Titans of History

ALEXANDER THE GREAT

356–323 BC

He would not have remained content with any of his conquests, not even if he had added the British Isles to Europe; he would always have reached beyond for something unknown, and if there had been no other competition, he would have competed against himself.

Arrian, The Anabasis (c. AD 150), translated as Alexander’s Expedition, 7.1

Alexander of Macedon stretched the limits of the possible. In little more than a decade of brilliant military campaigning, he forged the most extensive empire the world had seen, stretching from Greece and Egypt in the west to India in the east and taking in all or part of seventeen modern states. It is said that he wept that there were no more worlds to conquer. With some justification, the statue erected to him after his death bore the legend “I hold the Earth.”

Alexander was one of the greatest military commanders who has ever lived. Julius Caesar, a superb general in his own right, was plunged into deep despair whenever he pondered Alexander’s achievements. Alexander was distinguished by his personal beauty, grace and courage and above all for his tolerance and chivalry, but he was also ruthless in battle and in court politics, a hard drinker who personally murdered one of his top commanders.

Within two years of inheriting the Macedonian throne on the assassination of his remarkable warrior-king father, Philip of Macedon, the 4ft 6in (1.35m) twenty-two-year-old had united Greece’s disparate city-states under his leadership in order to wage war on the mighty Persian empire. It was the Hellenic world’s most prized dream, and a goal Philip had spent his life working toward.

Alexander set out on his mission in 334 BC. Within two years the Persians had been totally defeated in victories such as that at Issus, which showed Alexander’s military genius and tactical virtuosity. He went on to establish himself at the head of his own empire, one that included not only Greece and Macedonia but also the entire Middle East, from Egypt and Asia Minor to Mesopotamia, Persia and beyond, into Afghanistan, parts of central Asia and, on the far side of the Hindu Kush mountains, the rich valley of the Indus. Only the final, stubborn refusal of his Macedonian army to breach the limits of the known world prevented him from going further. When he died in Babylon, at just thirty-two years old, he was planning the conquest of Arabia and may have had designs on the western Mediterranean.

Alexander’s rule united East and West for the first time. Perhaps influenced by his boyhood tutor, Aristotle, Alexander was determined to govern well. He ordered his ministers to “break up the oligarchies everywhere and set up democracies instead.” He forbade his armies to plunder conquered lands, and he founded new cities galore—usually named Alexandria. The greatest of these, at the mouth of the Nile Delta, became for many centuries the intellectual and commercial center of the Mediterranean world. Alexander wanted to create an empire fusing the best of both Greek and Eastern cultures. He recruited Persians into his armies and assigned Persian wives to his generals, sending back to Europe any Macedonians who resisted this enforced equality. He himself married the daughter of the dethroned Persian king.

Alexander was revered as a god in his own lifetime. He was reputedly a descendant of Achilles on his mother’s side, and rumors of Alexander’s supernatural abilities abounded, reinforced by his unnatural speed and apparent personal invincibility in battle. Described by a friend as “the only philosopher whom I have ever seen in arms,” he loved poetry and music. As a boy he declared that if he could only save one possession it would be Homer’s Iliad. He was always alert to symbolism. On first setting foot on the shores of the Persian empire, in Asia Minor, his first act was to make a pilgrimage to Troy to honor his ancestor Achilles. He named Bucephala, a town on the Indus, after his beloved horse Bucephalus, which had died in battle.

Alexander also had a more brutish side: he drunkenly killed one of his officers in a row at a banquet, a crime he deeply regretted. His own death is said to have resulted from too much carousing. “Sex and sleep alone make me conscious that I am mortal,” he reportedly declared. He had several wives and mistresses, but his great love was his boyhood friend Hephaistion.

Alexander could be merciless. On succeeding to the throne after his father’s assassination, he executed all rival claimants, including his infant half-brother. He executed one of his greatest friends for treason, and also the friend’s blameless father, his veteran general, Parmenion: Alexander refused to run the risk of paternal vengeance. He enslaved or crucified all the Tyrians after they resisted his siege of their city and razed Thebes to the ground, a warning to the restless Greek city-states of what they could expect from rebellion. Toward the end of his life he became increasingly despotic.

Alexander’s treatment of his enemies, however, often demonstrated his nobility of spirit. When an Indian king demanded to face him in battle, Alexander fought and defeated him, but rewarded him with the restoration of his kingdom and that of a less fortunate neighbor as well. He treated the wives of Darius, the defeated Persian king, with “the utmost delicacy and respect” and allowed the Jews, Persians and others to worship as they wished.

Alexander changed the face of the world by making Hellenism—the Greek way of life—into the global culture. When asked on his deathbed to whom he would leave his kingdom, Alexander replied: “To the strongest.” After his death, his empire, which had spanned half the world, disintegrated. No one could match him.