05 Alexander the Great

By the time of his death at the age of just thirty-two, Alexander the Great of Macedon had conquered much of the world then known to the ancient Greeks, from Anatolia, Syria and Egypt in the west through Mesopotamia, Persia and central Asia in the east, even as far as India.

Alexander’s meteoric career, feats of arms, magnanimity to the defeated and restlessly inquiring mind turned him into the overarching hero of antiquity. In the Middle Ages he was held up as one of three great chivalrous “worthies” of the pagan world—alongside Hector, the legendary hero of Troy, and Julius Caesar. Today, Alexander’s innovative military tactics are still studied in military academies around the world.

Alexander’s empire was short-lived, however, and after his death was carved up among his squabbling generals. Although political unity proved fleeting, the cultural impact of Alexander’s empire-building turned out to be much more enduring, and a new Hellenistic era, combining both Greek and native elements, prevailed in the eastern Mediterranean and western Asia until the Arab conquests nearly a thousand years later.

The rise of Macedon The mountainous kingdom of Macedonia or Macedon lay to the north of the Greek heartlands of Thessaly, Aetolia, Boeotia, Attica and the Peloponnese. The Macedonians themselves, although they spoke a Greek dialect, were for long regarded as uncouth and backward outsiders by the other Greeks, partly because they maintained a hereditary monarchy, in contrast to the political systems of the Greek city-states.

The constant warfare between and within the Greek city-states from the later 5th century BC created a weakness that Macedon was able to exploit. In 359 BC Alexander’s father, Philip II, came to the throne, and determined to seize the opportunity offered by the power vacuum to the south. Philip undertook a reorganization of the Macedonian army, adding cavalry and mobile light infantry to the unwieldy hoplite (heavy infantry) formations known as phalanxes, which were used to break the enemy line. Having secured his northern borders, Philip turned his attentions southward, using diplomacy and arms to achieve dominance over the Greek city-states, culminating in his decisive victory at Chaeronea in 338.

Philip’s son Alexander was only eighteen when he commanded the left wing of the Macedonian army at Chaeronea. His father had long seen his potential and his ambition, and had employed the great philosopher Aristotle to be tutor to the young prince and his companions. It was from Aristotle that Alexander acquired his interest in philosophy, medicine and literature, and one of his most treasured possessions was the annotated copy of Homer that Aristotle had given him.

“At my age Alexander was already king over so many peoples, while I have never yet achieved anything really remarkable …”

Julius Caesar, quoted in Plutarch, Life of Caesar,1st–2nd century AD

A decade of conquest Philip was planning a campaign against Greece’s traditional enemy, the Persian empire, when he was assassinated in 336 BC. Alexander lost no time in fulfilling his father’s ambitions. In 334 he led his army of nearly 50,000 veterans across into Asia, and proceeded to win a series of victories against the Persians as he advanced through Anatolia, Syria, Egypt and Mesopotamia. In 331 he faced the Persian king, Darius III, on the vast plain of Gaugamela, north of the River Tigris. Although his army was at least twice the size of Alexander’s, Darius could not match his enemy’s military genius, and as his own formations were outmaneuvered and broken he fled the field. Darius was later murdered by one of his disgruntled generals—much to Alexander’s disgust.

Alexander declared himself Darius’ successor as “king of kings,” and advanced through the Persian provinces of central Asia, such as Parthia and Bactria, increasingly relying on Persian soldiers and administrators, and marrying a Bactrian princess, Roxana. Being so far from home, Alexander recognized the necessity of cooperating with conquered peoples and adopting their customs—such as having himself declared a god—but the Greeks and Macedonians in his army were dismayed by such developments. Although he led them in a successful campaign over the mountains into the valley of the River Indus and the Punjab, in 324 BC his army mutinied and refused to march any further east. Returning westward, Alexander arrived in Babylon, where he began to plan new campaigns—against Arabia, and then perhaps into the western Mediterranean to take on the growing might of Carthage and of Rome. But these plans were never fulfilled, as in 323 Alexander died of a fever after a drinking bout.

Alexander’s horse

When Alexander was a youth there was a horse so wild and high-spirited that no one could ride it. But Alexander managed to mount it and break it in, giving it the name Bucephalus. Thereafter Bucephalus became Alexander’s favorite steed, sharing in all the privations of his campaigns, and letting no other rider mount him. At the age of twenty-four Bucephalus bore Alexander in the key cavalry charge at the Battle of Gaugamela, and then accompanied him all the way to India. Here, at the age of thirty, Bucephalus died, from exhaustion and age. So fond was Alexander of his horse that he named the city he founded to the east of the River Indus in his honor, calling it Bucephala.

The legacy of Alexander At the time of Alexander’s death, his wife Roxana was pregnant, but there were no clear rules of succession. Legend has it that, when Alexander was asked on his deathbed to whom he bequeathed his empire, he responded, “To the strongest.” The ensuing power struggle between Alexander’s generals—during which both Roxana and her son were murdered—lasted a dozen years or more, after which three main power blocks emerged. Seleucus ruled a vast swathe of western Asia, roughly equivalent to the old Persian empire; Antigonus ruled Greece and Macedon; and Ptolemy ruled Egypt. The Seleucid empire gradually broke up into a number of kingdoms, and in the 2nd century BC Macedon and Greece fell to the Romans. In Egypt, the Ptolemies adapted themselves to local tradition, becoming pharaohs and holding sway until 31 BC, when the celebrated Queen Cleopatra VII was defeated—together with her lover, the Roman general Mark Antony—by Octavian, the future Emperor Augustus, and took her own life.

“In body he was very handsome and a great lover of hardships … but as for pleasures of the mind, he was insatiable of glory alone.”

Arrian, The Campaigns of Alexander, 2nd century AD

Alexander’s legacy outlived even this defeat, however. Across his empire he had founded many cities, a number of them named Alexandria in his honor, and these cities were peopled with Greek merchants and artisans who spread the culture of their native land far and wide, and helped to bring East and West together into a single commercial sphere. The most famous of these Alexandrias, that in Egypt, became the intellectual center of the Mediterranean world for many centuries, and its great library, under the patronage of the Ptolemies, became the repository of all the accumulated learning of the ancients.

the condensed idea

Alexander’s conquests spread Greek culture and commerce across a huge area