speech of alexander the great summary

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Speech of Alexander the Great

I observe, gentlemen, that when I would lead you on a new venture you no longer follow me with your old spirit. I have asked you to meet me that we may come to a decision together: are we, upon my advice, to go forward, or, upon yours, to turn back?

If you have any complaint to make about the results of your efforts hitherto, or about myself as your commander, there is no more to say. But let me remind you: through your courage and endurance you have gained possession of Ionia, the Hellespont, both Phrygias, Cappadocia, Paphlagonia, Lydia, Caria, Lycia, Pamphylia, Phoenicia, and Egypt; the Greek part of Libya is now yours, together with much of Arabia, lowland Syria, Mesopotamia, Babylon, and Susia; Persia and Media with all the territories either formerly controlled by them or not are in your hands; you have made yourselves masters of the lands beyond the Caspian Gates, beyond the Caucasus, beyond the Tanais, of Bactria, Hyrcania, and the Hyrcanian sea; we have driven the Scythians back into the desert; and Indus and Hydaspes, Acesines and Hydraotes flow now through country which is ours. With all that accomplished, why do you hesitate to extend the power of Macedon– your power–to the Hyphasis and the tribes on the other side ? Are you afraid that a few natives who may still be left will offer opposition? Come, come! These natives either surrender without a blow or are caught on the run–or leave their country undefended for your taking; and when we take it, we make a present of it to those who have joined us of their own free will and fight on our side.

For a man who is a man, work, in my belief, if it is directed to noble ends, has no object beyond itself; none the less, if any of you wish to know what limit may be set to this particular camapaign, let me tell you that the area of country still ahead of us, from here to the Ganges and the Eastern ocean, is comparatively small. You will undoubtedly find that this ocean is connected with the Hyrcanian Sea, for the great Stream of Ocean encircles the earth. Moreover I shall prove to you, my friends, that the Indian and Persian Gulfs and the Hyrcanian Sea are all three connected and continuous. Our ships will sail round from the Persian Gulf to Libya as far as the Pillars of Hercules, whence all Libya to the eastward will soon be ours, and all Asia too, and to this empire there will be no boundaries but what God Himself has made for the whole world.

But if you turn back now, there will remain unconquered many warlike peoples between the Hyphasis and the Eastern Ocean, and many more to the northward and the Hyrcanian Sea, with the Scythians, too, not far away; so that if we withdraw now there is a danger that the territory which we do not yet securely hold may be stirred to revolt by some nation or other we have not yet forced into submission. Should that happen, all that we have done and suffered will have proved fruitless–or we shall be faced with the task of doing it over again from the beginning. Gentlemen of Macedon, and you, my friends and allies, this must not be. Stand firm; for well you know that hardship and danger are the price of glory, and that sweet is the savour of a life of courage and of deathless renown beyond the grave.

Are you not aware that if Heracles, my ancestor, had gone no further than Tiryns or Argos–or even than the Peloponnese or Thebes–he could never have won the glory which changed him from a man into a god, actual or apparent? Even Dionysus, who is a god indeed, in a sense beyond what is applicable to Heracles, faced not a few laborious tasks; yet we have done more: we have passed beyond Nysa and we have taken the rock of Aornos which Heracles himself could not take. Come, then; add the rest of Asia to what you already possess–a small addition to the great sum of your conquests. What great or noble work could we ourselves have achieved had we thought it enough, living at ease in Macedon, merely to guard our homes, accepting no burden beyond checking the encroachment of the Thracians on our borders, or the Illyrians and Triballians, or perhaps such Greeks as might prove a menace to our comfort ?

I could not have blamed you for being the first to lose heart if I, your commander, had not shared in your exhausting marches and your perilous campaigns; it would have been natural enough if you had done all the work merely for others to reap the reward. But it is not so. You and I, gentlemen, have shared the labour and shared the danger, and the rewards are for us all. The conquered territory belongs to you; from your ranks the governors of it are chosen; already the greater part of its treasure passes into your hands, and when all Asia is overrun, then indeed I will go further than the mere satisfaction of our ambitions: the utmost hopes of riches or power which each one of you cherishes will be far surpassed, and whoever wishes to return home will be allowed to go, either with me or without me. I will make those who stay the envy of those who return.

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How Alexander the Great Halted Mutiny with a Powerful Speech

Statue of Alexander the Great in Thessaloniki. Credit: Alexander Gale / Greek Reporter

In August 324 BC, Alexander the Great faced a mutiny by his troops. By this time, Alexander had already conquered the Persian Empire and was master of much of the known world.

Nevertheless, Alexander now faced a serious challenge to his authority posed by the very men who had loyally followed him into battle for over a decade. The mutiny stemmed from growing sentiments held by his troops that Alexander no longer behaved in the proper fashion for a Macedonian monarch, but had instead been seduced by the customs of the peoples he had subjugated in conquest.

Ultimately, through the power of his words and some cunning politicking, Alexander was able to reconcile with his army and introduced measures to harmonize relations between the Greeks and Persians under his rule.

What caused Alexander’s men to mutiny at Opis

Our main source on how Alexander confronted the mutiny at Opis, an ancient Babylonian city near the Tigris river, is the Greco-Roman historian Arrian . Although Arrian wrote The Anabasis of Alexander hundreds of years after the legendary Macedonian king’s death , his account of Alexander’s life is regarded by historians as one of the most reliable accounts.

According to Arrian’s account of the mutiny, it was sparked by Alexander’s announcement to his men that he would be sending home the Macedonians who had sustained injuries or were too old for continued service.

Alexander meant for this to please his men. Indeed, he planned to send home these men who were no longer fit for service with great gifts. However, the Macedonians perceived his announcement as an insult and took offence .

In truth, tensions had been simmering in Alexander’s army for some time. His growing adoption of Persian customs, such as a preference for more ostentatious garments than any ancient Greek would typically wear, was beginning to agitate his men.

Moreover, the introduction of “barbarian” (non-Greek) men into units of his army, particularly the elite Companion cavalry, caused resentment. That foreigners had been trained to wield the sarissa in the phalanx formation, in the Macedonian style of warfare, had the same affect.

For the Macedonians, this latest announcement was the last straw, and Alexander had a mutiny on his hands. The men who were to be sent away refused to leave, and some of the most vociferous mutineers openly mocked Alexander.

According to Arrian, the mutineers shouted to Alexander that he should discharge them all and continue the campaign with his father, in this case referring to the god Zeus-Ammon, not Alexander’s earthly father, Philip II .

Alexander initially responded to the mutiny by imposing severe consequences on its ringleaders. He ordered the Hypaspists, an elite infantry unit, to arrest thirteen of “the most conspicuous troublemakers” and execute them.

The army were stunned into silence by this action, which gave Alexander a chance to exercise his rhetorical talents and attempt to rally his men with a rousing speech.

According to Arrian, Alexander’s speech was as follows:

“Macedonians, my speech will not be aimed at stopping your urge to return home; as far as I am concerned you may go where you like. But I want you to realize on departing what I have done for you, and what you have done for me.

Let me begin, as is right, with my father Philip. He found you wandering about without resources, many of you clothed in sheepskins and pasturing small flocks in the mountains, defending them with difficulty against the Illyrians, Triballians and neighboring Thracians. He gave you cloaks to wear instead of sheepskins, brought you down from the mountains to the plains, and made you a match in war for the neighboring barbarians, owing your safety to your own bravery and no longer to reliance on your mountain strongholds. He made you city dwellers and civilized you with good laws and customs.

Those barbarians who used to harrass you and plunder your property, he made you their leaders instead of their slaves and subjects. He annexed much of Thrace to Macedonia, seized the most favorable coastal towns and opened up the country to commerce, and enabled you to exploit your mines undisturbed.

He made you governors of the Thessalians, before whom you used to die of fright, humbled the Phocians and so opened a broad and easy path into Greece in place of a narrow and difficult one. The Athenians and Thebans, who were permanently poised to attack Macedonia, he so humbled (and I was now helping him in this task) that instead of you paying tribute to the Athenians and being under the sway of the Thebans, they now in turn had to seek their safety from us.

He marched into the Peloponnese and settled matters there too. He was appointed commander-in-chief of all Greece for the campaign against the Persians, but preferred to assign the credit to all the Macedonians rather than just to himself.

Such were the achievements of my father on your behalf; as you can see for yourselves, they are great, and yet small in comparison with my own. I inherited from my father a few gold and silver cups, and less than 60 talents in the treasury; Philip had debts amounting to 500 talents, and I raised a loan of a further 800. I started from a country that could barely sustain you and immediately opened up the Hellespont for you, although the Persians then held the mastery of the sea.

I defeated the satraps of Darius in a cavalry engagement, and annexed to your rule the whole of Ionia and Aeolis, both Phrygias and Lydia, and took Miletus by storm.

All the rest came over to our side spontaneously, and I made them yours for you to enjoy.

All the wealth of Egypt and Cyrene, which I won without a fight, is now yours, Coele Syria, Palestine and Mesopotamia are your possession, Babylonia and Bactria and Elam belong to you, you own the wealth of Lydia, the treasures of Persia, the riches of India, and the outer ocean. You are satraps, you are generals, you are captains. As for me, what do I have left from all these labors? Merely this purple cloak and a diadem.”

Reconciliation

After the speech, Alexander retired to his tent for two days and refused to see anyone. On the third day, he invited the most senior Persian members of his retinue to his quarters and granted them command over each unit in the army.

This was a risky ploy, since it risked turning the Macedonians, who formed the elite core of his army, entirely against him. However, it worked and the Macedonians, who were alarmed by the sudden rise of the Persians above them, came to Alexander and promised to deliver the ringleaders of the mutiny to him.

According to Arrian, one of Companion cavalry commanders came before Alexander and said, “Sire, what grieves the Macedonians is that you have already made some Persians your ‘kinsmen’, and the Persians are called ‘kinsmen’ of Alexander and are allowed to kiss you, while not one of the Macedonians has been granted this honor.”

Alexander replied to the officer, saying, “I make you all my ‘kinsmen’ and henceforward that shall be your title.”

Alexander marked this reconciliation with his men by sacrificing to the gods . He then held a great banquet, which 9,000 guests are said to have attended. The Greeks and Persians were encouraged to feast and drink together to cement their new bonds within Alexander’s empire.

To further bind the Persians and Greeks, Alexander staged a mass marriage between his Macedonian officers and Persian noblewomen. He intended for the offspring of these unions to be the children of both the Greek and Persian civilizations, in effect acting as the glue which would hold his new empire together in the generations to come.

Ultimately, this strategy failed and the Macedonian officers divorced their Persian brides after the death of Alexander. The empire itself also fell apart and was split between the successor kingdoms led by his generals, most notably the Seleucid, Ptolemaic, and Antigonid kingdoms.

Nevertheless, Hellenistic civilization continued to interact and evolve alongside the other cultures Alexander had incorporated into his empire. In the Ptolemaic Kingdom for instance, the syncretic relationship between Greek and Egyptian gods endured and evolved. Similarly, within the Kingdom of Pontus, the Greek, Persian, and Anatolian cultures fused together in unexpected and interesting ways.

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But for the purpose of making you understand when you take yourselves off, what kind of men you have been to us who have conferred such benefits upon you. In the first place, as is reasonable, I shall begin my speech from my father Philip. For he found you vagabonds and destitute of means, most of you clad in hides, feeding a few sheep up the mountain sides, for the protection of which you had to fight with small success against Illyrians, Triballians, and the border Thracians.

Instead of the hides he gave you cloaks to wear, and from the mountains he led you down into the plains, and made you capable of fighting the neighboring barbarians, so that you were no longer compelled to preserve yourselves by trusting rather to the inaccessible strongholds than to your own valor. He made you colonists of cities, which he adorned with useful laws and customs; and from being slaves and subjects, he made you rulers over those very barbarians by whom you yourselves, as well as your property, were previously liable to be carried off or ravaged.

He also added the greater part of Thrace to Macedonia, and by seizing the most conveniently situated places on the sea-coast, he spread abundance over the land from commerce, and made the working of the mines a secure employment. He made you rulers over the Thessalians, of whom you had formerly been in mortal fear; and by humbling the nation of the Phocians, he rendered the avenue into Greece broad and easy for you, instead of being narrow and difficult.

The Athenians and Thebans, who were always lying in wait to attack Macedonia, he humbled to such a degree, I also then rendering him my personal aid in the campaign, that instead of paying tribute to the former and being vassals to the latter, those states in their turn procure security to themselves by our assistance. He penetrated into the Peloponnese, and after regulating its affairs, was publicly declared commander-in-chief of all the rest of Greece in the expedition against the Persian, adding this glory not more to himself than to the commonwealth of the Macedonians.

These were the advantages which accrued to you from my father Philip; great indeed if looked at by themselves, but small if compared with those you have obtained from me. For though I inherited from my father only a few gold and silver goblets, and there were not even sixty talents in the treasury, and though I found myself charged with a debt of 500 talents owing by Philip, and I was obliged myself to borrow 800 talents in addition to these, I started from the country which could not decently support you, and forthwith laid open to you the passage of the Hellespont, though at that time the Persians held the sovereignty of the sea.

Having overpowered the satraps of Darius with my cavalry, I added to your empire the whole of Ionia, the whole of Aeolis, both Phrygias and Lydia, and I took Miletus by siege. All the other places I gained by voluntary surrender, and I granted you the privilege of appropriating the wealth found in them. The riches of Egypt and Cyrene, which I acquired without fighting a battle, have come to you. Coele-Syria, Palestine, and Mesopotamia are your property. Babylon, Bactra, and Susa are yours.

The wealth of the Lydians, the treasures of the Persians, and the riches of the Indians are yours; and so is the External Sea. You are viceroys, you are generals, you are captains. What then have I reserved to myself after all these labors, except this purple robe and this diadem? I have appropriated nothing myself, nor can any one point out my treasures, except these possessions of yours or the things which I am guarding on your behalf. Individually, however, I have no motive to guard them, since I feed on the same fare as you do, and I take only the same amount of sleep.

Nay, I do not think that my fare is as good as that of those among you who live luxuriously; and I know that I often sit up at night to watch for you, that you may be able to sleep.

But some one may say, that while you endured toil and fatigue, I have acquired these things as your leader without myself sharing the toil and fatigue. But who is there of you who knows that he has endured greater toil for me than I have for him? Come now, whoever of you has wounds, let him strip and show them, and I will show mine in turn; for there is no part of my body, in front at any rate, remaining free from wounds; nor is there any kind of weapon used either for close combat or for hurling at the enemy, the traces of which I do not bear on my person.

For I have been wounded with the sword in close fight, I have been shot with arrows, and I have been struck with missiles projected from engines of war; and though oftentimes I have been hit with stones and bolts of wood for the sake of your lives, your glory, and your wealth, I am still leading you as conquerors over all the land and sea, all rivers, mountains, and plains. I have celebrated your weddings with my own, and the children of many of you will be akin to my children.

Moreover I have liquidated of all those who had incurred them, without inquiring too closely for what purpose they were contracted, though you received such high pay, and carry off so much booty whenever there is booty to be got after a siege. Most of you have golden crowns, the eternal memorials of your valor and of the honor you receive from me. Whoever has been killed has met with a glorious end and has been honored with a splendid burial.

Brazen statues of most of the slain have been erected at home, and their parents are held in honor) being released from all public service and from taxation. But no one of you has ever been killed in flight under my leadership. And now I was intending to send back those of you who are unfit for service, objects of envy to those at home; but since you all wish to depart, depart all of you!

Go back and report at home that your king Alexander, the conqueror of the Persians, Medes, Bactrians, and Sacians; the man who has subjugated the Uxians, Arachotians, and Drangians; who has also acquired the rule of the Parthians, Chorasmians, and Hyrcanians, as far as the Caspian Sea; who has marched over the Caucasus, through the Caspian Gates; who has crossed the rivers Oxus and Tanais, and the Indus besides, which has never been crossed by any one else except Dionysus; who has also crossed the Hydaspes, Acesines, and Hydraotes, and who would have crossed the Hyphasis, if you had not shrunk back with alarm; who has penetrated into the Great Sea by both the mouths of the Indus; who has marched through the desert of Gadrosia, where no one ever before marched with an army; who on his route acquired possession of Carmania and the land of the Oritians, in addition to his other conquests, his fleet having in the meantime already sailed round the coast of the sea which extends from India to Persia - report that when you returned to Susa you deserted him and went away, handing him over to the protection of conquered foreigners.

Perhaps this report of yours will be both glorious to you in the eyes of men and devout I ween in the eyes of the gods. Depart!  

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The Greatest Speech in History? Alexander the Great & The Opis Mutiny

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Alexander the Great's achievements make him one of the most exceptional figures in history. He ascended to the throne of the small Greek kingdom of Macedonia at the age of just 20 in 336 BC. In the span of twelve years before his death, he established Macedonian overlordship on Greece, vanquished the mighty Persian Empire, and led his army into modern-day Afghanistan and the Indian frontier.

During his campaign, Alexander faced a mutiny by his Macedonian soldiers at the Babylonian city Opis. They were unhappy about his decision to send some of them back home while appearing to favor his new Asian subjects and adopting their customs. According to Roman historian Arrian's "The Anabasis," Alexander responded ruthlessly by dealing with the leaders before making a speech to his army in which he berated his troops for their disloyalty. Some say it is one of the greatest speeches in history.

Top image: Ancient Greek general Alexander the Great. Source:  Andrew Zimmerman / Adobe Stock.

By  Joanna Gillan

More romantic hokum.

We don’t know—can’t know—what Alexander or anyone else said before the age of mechanical or electronic recordings. Tradition be damned; I say this is made up nonsense.

Like Shakespeare, just out of some writer’s mind? 

But on Alexander, the man, how much do we really know?  They say he died young, early 30’s.  But how?  Complications of surgery to relieve his Gordian Knot, ...which his men knew, had to be untangled/reconciled the age-old way: slowly, with diligence, and righteous intent?  

Nobody gets paid to tell the truth.

Joanna Gillan is a Co-Owner, Editor and Writer of Ancient Origins. 

Joanna completed a Bachelor of Science (Psychology) degree in Australia and published research in the field of Educational Psychology. She has a rich and varied career, ranging from teaching... Read More

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Arrian: Alexander the Great (c. 331-327 B.C.)

Alexander now sent for his infantry and cavalry commanders and all officers in charge of allied troops and appealed to them for confidence and courage. in the coming fight. 'Remember', he said, 'that already danger has often threatened you and you have looked it triumphantly in the face; this time the struggle will be between a victorious army and an enemy already once vanquished. God himself, moreover, by suggesting to Darius to leave the open ground and cram his great army into a confined space, has taken charge of operations in our behalf. We ourselves shall have room enough to deploy our infantry, while they, no match for us either in bodily strength or resolution, will find their superiority in numbers of no avail. Our enemies are Medes and Persians, men who for centuries have lived soft and luxurious lives; we of Macedon for generations past have been trained in the hard school of danger and war. Above all, we are free men, and they are slaves. There are Greek troops, to be sure, in Persian service but how different is their cause from ours! They will be fighting for pay and not much of it at that; we, on the contrary, shall fight for Greece, and, our hearts will be in it. As for our foreign troops—Thracians, Paeonians, Illyrians, Agrianes—they are the best and stoutest soldiers in Europe, and they will find, as their opponents the slackest and softest of the tribes of Asia. And what, finally, of the two men in supreme command? You have Alexander, they—Darius!'

Having thus enumerated the advantages with which they would enter the coming struggle, Alexander went on to show that the rewards of victory would also be great. The victory this time would not be over mere underlings of the Persian King, or the Persian cavalry along the banks of Granicus, of the 20,000 foreign mercenaries; it would be over the fine flower of the Medes and Persians and all the Asiatic peoples which they ruled. The Great King was there in person with his army, and once the battle was over, nothing would remain but to crown their many labours with the sovereignty of Asia. He reminded them, further, of what they had already so brilliantly accomplished together, and mentioned any act of conspicuous individual courage, naming the man in each case and specifying what he had done, and alluding also, in such way as to give least offence, to the risks to which he had personally exposed himself on the field. He also, we are told, reminded them of Xenophon and his Ten Thousand, a force which, though not to be compared with their own either in strength or reputation—a force without the support of cavalry such as they had themselves, from Thessaly, Boeotia, the Peloponnese, Macedon, Thrace, and elsewhere, with no archers or slingers except a small contingent from Crete and Rhodes hastily improvised by Xenophon under pressure of immediate need—nevertheless defeated the King of Persia and his army at the gates of Babylon and successfully repelled all the native troops who tried to bar their way as they marched down to the Black Sea. Nor did Alexander omit any other words of encouragement such as brave, men about to risk their lives might expect from a brave commander; and in response to his address his officers pressed forward to clasp his hand and with many expressions of appreciation urged him to lead them to battle without delay.

Alexander's first order was that his men should eat, while at the same time he sent a small party of mounted men and archers to the narrow pass by the shore to reconnoitre the road, by which he would have to return; then, as soon as it was dark, he moved off himself with the whole army to take possession once more of that narrow gateway. About midnight the passage. was secured; for the remainder, of the night he allowed his men to rest where they were, on the rocky ground, with outposts to keep exact and careful watch, and: just before daylight next morning moved forward from the pass along the coast road. The advance was in column so long as lack of space made it necessary, but as soon as the country began to open up he gradually extended his front, bringing up his heavy infantry a battalion at a time, until he was moving in line with his right on the base of the hills and his left on the sea. . . .

After the burial of the dead with all customary ritual, Alexander sent his secretary, Eumenes with 300 mounted men to the two towns which had joined Sangala in refusing submission. His instructions were to report the capture of Sangala and to give the people an assurance that if they stayed where they were, and admitted Alexander as a friend within their gates; they would have nothing to complain of in their treatment—no more, indeed, than any of the other independent tribes which had voluntarily submitted to him. Both towns, however, had already had the news that Sangala had been taken by assault, and such was the consternation it caused that the people had fled. Alexander pursued them hotly as soon as he knew that they were on the move, but, as the report took some time to reach him, most of them had had time to get clear away. A certain number of sick, perhaps 500, had been abandoned by their comrades in their dash for safety and these were caught and killed. Alexander soon broke off the pursuit, returned to Sangala, and razed it to the ground. The land belonging to it he handed over to the Indian tribes who had given up their former independence and voluntarily attached themselves to his cause. Porus was then sent with his troops to the towns which had surrendered, with orders to garrison them, and Alexander himself marched for the river Hyphasis; bent upon still further conquest. So long as a single hostile element remained, there could, he felt, be no end to the war.

Reports had come in that the country beyond the Hyphasis was rich and productive; the people were good farmers and fine soldiers and lived under an orderly and efficient social system. The governments in that region were mostly aristocratic, but by no means oppressive The elephants there were more numerous than elsewhere in India, and conspicuous both for size and courage. Such stories could not but whet Alexander's appetite for yet another adventure; but his men felt differently. The sight of their King undertaking an endless succession of dangerous and exhausting enterprises was beginning to depress them. Their enthusiasm ebbing; they held meetings in camp, at which even the best of them grumbled at their fate, while others swore that they would go no further not even if Alexander himself led them. This state of affairs was brought to Alexander's notice, and before the alarm and despondency among the men could go still further, he, called a meeting of his officers and addressed them in the following words:

'I observe, gentlemen, that when I would lead you on a new venture you no longer follow me with your old spirit. I have asked you to meet me that we may come to a decision together: are we, upon my advice, to go forward, or, upon yours, to turn back?

'If you have any complaint to make about the results of your efforts hitherto, or about myself as your commander, there is no more to say. But let me remind you: through your courage and endurance you have gained possession of Ionia, the Hellespont, both Phrygias, Cappadocia, Paphlagonia, Lydia, Caria, Lycia, Pamphylia, Phoenicia, and Egypt; the Greek part of Libya is now yours, together with much of Arabia, lowland Syria, Mesopotamia, Babylon, and Susia; Persia and Media with all the territories either formerly controlled by them or not are in your hands; you have made yourselves masters of the lands beyond the Caspian Gates, beyond the Caucasus, beyond the Tanais, of Bactria, Hyrcania, and the Hyrcanian sea; we have driven the Scythians back into the desert; and Indus and Hydaspes, Acesines and Hydraotes flow now through country which is ours. With all that accomplished, why do you hesitate to extend the power of Macedon—your power—to the Hyphasis and the tribes on the other side? Are you afraid that a few natives who may still be left will offer opposition? Come, come! These natives either surrender without a blow or are caught on the run—or leave their country undefended for your taking and when we take it, we make a present of it to those who have joined us of their own free will and fight at our side.

'For a man who is a man, work, in my belief, if it is directed to noble ends, has no object beyond itself; nonetheless, if any of you wish to know what limit may be set to this particular campaign, let me tell you that the area of country still ahead of us, from here to the Ganges and the Eastern ocean, is comparatively small. You will undoubtedly find that this ocean is connected with the Hyrcanian Sea, for the great Stream of Ocean encircles the earth. Moreover I shall prove to you, my friends, that the Indian and Persian Gulfs and the Hyrcanian Sea are all three connected and continuous. Our ships will sail round from the Persian Gulf to Libya as far as the Pillars of Hercules, whence all Libya to the eastward will soon be ours, and all Asia too, and to this empire there will be no boundaries but what God Himself has made for the whole world.

'But if you turn back now, there will remain unconquered many warlike peoples between the Hyphasis and the Eastern Ocean and many more to the northward and the Hyrcanian Sea, with the Scythians, too, not far away; so that if we withdraw now there is a danger that the territory which we do not yet securely hold may be stirred to revolt by some nation or other we have not yet forced into submission. Should that happen, all that we have done and suffered will have proved fruitless—or we shall be faced, with the task of doing it over, again from the beginning Gentlemen of Macedon, and you, my friends and allies, this must not be. Stand firm; for well you know that hardship and danger are the price of glory, and that sweet is the savour of a life of courage and of deathless renown beyond the grave.

'Are you not aware that if Heracles, my ancestor, had gone no further than Tiryns or Argos—or even than the Peloponnese or Thebes—he could never have won the glory which changed him from a man into a god, actual or apparent? Even Dionysus, who is a god indeed, in a sense beyond what is applicable to Heracles, faced not a few laborious tasks; yet we have done more: we have passed beyond Nysa and we have taken the rock of Aornos which Heracles himself could not take. Come, then; add the rest of Asia to what you already possess—a small addition to the great sum of your conquests. What great or noble work could we ourselves have achieved had we thought it enough, living at ease in Macedon, merely to guard our homes, accepting no burden beyond checking the encroachment of the Thracians on our borders, or the Illyrians and Triballians, or perhaps such Greeks as might prove a menace to our comfort?

'I could not have blamed you for being the first to lose heart if I, your commander, had not shared in your exhausting marches and your perilous campaigns; it would have been natural enough if you had done all the work merely for others to reap the reward. But it is not so. You and I, gentlemen, have shared the labour and shared the danger, and the rewards are for us all. The conquered territory belongs to you; from your ranks the governors of it are chosen; already the greater part of its treasure passes into your hands, and when all Asia is overrun, then indeed I will go further than the mere satisfaction of your ambitions: the utmost hopes of riches or power which each one of you cherishes will be far surpassed, and whoever wishes to return home will be allowed to go, either with me or without me. I will make those who stay the envy of those who return.'

When Alexander ended, there was a long silence. The officers present were not willing to accept what he had said, yet no one liked to risk an unprepared reply. Several times Alexander invited comment, should any wish to give it and genuinely hold different views from those he had expressed; but in spite of his invitation nothing was said until at last Coenus, son of Polemocrates, plucked up his courage to speak.

'Sir,' he said, 'we appreciate the fact that you do not demand from us unreasoning obedience. You have made it clear to us that you will lead us on only after winning our consent, and, failing that, that you will not use compulsion. This being so, I do not propose to speak on behalf of the officers here assembled, as we, by virtue of our rank and authority, have already received the rewards of our services and are naturally concerned more than the men are to further your interests. I shall speak, therefore for the common soldiers, not, by any means, with the purpose of echoing their sentiments, but saying, what I believe will tend to your present advantage and our future security. My age, the repute which by your favour, I enjoy among my comrades, and the unhesitating courage have hitherto displayed in all dangers and difficulties give me the right to declare what I believe to be the soundest policy. Very well, then: precisely, in proportion to the number and magnitude of the achievements wrought by you, our leader, and by the men who marched from horn under your command, I judge it best to set some limit to further enterprise. You know the number of Greeks and Macedonians who started upon this campaign, and you can see how many of us are left today: the Thessalians you sent home from Bactra because you knew their hearts were no longer in their work—and it was wisely done; other Greeks have been settled in the new towns you have founded, where they remain not always willingly, others again, together with our own Macedonians, continue, to share with you the dangers and hardships of war, and of these some have been killed, some, disabled by wounds, have been left behind in various parts of Asia, and more still have died of sickness, so that only a few from that great army are left, a small remnant broken in health, their old vigour and determination gone. Every man of them longs to see his parents again, if they yet survive, or his wife, or his children; all are yearning for, the familiar earth of home, hoping, pardonably enough, to live, to revisit it, no longer in poverty and obscurity, but famous and enriched by the treasure you have enabled them to win. Do not try to lead men who are unwilling to follow you;.if their heart is not in it, you will never find the old spirit or the old courage. Consent rather yourself to return to your mother and your home. Once there, you may bring good government to Greece and enter your ancestral: house with all the glory of the many great victories won in this campaign, and then, should you so desire it, you may begin again and undertake a new expedition against these Indians of the East — or, if you prefer, to the Black Sea or to Carthage and the Libyan territories beyond. It is for you to decide. Other troops, Greek and Macedonian, will follow you — young, fresh troops to take the place of your war-weary veterans. Still ignorant of the horrors of war and full of hope for what the future may bring, these men will follow you with all the more eagerness in that they have seen your old campaigners come safely home again no longer poor and nameless but loaded with money and fame. Sir, if there is one thing above all others a successful man should know, it is when to stop. Assuredly for a commander like yourself, with an army like ours, there is nothing to fear from any enemy; but luck, remember, is an unpredictable thing, and against what it may bring no man has any defence.'

Coenus' words were greeted with applause. Some even wept, which was proof enough of their reluctance to prolong the campaign and of how happy they would be should the order be given to turn back. Alexander resented the freedom with which Coenus, had spoken and the poor spirit shown by the other officers, and dismissed the conference. . . .

Here in Susa, Alexander received the various officials in charge of affairs in the newly built towns and the governors of the territories he had previously overrun. They brought with them some 30,000 young fellows, all boys of the same age, all wearing the Macedonian battle-dress and trained on Macedonian lines. Alexander called them his Epigoni—'inheritors'—and it is said that their coming caused much bad feeling among the Macedonians, who felt it was an indication of his many efforts to lessen his dependence for the future upon his own countrymen. Already the sight of Alexander in Median clothes had caused them no little distress, and most of them had found the Persian marriage ceremonies by no means to their taste—even some of the actual participants had objected to the foreign form of the ceremony, in spite of the fact that they were highly honoured by being, for the occasion, on a footing of equality with the King. They resented too, the growing orientalism Of Peucestas, Governor of Persia, who, to Alexander's evident satisfaction, had adopted the Persian language and dress just as they resented the inclusion of foreign mounted troops in the regiments of the Companions. Bactrians, Sogdians, Arachotians; Zarangians, Arians, Parthians, and the so-called Euacae from Persia were all introduced into the crack Macedonian cavalry regiments, provided they had some outstanding personal recommendation, such as good looks, or whatever it might be. Besides this, a fifth mounted regiment was formed; it did not consist entirely of oriental troops, but the total cavalry strength was increased and a certain number of foreign troops were posted to it. Foreign officers were also posted to the special squadron—Cophen son of Artabazus, Hydarnes and Artiboles sons of Mazaeus, Sisines and Phradasmenes sons of Phrataphernes, the satrap of Parthia and Hyrcania, Histanes son of Oxyartes and brother of Alexander's wife Roxane, Autobares and his brother Mithrobaeus. The command over them was given to Hystaspes, a Bactrian, and the orientals were all equipped with the Macedonian spear in place of their native javelin. All this was a cause of deep resentment to the Macedonians, who could not but feel that Alexander's whole outlook was becoming tainted with orientalism, and that he no longer cared for his own people or his own native ways. . . .

At Opis he summoned an assembly of his Macedonian troops and announced the discharge from the army of al men unfit through age or disablement for further service; these he proposed to send home, and promised to give them on their departure enough to make their friends and relatives envy them and to fire their countrymen with eagerness to play a part in similar perilous adventures in the future. Doubtless he meant to gratify them by what he said. Unfortunately, however, the men already felt that he had come to undervalue their services and to think them quite useless as a fighting force; so, naturally enough, they resented his remarks as merely another instance of the many things which, throughout the campaign, he had done to hurt their feelings, such as his adoption of Persian dress, the issue of Macedonian equipment to the Oriental 'Epigoni', and the inclusion of foreign troops units of the Companions. The result was that they did not receive the speech in respectful silence, but unable to restrain themselves, called for the discharge of every man in the army, adding, in bitter jest, that on his next campaign he could take his father with him—meaning, presumably, the god Ammon.

Alexander was furious. He had grown by that time quicker to take offence, and the Oriental subservience to which he had become accustomed had greatly changed his old open-hearted manner towards his own countrymen. He leapt from the platform with the officers who attended him, and pointing with his finger to the ringleaders of the mutiny, ordered the guards to arrest them. There were thirteen of them, and they were all marched off to execution. A horrified silence ensued, and Alexander stepped once again on to the rostrum and addressed his troops in these words: 'My countrymen, you are sick for home—so be it! I shall make no attempt to check your longing to return. Go whither you will; I shall not hinder you. But, if go you must, there is one thing I would have you understand—what I have done for you, and in what coin you will have repaid me.

'First I will speak of my father Philip, as it is my duty to do. Philip found you a tribe of impoverished vagabonds, most of you dressed in skins, feeding a few sheep on the hills and fighting, feebly enough, to keep them from your neighbours—Thracians and Triballians and Illyrians. He gave you cloaks to wear instead of skins, he brought you down from the hills into the plains; he taught you to fight on equal terms with the enemy on your borders, till you knew that your safety lay not in your mountain strongholds, but in your own valour. He made you city-dwellers; he brought you law; he civilized you. He rescued you from subjection and slavery and made you masters of the wild tribes who harried and plundered you, he annexed the greater part of Thrace, and by seizing the best places on the coast opened your country to trade, and enabled you to work your mines without fear of attack. Thessaly, so long your bugbear and your dread, he subjected to your rule, and by humbling the Phocians he made the narrow and difficult path into Greece a broad and easy road. The men of Athens and Thebes, who for years had kept watching for their moment to strike us down, he brought so low—and by this time I myself was working at my father's side that they who once exacted from us either our money or our obedience, now, in their turn, looked to us as the means of their salvation. Passing into the Peloponnese, he settled everything there to his satisfaction, and when he was made supreme commander of all the rest of Greece for the war against Persia, he claimed the glory of it nor for himself alone, but for the Macedonian people.

These services which my father rendered you are, indeed, intrinsically great; yet they are small compared with my own. I inherited from him a handful of gold and silver cups, coin in the treasury worth less than sixty talents and over eight times that amount of debts incurred by him, yet to add to this burden I borrowed a further sum of eight hundred talents, and, marching out from a country too poor to maintain you decently, laid open for you at a blow, and in spite of Persia's naval supremacy, the gates of the Hellespont. My cavalry crushed the satraps of Darius, and I added all Ionia and Aeolia, the two Phrygias and Lydia to your empire. Miletus I reduced by siege; the other towns all yielded of their own free will—I took them and gave them you for your profit and enjoyment. The wealth of Egypt and Cyrene, which I shed no blood to win, now flows into your hands; Palestine and the plains of Syria and the Land between the Rivers are now your property; Babylon and Bactria and Susa are yours; you are masters of the gold of Lydia, the treasures of Persia, the wealth of India—yes, and of the sea beyond India, too. You are my captains, my generals, my governors of provinces.

'From all this which I have laboured to win for you, what is left for myself except the purple and this crown? I keep nothing for my own; no one can point to treasure of mine apart from all this which you yourselves either possess, or have in safe keeping for your future use. Indeed, what reason have I to keep anything, as I eat the same food and take the same sleep as you do? Ah, but there are epicures among you who, I fancy, eat more luxuriously than I; and this I know, that I wake earlier than you—and watch, that you may sleep.

'Perhaps you will say that, in my position as your commander, I had none of the labours and distress which you had to endure to win for me what I have won. But does any man among you honestly feel that he has suffered more for me than I have suffered for him? Come now, if you are wounded, strip and show your wounds, and I will show mine. There is no part of my body but my back which has not a scar; not a weapon a man may grasp or fling the mark of which I do not carry upon me. I have sword-cuts from close fight; arrows have pierced me, missiles from catapults bruised my flesh; again and again I have been struck by stones or clubs—and all for your sakes: for your glory and your gain. Over every land and sea, across river, mountain, and plain I led you to the world's end, a victorious army. I married as you married, and many of you will have children related by blood to my own. Some of you have owed money—I have paid your debts, never troubling to inquire how they were incurred, and in spite of the fact that you earn good pay and grow rich from the sack of cities. To most of you I have given a circlet of gold as a memorial for ever and ever of your courage and of my regard. And what of those who have died in battle? Their death was noble, their burial illustrious; almost all are commemorated at home by statues of bronze; their parents are held in honour, with all dues of money or services remitted, for under my leadership not a man among you has ever fallen with his back to the enemy.

'And no, it was in my mind to dismiss any man no longer fit for active service—all such should return home to be envied and admired. But you all wish to leave me. Go then! And when you reach home, tell them that Alexander your King, who vanquished Persians and Medes and Bactrians and Sacae, who crushed the Uxii, the Arachotians, and the Drangae, and added to his empire Pathia, the Chorasmian waste, and Hyrcania to the Caspian Sea; who crossed the Caucasus beyond the Caspian Gates, and Oxus and Tanais and the Indus, which none but Dionysus had crossed before him, and Hydaspes and Acesines and Hydraotes—yes, and Hyphasis too, had you not feared to follow; who by both mouths of the Indus burst into the Great Sea beyond, and traversed the desert of Gedrosia, untrodden before by any army; who made Carmania his own, as his troops swept by, and the country of the Oreitans; who was brought back by you to Susa, when his ships had sailed the ocean from India to Persia—tell them, I say, that you deserted him and left him to the mercy of barbarian men, whom you yourselves had conquered. Such news will indeed assure you praise upon earth and reward in heaven. Out of my sight!'

As he ended, Alexander sprang from the rostrum and hurried into the palace. All that day he neither ate nor washed nor permitted any of his friends to see him. On the following day too he remained closely confined. On the third day he sent for the Persian officers who were in the highest favor and divided them among the command of the various units of the army. Only those whom he designated his kinsmen were now permitted to give him the customary kiss.

On the Macedonians the immediate effect of Alexander's speech was profound. They stood in silence in front of the rostrum. Nobody made a move to follow the King except his closest attendants and the members of his personal guard; the rest, helpless to speak or act, yet unwilling to go away, remained rooted to the spot. But when they were told about the Persians and the Medes—how command was being given to Persian officers, foreign troops drafted into Macedonian units, a Persian Corps of Guards called by a Macedonian name, Persian infantry units given the coveted title of Companions, Persian Silver Shields and Persian mounted Companions, including even a new Royal Squadron, in process of formation—they could contain themselves no longer. Every man of them hurried to the palace; in sign of supplication they flung their arms on the ground before the doors and stood there calling and begging for admission. They offered to give up the ringleaders of the mutiny and those who had led the cry against the King and swore they would not stir from the spot day or night Alexander took pity on them.

Alexander, the moment he heard of this change of heart, hastened out to meet them, and he was so touched by their grovelling [sic] repentance and their bitter lamentations that the tears came into his eyes. While they continued to beg for his pity, he stepped forward as if to speak, but was anticipated by one Callines, an officer of the Companions, distinguished both by age and rank. 'My lord,' he cried, 'what hurts us is that you have made Persians your kinsmen—Persians are called "Alexander's kinsmen"—Persians kiss you. But no Macedonian has yet had a taste of this honour.'

'Every man of you,' Alexander replied, 'I regard as my kinsman, and from now on that is what I shall call you.'

Thereupon, Callines came up to him and kissed him, and all the others who wished to do so kissed him too. Then they picked up their weapons and returned to their quarters singing the song of victory at the top of their voices.

To mark the restoration of harmony, Alexander offered sacrifice to the gods he was accustomed to honour, and gave a public banquet which he himself attended, sitting among the Macedonians, all of whom were present. Next to them the Persians had their places, and next to the Persians distinguished foreigners of other nations; Alexander and his friends dipped their wine from the same bowl and poured the same libations, following the lead of the Greek seers and the Magi. The chief object of his prayers was that Persians and Macedonians might rule together in harmony as an imperial power. It is said that 9,000 people attended the banquet; they unanimously drank the same toast, and followed it by the paean of victory.

After this all Macedonians—about 10,000 all told—who were too old for service or in any way unfit, got their discharge at their own request. They were given their pay not only up to date, but also for the time they would take on the homeward journey. In addition to their pay they each received a gratuity of one talent. Some of the men had children by Asian women, and it was Alexander's orders that these should be left behind to avoid the trouble among their families at home, which might be caused by the introduction of half-caste children; he promised to have them brought up on Macedonian lines, with particular attention to their military training, and added that when they grew up he would himself bring them back to Macedonia and hand them over to their fathers. It was a somewhat vague and unsatisfactory promise; he did, however, give the clearest proof of how warmly he felt for them, and of how much he would miss them when they had gone, by his decision to entrust them on their journey to the leadership and protection of Craterus, the most loyal of his officers and a man he loved as dearly as his own life. . . .

Alexander died in the 114th Olympiad, in the archonship of Hegesias at Athens. He lived, as Aristobulus tells us, thirty-two years and eight months, and reigned twelve years and eight months. He had great personal beauty, invincible power of endurance, and a keen intellect; he was brave and adventurous, strict in the observance of his religious duties, and hungry for fame. Most temperate in the pleasures of the body, his passion was for glory only, and in that he was insatiable. He had an uncanny instinct for the right course in a difficult and complex situation, and was most happy in his deductions from observed facts. In arming and equipping troops and in his military dispositions he was always masterly. Noble indeed was his power of inspiring his men, of filling them with confidence, and, in the moment of danger, of sweeping away their fear by the spectacle of his own fearlessness. When risks had to be taken, he took them with the utmost boldness, and his ability to seize the moment for a swift blow, before his enemy had any suspicion of what was coming, was beyond praise. No cheat or liar ever caught him off his guard, and both his word and his bond were inviolable. Spending but little on his own pleasures, he poured out his money without stint for the benefit of his friends.

Doubtless, in the passion of the moment Alexander sometimes erred; it is true he took some steps towards the pomp and arrogance of the Asiatic kings: but I, at least, cannot feel that such errors were very heinous, if the circumstances are taken fairly into consideration. For, after all, he was young; the chain of his successes was unbroken, and, like all kings, past, present, and to come, he was surrounded by courtiers who spoke to please, regardless of what evil their words might do. On the other hand, I do indeed know that Alexander, of all the monarchs of old, was the only one who had the nobility of heart to be sorry for his mistakes. Most people, if they know they have done wrong, foolishly suppose they can conceal their error by defending it, and finding a justification for it; but in my belief there is only one medicine for an evil deed, and that is for the guilty man to admit his guilt and show that he is sorry for it. Such an admission will make the consequences easier for the victim to bear, and the guilty man himself, by plainly showing his distress at former transgressions, will find good grounds of hope for avoiding similar transgressions in the future.

Nor do I think that Alexander's claim to a divine origin was a very serious fault—in any case, it may well have been a mere device to magnify his consequence in the eyes of his subjects. In point of fact I account him as great a king as Minos or Aeacus or Rhadamanthus, whose claims to be the sons of Zeus were not felt by the men of old to be in any way dangerously arrogant; and the same may be said of Theseus' claim to be the son of Poseidon and Ion's to be son of Apollo. Surely, too, his adoption of Persian dress was, like his claim to divine birth, a matter of policy: by it he hoped to bring the Eastern nations to feel that they had a king who was not wholly a foreigner, and to indicate to his own countrymen his desire to move away from the harsh traditional arrogance of Macedonia. That was also, no doubt, the reason why he included a proportion of Persian troops (the so-called Golden Apples, for instance) in Macedonian units, and made Persian noblemen officers in his crack native regiments. As for his reputed heavy drinking, Aristobulus declares that his drinking bouts were prolonged not for their own sake—for he was never, in fact, a heavy drinker—but simply because he enjoyed the companionship of his friends.

Anyone who belittles Alexander has no right to do so on the evidence only of what merits censure in him; he must base his criticism on a comprehensive view of his whole life and career. But let such a person, if blackguard Alexander he must, first compare himself with the object of his abuse: himself, so mean and obscure, and, confronting him, the great King with his unparalleled worldly success, the undisputed monarch of two continents, who spread the power of his name over all the earth. Will he dare to abuse him then, when he knows his own littleness and the triviality of his own pursuits, which, even so, prove too much for his ability?

(Arrian "The Campaigns of Alexander", translated by Aubrey de Selincourt & revised by J. R. Hamilton; (Hammondsworth, England: Penguin 1981): pp. 112-114; 290-297; 356-357; 359-367; 395-398.)

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Alexander the Great

By: History.com Editors

Updated: February 5, 2024 | Original: November 9, 2009

Alexander the Great was an ancient Macedonian ruler and one of history’s greatest military minds who, as King of Macedonia and Persia, established the largest empire the ancient world had ever seen. By turns charismatic and ruthless, brilliant and power hungry, diplomatic and bloodthirsty, Alexander inspired such loyalty in his men they’d follow him anywhere and, if necessary, die in the process. Though Alexander the Great died before realizing his dream of uniting a new realm, his influence on Greek and Asian culture was so profound that it inspired a new historical epoch—the Hellenistic Period.

Where Was Alexander the Great From?

Alexander III was born in Pella, Macedonia , in 356 B.C. to King Philip II and Queen Olympias—although legend had it his father was none other than Zeus, the ruler of the Greek gods .

Philip II was an impressive military man in his own right. He turned Macedonia (a region on the northern part of the Greek peninsula) into a force to be reckoned with, and he fantasized about conquering the massive Persian Empire .

At age 12, Alexander showed impressive courage when he tamed the wild horse Bucephalus, an enormous stallion with a furious demeanor. The horse became his battle companion for most of Alexander’s life.

When Alexander was 13, Philip called on the great philosopher Aristotle to tutor his son. Aristotle sparked and fostered Alexander’s interest in literature, science, medicine and philosophy.

Alexander was just 16 when Philip went off to battle and left his son in charge of Macedonia. In 338 B.C., Alexander saw the opportunity to prove his military worth and led a cavalry against the Sacred Band of Thebes—a supposedly unbeatable, select army made up entirely of male lovers—during the Battle of Chaeronea.

Alexander put his vigor and bravery on display, and his cavalry decimated the Sacred Band of Thebes.

Ancient Empires

Watch the three-episode documentary event, Ancient Empires . Available to stream now.

Alexander Becomes King

In 336 B.C., Alexander’s father Philip was assassinated by his bodyguard Pausanias. Just 20 years old, Alexander claimed the Macedonian throne and killed his rivals before they could challenge his sovereignty.

He also quashed rebellions for independence in northern Greece. Once he’d cleaned house, Alexander left to follow in his father’s footsteps and continue Macedonia’s world domination.

Alexander appointed the general Antipater as regent and headed for Persia with his army. They crossed the Hellespont, a narrow strait between the Aegean Sea and the Sea of Marmara, and faced Persian and Greek forces at the Granicus River. Victory went to Alexander and the Macedonians.

Alexander then headed south and easily took the city of Sardes. But his army encountered resistance in the cities of Miletus, Mylasa and Halicarnassus. Under siege yet not beaten, Halicarnassus held out long enough for King Darius III, the newest Persian king, to amass a substantial army.

Gordian Knot

From Halicarnassus, Alexander headed north to Gordium, home of the fabled Gordian knot , a group of tightly-entwined knots yoked to an ancient wagon. Legend had it whoever unwound the knot would conquer all of Asia.

As the story goes, Alexander took on the challenge but was unable to unravel the knot by hand. He took another approach and sliced through the knot with his sword, claiming triumph.

Battle of Issus

In 333 B.C., Alexander and his men encountered a massive Persian army led by King Darius III near the town of Issus in southern Turkey. Alexander’s forces were greatly outnumbered in men but not in experience or the determination for revenge and to claim Persia’s great wealth, much of it plundered.

As it became clear Alexander would win the Battle of Issus, Darius fled with what remained of his troops, leaving his wife and family behind. His mother, Sisygambis, was so upset she disowned him and adopted Alexander as her son.

By now it was clear that Alexander was a shrewd, ruthless and brilliant military leader—in fact, he never lost a battle in his life. He would build an empire on the back of his motto, “there is nothing impossible to him who will try.”

Battle of Tyre

Next, Alexander took over the Phoenician cities of Marathus and Aradus. He rejected a plea from Darius for peace and took the towns of Byblos and Sidon.

He then laid siege to the heavily fortified island of Tyre in January 332 B.C., after the Tyrians refused him entry. But Alexander had no navy to speak of and Tyre was surrounded by water.

Alexander instructed his men to build a causeway to reach Tyre. All went well until they came within striking distance of the Tyrians. Again and again, Tyrian forces thwarted Alexander’s clever attempts to gain entry, and he realized he needed a strong navy to penetrate their defenses.

He amassed a large fleet, finally breached the city’s walls in July 332 B.C. and executed thousands of Tyrians for daring to defy him; many others were sold into slavery.

8 Surprising Facts about Alexander the Great

It's not always possible to separate fact and fiction about the famed ancient Macedonian ruler, but here are eight great takeaways from Alexander’s life.

Did Alexander the Great Arrange His Father’s Murder?

Philip II of Macedon's bodyguard—and former lover—wielded the knife. But 21‑year‑old Alexander, heir to the powerful king, quickly fell under suspicion.

Alexander Enters Egypt

After rejecting another peace offer from Darius, Alexander set out for Egypt . He was sidelined at Gaza, however, and forced to endure another lengthy siege. After several weeks, he took the town and entered Egypt where he established the city that still bears his name: Alexandria.

Alexander traveled to the desert to consult the oracle of Ammon, a god of supposed good counsel. Legends abound about what transpired at the oracle, but Alexander kept mum about the experience. Still, the visit furthered speculation Alexander was a deity.

Alexander Becomes King of Persia

After conquering Egypt, Alexander faced Darius and his massive troops at Gaugamela in October 331 B.C. Following fierce fighting and heavy losses on both sides, Darius fled and was assassinated by his own troops. It’s said Alexander was sad when he found Darius’s body and he gave him a royal burial.

Finally rid of Darius, Alexander proclaimed himself King of Persia. But another Persian leader, Bessus (also thought to be Darius’s murderer), had also claimed the Persian throne. Alexander couldn’t let the claim stand.

After relentless pursuit by Alexander, Bessus’s troops handed Bessus over to Ptolemy, Alexander’s good friend, and he was mutilated and executed. With Bessus out of the way, Alexander had full control of Persia.

Proskynesis

To gain credibility with the Persians, Alexander took on many Persian customs. He began dressing like a Persian and adopted the practice of proskynesis, a Persian court custom that involved bowing down and kissing the hand of others, depending on their rank.

The Macedonians were less than thrilled with the changes in Alexander and his attempt to be viewed as a deity. They refused to practice proskynesis and some plotted his death.

Increasingly paranoid, Alexander ordered the death of one of his most esteemed generals, Parmenio, in 330 B.C., after Parmenio's son Philotas was convicted of plotting an assassination attempt against Alexander (and also killed).

Alexander Kills Cleitus

In 328 B.C., Cleitus, another general and close friend of Alexander, also met a violent end. Fed up with Alexander’s new Persian-like persona, a drunk Cleitus continually insulted Alexander and minimized his achievements.

Pushed too far, Alexander killed Cleitus with a spear, a spontaneous act of violence that anguished him. Some historians believe Alexander killed his general in a fit of drunkenness—a persistent problem that plagued him through much of his life.

Alexander struggled to capture Sogdia, a region of the Persian Empire that remained loyal to Bessus. The Sogdians found a refuge at the pinnacle of a rock and refused Alexander’s demand to surrender.

Not one to take “no” for an answer, Alexander sent some of his men to scale the rock and take the Sogdians by surprise. Supposedly, one of those on the rock was a girl named Roxane.

As the story goes, Alexander fell in love with Roxane on sight. He married her despite her Sogdian heritage and she joined him on his journey.

Alexander Enters India

In 327 B.C., Alexander marched on Punjab, India. Some tribes surrendered peacefully; others did not. In 326 B.C., Alexander met King Porus of Paurava at the Hydaspes River.

Porus’s army was less experienced than Alexander’s, but they had a secret weapon—elephants. Even so, after a fierce battle in a raging thunderstorm, Porus was defeated.

One event took place at Hydaspes which devastated Alexander: the death of his beloved horse, Bucephalus. It’s unclear if he died from battle wounds or of old age, but Alexander named the city of Bucephala after him.

Alexander wanted to press on and attempt to conquer all of India, but his war-weary soldiers refused, and his officers convinced him to return to Persia. So Alexander led his troops down the Indus River and was severely wounded during a battle with the Malli.

After recovering, he divided his troops, sending half of them back to Persia and half to Gedrosia, a desolate area west of the Indus River.

A Mass Wedding

In early 324 B.C., Alexander reached the city of Susa in Persia. Wanting to unite the Persians and Macedonians and create a new race loyal only to him, he ordered many of his officers to marry Persian princesses at a mass wedding. He also took two more wives for himself.

The Macedonian army resented Alexander’s attempt to change their culture and many mutinied. But after Alexander took a firm stand and replaced Macedonian officers and troops with Persians, his army backed down.

To further diffuse the situation, Alexander returned their titles and hosted a huge reconciliation banquet.

How Did Alexander the Great Die?

By 323 B.C., Alexander was head of an enormous empire and had recovered from the devastating loss of his friend Hephaestion—who was also reputed to be one of Alexander’s homosexual male lovers.

Thanks to his insatiable urge for world supremacy, he started plans to conquer Arabia. But he’d never live to see it happen. Some historians say Alexander died of malaria or other natural causes; others believe he was poisoned. Either way, he never named a successor.

His death—and the bloody infighting for control that happened afterwards—unraveled the empire he’d fought so hard to create.

How Old Was Alexander the Great When He Died?

After surviving battle after fierce battle, Alexander the Great died in June 323 B.C. at age 32.

Why Was Alexander the Great ‘Great’?

Many conquered lands retained the Greek influence Alexander introduced, and several cities he founded remain important cultural centers even today. The period of history from his death to 31 B.C., when his empire folded, would come to be known as the Hellenistic period , from “Hellazein,” which means, “to speak Greek or identify with the Greeks.” Alexander the Great is revered as one of the most powerful and influential leaders the ancient world ever produced.

Alexander the Great. Ancient History Encyclopedia. Alexander the Great. Livius.org. Alexander the Great of Macedon Biography. Historyofmacedonia.org . Alexander of Macedonia. San Jose State University . Bucephalus. Ancient History Encyclopedia. The Battle of Issus. Livius.org. The Sacred Band of Thebes, from Plutarch, Life of Pelopidas . Fordham University . The Siege of Tyre (332 BCE). Livius.org.

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The Greatest Speech in History? Alexander the Great & The Opis Mutiny

Alexander the Great is one of the most extraordinary individuals in history. He became king of the fringe Greek kingdom of Macedonia in 336 BC at the age of just 20, and before his death twelve years later, had imposed Macedonian overlordship on Greece, destroyed the mighty Persian Empire and led an army deep into modern Afghanistan and to the Indian frontier.

At Opis he faced a mutiny by his Macedonian troops, angered that he wanted to send some of them home, while appearing to give preference to his new Asian subjects, and adopting many of their customs. Alexander dealt ruthlessly with the ringleaders, before (according to ‘The Anabasis’ by Roman historian Arrian) making a speech to his army in which he berated his troops for their disloyalty.

The speech, as it has reached us, was no doubt written by Arrian rather than Alexander. His actual words are now impossible to ascertain.

But Arrian had access to eyewitness accounts which are now lost (principally Ptolemy and Nearchus), and modern historians generally agree that the speech was a real historical event, and that Arrian gives a good representation of its likely content.

Putting its (contested and debated) value as a historical source to one side, the scene – as it appears in Arrian – is a brilliantly written moment of high drama and emotion, in which Alexander first highlights his debt to his father Philip, before launching into a tirade in which he lists his own astounding achievements and qualities of leadership.

The speech has been abridged for this video .

The speech:

“The speech which I am about to deliver will not be for the purpose of checking your start homeward, for, so far as I am concerned, you may depart wherever you wish; but because I wish you to know what kind of men you were originally and how you have been transformed since you came into our service.

“In the first place, as is reasonable, I shall begin my speech from my father Philip. For he found you vagabonds and destitute of means, most of you clad in hides, feeding a few sheep up the mountain sides, for the protection of which you had to fight with small success against Illyrians, Triballians, and the border Thracians.

“Instead of the hides he gave you cloaks to wear, and from the mountains he led you down into the plains, and made you capable of fighting the neighbouring barbarians, so that you were no longer compelled to preserve yourselves by trusting rather to the inaccessible strongholds than to your own valour. He made you colonists of cities, which he adorned with useful laws and customs; and from being slaves and subjects, he made you rulers over those very barbarians by whom you yourselves, as well as your property, were previously liable to be plundered and ravaged.

“He also added the greater part of Thrace to Macedonia, and by seizing the most conveniently situated places on the sea-coast, he spread abundance over the land from commerce, and made the working of the mines a secure employment. He made you rulers over the Thessalians, of whom you had formerly been in mortal fear; and by humbling the nation of the Phocians, he rendered the avenue into Greece broad and easy for you, instead of being narrow and difficult.

“The Athenians and Thebans, who were always lying in wait to attack Macedonia, he humbled to such a degree,—I also then rendering him my personal aid in the campaign,—that instead of paying tribute to the former and being vassals to the latter, those States in their turn procure security to themselves by our assistance.

“He penetrated into the Peloponnese, and after regulating its affairs, was publicly declared commander-in-chief of all the rest of Greece in the expedition against the Persian, adding this glory not more to himself than to the commonwealth of the Macedonians. These were the advantages which accrued to you from my father Philip; great indeed if looked at by themselves, but small if compared with those you have obtained from me.

“For though I inherited from my father only a few gold and silver goblets, and there were not even sixty talents in the treasury, and though I found myself charged with a debt of 5OO talents owing by Philip, and I was obliged myself to borrow 800 talents in addition to these, I started from the country which could not decently support you, and forthwith laid open to you the passage of the Hellespont, though at that time the Persians held the sovereignty of the sea.

“Having overpowered the viceroys of Darius with my cavalry, I added to your empire the whole of Ionia, the whole of Aeolis, both Phrygias and Lydia, and I took Miletus by siege. All the other places I gained by voluntary surrender, and I granted you the privilege of appropriating the wealth found in them.

“The riches of Egypt and Cyrene, which I acquired without fighting a battle, have come to you. Coele-Syria, Palestine, and Mesopotamia are your property. Babylon, Bactra, and Susa are yours. The wealth of the Lydians, the treasures of the Persians, and the riches of the Indians are yours; and so is the External Sea.

“You are viceroys, you are generals, you are captains. What then have I reserved to myself after all these labours, except this purple robe and this diadem?

“I have appropriated nothing myself, nor can any one point out my treasures, except these possessions of yours or the things which I am guarding on your behalf.

“Individually, however, I have no motive to guard them, since I feed on the same fare as you do, and I take only the same amount of sleep. Nay, I do not think that my fare is as good as that of those among you who live luxuriously; and I know that I often sit up at night to watch for you, that you may be able to sleep.”

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Alexander the Great

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Alexander III of Macedon , better known as Alexander the Great (l. 21 July 356 BCE – 10 or 11 June 323 BCE, r. 336-323 BCE), was the son of King Philip II of Macedon (r. 359-336 BCE) who became king upon his father's death in 336 BCE and then conquered most of the known world of his day.

He is known as 'the great' both for his military genius and his diplomatic skills in handling the various populaces of the regions he conquered. He is further recognized for spreading Greek culture , language, and thought from Greece throughout Asia Minor , Egypt , and Mesopotamia to India and thus initiating the era of the Hellenistic Period (323-31 BCE) during which four of his generals (his successors, known as the Diadochi), in between their wars for supremacy, continued his policies of integrating Greek ( Hellenistic ) culture with that of the Near East . He died of unknown causes in 323 BCE without clearly naming a successor (or, according to some accounts, his choice of the commander Perdiccas was ignored) and the empire he built was divided among the Diadochi.

Alexander's Youth

When Alexander was young, he was taught to fight and ride by Leonidas of Epirus, a relative of his mother Olympias , as well as to endure hardships such as forced marches. His father, Philip, was interested in cultivating a refined future king and so hired Lysimachus of Acarnania to teach the boy reading, writing , and to play the lyre . This tutelage would instill in Alexander a lifelong love of reading and music . At the age of 13 or 14, Alexander was introduced to the Greek philosopher Aristotle (l. 384-322 BCE) whom Philip hired as a private tutor. He would study with Aristotle until the age of 16, and the two are said to have remained in correspondence throughout Alexander's later campaigns, although evidence of this is anecdotal.

Aristotle's influence directly bore upon Alexander's later dealings with the people he conquered, in that Alexander never forced the culture of Greece upon the inhabitants of the various regions but merely introduced it in the same way Aristotle used to teach his students. The influence of Leonidas may be seen in Alexander's lifelong resilience and physical stamina as well as in his skill with horses. Alexander is said to have tamed the 'untamable' Bucephalus when he was only 11 or 12 years old.

While his various tutors' influences certainly had a profound effect upon him, Alexander seemed destined for greatness from birth. He had, first of all, a father whose accomplishments laid a firm foundation for his later success. The historian Diodorus Siculus observes:

During the twenty-four years of his reign as King of Macedonia, in which he started with the slenderest resources, Philip built his own kingdom up into the greatest power in Europe ...He projected the overthrow of the Persian Empire , landed forces in Asia and was in the act of liberating the Hellenic communities when he was interrupted by Fate - in spite of which, he bequeathed a military establishment of such size and quality that his son Alexander was enabled to overthrow the Persian Empire without requiring the assistance of allies. These achievements were not the work of Fortune but of his own force of character, for this king stands out above all others for his military acumen, personal courage and intellectual brilliance. (Book XVI.ch.1)

While it is clear that his father had a great impact on him, Alexander himself chose to see his success as ordained by divine forces. He called himself the son of Zeus , and so claimed the status of a demigod, linking his bloodline to his two favorite heroes of antiquity, Achilles and Hercules , and modeling his behavior after theirs. This belief in his divinity was instilled in him by Olympias who also told him that his was a virgin birth as she had been miraculously impregnated by Zeus himself. His birth was associated with great signs and wonders, such as a bright star gleaming over Macedonia that night and the destruction of the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus . Plutarch writes:

Alexander was born the sixth of Hecatombaeon, which month the Macedonians call Lous, the same day that the temple of Diana at Ephesus was burnt; which Hegesias of Magnesia makes the occasion of a conceit, frigid enough to have stopped the conflagration. The temple, he says, took fire and was burnt while its mistress was absent, assisting at the birth of Alexander. And all the Eastern soothsayers who happened to be then at Ephesus , looking upon the ruin of this temple to be the forerunner of some other calamity, ran about the town, beating their faces, and crying that this day had brought forth something that would prove fatal and destructive to all Asia. (Plutarch, Life of Alexander, I)

Though his birth is well documented by historians, there is little information on his youth, aside from tales of his precociousness (he allegedly interviewed visiting dignitaries about the boundaries and strengths of Persia when he was seven years old), his tutors, and his childhood friends. Alexander's friends Cassander (l.c. 355-297 BCE), Ptolemy (l.c. 367-282 BCE), and Hephaestion (l.c. 356-324 BCE) would become his lifelong companions and generals in his army.

Callisthenes (l.c. 360-327 BCE), another friend, was Aristotle's great-nephew, and came to the Macedonian court with the philosopher. He would become court historian and follow Alexander on campaign. Hephaestion remained his best and dearest friend throughout his life and second-in-command of the army. Of Alexander's youth, the historian Worthington writes that Alexander "would have been educated at home, as was the custom in Macedonia, and he would have grown used to seeing (and then participating in) the drinking contests that were part of Macedonian court life" but that, aside from that, "we know surprisingly little about Alexander's boyhood" (33).

Chaeronea & the Early Campaigns

Alexander's military prowess was first noted at the Battle of Chaeronea in 338 BCE. Although only 18 years old, he helped turn the tide of battle in the decisive Macedonian victory which defeated the Greek allied city -states. When Philip II was assassinated in 336 BCE, Alexander assumed the throne, and with the Greek city-states now united under Macedonian rule following Chaeronea, embarked on the great campaign his father had been planning: the conquest of the mighty Persian Empire. Worthington states:

Homer was Alexander's bible and he took Aristotle's edition with him to Asia...During his campaigns Alexander was always intent on finding out everything he could about the areas through which he passed. He took with him an entourage of scientists to record and analyse this information, from botany, biology, zoology and meteorology, to topography. His desire to learn, and to have information recorded as scientifically as possible, probably stemmed from Aristotle's teachings and enthusiasm. (34-35)

With a Macedonian army of 32,000 infantry and 5,100 cavalry, Alexander crossed over to Asia Minor in 334 BCE to begin his conquest of the Achaemenid Persian Empire, defeating the Persian army led by satraps at the Battle of Granicus in May. He then "liberated" (as he phrased his conquest) the cities of Sardis and Ephesus from Persian rule that same year before moving on to others in Asia Minor. At Ephesus, he offered to rebuild the Temple of Artemis , which had been destroyed by arson on the night of his birth, but the city refused his gesture. In 333 BCE, Alexander and his troops defeated the larger force of King Darius III (r. 336-330 BCE) of Persia at the Battle of Issos. Alexander went on to sack the Phoenician cities of Baalbek and Sidon (which had surrendered) in 332 BCE and then lay siege to the island city of Tyre.

So determined was he to conquer the ancient city of Tyre that he built a causeway from the mainland to the island on which to mount his siege engines. This causeway, in time, collected silt and earth and is the reason why Tyre is a part of the mainland in Lebanon today. For their stubborn resistance, the inhabitants of the city were slaughtered and the survivors sold into slavery. His policy regarding the citizens of Tyre is cited by historians, ancient and modern, as a prime example of his ruthlessness.

In 331 BCE, he conquered Egypt where he founded the city of Alexandria . At the Oracle of Siwa, in the eponymous Egyptian oasis, he was proclaimed a son of the god Zeus-Ammon.

Though he had conquered Egypt, Alexander was not interested in imposing his own ideas of truth, religion , or behavior upon the people as long as they willingly kept the supply lines open to feed and equip his troops (an important aspect of his ability to rule vast areas, which was to be neglected by his successors). This does not mean, however, that he did not ruthlessly suppress uprisings or hesitate to viciously annihilate those who opposed him. After designing the plan for the city of Alexandria, he left Egypt for Syria and northern Mesopotamia to pursue further campaigns against Persia.

The Persian Campaigns

In 331 BCE, Alexander met King Darius III again on the battlefield at Gaugamela (also called the Battle of Arbela), where, once again facing overwhelming numbers, he decisively defeated Darius III who fled the field. Alexander then moved on to take Babylon and Susa which surrendered unconditionally without resistance. In the winter of 330, Alexander marched toward Persepolis, meeting resistance at the Battle of the Persian Gates defended by the hero Ariobarzanes (l. 386-330 BCE) and his sister Youtab Aryobarzan (d. 330 BCE) at the head of the Persian troops. Alexander defeated this force and took Persepolis, which he then burned.

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According to the ancient historian Diodorus Siculus (and other ancient sources), he started the fire which destroyed the main palace and most of the city as revenge for the burning of the Acropolis in Xerxes ' Persian invasion of Greece in 480 BCE. This act was said to be instigated during a drunken party by Thais, the Athenian lover of the general Ptolemy, claiming it would be apt revenge for the city to be burnt "by women 's hands", and she is said to have thrown her torch right after Alexander threw the first.

In the summer of 330 BCE, Darius III was assassinated by his own general and cousin Bessus, an act which Alexander was said to deplore. Darius III's corpse was treated with the greatest respect, as were the surviving members of his family. Alexander proclaimed himself the King of Asia and continued on with his conquest, marching into the region of modern-day Afghanistan. In 329 BCE, he founded the city of Alexandria-Eschate on the Iaxartes River, destroyed the city of Cyropolis, and defeated the Scythians at the northern borders of the empire. Between fall of 330 BCE and spring of 327 BCE, he campaigned against Bactria and Sogdiana , hard-fought battles which he won as he had every engagement thus far. Bessus was captured and executed for his treachery against his former king to send the message that disloyalty of that kind would never be rewarded.

Alexander founded many cities bearing his name during this time to further his public image not only as a "liberator" but as a god and adopted the title Shahanshah (King of Kings) used by the rulers of the First Persian Empire. In keeping with this status, Alexander introduced the Persian custom of proskynesis to the army, forcing those who addressed him to first kneel and kiss his hand.

The Macedonian troops became progressively uncomfortable with Alexander's apparent deification and adoption of Persian customs. Assassination plots were hatched (notably in 327 BCE) only to be revealed and the conspirators executed, even if they were old friends. Callisthenes became one of these when he was implicated in a plot. Cleitus, the elder statesman who had saved Alexander's life at the Battle of Granicus, would doom himself in a similar way. In c. 327 BCE Alexander would dispose of both Callisthenes and Cleitus, in separate incidents, for treason and questioning his authority, respectively.

Alexander's habit of drinking to excess was well known, and certainly in the case of Cleitus' death, significantly influenced the murder. Both Cleitus and Callisthenes had become quite vocal in their criticism of Alexander's adoption of Persian customs. Though capable of great diplomacy and skill in dealing with conquered peoples and their rulers, Alexander was not known for tolerating personal opinions which conflicted with his own, and this intolerance was exacerbated by drinking. Cleitus' death was swift, through a javelin Alexander hurled at him, while Callisthenes was imprisoned and died in confinement.

India & Mutiny

In 327 BCE, with the Persian Empire firmly under his control and newly married to the Bactrian noblewoman Roxana (l. c. 340 to c. 310 BCE), Alexander turned his attention to India. Having heard of the exploits of the great Macedonian general, the Indian King Omphis of Taxila submitted to his authority without a fight, but the Aspasioi and Assakenoi tribes strongly resisted. In battles throughout 327 BCE and into 326 BCE, Alexander subdued these tribes, finally meeting King Porus of Paurava at the Battle of the Hydaspes River in 326 BCE.

Porus charged Alexander's forces with elephants and fought so bravely with his troops that, after defeating Porus, Alexander installed him as ruler of a larger region than he had previously held. Alexander's horse Bucephalus was killed in this battle, and Alexander named one of the two cities he founded after the battle 'Bucephala' after him.

Alexander intended to march on and cross the River Ganges toward further conquests, but his troops, worn out by the hard-fought battle with Porus (in which, according to Arrian , Alexander lost 1000 men), mutinied in 326 BCE and refused to go further. Alexander tried to persuade his men to press on but, failing to win them over, finally assented to their wishes. He split his army in two, sending half back to Susa by sea under the command of Admiral Nearchus through the Persian Gulf, and marching the other half on through the Gedrosian Desert in 325 BCE, almost a full year after his troops had mutinied.

His reasoning behind this decision, both the delay in withdrawal after the mutiny and the form it finally took, is still unclear and debated by historians. Even though he had abandoned his conquest of India, he still paused on his march to subdue those hostile tribes he encountered along the way. The harsh terrain of the desert, and the military engagements, took a great toll on his troops, and by the time they reached Susa in 324 BCE, Alexander had sustained considerable losses.

Upon his return, he found that many of the satraps he had entrusted with rule had abused their power and so executed them as well as those who had vandalized the tomb of Cyrus the Great (r. c. 550-530 BCE) at the old capital city of Pasargadae . He ordered the ancient capital and tomb to be restored and took other measures to integrate his army with the people of the region and merge the cultures of Persia and Macedonia.

Alexander held a mass marriage service at Susa in 324 BCE at which he married members of his senior staff to Persian princesses and noblewomen while he himself married a daughter of Darius III to further identify himself with Persian royalty. Many of his troops objected to this cultural merger and increasingly criticized his adoption of Persian dress and manners which he had affected since 329 BCE. They further objected to the promotion of Persians over Macedonians in the army and to Alexander's order merging Persian and Macedonian units. Alexander responded by appointing Persians to prominent positions in the army and awarded traditional Macedonian titles and honors to Persian units.

His troops backed down and submitted to Alexander's wishes, and in a gesture of goodwill, he returned the titles to the Macedonians and ordered a great communal feast at which he dined and drank with the army. He had already dropped the custom of proskynesis in deference to his men but continued to comport himself as a Persian, rather than Macedonian, king.

At about this time, in 324 BCE, his lifelong friend, possibly his lover, and his second-in-command, Hephaestion, died from a fever, though some reports suggest he may have been poisoned. The claim that Alexander was homosexual or bisexual is supported by biographies written after his death and Hephaestion is routinely noted as his lover as well as his best friend. Historians' accounts of Alexander's response to this event universally agree that his grief was insupportable.

Plutarch claims that Alexander slaughtered the Cossaeans of a neighboring town as a sacrifice to his friend, and Arrian writes that he had Hephaestion's doctor executed for failing to cure him. The manes and tails of the horses were cut as a sign of mourning, and Alexander refused to promote another to Hephaestion's position as commander of the cavalry. He abstained from food and drink and declared a period of mourning throughout his empire and funeral rites usually reserved for a king.

Alexander's Death

While still processing the grief of Hephaestion's death, Alexander returned to Babylon in 323 BCE with plans for expanding his empire but he would never realize them. He died at Babylon at the age of 32 on 10 or 11 June 323 BCE after suffering ten days of high fever. Theories concerning his cause of death have ranged from poisoning to malaria to meningitis to bacterial infection from drinking contaminated water (among others).

Plutarch says that, 14 days before his death, Alexander entertained his fleet admiral Nearcus and his friend Medius of Larissa with a long bout of drinking, after which he fell into a fever from which he never recovered. When he was asked who should succeed him, Alexander said, “the strongest”, which answer led to his empire being divided between four of his generals: Cassander, Ptolemy, Antigonus , and Seleucus (known as the Diadochi or 'successors').

Plutarch and Arrian, however, claim he passed his reign to Perdiccas, the friend of Hephaistion with whom Alexander had carried their friend's body to his funeral in Babylon. Perdiccas was also Alexander's friend as well as his bodyguard and fellow cavalryman, and it would make sense, considering Alexander's habit of rewarding those he was close to with favors, that he would choose Perdiccas over others. However that may be, following Alexander's death, the generals ignored his wishes and Perdiccas was assassinated in 321 BCE.

The Diadochi

His longtime comrade, Cassander, would order the execution of Alexander's wife Roxana, Alexander's son by her, and Alexander's mother Olympias to consolidate his power as the new King of Macedonia (a title he would later lose to Antigonus I and his heirs). Ptolemy I is said to have stolen Alexander's corpse as it was en route to Macedon and spirited it away to Egypt in hope of securing the prophecy that the land in which it was laid to rest would be prosperous and unconquerable. He would found the Ptolemaic Dynasty in Egypt which would last until 30 BCE, ending with the death of his descendant Cleopatra VII (l. 69-30 BCE).

Seleucus founded the Seleucid Empire (312-63 BCE), comprising Mesopotamia, Anatolia , and parts of India, and would be the last remaining of the Diadochi after the incessant 40 years of war between them and their heirs. He came to be known as Seleucus I Nicator (the unconquered, r. 305-281 BCE). None of Alexander's generals possessed his natural intelligence, understanding, or military genius but, even so, would found dynasties which, with exceptions, ruled their respective regions until the coming of Rome .

Their influence over the regions they controlled created what historians refer to as the Hellenistic Period in which Greek thought and culture became entwined with that of the indigenous populace. According to Diodorus Siculus, one of the stipulations of Alexander's will was the creation of a unified empire between former enemies. People of the Near East were to be encouraged to marry with those of Europe and those of Europe to do likewise; in so doing, a new Hellenistic culture would be embraced by all. Although the Diadochi failed in the peaceful fulfillment of his wishes, through the Hellenization of their empires they contributed to Alexander's dream of cultural unity; even if such unity could never be fully realized.

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Bibliography

• Arrian. Arrian. Loeb Classical Library, 1976.
• Diodorus Siculus. Diodorus Siculus. Loeb Classical Library, 1935.
• Durant, W. The Life of Greece. Simon & Schuster, 2011.
• Grant, M. Readings in the Classical Historians. Scribner, 1993.
• Plutarch's Life of Alexander , accessed 1 Dec 2016.
• Plutarch. Plutarch 's Lives selected and edited by John S. White. New York. G. P. Putnam's Sons, c1883., 1970.
• Toynbee, A.J. Greek Historical Thought. Signet, 1952.
• Waterfield, R. Dividing the Spoils. Oxford University Press, USA, 2012.
• Winthrop, L.A. Alexander the Great. Longman, 2004.
• Worthington, I. Alexander the Great. Longman, 2004.

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Although king of ancient Macedonia for less than 13 years, Alexander the Great changed the course of history. One of the world’s greatest military generals, he created a vast empire that stretched from Macedonia to Egypt and from Greece to part of India. This allowed for Hellenistic culture to become widespread.

Alexander was the son of Philip II and Olympias (daughter of King Neoptolemus of Epirus). From age 13 to 16 he was taught by the Greek philosopher Aristotle , who inspired his interest in philosophy, medicine, and scientific investigation. As a teenager, Alexander became known for his exploits on the battlefield.

While in Babylon , Alexander became ill after a prolonged banquet and drinking bout, and on June 13, 323, he died at age 33. There was much speculation about the cause of death, and the most popular theories claim that he either contracted malaria or typhoid fever or that he was poisoned.

While he could be ruthless and impulsive, Alexander was also charismatic and sensible. His troops were extremely loyal, believing in him throughout all hardships. Hugely ambitious, Alexander drew inspiration from the gods Achilles , Heracles , and Dionysus . He also displayed a deep interest in learning and encouraged the spread of Hellenistic culture.

Alexander the Great (born 356 bce , Pella, Macedonia [northwest of Thessaloníki, Greece]—died June 13, 323 bce , Babylon [near Al-Ḥillah, Iraq]) was the king of Macedonia (336–323 bce ), who overthrew the Persian empire , carried Macedonian arms to India , and laid the foundations for the Hellenistic world of territorial kingdoms. Already in his lifetime the subject of fabulous stories, he later became the hero of a full-scale legend bearing only the sketchiest resemblance to his historical career.

He was born in 356 bce at Pella in Macedonia, the son of Philip II and Olympias (daughter of King Neoptolemus of Epirus ). From age 13 to 16 he was taught by Aristotle , who inspired him with an interest in philosophy , medicine , and scientific investigation , but he was later to advance beyond his teacher’s narrow precept that non-Greeks should be treated as slaves. Left in charge of Macedonia in 340 during Philip’s attack on Byzantium , Alexander defeated the Maedi, a Thracian people. Two years later he commanded the left wing at the Battle of Chaeronea , in which Philip defeated the allied Greek states, and displayed personal courage in breaking the Sacred Band of Thebes , an elite military corps composed of 150 pairs of lovers. A year later Philip divorced Olympias, and, after a quarrel at a feast held to celebrate his father’s new marriage, Alexander and his mother fled to Epirus, and Alexander later went to Illyria . Shortly afterward, father and son were reconciled and Alexander returned, but his position as heir was jeopardized.

In 336, however, on Philip’s assassination , Alexander, acclaimed by the army, succeeded without opposition. He at once executed the princes of Lyncestis, alleged to be behind Philip’s murder, along with all possible rivals and the whole of the faction opposed to him. He then marched south, recovered a wavering Thessaly , and at an assembly of the Greek League of Corinth was appointed generalissimo for the forthcoming invasion of Asia , already planned and initiated by Philip. Returning to Macedonia by way of Delphi (where the Pythian priestess acclaimed him “invincible”), he advanced into Thrace in spring 335 and, after forcing the Shipka Pass and crushing the Triballi , crossed the Danube to disperse the Getae ; turning west, he then defeated and shattered a coalition of Illyrians who had invaded Macedonia. Meanwhile, a rumour of his death had precipitated a revolt of Theban democrats; other Greek states favoured Thebes , and the Athenians , urged on by Demosthenes , voted help. In 14 days Alexander marched 240 miles from Pelion (near modern Korçë , Albania ) in Illyria to Thebes. When the Thebans refused to surrender, he made an entry and razed their city to the ground, sparing only temples and Pindar ’s house; 6,000 were killed and all survivors sold into slavery . The other Greek states were cowed by this severity, and Alexander could afford to treat Athens leniently. Macedonian garrisons were left in Corinth , Chalcis , and the Cadmea (the citadel of Thebes).

From his accession Alexander had set his mind on the Persian expedition . He had grown up to the idea. Moreover, he needed the wealth of Persia if he was to maintain the army built by Philip and pay off the 500 talents he owed. The exploits of the Ten Thousand, Greek soldiers of fortune, and of Agesilaus of Sparta , in successfully campaigning in Persian territory had revealed the vulnerability of the Persian empire . With a good cavalry force Alexander could expect to defeat any Persian army. In spring 334 he crossed the Dardanelles , leaving Antipater , who had already faithfully served his father, as his deputy in Europe with over 13,000 men; he himself commanded about 30,000 foot and over 5,000 cavalry, of whom nearly 14,000 were Macedonians and about 7,000 allies sent by the Greek League. This army was to prove remarkable for its balanced combination of arms. Much work fell on the lightarmed Cretan and Macedonian archers, Thracians, and the Agrianian javelin men. But in pitched battle the striking force was the cavalry , and the core of the army, should the issue still remain undecided after the cavalry charge, was the infantry phalanx , 9,000 strong, armed with 13-foot spears and shields, and the 3,000 men of the royal battalions, the hypaspists. Alexander’s second in command was Parmenio , who had secured a foothold in Asia Minor during Philip’s lifetime; many of his family and supporters were entrenched in positions of responsibility. The army was accompanied by surveyors, engineers, architects, scientists, court officials, and historians; from the outset Alexander seems to have envisaged an unlimited operation.

After visiting Ilium ( Troy ), a romantic gesture inspired by Homer , he confronted his first Persian army, led by three satraps , at the Granicus (modern Kocabaş) River, near the Sea of Marmara (May/June 334). The Persian plan to tempt Alexander across the river and kill him in the melee almost succeeded; but the Persian line broke, and Alexander’s victory was complete. Darius ’s Greek mercenaries were largely massacred, but 2,000 survivors were sent back to Macedonia in chains. This victory exposed western Asia Minor to the Macedonians, and most cities hastened to open their gates. The tyrants were expelled and (in contrast to Macedonian policy in Greece) democracies were installed. Alexander thus underlined his Panhellenic policy, already symbolized in the sending of 300 panoplies (sets of armour) taken at the Granicus as an offering dedicated to Athena at Athens by “Alexander son of Philip and the Greeks (except the Spartans) from the barbarians who inhabit Asia.” (This formula, cited by the Greek historian Arrian in his history of Alexander’s campaigns, is noteworthy for its omission of any reference to Macedonia.) But the cities remained de facto under Alexander, and his appointment of Calas as satrap of Hellespontine Phrygia reflected his claim to succeed the Great King of Persia. When Miletus , encouraged by the proximity of the Persian fleet, resisted, Alexander took it by assault, but, refusing a naval battle, he disbanded his own costly navy and announced that he would “defeat the Persian fleet on land,” by occupying the coastal cities. In Caria , Halicarnassus resisted and was stormed, but Ada , the widow and sister of the satrap Idrieus, adopted Alexander as her son and, after expelling her brother Pixodarus, Alexander restored her to her satrapy. Some parts of Caria held out, however, until 332.

In winter 334–333 Alexander conquered western Asia Minor, subduing the hill tribes of Lycia and Pisidia , and in spring 333 he advanced along the coastal road to Perga , passing the cliffs of Mount Climax, thanks to a fortunate change of wind. The fall in the level of the sea was interpreted as a mark of divine favour by Alexander’s flatterers, including the historian Callisthenes . At Gordium in Phrygia , tradition records his cutting of the Gordian knot , which could only be loosed by the man who was to rule Asia; but this story may be apocryphal or at least distorted. At this point Alexander benefitted from the sudden death of Memnon , the competent Greek commander of the Persian fleet. From Gordium he pushed on to Ancyra (modern Ankara ) and thence south through Cappadocia and the Cilician Gates (modern Külek Boğazi); a fever held him up for a time in Cilicia . Meanwhile, Darius with his Grand Army had advanced northward on the eastern side of Mount Amanus. Intelligence on both sides was faulty, and Alexander was already encamped by Myriandrus (near modern İskenderun , Turkey ) when he learned that Darius was astride his line of communications at Issus , north of Alexander’s position (autumn 333). Turning, Alexander found Darius drawn up along the Pinarus River. In the battle that followed, Alexander won a decisive victory. The struggle turned into a Persian rout and Darius fled, leaving his family in Alexander’s hands; the women were treated with chivalrous care.

From Issus Alexander marched south into Syria and Phoenicia , his object being to isolate the Persian fleet from its bases and so to destroy it as an effective fighting force. The Phoenician cities Marathus and Aradus came over quietly, and Parmenio was sent ahead to secure Damascus and its rich booty, including Darius ’s war chest. In reply to a letter from Darius offering peace, Alexander replied arrogantly, recapitulating the historic wrongs of Greece and demanding unconditional surrender to himself as lord of Asia. After taking Byblos (modern Jubayl) and Sidon (Arabic Ṣaydā), he met with a check at Tyre , where he was refused entry into the island city. He thereupon prepared to use all methods of siegecraft to take it, but the Tyrians resisted, holding out for seven months. In the meantime (winter 333–332) the Persians had counterattacked by land in Asia Minor—where they were defeated by Antigonus , the satrap of Greater Phrygia—and by sea, recapturing a number of cities and islands.

While the siege of Tyre was in progress, Darius sent a new offer: he would pay a huge ransom of 10,000 talents for his family and cede all his lands west of the Euphrates . “I would accept,” Parmenio is reported to have said, “were I Alexander”; “I too,” was the famous retort, “were I Parmenio.” The storming of Tyre in July 332 was Alexander’s greatest military achievement; it was attended with great carnage and the sale of the women and children into slavery . Leaving Parmenio in Syria, Alexander advanced south without opposition until he reached Gaza on its high mound; there bitter resistance halted him for two months, and he sustained a serious shoulder wound during a sortie. There is no basis for the tradition that he turned aside to visit Jerusalem .

In November 332 he reached Egypt . The people welcomed him as their deliverer, and the Persian satrap Mazaces wisely surrendered. At Memphis Alexander sacrificed to Apis , the Greek term for Hapi, the sacred Egyptian bull, and was crowned with the traditional double crown of the pharaohs ; the native priests were placated and their religion encouraged. He spent the winter organizing Egypt , where he employed Egyptian governors, keeping the army under a separate Macedonian command. He founded the city of Alexandria near the western arm of the Nile on a fine site between the sea and Lake Mareotis, protected by the island of Pharos, and had it laid out by the Rhodian architect Deinocrates. He is also said to have sent an expedition to discover the causes of the flooding of the Nile. From Alexandria he marched along the coast to Paraetonium and from there inland to visit the celebrated oracle of the god Amon (at Sīwah ); the difficult journey was later embroidered with flattering legends . On his reaching the oracle in its oasis , the priest gave him the traditional salutation of a pharaoh , as son of Amon; Alexander consulted the god on the success of his expedition but revealed the reply to no one. Later the incident was to contribute to the story that he was the son of Zeus and, thus, to his “deification.” In spring 331 he returned to Tyre, appointed a Macedonian satrap for Syria, and prepared to advance into Mesopotamia . His conquest of Egypt had completed his control of the whole eastern Mediterranean coast.

In July 331 Alexander was at Thapsacus on the Euphrates . Instead of taking the direct route down the river to Babylon , he made across northern Mesopotamia toward the Tigris , and Darius, learning of this move from an advance force sent under Mazaeus to the Euphrates crossing, marched up the Tigris to oppose him. The decisive battle of the war was fought on October 31, on the plain of Gaugamela between Nineveh and Arbela. Alexander pursued the defeated Persian forces for 35 miles to Arbela, but Darius escaped with his Bactrian cavalry and Greek mercenaries into Media .

Alexander now occupied Babylon , city and province; Mazaeus, who surrendered it, was confirmed as satrap in conjunction with a Macedonian troop commander, and quite exceptionally was granted the right to coin . As in Egypt, the local priesthood was encouraged. Susa , the capital, also surrendered, releasing huge treasures amounting to 50,000 gold talents; here Alexander established Darius’s family in comfort. Crushing the mountain tribe of the Ouxians, he now pressed on over the Zagros range into Persia proper and, successfully turning the Pass of the Persian Gates, held by the satrap Ariobarzanes , he entered Persepolis and Pasargadae . At Persepolis he ceremonially burned down the palace of Xerxes , as a symbol that the Panhellenic war of revenge was at an end; for such seems the probable significance of an act that tradition later explained as a drunken frolic inspired by Thaïs , an Athenian courtesan. In spring 330 Alexander marched north into Media and occupied its capital. The Thessalians and Greek allies were sent home; henceforward he was waging a purely personal war.

As Mazaeus’s appointment indicated, Alexander’s views on the empire were changing. He had come to envisage a joint ruling people consisting of Macedonians and Persians, and this served to augment the misunderstanding that now arose between him and his people. Before continuing his pursuit of Darius, who had retreated into Bactria , he assembled all the Persian treasure and entrusted it to Harpalus , who was to hold it at Ecbatana as chief treasurer. Parmenio was also left behind in Media to control communications; the presence of this older man had perhaps become irksome.

In midsummer 330 Alexander set out for the eastern provinces at a high speed via Rhagae (modern Rayy , near Tehrān ) and the Caspian Gates, where he learned that Bessus , the satrap of Bactria, had deposed Darius. After a skirmish near modern Shāhrūd, the usurper had Darius stabbed and left him to die. Alexander sent his body for burial with due honours in the royal tombs at Persepolis.

Darius ’s death left no obstacle to Alexander’s claim to be Great King, and a Rhodian inscription of this year (330) calls him “lord of Asia”—i.e., of the Persian empire; soon afterward his Asian coins carry the title of king. Crossing the Elburz Mountains to the Caspian , he seized Zadracarta in Hyrcania and received the submission of a group of satraps and Persian notables, some of whom he confirmed in their offices; in a diversion westward, perhaps to modern Āmol , he reduced the Mardi, a mountain people who inhabited the Elburz Mountains. He also accepted the surrender of Darius’s Greek mercenaries. His advance eastward was now rapid. In Aria he reduced Satibarzanes, who had offered submission only to revolt, and he founded Alexandria of the Arians (modern Herāt ). At Phrada in Drangiana (either near modern Nad-e ʿAli in Seistan or farther north at Farah ), he at last took steps to destroy Parmenio and his family. Philotas , Parmenio’s son, commander of the elite Companion cavalry, was implicated in an alleged plot against Alexander’s life, condemned by the army, and executed; and a secret message was sent to Cleander , Parmenio’s second in command, who obediently assassinated him. This ruthless action excited widespread horror but strengthened Alexander’s position relative to his critics and those whom he regarded as his father’s men. All Parmenio’s adherents were now eliminated and men close to Alexander promoted. The Companion cavalry was reorganized in two sections, each containing four squadrons (now known as hipparchies); one group was commanded by Alexander’s oldest friend, Hephaestion , the other by Cleitus , an older man. From Phrada, Alexander pressed on during the winter of 330–329 up the valley of the Helmand River , through Arachosia , and over the mountains past the site of modern Kābul into the country of the Paropamisadae, where he founded Alexandria by the Caucasus .

Bessus was now in Bactria raising a national revolt in the eastern satrapies with the usurped title of Great King. Crossing the Hindu Kush northward over the Khawak Pass (11,650 feet [3,550 metres]), Alexander brought his army, despite food shortages, to Drapsaca (sometimes identified with modern Banu [Andarab], probably farther north at Qunduz); outflanked, Bessus fled beyond the Oxus (modern Amu Darya ), and Alexander, marching west to Bactra-Zariaspa (modern Balkh [ Wazirabad ] in Afghanistan ), appointed loyal satraps in Bactria and Aria. Crossing the Oxus, he sent his general Ptolemy in pursuit of Bessus, who had meanwhile been overthrown by the Sogdian Spitamenes. Bessus was captured, flogged, and sent to Bactra, where he was later mutilated after the Persian manner (losing his nose and ears); in due course he was publicly executed at Ecbatana .

From Maracanda (modern Samarkand ) Alexander advanced by way of Cyropolis to the Jaxartes (modern Syrdarya), the boundary of the Persian empire. There he broke the opposition of the Scythian nomads by his use of catapults and, after defeating them in a battle on the north bank of the river, pursued them into the interior. On the site of modern Leninabad ( Khojent ) on the Jaxartes, he founded a city, Alexandria Eschate, “the farthest.” Meanwhile, Spitamenes had raised all Sogdiana in revolt behind him, bringing in the Massagetai , a people of the Shaka confederacy. It took Alexander until the autumn of 328 to crush the most determined opponent he encountered in his campaigns. Later in the same year he attacked Oxyartes and the remaining barons who held out in the hills of Paraetacene (modern Tajikistan ); volunteers seized the crag on which Oxyartes had his stronghold, and among the captives was his daughter, Roxana . In reconciliation Alexander married her, and the rest of his opponents were either won over or crushed.

An incident that occurred at Maracanda widened the breach between Alexander and many of his Macedonians. He murdered Cleitus, one of his most-trusted commanders, in a drunken quarrel, but his excessive display of remorse led the army to pass a decree convicting Cleitus posthumously of treason . The event marked a step in Alexander’s progress toward Eastern absolutism, and this growing attitude found its outward expression in his use of Persian royal dress. Shortly afterward, at Bactra , he attempted to impose the Persian court ceremonial, involving prostration ( proskynesis ), on the Greeks and Macedonians too, but to them this custom, habitual for Persians entering the king’s presence, implied an act of worship and was intolerable before a human. Even Callisthenes , historian and nephew of Aristotle , whose ostentatious flattery had perhaps encouraged Alexander to see himself in the role of a god, refused to abase himself. Macedonian laughter caused the experiment to founder, and Alexander abandoned it. Shortly afterward, however, Callisthenes was held to be privy to a conspiracy among the royal pages and was executed (or died in prison; accounts vary); resentment of this action alienated sympathy from Alexander within the Peripatetic school of philosophers, with which Callisthenes had close connections.

In early summer 327 Alexander left Bactria with a reinforced army under a reorganized command. If Plutarch ’s figure of 120,000 men has any reality, however, it must include all kinds of auxiliary services, together with muleteers, camel drivers, medical corps, peddlers, entertainers, women, and children; the fighting strength perhaps stood at about 35,000. Recrossing the Hindu Kush , probably by Bamiyan and the Ghorband Valley, Alexander divided his forces. Half the army with the baggage under Hephaestion and Perdiccas , both cavalry commanders, was sent through the Khyber Pass , while he himself led the rest, together with his siege train, through the hills to the north. His advance through Swāt and Gandhāra was marked by the storming of the almost impregnable pinnacle of Aornos , the modern Pir-Sar, a few miles west of the Indus and north of the Buner River, an impressive feat of siegecraft. In spring 326, crossing the Indus near Attock, Alexander entered Taxila , whose ruler, Taxiles, furnished elephants and troops in return for aid against his rival Porus , who ruled the lands between the Hydaspes (modern Jhelum ) and the Acesines (modern Chenāb ). In June Alexander fought his last great battle on the left bank of the Hydaspes . He founded two cities there, Alexandria Nicaea (to celebrate his victory) and Bucephala (named after his horse Bucephalus , which died there); and Porus became his ally.

How much Alexander knew of India beyond the Hyphasis (probably the modern Beas ) is uncertain; there is no conclusive proof that he had heard of the Ganges . But he was anxious to press on farther, and he had advanced to the Hyphasis when his army mutinied, refusing to go farther in the tropical rain; they were weary in body and spirit, and Coenus, one of Alexander’s four chief marshals, acted as their spokesman. On finding the army adamant , Alexander agreed to turn back.

On the Hyphasis he erected 12 altars to the 12 Olympian gods, and on the Hydaspes he built a fleet of 800 to 1,000 ships. Leaving Porus, he then proceeded down the river and into the Indus, with half his forces on shipboard and half marching in three columns down the two banks. The fleet was commanded by Nearchus , and Alexander’s own captain was Onesicritus; both later wrote accounts of the campaign. The march was attended with much fighting and heavy, pitiless slaughter; at the storming of one town of the Malli near the Hydraotes ( Ravi ) River, Alexander received a severe wound which left him weakened.

On reaching Patala, located at the head of the Indus delta, he built a harbour and docks and explored both arms of the Indus, which probably then ran into the Rann of Kachchh . He planned to lead part of his forces back by land, while the rest in perhaps 100 to 150 ships under the command of Nearchus, a Cretan with naval experience, made a voyage of exploration along the Persian Gulf . Local opposition led Nearchus to set sail in September (325), and he was held up for three weeks until he could pick up the northeast monsoon in late October. In September Alexander too set out along the coast through Gedrosia (modern Baluchistan), but he was soon compelled by mountainous country to turn inland, thus failing in his project to establish food depots for the fleet. Craterus , a high-ranking officer, already had been sent off with the baggage and siege train, the elephants, and the sick and wounded, together with three battalions of the phalanx , by way of the Mulla Pass, Quetta , and Kandahar into the Helmand Valley ; from there he was to march through Drangiana to rejoin the main army on the Amanis (modern Minab) River in Carmania. Alexander’s march through Gedrosia proved disastrous; waterless desert and shortage of food and fuel caused great suffering, and many, especially women and children, perished in a sudden monsoon flood while encamped in a wadi. At length, at the Amanis, he was rejoined by Nearchus and the fleet, which also had suffered losses.

Alexander now proceeded farther with the policy of replacing senior officials and executing defaulting governors on which he had already embarked before leaving India. Between 326 and 324 over a third of his satraps were superseded and six were put to death, including the Persian satraps of Persis , Susiana, Carmania, and Paraetacene; three generals in Media , including Cleander , the brother of Coenus (who had died a little earlier), were accused of extortion and summoned to Carmania, where they were arrested, tried, and executed. How far the rigour that from now onward Alexander displayed against his governors represents exemplary punishment for gross maladministration during his absence and how far the elimination of men he had come to distrust (as in the case of Philotas and Parmenio ) is debatable; but the ancient sources generally favourable to him comment adversely on his severity.

In spring 324 he was back in Susa , capital of Elam and administrative centre of the Persian empire; the story of his journey through Carmania in a drunken revel, dressed as Dionysus , is embroidered, if not wholly apocryphal. He found that his treasurer, Harpalus , evidently fearing punishment for peculation, had absconded with 6,000 mercenaries and 5,000 talents to Greece; arrested in Athens , he escaped and later was murdered in Crete . At Susa Alexander held a feast to celebrate the seizure of the Persian empire, at which, in furtherance of his policy of fusing Macedonians and Persians into one master race, he and 80 of his officers took Persian wives; he and Hephaestion married Darius ’s daughters Barsine (also called Stateira) and Drypetis, respectively, and 10,000 of his soldiers with native wives were given generous dowries.

This policy of racial fusion brought increasing friction to Alexander’s relations with his Macedonians, who had no sympathy for his changed concept of the empire. His determination to incorporate Persians on equal terms in the army and the administration of the provinces was bitterly resented. This discontent was now fanned by the arrival of 30,000 native youths who had received a Macedonian military training and by the introduction of Asian peoples from Bactria , Sogdiana , Arachosia , and other parts of the empire into the Companion cavalry ; whether Asians had previously served with the Companions is uncertain, but if so they must have formed separate squadrons. In addition, Persian nobles had been accepted into the royal cavalry bodyguard. Peucestas, the new governor of Persis , gave this policy full support to flatter Alexander; but most Macedonians saw it as a threat to their own privileged position.

The issue came to a head at Opis (324), when Alexander’s decision to send home Macedonian veterans under Craterus was interpreted as a move toward transferring the seat of power to Asia. There was an open mutiny involving all but the royal bodyguard; but when Alexander dismissed his whole army and enrolled Persians instead, the opposition broke down. An emotional scene of reconciliation was followed by a vast banquet with 9,000 guests to celebrate the ending of the misunderstanding and the partnership in government of Macedonians and Persians—but not, as has been argued, the incorporation of all the subject peoples as partners in the commonwealth. Ten thousand veterans were now sent back to Macedonia with gifts, and the crisis was surmounted.

In summer 324 Alexander attempted to solve another problem, that of the wandering mercenaries, of whom there were thousands in Asia and Greece, many of them political exiles from their own cities. A decree brought by Nicanor to Europe and proclaimed at Olympia (September 324) required the Greek cities of the Greek League to receive back all exiles and their families (except the Thebans), a measure that implied some modification of the oligarchic regimes maintained in the Greek cities by Alexander’s governor Antipater . Alexander now planned to recall Antipater and supersede him by Craterus , but he was to die before this could be done.

In autumn 324 Hephaestion died in Ecbatana , and Alexander indulged in extravagant mourning for his closest friend; he was given a royal funeral in Babylon with a pyre costing 10,000 talents. His post of chiliarch (grand vizier) was left unfilled. It was probably in connection with a general order now sent out to the Greeks to honour Hephaestion as a hero that Alexander linked the demand that he himself should be accorded divine honours. For a long time his mind had dwelt on ideas of godhead. Greek thought drew no very decided line of demarcation between god and man, for legend offered more than one example of men who, by their achievements, acquired divine status. Alexander had on several occasions encouraged favourable comparison of his own accomplishments with those of Dionysus or Heracles . He now seems to have become convinced of the reality of his own divinity and to have required its acceptance by others. There is no reason to assume that his demand had any political background (divine status gave its possessor no particular rights in a Greek city); it was rather a symptom of growing megalomania and emotional instability. The cities perforce complied, but often ironically: the Spartan decree read, “Since Alexander wishes to be a god, let him be a god.”

In the winter of 324 Alexander carried out a savage punitive expedition against the Cossaeans in the hills of Luristan. The following spring at Babylon he received complimentary embassies from the Libyans and from the Bruttians, Etruscans , and Lucanians of Italy; but the story that embassies also came from more distant peoples, such as Carthaginians, Celts , Iberians , and even Romans, is a later invention. Representatives of the cities of Greece also came, garlanded as befitted Alexander’s divine status. Following up Nearchus’s voyage , he now founded an Alexandria at the mouth of the Tigris and made plans to develop sea communications with India, for which an expedition along the Arabian coast was to be a preliminary. He also dispatched Heracleides, an officer, to explore the Hyrcanian (i.e., Caspian ) Sea. Suddenly, in Babylon , while busy with plans to improve the irrigation of the Euphrates and to settle the coast of the Persian Gulf , Alexander was taken ill after a prolonged banquet and drinking bout; 10 days later, on June 13, 323, he died in his 33rd year; he had reigned for 12 years and eight months. His body, diverted to Egypt by Ptolemy , the later king, was eventually placed in a golden coffin in Alexandria . Both in Egypt and elsewhere in the Greek cities he received divine honours.

No heir had been appointed to the throne, and his generals adopted Philip II ’s half-witted illegitimate son, Philip Arrhidaeus , and Alexander’s posthumous son by Roxana, Alexander IV , as kings, sharing out the satrapies among themselves, after much bargaining. The empire could hardly survive Alexander’s death as a unit. Both kings were murdered, Arrhidaeus in 317 and Alexander in 310/309. The provinces became independent kingdoms, and the generals , following Antigonus ’s lead in 306, took the title of king.

ENCYCLOPEDIC ENTRY

Alexander the great.

Alexander the Great, a Macedonian king, conquered the eastern Mediterranean, Egypt, the Middle East, and parts of Asia in a remarkably short period of time. His empire ushered in significant cultural changes in the lands he conquered and changed the course of the region’s history.

Geography, Human Geography, Social Studies, Ancient Civilizations

Photo of a marble bust of a man.

Photograph by Kenneth Garrett, National Geographic

Alexander the Great , also known as Alexander III or Alexander of Macedonia is known as one of the greatest generals in all history.

Alexander was born in 356 B.C.E. in Pella, Macedonia, to King Philip II. As a young boy, Alexander was taught to read, write, and play the lyre. He developed a life-long love of reading and music. When Alexander was a teenager, his father hired Aristotle to be his private tutor. He studied with Aristotle for three years and from Aristotle ’s teachings, Alexander developed a love of science, particularly of medicine and botany . Alexander included  botanists and scientists in his army to study the lands he conquered .

In 336 B.C.E., at age 20, Alexander became king of Macedonia when a political rival assassinated his father. Alexander began his reign by subduing rivals in the Greek and Macedonian regions. At a council of the League of Corinth, he was chosen as the commander of a military invasion of Asia. King Alexander began his invasion of the Middle East in 334 B.C.E. He spent most of his reign on a military campaign through northeast Africa and southwestern Asia.

Alexander built many new cities in the lands he conquered , including Alexandria in Egypt. He went on to conquer the lands of the Persian Empire, establishing more cities, and like Alexandria, often naming them after himself. His conquest continued through Asia until he reached the shores of the Ganga (Ganges) River in India. At this point, his army refused to continue further into India, exhausted and discouraged by heavy rains.

Alexander was 32 when he died in 323 B.C.E.

During his 13-year reign as the king of Macedonia, Alexander created one of the largest empires of the ancient world, stretching from Greece to northwestern India.

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Alexander the Great: A Very Short Introduction

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Alexander the Great: A Very Short Introduction demonstrates the profound influence the legends of Alexander's life have had on our historical understanding of him by focusing on the evidence from his own time. Aged just 20, Alexander the Great became king of Macedon in 336 bc ; he died aged 32. During his reign, he conquered the Achaemenid Persian Empire, the largest empire that had ever existed, leading his army from Greece to Pakistan, and from the Libyan desert to the steppes of Central Asia. He had a profound effect on the world he moved through and his achievements became legendary both in his lifetime and in the centuries that followed.

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Alexander the Great

Nonfiction | Biography | Adult | Published in 2011

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