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Alexander the Great
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Alexander the Great ( or , Mégas Aléxandros; 356 BC–323 BC), also known as Alexander III of Macedon was an ancient Greek King (basileus) of Macedon (336–323 BC). He was one of the most successful military commanders of all time and is presumed undefeated in battle. By the time of his death, he had conquered (see Wars of Alexander the Great) most of the known world (as known to the ancient Greeks).
Alexander assumed the kingship of Macedon following the death of his father Philip II, who had unified most of the city-states of mainland Greece under Macedonian hegemony in a federation called the League of Corinth.
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331 BC Battle of Gaugamela: Alexander the Great defeats Darius III in Assyria, in his most decisive victory. He moves on to take Babylon and Susa
330 BC Alexander the Great forces the Persian Gates, leaving the way open into Persis, the Persian homeland.
329 BC Bessus (Artaxerxes V) is captured by Alexander the Great and ordered mutilated and executed for murdering Darius III of Persia.
325 BC Alexander the Great is severely wounded at the siege of the City of the Mallians.
324 BC Alexander the Great returns to Susa and marries Statira, daughter of Darius III of Persia. In a mass marriage ceremony, his generals are married to daughters of Persian noblemen.
323 BC Alexander the Great dies in Babylon. After a dispute with the infantry led by Meleager, the cavalry general Perdiccas becomes Regent of the Empire. Alexander's posthumous son Alexander IV is declared King of Macedon and co-ruler with his uncle Philip III (Alexander's half-brother). He makes Ptolemy Governor of Egypt, Eumenes governor of Cappadocia and Paphlagonia, Antigonus Governor of Phrygia, Lysimachus Governor of Thrace; while Macedon itself was to be ruled by its old regent Antipater jointly with Alexander's chief lieutenant Craterus.
323 BC Died
322 BC Perdiccas's attempt to marry Alexander the Great's sister Cleopatra leads to the First War of the Diadochi, as Antipater, Craterus, Ptolemy I Soter (the Satrap of Egypt), Antigonus (the Satrap of Phrygia), and Lysimachus (the Satrap of Thrace) all join together to oppose him.
311 BC A peace treaty ends the Third War of the Diadochi. Ptolemy and Lysimachus are confirmed as satraps of Egypt and Thrace, respectively, and Antigonus and Cassander are confirmed as commanders of the army in Asia and Europe. Seleucus is left to fend for himself against Antigonus, and it is agreed by all parties that the young king Alexander IV, son of Alexander the Great, will become king of the whole empire when he comes of age in 305 BC. Soon after, Cassander has the boy-king and his mother, Roxane, murdered.
168 BC Third Macedonian War ends with the Battle of Pydna. Romans under Lucius Aemilius Paullus (awarded the surname "Macedonicus" for this victory) defeat and capture Perseus of Macedon when he surrendered. This ends the Antigonid dynasty, one of the three successor empires created upon the death of Alexander the Great, and starts Roman domination of Greece.
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Alexander the Great ( or , Mégas Aléxandros; 356 BC–323 BC), also known as Alexander III of Macedon was an ancient Greek King (basileus) of Macedon (336–323 BC). He was one of the most successful military commanders of all time and is presumed undefeated in battle. By the time of his death, he had conquered (see Wars of Alexander the Great) most of the known world (as known to the ancient Greeks).
Alexander assumed the kingship of Macedon following the death of his father Philip II, who had unified most of the city-states of mainland Greece under Macedonian hegemony in a federation called the League of Corinth. After reconfirming Macedonian rule by quashing a rebellion of southern Greek city-states and staging a short but bloody excursion against Macedon's northern neighbours, Alexander set out east against the Achaemenid Persian Empire, which he defeated and overthrew. His conquests included Anatolia, Syria, Phoenicia, Judea, Gaza, Egypt, Bactria and Mesopotamia, and he extended the boundaries of his own empire as far as Punjab, India.
Alexander had already made plans prior to his death for military and mercantile expansions into the Arabian peninsula, after which he was to turn his armies to the west (Carthage, Rome and the Iberian Peninsula). His original vision, however, had been to the east, to the ends of the world and the Great Outer Sea, as is described by his boyhood tutor and mentor Aristotle.
Alexander integrated many foreigners into his army, leading some scholars to credit him with a "policy of fusion". He also encouraged marriages between his soldiers and foreigners, and he himself went on to marry two foreign princesses.
Alexander died after twelve years of constant military campaigning, possibly a result of malaria, poisoning, typhoid fever, viral encephalitis or the consequences of alcoholism. His legacy and conquests lived on long after him and ushered in centuries of Greek settlement and cultural influence over distant areas. This period is known as the Hellenistic period, which featured a combination of Greek, Middle Eastern and Indian culture. Alexander himself featured prominently in the history and myth of both Greek and non-Greek cultures. His exploits inspired a literary tradition in which he appeared as a legendary hero in the tradition of Achilles.
Early life
with his friend Craterus (detail). He attired in traditional garments from Thessaly, a chlamys cape and a petasus hat. 3rd century BC mosaic, Pella Museum.]]
Born in Pella, the capital of Macedon, Alexander was the son of King Philip II of Macedon and his fourth wife Olympias, an Epirote princess. Although Philip had either seven or eight wives, Olympias was his principal wife for a time. On his mother's side, he was a second cousin of Pyrrhus of Epirus, who himself would become a celebrated general. There are, then, notable examples of military genius on both sides of the family.
According to Plutarch, Alexander's father was descended from Heracles through Caranus of Macedon and his mother from Aeacus through Neoptolemus and Achilles. Plutarch relates that both Philip and Olympias dreamt of their son's impending birth: she claimed to have seen thunderbolts portending of Zeus; he, on the other hand, dreamed of sealing her womb with the seal of the lion. Alarmed on waking, Philip consulted the seer Aristander of Telmessos, and learnt that his wife was pregnant and that the child would have the character of a lion. Another odd coincidence (probably vamped by expedient Greek historians, ever sensitive to coincidence) is that Herostratus burnt down the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus on the night of his birth. Hegesias joked that this was only to be expected, as Artemis, the goddess of childbirth, was too busy attending Alexander's nativity to save her temple.
According to five historians of antiquity (Arrian, Curtius, Diodorus, Justin and Plutarch), after his visit to the Oracle of Amun (a deity adopted from Egyptian religion) at Siwa, rumours spread that the Oracle had revealed Alexander's father to be Zeus.
Philip was away in Potidaea (which he had just seized) when Alexander was born. The king was thus brought three pleasant messages on the very same day the first of Parmenion's great triumph over the Illyrians, the second of his racehorse's win at the Olympics and the third of the birth of his son. Philip was overjoyed, especially after the prophets claimed that a man whose birth coincided with three victories such as these would indicate that he was invincible.
In his early years, Alexander was raised by his nurse, Lanike, who was Cleitus's older sister.
He was later educated by a strict teacher, Leonidas, himself a relative of Olympias. Leonidas focused a lot of Alexander's training on building his physical prowess and endurance and living a life of a soldier without kingly comforts. Leonidas's frugal ways come down to us through extant record: reportedly, when Alexander threw a large amount of sacrificial incense into a fire, Leonidas reprimanded him, saying that he could waste as much incense as he wished once he had conquered the spice-bearing regions. It was Aristotle, though, who gave Alexander his most famous and important tutoring. The philosopher from Stageira was the foremost thinker of the period. A student of Plato, who in turn had been a student of Socrates, he now extended the illustrious chain by taking on Alexander as a student of his own.
Aristotle trained the youth in rhetoric and literature, and stimulated his interest in science, medicine, and especially philosophy, which formed the greater part of his lessons. These took place outdoors in relaxed informality, probably after the manner of Socrates, but with more ordered and scholarly content. Aristotle's influence played a considerable role in forging Alexander's renowned bibliophilia. His gift to his student, a copy of the Iliad, came to be one of the young king's most-prized possessions and was always kept, along with a dagger, under his pillow. The text, annotated by Aristotle, came to be known as the "casket copy", so called because it was so large as to be kept in a casket. How practical (and, indeed, possible) it was for Alexander to sleep with it beneath his pillow is a contentious matter.
When Alexander was ten years old, Philoneicus of Thessaly, which adjoined Macedon to the south and renowned for its horsemanship, brought to sell to Philip a specimen of such quality that it was labeled a prodigy. As it turned out, however, the horse was so wild that no man could mount it. Young Alexander, recognizing its shadow as the source of its fear, went over and turned it towards the sun. At this it calmed down, and the young man easily mounted and rode it. His father and the others who saw this (having moments before been in turns skeptical, derisive, and concerned for his safety) were most impressed. Philip, overjoyed at this display of courage, intellect and ambition, kissed him tearfully: "My boy, you must find a kingdom big enough for your ambitions. Macedonia is too small for you." In accordance with a pre-arranged bet, Alexander was allowed to keep the horse. Its name was Bucephalus, meaning "ox-headed" but it is also a possible reference to the brand that denoted its origin. Bucephalus would be Alexander's companion throughout his journeys and was truly loved: when he died (due to old age, according to Plutarch, for he was already thirty), Alexander named a city after him called Bucephala. It could be said that the horse was the closest friend Alexander ever had.
On another occasion, when Persian ambassadors arrived in Macedon and Philip was not there to receive them, Alexander did the honours and fairly won them over by his mature, friendly and natural manner. According to Plutarch, they came away convinced that the father's renowned perspicacity had nothing on the ambition and hardihood of the son.
While his peers celebrated Philip's victories, Alexander always felt a brooding impatience. "Boys," he declared, "my father will forestall me in everything. There will be nothing great or spectacular for you and me to show the world." Desirous less of luxury and wealth than of excellence and glory, he knew that the more he inherited from his father the less he would have to take for himself. Philip's successes, he felt, were opportunities wasted on an inferior.
Ascent of Macedon
, Paris.]]
, Louvre Museum). According to Diodorus, the Alexander sculptures by Lysippus were the most faithful.]]
In 340 BC, Philip led an attack on Byzantium, leaving Alexander, now sixteen, to act as regent of Macedon. Shortly after, in 339 BC, Philip took a fifth wife, Cleopatra Eurydice. While Alexander's mother was from Epirus, Cleopatra was a true Macedonian, leading to political machinations over whether or not Alexander was the rightful heir to the Argead throne. During the wedding feast, Attalus, uncle of the bride, gave a toast for the marriage to result in a "legitimate" heir to the throne. Alexander, furious, hurled his goblet at the speaker, shouting, "What am I? A bastard, then?" Phillip drew his sword and moved towards his son but fell in a bibulous stupor over the drinking couches. "Here," declared Alexander, "is the man planning on conquering from Greece to Asia, and he cannot even move from one table to another." Following the episode, Alexander and his mother left Macedon, but his sister, also named Cleopatra, remained.
Philip and Alexander eventually reconciled: the son returned home, but Olympias remained in Epirus. In 338 BC, Alexander fought under his father at the decisive Battle of Chaeronea against the mainland city-states of Athens and Thebes. Phillip entrusted Alexander with the left wing of his army, which entailed facing the Sacred Band of Thebes, an elite hoplite corps thitherto thought invincible. Although few details of the battle survive, what is known is that Alexander annihilated the Band; according to legend, indeed, he was the first to charge it.
After the battle, Philip led a wild celebration, but his son is notably absent from accounts describing it. It has been speculated that he personally treated Demades, a notable orator of Athens, who had opposed Athenian alignment against Philip. He went on to draw up and present a peace plan, which the assembled Athenian army voted on and approved. Philip was content to deprive Thebes of its dominion over Boeotia and leave a Macedonian garrison in the citadel. A few months later, the League of Corinth was formed and Philip acclaimed Hegemon of the Hellenes.
In 336 BC, Philip was assassinated at the wedding of his daughter Cleopatra to her uncle King Alexander of Epirus. Theories abound regarding the motives for the killing, but a common story presents the assassin as a disgraced former lover of the king—the young nobleman Pausanias of Orestis, who held a grudge against Philip because the king had ignored his grievances regarding an outrage on his person.
Others thought (and many still think) that Philip's murder was planned with the knowledge and involvement of Alexander, Olympias or both. Some have suggested that, as a result of Philip's authoritarian parenting style and successful military career, as well as Olympias' overbearing nature and reported beauty, that Alexander might have suffered from an Oedipus complex, resulting in a subconscious desire to kill his father and marry his mother. Still more theories point to Darius III, the recently crowned King of Persia. Regardless, the army proclaimed Alexander, then twenty, the new king of Macedon.
Greek cities like Athens and Thebes, which had been forced to pledge allegiance to Philip, saw in the relatively untested new king an opportunity to regain full independence. Alexander moved swiftly, however, and Thebes, which was most active against him, submitted immediately when he appeared at its gates. The assembled Greeks at the Isthmus of Corinth, with the exception of the Spartans, elected him Capitan-General of the Hellenes against Persia, a title previously bestowed upon his father. Meanwhile, King Darius of Persia was convinced that Alexander was preparing for a war against Persia, and so he sent envoys to the various cities in Greece and Asia Minor with large bags of gold for the purpose of bribing any and all who could be bribed.
The following year (335 BC), Alexander felt free to engage the Thracians and Illyrians in order to secure the Danube as the northern boundary of the Macedonian kingdom. While the Thracians proved no match for Alexander, the Illyrians (Dio Cassius, once governor of that country in the 3rd century AD, described it as especially barbarous) proved to be more difficult to subdue. They had lured Alexander's army into a trap that few believed he would be able to break out of. In response, Alexander paraded his troops in front of the enemy, but in total silence. Like a giant metal porcupine, they moved their long spears in a synchronized formation, up and down, left and right, all while marching in perfect formation as though on the parade ground. The Illyrians could not believe what they were watching. Alexander, at a precise moment, ordered his cavalry to charge the Illyrians, while the infantry broke out into a deafening noise, hitting their swords against their shields and chanting the Macedonian war cry. The shocked Illyrians fell into complete chaos, and were routed by Alexander.
While he was triumphantly campaigning north, the Thebans and Athenians rebelled once more. Alexander reacted immediately, but, while the other cities once again hesitated, Thebes decided to resist with the utmost vigor. The resistance was useless, however, as the city was razed to the ground amid great bloodshed and its territory divided between the other Boeotian cities. Moreover, the Thebans themselves were sold into slavery. Alexander spared only priests, leaders of the pro-Macedonian party and descendants of Pindar, whose house was the only one left standing. The end of Thebes cowed Athens into submission. According to Plutarch, a special Athenian embassy, led by Phocion, an opponent of the anti-Macedonian faction, was able to persuade Alexander to give up his demand for the exile of leaders of the anti-Macedonian party, most particularly Demosthenes.
Period of conquests
By the time of his death, Alexander had conquered most of the Ecumene, the extension of the "known world" at the time of ancient Greeks, concretely he conquered the extensions lying to the south and east of Greece, including places not explored until then.
Fall of the Achaemenid Persian Empire
Alexander's army crossed the Hellespont with approximately 42,000 soldiers from Macedon, various Greek city-states, mercenaries and tribute soldiers from Thrace, Paionia, and Illyria. After an initial victory against Persian forces at the Battle of the Granicus, Alexander accepted the surrender of the Persian provincial capital and treasury of Sardis and proceeded down the Ionian coast. At Halicarnassus, Alexander successfully waged the first of many sieges, eventually forcing his opponents, the mercenary captain Memnon of Rhodes and the Persian satrap of Caria, Orontobates, to withdraw by sea. Alexander left Caria in the hands of Ada, who was ruler of Caria before being deposed by her brother Pixodarus. From Halicarnassus, Alexander proceeded into mountainous Lycia and the Pamphylian plain, asserting control over all coastal cities and denying them to his enemy. From Pamphylia onward, the coast held no major ports and so Alexander moved inland. At Termessos, Alexander humbled but did not storm the Pisidian city. At the ancient Phrygian capital of Gordium, Alexander "undid" the hitherto unsolvable Gordian Knot, a feat said to await the future "king of Asia." According to the most vivid story, Alexander proclaimed that it did not matter how the knot was undone, and he hacked it apart with his sword. Another version claims that he did not use the sword, but simply realized that the simplest way to undo the knot was to simply remove a central peg from the chariot—around which the knot was tied.
, showing Battle of Issus, from the House of the Faun, Pompeii]]
Alexander's army crossed the Cilician Gates, met and defeated the main Persian army under the command of Darius III at the Battle of Issus in 333 BC. Darius was forced to flee the battle after his army broke, and in doing so left behind his wife, his two daughters, his mother Sisygambis, and a fabulous amount of treasure. He afterwards offered a peace treaty to Alexander, the concession of the lands he had already conquered, and a ransom of 10,000 talents for his family. Alexander replied that since he was now king of Asia, it was he alone who decided territorial divisions. Proceeding down the Mediterranean coast, he took Tyre and Gaza after famous sieges (see Siege of Tyre) suffered the most brutal attacks during Alexander's war in Asia. It was after his capture of Tyre that Alexander crucified all the men of military age, and sold the women and children into slavery.
During 332–331 BC, Alexander was welcomed as a liberator in ruled-by-Persians Egypt and was pronounced the new Master of the Universe and son of Zeus by Egyptian priests of the deity Amun at the Oracle of Siwa Oasis in the Libyan desert. Henceforth, Alexander often referred to Zeus-Ammon as his true father, and subsequent currency depicted him, adorned with ram horns as a symbol of his divinity. He founded Alexandria in Egypt, which would become the prosperous capital of the Ptolemaic dynasty after his death.
Leaving Egypt, Alexander marched eastward into Assyria (now northern Iraq) and defeated Darius once more at the Battle of Gaugamela. Once again, Darius was forced to leave the field, and Alexander chased him as far as Arbela. While Darius fled over the mountains to Ecbatana (modern Hamedan), Alexander marched to Babylon.
From Babylon, Alexander went to Susa, one of the Achaemenid capitals, and captured its legendary treasury. Sending the bulk of his army to the Persian capital of Persepolis via the Royal Road, Alexander stormed and captured the Persian Gates (in the modern Zagros Mountains), then sprinted for Persepolis before its treasury could be looted. It was here that Alexander was said to have stared at the crumbled statue of Xerxes and decided to leave it on the ground—a symbolic gesture of vengeance. During their stay at the capital, a fire broke out in the eastern palace of Xerxes and spread to the rest of the city. Theories abound as to whether this was the result of a drunken accident, or a deliberate act of revenge for the burning of the Acropolis of Athens during the Second Persian War. The Book of Arda Wiraz, a Zoroastrian work composed in the 3rd or 4th century AD, also speaks of archives containing "all the Avesta and Zand, written upon prepared cow-skins, and with gold ink" that were destroyed; but it must be said that this statement is often treated by scholars with a certain measure of skepticism, because it is generally thought that for many centuries the Avesta was transmitted mainly orally by the Magi.
, at the maximum extent of Alexander's advance in the East (Ürümqi, Xinjiang Museum, China) (drawing)]]
Alexander then set off in pursuit of Darius anew. The Persian king was no longer in control of his destiny, having been taken prisoner by Bessus, his Bactrian satrap and kinsman. As Alexander approached, Bessus had his men fatally stab the Great King and then declared himself Darius' successor as Artaxerxes V before retreating into Central Asia to launch a guerrilla campaign against Alexander. Darius was found by one of Alexander's scouts, dying, in a baggage train being pulled by an ox. Before he died, Darius remarked that he was glad that he would not die alone. His remains were buried by Alexander next to his Achaemenid predecessors in a full military funeral. Alexander claimed that, while dying, Darius had named Alexander as his successor to the Achaemenid throne, a striking irony since it was Alexander who had pursued him to his death. Alexander, viewing himself as the legitimate Achaemenid successor to Darius, viewed Bessus as a usurper to the Achaemenid throne, and eventually found and executed this 'usurper'. The majority of the existing satraps were to give their loyalty to Alexander, and be allowed to keep their positions. Alexander, now the Persian "King of Kings", adopted Persian dress and mannerisms, which, in time, the Greeks began to view as decadent and autocratic. They began to fear that Alexander was turning into an eastern despot. Ultimately, however, the Achaemenid Persian Empire is considered to have fallen with the death of Darius. With the death of Darius, Alexander declared the war of vengeance over, and released his Greek and other allies from service in the League campaign (although he allowed those that wished to re-enlist as mercenaries in his army).
His three-year campaign, first against Bessus and then against Spitamenes, the satrap of Sogdiana, took Alexander through Media, Parthia, Aria (West Afghanistan), Drangiana, Arachosia (South and Central Afghanistan), Bactria (North and Central Afghanistan), and Scythia. In the process of doing so, he captured and refounded Herat and Maracanda. Moreover, he founded a series of new cities, all called Alexandria, including modern Kandahar in Afghanistan, and Alexandria Eschate ("The Furthest") in modern Tajikistan. In the end, both of his opponents were defeated after having been betrayed by their men—Bessus in 329 BC, and Spitamenes the year after.
Hostility
During this time, Alexander adopted some elements of Persian dress and customs at his court, notably the custom of proskynesis, a symbolic kissing of the hand that Persians paid to their social superiors, but a practice that the Greeks disapproved. The Greeks regarded the gesture as the province of deities and believed that Alexander meant to deify himself by requiring it. This cost him much in the sympathies of many of his countrymen. Here, too, a plot against his life was revealed, and one of his officers, Philotas, was executed for failing to bring the plot to his attention. The death of the son necessitated the death of the father, and thus Parmenion, who had been charged with guarding the treasury at Ecbatana, was assassinated by command of Alexander, so he might not make attempts at vengeance. Most infamously, Alexander personally slew the man who had saved his life at Granicus, Cleitus the Black, during a drunken argument at Maracanda. Later in the Central Asian campaign, a second plot against his life was revealed, this one instigated by his own royal pages. His official historian, Callisthenes of Olynthus (who had fallen out of favor with the king by leading the opposition to his attempt to introduce proskynesis), was implicated in the plot, however, there never has been consensus among historians regarding his involvement in the conspiracy.
The Persians referred to Alexander’s castle in Persia as the "Kelah-i-Dive-Sefid" meaning Castle of the White Demon with Alexander representing the Div-e Sepid of the Shahnameh epic.
Invasion of India
After the death of Spitamenes and his marriage to Roxana (Roshanak in Bactrian) to cement his relations with his new Central Asian satrapies, in 326 BC Alexander was finally free to turn his attention to the Indian subcontinent. Alexander invited all the chieftains of the former satrapy of Gandhara, in the north of what is now Pakistan, to come to him and submit to his authority. Ambhi (Greek: Omphis), ruler of Taxila, whose kingdom extended from the Indus to the Jhelum (Greek:Hydaspes), complied. But the chieftains of some hill clans including the Aspasioi and Assakenoi sections of the Kambojas (classical names), known in Indian texts as Ashvayanas and Ashvakayanas (names referring to the equestrian nature of their society from the Sanskrit root word Ashva meaning horse), refused to submit.
Alexander personally took command of the shield-bearing guards, foot-companions, archers, Agrianians and horse-javelin-men and led them against the clans—the Aspasioi of Kunar/Alishang valleys, the Guraeans of the Guraeus (Panjkora) valley, and the Assakenoi of the Swat and Buner valleys. Writes one modern historian: "They were brave people and it was hard work for Alexander to take their strongholds, of which Massaga and Aornus need special mention." A fierce contest ensued with the Aspasioi in which Alexander himself was wounded in the shoulder by a dart but eventually the Aspasioi lost the fight; 40,000 of them were enslaved. The Assakenoi faced Alexander with an army of 30,000 cavalry, 38,000 infantry and 30 elephants. They had fought bravely and offered stubborn resistance to the invader in many of their strongholds like cities of Ora, Bazira and Massaga. The fort of Massaga could only be reduced after several days of bloody fighting in which Alexander himself was wounded seriously in the ankle. When the Chieftain of Massaga fell in the battle, the supreme command of the army went to his old mother Cleophis (q.v.) who also stood determined to defend her motherland to the last extremity. The example of Cleophis assuming the supreme command of the military also brought the entire women of the locality into the fighting. Alexander could only reduce Massaga by resorting to political strategem and actions of betrayal. According to Curtius: "Not only did Alexander slaughter the entire population of Massaga, but also did he reduce its buildings to rubbles." A similar slaughter then followed at Ora, another stronghold of the Assakenoi.
depicting Alexander and Porus (Puru) during the Battle of the Hydaspes]]
In the aftermath of general slaughter and arson committed by Alexander at Massaga and Ora, numerous Assakenians people fled to a high fortress called Aornos. Alexander followed them close behind their heels and captured the strategic hill-fort but only after the fourth day of a bloody fight. The story of Massaga was repeated at Aornos and a similar carnage of the tribal-people followed here too.
Writing on Alexander's campaign against the Assakenoi, Victor Hanson comments: "After promising the surrounded Assacenis their lives upon capitulation, he executed all their soldiers who had surrendered. Their strongholds at Ora and Aornus were also similarly stormed. Garrisons were probably all slaughtered.”
Sisikottos, or Sashigupta who had helped Alexander in this campaign, was made the governor of Aornos. According to H. C. Seth and Ranajit Pal, he was the same as Chandragupta Maurya. After reducing Aornos, Alexander crossed the Indus and fought and won an epic battle against a local ruler Porus (original Indian name Raja Puru), who ruled a region in the Punjab, in the Battle of Hydaspes in 326 BC.
.]]
After the battle, Alexander was greatly impressed by Porus for his bravery in battle, and therefore made an alliance with him and appointed him as satrap of his own kingdom, even adding some land he did not own before. Alexander then named one of the two new cities that he founded, Bucephala, in honor of the horse who had brought him to India, who had died during the Battle of Hydaspes. Alexander continued on to conquer all the headwaters of the Indus River.
East of Porus' kingdom, near the Ganges River (original Indian name Ganga), was the powerful Nanda Empire of Magadha and Gangaridai Empire of Bengal. Fearing the prospects of facing other powerful Indian armies and exhausted by years of campaigning, his army mutinied at the Hyphasis River (the modern Beas River) refusing to march further east. This river thus marks the easternmost extent of Alexander's conquests:
coin with Alexander wearing an elephant scalp, symbol of his conquests in India.]]
Alexander spoke to his army and tried to persuade them to march further into India but Coenus pleaded with him to change his opinion and return, the men, he said, "longed to again see their parents, their wives and children, their homeland". Alexander, seeing the unwillingness of his men agreed and turned south. Along the way his army conquered the Malli clans (in modern day Multan), reputed to be among the bravest and most warlike peoples in South Asia. During a siege, Alexander jumped into the fortified city alone with only two of his bodyguards and was wounded seriously by a Mallian arrow. His forces, believing their king dead, took the citadel and unleashed their fury on the Malli who had taken refuge within it, perpetrating a massacre, sparing no man, woman or child. However, due to the efforts of his surgeon, Kritodemos of Kos, Alexander survived the injury. Following this, the surviving Malli surrendered to Alexander's forces, and his beleaguered army moved on, conquering more Indian tribes along the way. He sent much of his army to Carmania (modern southern Iran) with his general Craterus, and commissioned a fleet to explore the Persian Gulf shore under his admiral Nearchus, while he led the rest of his forces back to Persia by the southern route through the Gedrosian Desert (now part of southern Iran and Makran now part of Pakistan).
In the territory of the Indus, he nominated his officer Peithon as a satrap, a position he would hold for the next ten years until 316 BC, and in the Punjab he left Eudemus in charge of the army, at the side of the satrap Porus and Taxiles. Eudemus became ruler of a part of the Punjab after their death. Both rulers returned to the West in 316 BC with their armies. In 321 BCE, Chandragupta Maurya founded the Maurya Empire in India and overthrew the Greek satraps.
After India
, Afghanistan.]]
Discovering that many of his satraps and military governors had misbehaved in his absence, Alexander executed a number of them as examples on his way to Susa. As a gesture of thanks, he paid off the debts of his soldiers, and announced that he would send those over-aged and disabled veterans back to Macedonia under Craterus, but his troops misunderstood his intention and mutinied at the town of Opis, refusing to be sent away and bitterly criticizing his adoption of Persian customs and dress and the introduction of Persian officers and soldiers into Macedonian units. Alexander executed the ringleaders of the mutiny, but forgave the rank and file. In an attempt to craft a lasting harmony between his Macedonian and Persian subjects, he held a mass marriage of his senior officers to Persian and other noblewomen at Susa, but few of those marriages seem to have lasted much beyond a year. Meanwhile, upon his return, Alexander learned some men had desecrated the tomb of Cyrus the Great, and swiftly executed them. For they were put in charge of guarding the tomb Alexander held in honor.
His attempts to merge Persian culture with his Greek soldiers also included training a regiment of Persian boys in the ways of Macedonians. Most historians believe that Alexander adopted the Persian royal title of Shahanshah (meaning: "The King of Kings").
It is claimed that Alexander wanted to overrun or integrate the Arabian peninsula, but this theory is widely disputed. It was assumed that Alexander would turn westwards and attack Carthage and Italy, had he conquered Arabia.
After traveling to Ecbatana to retrieve the bulk of the Persian treasure, his closest friend and possibly lover Hephaestion died of an illness, or possibly of poisoning. Alexander, distraught over the death of his longtime companion, sacked a nearby town, and put all of its inhabitants to the sword, as a 'sacrifice' to Hephaestion's ghost. Alexander mourned Hephaestion for six months.
Death
On the afternoon of June 11, 323 BC, Alexander died in the palace of Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon. He was just one month short of attaining 33 years of age. Various theories have been proposed for the cause of his death which include poisoning by the sons of Antipater or others, sickness that followed a drinking party, or a relapse of the malaria he had contracted in 336 BC.
It is known that on May 29, Alexander participated in a banquet organized by his friend Medius of Larissa. After some heavy drinking, immediately before or after a bath, he was forced into bed due to severe illness. The rumors of his illness circulated with the troops causing them to be more and more anxious. On June 9, the generals decided to let the soldiers see their king alive one last time. They were admitted to his presence one at a time. Because the king was too ill to speak, he confined himself to moving his hand. The day after, Alexander was dead.
Cause
The poisoning theory derives from the story held in antiquity by Justin and Curtius. The original story stated that Cassander, son of Antipater, viceroy of Greece, brought the poison to Alexander in Babylon in a mule's hoof, and that Alexander's royal cupbearer, Iollas, brother of Cassander and eromenos of Medius of Larissa, administered it. Many had powerful motivations for seeing Alexander gone, and were none the worse for it after his death. Deadly agents that could have killed Alexander in one or more doses include hellebore and strychnine. In R. Lane Fox's opinion, the strongest argument against the poison theory is the fact that twelve days had passed between the start of his illness and his death and in the ancient world, such long-acting poisons were probably not available. However, according to Unearthing Ancient Secrets, it might still have been possible if Alexander was poisoned first with hellebore during his drink, then later have been poisoned a second or third time, perhaps with poison on the feather used to encourage vomiting.
in profile, and a standing Nike.]]
The warrior culture of Macedon favoured the sword over strychnine, and many ancient historians, like Plutarch and Arrian, maintained that Alexander was not poisoned, but died of natural causes; malaria or typhoid fever, which were rampant in ancient Babylon. A 1998 article in the New England Journal of Medicine attributed his death to typhoid fever complicated by bowel perforation and ascending paralysis, whereas a recent analysis has identified pyogenic spondylitis or meningitis. Other illnesses could have also been the culprit, including acute pancreatitis or the West Nile virus. The West Nile virus theory holds sway because the symptoms match up, Alexander had been treking through swamps prior to getting ill, and an ancient account of birds pecking each other in the air seen on Alexander's approach into Babylon, which was at the time seen as a bad omen, but could have also been the result of infected birds. Recently, theories have been advanced stating that Alexander may have died from the treatment not the disease. Hellebore, believed to have been widely used as a medicine at the time but deadly in large doses, may have been overused by the impatient king to speed his recovery, with deadly results. Disease-related theories often cite the fact that Alexander's health had fallen to dangerously low levels after years of heavy drinking and suffering several appalling wounds (including one in India that nearly claimed his life), and that it was only a matter of time before one sickness or another finally killed him.
Physical deformity and the cause of death
More recently Alexander’s physical characteristics have been combined with the information of his final days to arrive at the cause of his death. Many descriptions and statues typically portray Alexander with a cervical neck deformity, typically with a gaze looking upward and outward (an image still used in modern day heroic photography). Both his father Philip II and his brother Philip Arridaeus also suffered from physical deformities, leading some to suggest a congenital scoliotic disorder (familial neck and spinal deformity). A familial scoliotic deformity has therefore been ascribed as the cause of his death by means of an ascending spinal infection (pyogenic spondylitis or meningitis), which would also explain the ascending spinal paralysis in his final days. Furthermore, such a condition has also been proposed as a potential cause for Alexander’s depictions with horns by way of a scoliosis associated neurocutaneous Epidermal Nevus Syndrome.
No story is conclusive. Alexander's death has been reinterpreted many times over the centuries. What is certain is that Alexander died of a high fever on June 11, 323 BC.
Successor
from the year 323–322 BC that records the death of Alexander. Located at the British Museum, London]]
On his death bed, his marshals asked him to whom he bequeathed his kingdom. Since Alexander had no obvious and legitimate heir (his son Alexander IV would be born after his death, and his other son was by a concubine, not a wife), it was a question of vital importance. There is some debate to what Alexander replied. Some believe that Alexander said, "Kratisto" (that is, "To the strongest!") or "Krat'eroi" (to the stronger).
Alexander may have said, "Krater'oi" (to Craterus). This is possible because the Greek pronunciation of "the stronger" and "Craterus" differ only by the position of the accented syllable. Most scholars believe that if Alexander did intend to choose one of his generals, his obvious choice would have been Craterus because he was the commander of the largest part of the army (infantry), had proven himself to be an excellent strategist, and because he displayed traits of the "ideal" Macedonian. But Craterus was not around, and the others may have chosen to hear "Krat'eroi" — the stronger. Regardless of his reply, Craterus does not appear to have pressed the issue. The empire then split amongst his successors (the Diadochi).
Before long, accusations of foul play were being thrown about by his generals at one another, and no contemporaneous source can be fully trusted.
Body
Alexander's body was placed in a gold anthropoid sarcophagus, which was in turn placed in a second gold casket and covered with a purple robe. Alexander's coffin was placed, together with his armour, in a gold carriage that had a vaulted roof supported by an Ionic peristyle. The decoration of the carriage was very lavish and is described in great detail by Diodoros.
, showing himself on the obverse at the beginning of his reign, and on the reverse Alexander the Great triumphantly riding a chariot drawn by elephants, a reminder of his successful campaigns with Alexander in India.]]
According to one legend, Alexander was preserved in a clay vessel full of honey (which can act as a preservative) and interred in a glass coffin. According to Aelian (Varia Historia 12.64), Ptolemy stole the body and brought it to Alexandria, where it was on display until Late Antiquity. It was here that Ptolemy IX, one of the last successors of Ptolemy I, replaced Alexander's sarcophagus with a glass one, and melted the original down in order to strike emergency gold issues of his coinage. The citizens of Alexandria were outraged at this and soon after, Ptolemy IX was killed.
The Roman emperor Caligula was said to have looted the tomb, stealing Alexander's breastplate, and wearing it. Around 200 AD, Emperor Septimius Severus closed Alexander's tomb to the public. His son and successor, Caracalla, was a great admirer of Alexander, and visited the tomb in his own reign. After this, details on the fate of the tomb are sketchy.
The so-called "Alexander Sarcophagus," discovered near Sidon and now in the Istanbul Archaeology Museum, is now generally thought to be that of Abdylonymus, whom Hephaestion had appointed as the king of Sidon by Alexander's order. The sarcophagus depicts Alexander and his companions hunting and in battle with the Persians.
Testament
Some classical authors, such as Diodorus, relate that Alexander had given detailed written instructions to Craterus some time before his death. Although Craterus had already started to implement Alexander's orders, such as the building of a fleet in Cilicia for expedition against Carthage, Alexander's successors chose not to further implement them, on the grounds that they were impractical and extravagant.
The testament, described in Diodorus XVIII, called for military expansion into the Southern and Western Mediterranean, monumental constructions, and the intermixing of Eastern and Western populations. Its most remarkable items were:
- The completion of a pyre to Hephaestion
- The building of "a thousand warships, larger than triremes, in Phoenicia, Syria, Cilicia, and Cyprus for the campaign against the Carthaginians and the other who live along the coast of Libya and Iberia and the adjoining coastal regions as far as Sicily"
- The building of a road in northern Africa as far as the Pillars of Heracles, with ports and shipyards along it.
- The erection of great temples in Delos, Delphi, Dodona, Dium, Amphipolis, Cyrnus and Ilium.
- The construction of a monumental tomb for his father Philip, "to match the greatest of the pyramids of Egypt"
- The establishment of cities and the "transplant of populations from Asia to Europe and in the opposite direction from Europe to Asia, in order to bring the largest continent to common unity and to friendship by means of intermarriage and family ties." (Diodorus Siculus,
Bibliotheca historia, XVIII)
Personal life
Alexander's lifelong companion was Hephaestion, the son of a Macedonian noble. Hephaestion also held the position of second-in-command of Alexander's forces until his death, which devastated Alexander. The full extent of his relationship with Hephaestion is the subject of much historical speculation.
Alexander married two women: Roxana, daughter of a Bactrian nobleman, Oxyartes, and Stateira, a Persian princess and daughter of Darius III of Persia. There is also an accepted tradition of a third wife- Parysatis whom he is supposed to have married in Persia though nothing is known about her. Another personage from the court of Darius III with whom he was intimate was the male eunuch Bagoas. His son by Roxana, Alexander IV of Macedon, was killed after the death of his father, before he reached adulthood.
Alexander was admired during his lifetime for treating all his lovers humanely.
Legacy and division of the empire
inscription.]]
of Eratosthenes (276-194 BC), incorporating information from the campaigns of Alexander and his successors.]]
After Alexander's death, in 323 BC, the rule of his Empire was given to Alexander's half-brother Philip Arridaeus and Alexander's son Alexander IV. However, since Philip was apparently feeble-minded and the son of Alexander still a baby, two regents were named in Perdiccas (who had received Alexander's ring at his death) and Craterus (who may have been the one mentioned as successor by Alexander), although Perdiccas quickly managed to take sole power.
Perdiccas soon eliminated several of his opponents, killing about 30 (Diodorus Siculus), and at the Partition of Babylon named former generals of Alexander as satraps of the various regions of his Empire. In 321 BC Perdiccas was assassinated by his own troops during his conflict with Ptolemy, leading to the Partition of Triparadisus, in which Antipater was named as the new regent, and the satrapies again shared between the various generals. From that time, Alexander's officers were focused on the explicit formation of rival monarchies and territorial states.
Ultimately, the conflict was settled after the Battle of Ipsus in Phrygia in 301 BC. Alexander's empire was divided at first into four major portions: Cassander ruled in Macedon, Lysimachus in Thrace, Seleucus in Mesopotamia and Persia, and Ptolemy I Soter in the Levant and Egypt. Antigonus ruled for a while in Anatolia and Syria but was eventually defeated by the other generals at Ipsus (301 BC).
Control over Indian territory passed to Chandragupta Maurya, the first Maurya emperor, who further expanded his dominions after a settlement with Seleucus.
By 270 BC, the Hellenistic states were consolidated, with
king Demetrius (reigned c. 200–180 BCE), wearing an elephant scalp, took over Alexander's legacy in the east by again invading India in 180 BCE, and establishing the Indo-Greek kingdom (180 BC–10 AD).]]
By the 1st century BC though, most of the Hellenistic territories in the West had been absorbed by the Roman Republic. In the East, they had been dramatically reduced by the expansion of the Parthian Empire. The territories further east seceded to form the Greco-Bactrian kingdom (250–140 BC), which further expanded into India to form the Indo-Greek kingdom (180 BC–10 AD).
The Ptolemy dynasty persisted in Egypt until the epoch of the queen Cleopatra, best known for her alliances with Julius Caesar and Mark Antony, just before the Roman republic officially became the Roman Empire.
Alexander's conquests also had long term cultural effects, with the flourishing of Hellenistic civilization throughout the Middle East and Central Asia, and the development of Greco-Buddhist art in the Indian subcontinent. Alexander and his successors were tolerant of non-Greek religious practices, and interesting syncretisms developed in the new Greek towns he founded in Central Asia. The first realistic portrayals of the Buddha appeared at this time; they are reminiscent of Greek statues of Apollo. Several Buddhist traditions may have been influenced by the ancient Greek religion; the concept of Boddhisatvas is reminiscent of Greek divine heroes, and some Mahayana ceremonial practices (burning incense, gifts of flowers and food placed on altars) are similar to those practiced by the ancient Greeks. Zen Buddhism draws in part on the ideas of Greek stoics, such as Zeno.
Among other effects, the Hellenistic, or koine dialect of Greek became the lingua franca throughout the so-called civilized world. For instance the standard version of the Hebrew Scriptures used among the Jews of the diaspora, especially in Egypt, during the life of Jesus was the Greek Septuagint translation, which was compiled ca 200 BC by seventy-odd scholars under the patronage of the Macedonian ruler Ptolemy II Philadelphus. Thus many Jews from Egypt or Rome would have trouble understanding the teachings of the scholars in the Temple in Jerusalem who were using the Hebrew original text and an Aramaic translation, being themselves only acquainted with the Greek version. There has been much speculation on the issue whether Jesus spoke Koine Greek as the Gospel-writers, themselves writing in Greek, do not say anything decisive about the matter.
Spread of Greek ideas
Alexander had been educated by Aristotle. An important part of this education was the knowledge of Homer's Iliad, the common root for Greek identity, and of the Athenian heroes. Alexander took especial favour with the Homeric hero Achilles, the mythical founder of his mother's tribe, and the statesman Pericles, who enabled the Golden Age of Athens. His imperial ambitions did contain an agenda for the conquered barbarians, according to Aristotle's definition, to learn Greek and study Greek ideas. The military success spread the concept over a large part of the world. This Greek heritage was in large parts Athenian merit and thus was ensured the survival of the historical and cultural legacy of the Delian League.
Concept of civilized world versus barbarian world
At the time of Alexander there existed the concept of oikouméne (Ecumene), meaning literally "the inhabitated world". Alexander, with his conquers, changed it to mean "the civilized world", the group of civilizated nations which has common interests, as opposed to the barbarian nations. The concept would also include now not only the geography, but also its social, cultural and political dimensions. Alexander put it into practice by unifying Greece, the Near East, the Indus Valley, Central Asia and Egypt and then appointing himself as the guardian who would guard its frontiers so barbarians nations would not be able to attack the civilized nations inside.
Influence on Ancient Rome
, depicting the marriage of Alexander to Barsine (Stateira) in 324 BC. The couple are apparently dressed as Ares and Aphrodite.]]
In the late Republic and early Empire, educated Roman citizens used Latin only for legal, political, and ceremonial purposes, and used Greek to discuss philosophy or any other intellectual topic. No Roman wanted to hear it said that his mastery of the Greek language was weak. Throughout the Roman world, the one language spoken everywhere was Alexander's Greek.
Alexander and his exploits were admired by many Romans who wanted to associate themselves with his achievements, although very little is known about Roman-Macedonian diplomatic relations of that time. Polybius started his Histories by reminding Romans of his role, and since then subsequent Roman leaders saw him as his inspirational role leader. Julius Caesar wept in Spain at the mere sight of Alexander's statue; when asked to see other great military leaders Caesar said Alexander was the only great one. Pompey the Great rummaged through the closets of conquered nations for Alexander's 260-year-old cloak, which the Roman general then wore as the costume of greatness. Augustus' empire was seen as the more perfect successor of Alexander's. However, in his zeal to honor Alexander, Augustus accidentally broke the nose off the Macedonian's mummified corpse while laying a wreath at the hero's shrine in Alexandria, Egypt. The unbalanced emperor Caligula later took the dead king's armor from that tomb and donned it for luck. The Macriani, a Roman family that rose to the imperial throne in the 3rd century A.D., always kept images of Alexander on their persons, either stamped into their bracelets and rings or stitched into their garments. Even their dinnerware bore Alexander's face, with the story of the king's life displayed around the rims of special bowls.
In the summer of 1995, a statue of Alexander was recovered in an excavation of a Roman house in Alexandria, which was richly decorated with mosaic and marble pavements and probably was constructed in the 1st century AD and occupied until the 3rd century.
Character
Modern opinion on Alexander has run the gamut, from the notion that he believed that he was on a divinely inspired mission to unite the human race to the view that he was a megalomaniac bent on world domination. Such views tend to be anachronistic, and sources allow for a variety of interpretations. Much about Alexander's personality and aims remains enigmatic: there were no disinterested commentators in his own time or soon afterwards, so all accounts ought to be read with scepticism.
Alexander is remembered as a legendary hero in Europe and much of both Southwest and Central Asia, where he is known as Iskander or Iskandar Zulkarnain. To Zoroastrians,however, he is the conqueror of their first great empire and as the destroyer of Persepolis. Ancient sources are generally written with the agenda either of glorifying or of denigrating the man, making it difficult to evaluate his actual character. Most refer to a growing instability and megalomania in the years following Gaugamela, but it has been suggested that this simply reflects the Greek stereotype of an orientalising king.
At any rate, it is difficult to see much in the claim of Plutarch that, despite his drive and passion, Alexander was a man of /admirable self-restraint. The murder of his friend Cleitus, which he deeply and immediately regretted, is often cited as a sign of his paranoia, as is his execution of Philotas and his general Parmenion for failure to pass along details of a plot against him. There is also the view, of course, that this was more prudence than paranoia.
Modern Alexandrists continue to debate these issues and others. One unresolved polemic involves whether Alexander was actually attempting to better the world by his conquests or if his purpose was primarily to rule the world.
Partially in response to the ubiquity of positive portrayals of Alexander, an alternate character is sometimes presented which emphasises some of Alexander's negative aspects. Some proponents of this view cite the destructions of Thebes, Tyre, Persepolis and Gaza as atrocities, arguing that Alexander preferred fighting to negotiating. It is further claimed, in response to the view that he was generally tolerant of the cultures of the people whom he conquered, that his attempts at cultural fusion were strictly practical and that he never genuinely admired Persian art or culture. To this school of thought, Alexander was more a general than a statesman.
Alexander's character also suffers the interpretation of historians who themselves are subject to the biases and ideals of their times. William Woodthorpe Tarn, of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, saw Alexander in an extremely positive light, while Peter Green, who wrote after World War II, saw little in him and his deeds that was not inherently selfish or expedient. Tarn wrote in an age during which world conquest and warrior-heroes were acceptable, even encouraged; Green wrote against the backdrop of World War II with its 70 million dead and nuclear weaponry.
Greek and Latin sources
There are numerous Greek and Latin texts about Alexander, as well as some non-Greek texts. The primary sources, texts written by people who actually knew Alexander or who gathered information from men who served with Alexander, are all lost, apart from a few inscriptions and some letter-fragments of dubious authenticity. Contemporaries who wrote full accounts of his life include the historian Callisthenes, Alexander's general Ptolemy, Aristobulus, Nearchus, and Onesicritus. Another influential account is by Cleitarchus who, while not a direct witness of Alexander's expedition, used sources which had just been published. His work was to be the backbone of that of Timagenes, who heavily influenced many historians whose work still survives. None of these works survives, but we do have later works based on these primary sources.
The five main surviving accounts are by Arrian, Curtius, Plutarch, Diodorus, and Justin.
Anabasis Alexandri (The Campaigns of Alexander in Greek) by the Greek historian Arrian of Nicomedia, writing in the 2nd century AD, and based largely on Ptolemy and, to a lesser extent, Aristobulus and Nearchus. It is considered generally the most trustworthy source.Historiae Alexandri Magni, a biography of Alexander in ten books, of which the last eight survive, by the Roman historian Quintus Curtius Rufus, written in the 1st century AD, and based largely on Cleitarchus through the mediation of Timagenes, with some material probably from Ptolemy;Life of Alexander (see Parallel Lives) and two orations On the Fortune or the Virtue of Alexander the Great (see Moralia), by the Greek historian and biographer Plutarch of Chaeronea in the second century, based largely on Aristobulus and especially Cleitarchus.Bibliotheca historia (Library of world history), written in Greek by the Sicilian historian Diodorus Siculus, from which Book 17 relates the conquests of Alexander, based almost entirely on Timagenes's work. The books immediately before and after, on Philip and Alexander's "Successors," throw light on Alexander's reign.The Epitome of the Philippic History of Pompeius Trogus by Justin, which contains factual errors and is highly compressed. It is difficult in this case to understand the source, since we only have an epitome, but it is thought that also Pompeius Trogus may have limited himself to use Timagenes for his Latin history.
To these five main sources some scholars add the Metz Epitome, an anonymous late Latin work that narrates Alexander's campaigns from Hyrcania to India. Much is also recounted incidentally in other authors, including Strabo, Athenaeus, Polyaenus, Aelian, and others.
The "problem of the sources" is the main concern (and chief delight) of Alexander-historians. In effect, each presents a different "Alexander", with details to suit. Arrian is mostly interested in the military aspects, while Curtius veers to a more private and darker Alexander. Plutarch can't resist a good story, light or dark. All, with the possible exception of Arrian, include a considerable level of fantasy, prompting Strabo to remark, "All who wrote about Alexander preferred the marvelous to the true." Nevertheless, the sources tell us much, and leave much to our interpretation and imagination. Perhaps Arrian's words are most appropriate:
- One account says that Hephaestion laid a wreath on the tomb of Patroclus; another that Alexander laid one on the tomb of Achilles, calling him a lucky man, in that he had Homer to proclaim his deeds and preserve his memory. And well might Alexander envy Achilles this piece of good fortune; for in his own case there was no equivalent: his one failure, the single break, as it were, in the long chain of his successes, was that he had no worthy chronicler to tell the world of his exploits.
Legend
]]
Alexander was a legend in his own time. His court historian Callisthenes portrayed the sea in Cilicia as drawing back from him in proskynesis. Writing after Alexander's death, another participant, Onesicritus, went so far as to invent a tryst between Alexander and Thalestris, queen of the mythical Amazons. When Onesicritus read this passage to his patron, Alexander's general and later King Lysimachus reportedly quipped, "I wonder where I was at the time." (Plutarch, Alexander 46.2)
In the first centuries after Alexander's death, probably in Alexandria, a quantity of the more legendary material coalesced into a text known as the Alexander Romance, later falsely ascribed to the historian Callisthenes and therefore known as Pseudo-Callisthenes. This text underwent numerous expansions and revisions throughout Antiquity and the Middle Ages, exhibiting a plasticity unseen in "higher" literary forms. Latin and Syriac translations were made in Late Antiquity. From these, versions were developed in all the major languages of Europe and the Middle East, including Armenian, Georgian, Persian, Arabic, Turkish, Hebrew, Serbian, Slavonic, Romanian, Hungarian, German, English, Italian, and French. The "Romance" is regarded by many Western scholars as the source of the account of Alexander given in the Qur'an (Sura The Cave). It is the source of many incidents in Ferdowsi's "Shahnama". A Mongolian version is also extant. Some believe that, excepting certain religious texts, it is the most widely read work of pre-modern times.
Alexander is also a character of Greek folklore (and other regions), as the protagonist of 'apocryphal' tales of bravery. A maritime legend says that his sister is a mermaid and asks the sailors if her brother is still alive. The unsuspecting sailor who answers truthfully arouses the mermaid's wrath and his boat perishes in the waves; a sailor mindful of the circumstances will answer "He lives and reigns, and conquers the world", and the sea about his boat will immediately calm. Alexander is also a character of a standard play in the Karagiozis repertory, "Alexander the Great and the Accursed Serpent". The ancient Greek poet Adrianus composed an epic poem on the history of Alexander the Great, called the Alexandriad, which was probably still extant in the 10th century, but which is now lost to us.
In the Bible
depicted in a Byzantine style painting from 1568. Written on the left is 'Alexander, King of the Hellenes' and 'Augustus, Emperor of the Romans' on the right. From the Katholikon of Docheiariou Monastery, Mt. Athos, Greece.]]
Daniel 8:5–8 and 21–22 states that a King of Greece will conquer the Medes and Persians but then die at the height of his power and have his kingdom broken into four kingdoms. This is sometimes taken as a reference to Alexander.
Alexander was briefly mentioned in the first Book of the Maccabees. All of Chapter 1, verses 1–7 was about Alexander and this serves as an introduction of the book. This explains how the Hellenistic influence reached the Land of Israel at that time.
In the Qur'an
Alexander the Great sometimes is identified in Persian and Arabic traditions as Dhul-Qarnayn, Arabic for the "Two-Horned One", possibly a reference to the appearance of a horn-headed figure that appears on coins minted during his rule and later imitated in ancient Middle Eastern coinage. Accounts of Dhul-Qarnayn appear in the Qur'an, and so may refer to Alexander.
References to Alexander may also be found in the Persian tradition. The same traditions from the Pseudo-Callisthenes were combined in Persia with Sassanid Persian ideas about Alexander in the Iskandarnamah. In this tradition, Alexander built a wall of iron and melted copper in which Gog and Magog are confined.
Some Muslim scholars disagree that Alexander was Dhul-Qarnayn. There are actually some theories that Dhul-Qarnayn was a Persian King with a vast Empire as well, possibly King Cyrus the Great. The reason being is Dhul-Qarnayn is described in the Quran as a monotheist believer who worshipped Allah (God). This would remove Alexander as a candidate for Dhul-Qarnayn as Alexander was a polytheist. Yet contemporaneous Persian nobles would have practiced Zurvanism, thus disqualifying them on the same basis.
In the Shahnameh
Persian miniature painting from Herat depicting Iskander, the Persian name for Alexander the Great]]
The Shahnameh of Ferdowsi, one of the oldest books written in modern Persian, has a chapter about Alexander. It is a book of epic poetry written around 1000 AD, and is believed to have played an important role in the survival of the Persian language in the face of Arabic influence. It starts with a mythical history of Iran and then gives a story of Alexander, followed by a brief mention of the Arsacids. The accounts after that, still in epic poetry, portray historical figures. Alexander is described as a child of a Persian king, Daraaye Darab (the last in the list of kings in the book whose names do not match historical kings), and a daughter of Philip, a Roman king. However, due to problems in the relationship between the Persian king and Philip's daughter, she is sent back to Rome. Alexander is born to her afterwards, but Philip claims him as his own son and keeps the true identity of the child secret.
Names
Alexander is also known in the Zoroastrian Middle Persian work Arda Wiraz Namag as "Alexander the accursed", in the Persian language Guzastag, due to his conquest of the Persian Empire and the destruction of its capital Persepolis. He is also known as Eskandar-e Maqduni(Alexander of Macedonia") in Persian, al-Iskandar al-Makduni al-Yunani ("Alexander the Macedonian, of Greece") in Arabic, ??????? ??????, Alexander Mokdon in Hebrew, and Tre-Qarnayia in Aramaic (the two-horned one, apparently due to an image on coins minted during his rule that seemingly depicted him with the two ram's horns of the Egyptian god Ammon), ???????? ??????, al-Iskandar al-Akbar ("Alexander the Great") in Arabic, ????? ????, Sikandar-e-azam in Urdu and Skandar in Pashto. Sikandar, his name in Urdu and Hindi, is also a term used as a synonym for "expert" or "extremely skilled".
In ancient and modern culture
Around seventy towns or outposts are claimed to have been founded by Alexander. Diodorus Siculus credits Alexander with planning cities on a grid plan.
Alexander has figured in works of both "high" and popular culture from his own era to the modern day.
Further reading
- Alexander the Great in Fact and Fiction, edited by A.B. Bosworth, E.J. Baynham. New York: Oxford University Press (USA), 2002 (Paperback, ISBN 0-19-925275-0).
- Baynham, Elizabeth. Alexander the Great: The Unique History of Quintus Curtius. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1998 (hardcover, ISBN 0-472-10858-1); 2004 (paperback, ISBN 0-472-03081-7).
- Brill's Companion to Alexander the Great by Joseph Roisman (editor). Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers, 2003.
- Cartledge, Paul. Alexander the Great: The Hunt for a New Past. Woodstock, NY; New York: The Overlook Press, 2004 (hardcover, ISBN 1-58567-565-2); London: PanMacmillan, 2004 (hardcover, ISBN 1-4050-3292-8); New York: Vintage, 2005 (paperback, ISBN 1-4000-7919-5).
- Dahmen, Karsten. The Legend of Alexander the Great on Greek and Roman Coins. Oxford: Routledge, 2006 (hardcover, ISBN 0-415-39451-1; paperback, ISBN 0-415-39452-X).
- De Santis, Marc G. “At The Crossroads of Conquest.” Military Heritage, December 2001. Volume 3, No. 3: 46–55, 97 (Alexander the Great, his military, his strategy at the Battle of Gaugamela and his defeat of Darius making Alexander the King of Kings).
- Fuller, J.F. C; A Military History of the Western World: From the earliest times to the Battle of Lepanto; New York: Da Capo Press, Inc., 1987 and 1988. ISBN 0-306-80304-6
- Gergel, Tania Editor Alexander the Great (2004) published by the Penguin Group, London ISBN 0-14-200140-6 Brief collection of ancient accounts translated into English
- Larsen, Jakob A. O. "Alexander at the Oracle of Ammon", Classical Philology, Vol. 27, No. 1. (Jan., 1932), pp. 70–75.
- Lonsdale, David. Alexander the Great, Killer of Men: History's Greatest Conqueror and the Macedonian Way of War, New York, Carroll & Graf, 2004, ISBN 0786714298
- Pearson, Lionel Ignacius Cusack. The Lost Histories of Alexander the Great. Chicago Ridge, IL: Ares Publishers, 2004 (paperback, ISBN 0-89005-590-4).
- Thomas, Carol G. Alexander the Great in his World (Blackwell Ancient Lives). Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2006 (hardcover, ISBN 0631232451; paperback, ISBN 063123246X).
Non-Greek/Latin perspectives
- A. Shapur Shahbazi, "Iranians and Alexander", American Journal of Ancient History n.s. 2 (2003), 5–38: the Persian side of the story.
- R.J. van der Spek, "Darius III, Alexander the Great and Babylonian scholarship" in: Achaemenid History 13 (2003), 289–346: an overview of several Babylonian sources
- Two chapters of Jona Lendering's Dutch book Alexander de Grote, which uses the cuneiform sources, are available in translation. In , he argues that at Gaugamela, Alexander attacked a Persian army that was looking for an excuse to run away; and in , he offers a Babylonian perspective on Alexander's final days.
External links
Primary Sources
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- from Livius.org
- Wiki Classical Dictionary, and
Other
- by Waldemar Heckel
- , entry in historical sourcebook by Mahlon H. Smith
- , a comprehensive directory of some 1,000 sites
- , a project by John J. Popovic
- , photos of all sites Alexander visited
- , a site depicting Alexander's coins and later coins featuring Alexander's image
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