Alexander the Great
Overview
Alexander III of Macedon (20/21 July 356 – 10/11 June 323 BC), commonly known as Alexander the Great , was a king of Macedon, a state in northern ancient Greece
Ancient Greece
Ancient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...

. By the age of thirty, he had created one of the largest empires of the ancient world
Ancient history
Ancient history is the study of the written past from the beginning of recorded human history to the Early Middle Ages. The span of recorded history is roughly 5,000 years, with Cuneiform script, the oldest discovered form of coherent writing, from the protoliterate period around the 30th century BC...

, stretching from the Ionian Sea
Ionian Sea
The Ionian Sea , is an arm of the Mediterranean Sea, south of the Adriatic Sea. It is bounded by southern Italy including Calabria, Sicily and the Salento peninsula to the west, southern Albania to the north, and a large number of Greek islands, including Corfu, Zante, Kephalonia, Ithaka, and...

 to the Himalayas
Himalayas
The Himalaya Range or Himalaya Mountains Sanskrit: Devanagari: हिमालय, literally "abode of snow"), usually called the Himalayas or Himalaya for short, is a mountain range in Asia, separating the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau...

. He was undefeated in battle, and is considered one of history's most successful commanders. Born in Pella
Pella
Pella , an ancient Greek city located in Pella Prefecture of Macedonia in Greece, was the capital of the ancient kingdom of Macedonia.-Etymology:...

 in 356 BC, Alexander was tutored by Aristotle
Aristotle
Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...

 until the age of 16.

Alexander succeeded his father, Philip II of Macedon
Philip II of Macedon
Philip II of Macedon "friend" + ἵππος "horse" — transliterated ; 382 – 336 BC), was a king of Macedon from 359 BC until his assassination in 336 BC. He was the father of Alexander the Great and Philip III.-Biography:...

, to the throne in 336 BC after Philip was assassinated.
Timeline

356 BC   Alexander is born in Born in Pella, Macedon.

336 BC   Alexander becomes ruler of Macedonia after the murder of his father Philip.

335 BC   Alexander defeats the Triballians at the Battle of Lyginus.

333 BC   Alexander solves the riddle of the Gordian knot in Gordium.

333 BC   Alexander defeauts Darius III of Persia in the Battle of Granicus and captures the Persian royal family.

332 BC   Alexander beseiges the island of Tyre.

332 BC   Alexander is crowned Pharoh of Egypt in Memphis, Egypt.

331 BC   Alexander founds the city of Alexandria, Egypt.

331 BC   Alexander visits the oracle of Siwa who informs him that he is the son of Zeus and therefore a God.

330 BC   After looting the treasures of the Persian capital city of Persepolis, Alexander and his men burn its famous palace and the surrounding city to the ground.

Quotations

What an excellent horse do they lose, for want of address and boldness to manage him! ... I could manage this horse better than others do.

Statement upon seeing Bucephalas|Bucephalas being led away as useless and beyond training, as quoted in Lives by Plutarch, as translated by Arthur Hugh Clough

If I were not Alexander, I should wish to be Diogenes of Sinope|Diogenes.

After Diogenes of Sinope|Diogenes of Sinope who was lying in the sun, responded to a query by Alexander asking if he could do anything for him with a reply requesting that he stop blocking his sunlight. As quoted in "On the Fortune of Alexander" by Plutarch|Plutarch, 332 a-b

I do not steal victory.

Reply to the suggestion by Parmenion|Parmenion, before the Battle of Gaugamela|Battle of Gaugamela, that he attack the Persian camp during the night, reported in Life of Alexander by Plutarch, as quoted in A History of Greece to the Death of Alexander the Great (1900) by John Bagnell Bury

Youths of the Pellaians and of the Macedonians and of the Hellenic Amphictiony and of the Lakedaimonians and of the Corinthians… and of all the Hellenic peoples, join your fellow-soldiers and entrust yourselves to me, so that we can move against the barbarians and liberate ourselves from the Persian bondage, for as Greeks we should not be slaves to barbarians.

As quoted in the Alexander Romance|Historia Alexandri Magni of Pseudo-Kallisthenes, 1.15.1-4

Now you fear punishment and beg for your lives, so I will let you free, if not for any other reason so that you can see the difference between a Greek king and a barbarian tyrant, so do not expect to suffer any harm from me. A king does not kill messengers.

As quoted in the Alexander Romance|Historia Alexandri Magni of Pseudo-Kallisthenes, 1.37.9-13

 
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