on Byzantium, leaving Alexander, now sixteen, to act as regent of Macedon. Shortly after, in 339 BC, Philip took a fifth wife, Cleopatra Eurydice. While Alexander's mother was from Epirus, Cleopatra was a true Macedonian, leading to political machinations over whether or not Alexander was the rightful heir to the Argead throne. During the wedding feast, Attalus, uncle of the bride, gave a toast for the marriage to result in a "legitimate" heir to the throne. Alexander, furious, hurled his goblet at the speaker, shouting, "What am I? A bastard, then?" Phillip drew his sword and moved towards his son but fell in a bibulous stupor over the drinking couches. "Here," declared Alexander, "is the man planning on conquering from Greece to Asia, and he cannot even move from one table to another." Following the episode, Alexander and his mother left Macedon, but his sister, also named Cleopatra, remained.

Philip and Alexander eventually reconciled: the son returned home, but Olympias remained in Epirus. In 338 BC, Alexander fought under his father at the decisive Battle of Chaeronea against the mainland city-states of Athens and Thebes. Phillip entrusted Alexander with the left wing of his army, which entailed facing the Sacred Band of Thebes, an elite hoplite corps thitherto thought invincible. Although few details of the battle survive, what is known is that Alexander annihilated the Band; according to legend, indeed, he was the first to charge it.

After the battle, Philip led a wild celebration, but his son is notably absent from accounts describing it. It has been speculated that he personally treated Demades, a notable orator of Athens, who had opposed Athenian alignment against Philip. He went on to draw up and present a peace plan, which the assembled Athenian army voted on and approved. Philip was content to deprive Thebes of its dominion over Boeotia and leave a Macedonian garrison in the citadel. A few months later, the League of Corinth was formed and Philip acclaimed Hegemon of the Hellenes.

In 336 BC, Philip was assassinated at the wedding of his daughter Cleopatra to her uncle King Alexander of Epirus. Theories abound regarding the motives for the killing, but a common story presents the assassin as a disgraced former lover of the king—the young nobleman Pausanias of Orestis, who held a grudge against Philip because the king had ignored his grievances regarding an outrage on his person.

Others thought (and many still think) that Philip's murder was planned with the knowledge and involvement of Alexander, Olympias or both. Still more theories point to Darius III, the recently-crowned King of Persia. Regardless, the army proclaimed Alexander, then twenty, the new king of Macedon.

Greek cities like Athens and Thebes, which had been forced to pledge allegiance to Philip, saw in the relatively untested new king an opportunity to regain full independence. Alexander moved swiftly, however, and Thebes, which was most active against him, submitted immediately he appeared at its gates. The assembled Greeks at the Isthmus of Corinth, with the exception of the Spartans, elected him commander against Persia, a title previously bestowed upon his father.

The following year (335 BC), Alexander felt free to engage the Thracians and Illyrians in order to secure the Danube as the northern boundary of the Macedonian kingdom. While he was triumphantly campaigning north, the Thebans and Athenians rebelled once more. Alexander reacted immediately, but, while the other cities once again hesitated, Thebes decided to resist with the utmost vigour. The resistance was useless, however, as the city was razed to the ground amid great bloodshed and its territory divided between the other Boeotian cities. Moreover, the Thebans themselves were sold into slavery. Alexander spared only priests, leaders of the pro-Macedonian party and descendants of Pindar, whose house was the only one left standing.


Period of conquests

Fall of the Achaemenid Persian Empire



During 332–331 BC, Alexander was welcomed as a liberator in Persian-occupied Egypt and was pronounced the son of Zeus by Egyptian priests of the deity Amun at the Oracle of Siwa Oasis in the Libyan desert. Henceforth, Alexander often referred to Zeus-Ammon as his true father, and subsequent currency depicted him, adorned with ram horns as a symbol of his divinity. He founded Alexandria in Egypt, which would become the prosperous capital of the Ptolemaic dynasty after his death.



Alexander then set off in pursuit of Darius anew. The Persian king was no longer in control of his destiny, having been taken prisoner by Bessus, his Bactrian satrap and kinsman. As Alexander approached, Bessus had his men murder the Great King and then declared himself Darius' successor as Artaxerxes V before retreating into Central Asia to launch a guerrilla campaign against Alexander. With the death of Darius, Alexander declared the war of vengeance over, and released his Greek and other allies from service in the League campaign (although he allowed those that wished to re-enlist as mercenaries in his army).




Invasion of India





Sisikottos, who had helped Alexander in this campaign, was made the governor of Aornos. After reducing Aornos, Alexander crossed the Indus and fought and won an epic battle against a local ruler Porus (original Indian name Raja Puru), who ruled a region in the Punjab, in the Battle of Hydaspes in 326 BC.


East of Porus' kingdom, near the Ganges River (original Indian name Ganga), was the powerful empire of Magadha ruled by the Nanda dynasty. Fearing the prospects of facing another powerful Indian army and exhausted by years of campaigning, his army mutinied at the Hyphasis River (the modern Beas River) refusing to march further east. This river thus marks the easternmost extent of Alexander's conquests:



After India




After traveling to Ecbatana to retrieve the bulk of the Persian treasure, his closest friend and possibly lover Hephaestion died of an illness, or possibly of poisoning. Alexander mourned Hephaestion for six months.


On the afternoon of June 11, 323 BC, Alexander died in the palace of Nebuchadrezzar II of Babylon. He was just one month short of attaining 33 years of age. Various theories have been proposed for the cause of his death which include poisoning by the sons of Antipater or others, sickness that followed a drinking party, or a relapse of the malaria he had contracted in 336 BC.














The so-called "Alexander Sarcophagus," discovered near Sidon and now in the Istanbul Archaeology Museum, is now generally thought to be that of Abdylonymus, whom Hephaestion had appointed as the king of Sidon by Alexander's order. The sarcophagus depicts Alexander and his companions hunting and in battle with the Persians.



  • The completion of a pyre to Hephaestion

Personal life


Alexander married two women: Roxana, daughter of a Bactrian nobleman, Oxyartes, and Stateira, a Persian princess and daughter of Darius III of Persia. There is also an accepted tradition of a third wife- Parysatis whom he is supposed to have married in Persia though nothing is known about her. Another personage from the court of Darius III with whom he was intimate was the male eunuch Bagoas. His son by Roxana, Alexander IV of Macedon, was killed after the death of his father, before he reached adulthood.


Legacy and division of the empire




By 270 BC, the Hellenistic states were consolidated, with

*The Antigonid Empire in Greece;
*The Seleucid Empire in Mesopotamia and Persia;
*The Ptolemaic Kingdom in Egypt, Palestine and Cyrenaica

By the 1st century BC though, most of the Hellenistic territories in the West had been absorbed by the Roman Republic. In the East, they had been dramatically reduced by the expansion of the Parthian Empire. The territories further east seceded to form the Greco-Bactrian kingdom (250-140 BC), which further expanded into India to form the Indo-Greek kingdom (180 BC-10 AD).




Influence on Ancient Rome





Modern opinion on Alexander has run the gamut, from the notion that he believed that he was on a divinely-inspired mission to unite the human race to the view that he was a megalomaniac bent on world domination. Such views tend to be anachronistic, and sources allow for a variety of interpretations. Much about Alexander's personality and aims remains enigmatic: there were no disinterested commentators in his own time or soon afterwards, so all accounts ought to be read with scepticism.




Partially in response to the ubiquity of positive portrayals of Alexander, an alternate character is sometimes presented which emphasises some of Alexander's negative aspects. Some proponents of this view cite the destructions of Thebes, Tyre, Persepolis and Gaza as atrocities, arguing that Alexander preferred fighting to negotiating. It is further claimed, in response to the view that he was generally tolerant of the cultures of the people whom he conquered, that his attempts at cultural fusion were strictly practical and that he never genuinely admired Persian art or culture. To this school of thought, Alexander was more a general than a statesman.


Greek and Latin sources











In the Bible



In the Qur'an

Alexander the Great sometimes is identified in Persian and Arabic traditions as Dhul-Qarnayn, Arabic for the "Two-Horned One", possibly a reference to the appearance of a horn-headed figure that appears on coins minted during his rule and later imitated in ancient Middle Eastern coinage. Accounts of Dhul-Qarnayn appear in the Qur'an, and so may refer to Alexander.


Some Muslim scholars disagree that Alexander was Dhul-Qarnayn. There are actually some theories that Dhul-Qarnayn was a Persian King with a vast Empire as well, possibly King Cyrus the Great. The reason being is Dhul-Qarnayn is described in the Holy Quran as a monotheist believer who worshipped Allah (God). This, it is claimed, removes Alexander as a candidate for Dhul-Qarnayn as Alexander was a polytheist. Yet contemporaneous Persian nobles would have practiced Zurvanism, thus disqualifying them on the same basis.

In the Shahnameh



Alexander is also known in the Zoroastrian Middle Persian work Arda Wiraz Nāmag as "Alexander the accursed", in the Persian language Guzastag, due to his conquest of the Persian Empire and the destruction of its capital Persepolis. He is also known as Eskandar-e Maqduni (Alexander of Macedonia") in Persian, al-Iskandar al-Makduni al-Yunani ("Alexander the Macedonian, of Greece") in Arabic, אלכסנדר מוקדון, Alexander Mokdon in Hebrew, and Tre-Qarnayia in Aramaic (the two-horned one, apparently due to an image on coins minted during his rule that seemingly depicted him with the two ram's horns of the Egyptian god Ammon), الاسكندر الاكبر, al-Iskandar al-Akbar ("Alexander the Great") in Arabic, سکندر اعظم, Sikandar-e-azam in Urdu and Skandar in Pashto. Sikandar, his name in Urdu and Hindi, is also a term used as a synonym for "expert" or "extremely skilled".

In ancient and modern culture

Around seventy towns or outposts are claimed to have been founded by Alexander. Diodorus Siculus credits Alexander with planning cities on a grid plan.




Further reading

  • Alexander the Great in Fact and Fiction, edited by A.B. Bosworth, E.J. Baynham. New York: Oxford University Press (USA), 2002 (Paperback, ISBN 0-19-925275-0).
  • Baynham, Elizabeth. Alexander the Great: The Unique History of Quintus Curtius. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1998 (hardcover, ISBN 0-472-10858-1); 2004 (paperback, ISBN 0-472-03081-7).
  • Brill's Companion to Alexander the Great by Joseph Roisman (editor). Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers, 2003.
  • Cartledge, Paul. Alexander the Great: The Hunt for a New Past. Woodstock, NY; New York: The Overlook Press, 2004 (hardcover, ISBN 1-58567-565-2); London: PanMacmillan, 2004 (hardcover, ISBN 1-4050-3292-8); New York: Vintage, 2005 (paperback, ISBN 1-4000-7919-5).
  • Dahmen, Karsten. The Legend of Alexander the Great on Greek and Roman Coins. Oxford: Routledge, 2006 (hardcover, ISBN 0-415-39451-1; paperback, ISBN 0-415-39452-X).
  • De Santis, Marc G. “At The Crossroads of Conquest.” Military Heritage, December 2001. Volume 3, No. 3: 46–55, 97 (Alexander the Great, his military, his strategy at the Battle of Gaugamela and his defeat of Darius making Alexander the King of Kings).
  • Fuller, J.F. C; A Military History of the Western World: From the earliest times to the Battle of Lepanto; New York: Da Capo Press, Inc., 1987 and 1988. ISBN 0-306-80304-6
  • Gergel, Tania Editor Alexander the Great (2004) published by the Penguin Group, London ISBN 0-14-200140-6 Brief collection of ancient accounts translated into English
  • Larsen, Jakob A. O. "Alexander at the Oracle of Ammon", Classical Philology, Vol. 27, No. 1. (Jan., 1932), pp. 70–75.
  • Lonsdale, David. Alexander the Great, Killer of Men: History's Greatest Conqueror and the Macedonian Way of War, New York, Carroll & Graf, 2004, ISBN 0786714298
  • Pearson, Lionel Ignacius Cusack. The Lost Histories of Alexander the Great. Chicago Ridge, IL: Ares Publishers, 2004 (paperback, ISBN 0-89005-590-4).
  • Thomas, Carol G. Alexander the Great in his World (Blackwell Ancient Lives). Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2006 (hardcover, ISBN 0631232451; paperback, ISBN 063123246X).

Non-Greek/Latin perspectives

  • A. Shapur Shahbazi, "Iranians and Alexander", American Journal of Ancient History n.s. 2 (2003), 5–38: the Persian side of the story.
  • R.J. van der Spek, "Darius III, Alexander the Great and Babylonian scholarship" in: Achaemenid History 13 (2003), 289–346: an overview of several Babylonian sources
  • Two chapters of Jona Lendering's Dutch book Alexander de Grote, which uses the cuneiform sources, are available in translation. In this chapter, he argues that at Gaugamela, Alexander attacked a Persian army that was looking for an excuse to run away; and in this chapter, he offers a Babylonian perspective on Alexander's final days.

External links

Primary Sources



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