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Ancient Greece
Alexander the Great
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INTRODUCTION
Alexander the Great, the king of Macedonia who conquered the Persian empire and
expanded the ancient empire of Greece, is considered one of the greatest military geniuses of all
times. He is the first king in Europe to be called "the Great."
Alexander, was the son of Philip II, who was the king of
Macedonia. His mother was Olympia, a princess of Epirus (in the
western part of Greece). Philip and Olympia wanted nothing less
than the best for their son, so when he was 13, his parents hired
Aristotle to be his personal tutor. Aristotle was one of the best
known and famous teachers of the time. Alexander was trained
together with other children of the nobility (upper class) at
Aristotle’s school, called Nyphaeon [nif-ay-on]. Aristotle gave
Alexander a thorough training in speech, writing, and literature
and stimulated his interest in science, medicine, and philosophy, all
of which became very important for Alexander in his later life.
Coin showing Alexander
GREEK RESISTANCE
Alexander became king of Macedonia at the age of 20 when his father, King Philip II,
was suddenly assassinated. Upon hearing of the king’s death, riots and unruliness broke out in
parts of the kingdom of Macedonia. Immediately, Alexander took a group of soldiers and
restored order. This quickly helped take care of many critics in Macedonia who said Alexander
was too young or too weak to take over for his slain father and rule the empire.
Still the Greek cities, like Athens and Thebes, which had pledged allegiance
to King Philip, were unsure if they wished to do the same for a twentyyear-old boy. After the news of the death of King Phillip, there were
rumors in these cities that Alexander too had been killed and that the time
was right for them to separate themselves from Macedonia. Shortly after,
a revolt broke out in Thebes with the support of leading Athenian soldiers
and politicians. Alexander and his army marched south to stop the
uprising covering 240 miles in just two weeks. Alexander marched up to
the gates of Thebes and let them know that it was not too late for them
to change their minds. The Thebians responded by sending out a small
group of soldiers to fight. Alexander quickly repelled them with archers and light infantrymen.
The next day, Alexander's general, Perdiccas [pur-di-kas], attacked the gates of Thebes.
Perdiccas broke through and into the city. The Macedonians then stormed the city, killing
almost everyone in sight, women and children included. They plundered (robbed), sacked,
burned, and razed (destroyed) Thebes, as an example to the rest of Greece. Only the temples
were spared from destruction because they belonged to the Greek gods, the same gods that
Alexander and the Macedonians worshiped. After hearing of the strength of Alexander and his
men, the city of Athens then quickly rethought its decision to abandon Alexander and the rest of
Greece remained under Macedonian control. This was the birth of the great empire of Ancient
Greece.
CONQUERING PERSIA
Alexander went on to expand his empire by conquering many other lands. He started
by fighting a war against Greece’s most hated rival, Persia. Greece hated Persia because Persia
had attacked Greece in the past, even before the rule of King Philip II (Alexander’s father). They
had destroyed Greek cities and killed many people. Alexander asked all of the city-states of
Greece for men, money, and supplies for the campaign and promised them revenge on their
enemy, the Persians.
Alexander began his war against Persia in the spring of 334 BC by crossing the Hellespont
River with an army of 35,000 Macedonians and 7,600 other Greeks. While his boat was
approaching the shore, he threw his spear from his ship to the coast and it stuck in the ground.
As he stepped onto the shore, he pulled his weapon from the soil, and declared that “the whole
of Asia will be won by the spear.”
The Macedonian army soon encountered the Persian army under the command of the
Persian king, King Darius III, at the crossing of the river Granicus, near the ancient city of Troy.
Alexander attacked the army of Persians. Alexander's forces defeated the enemy totaling about
40,000 men and, according to legend, lost only 110 men of his own, but Darius, the king of
Persia, abandoned his soldiers, ran away, and escaped.
Continuing to advance southward, in November of 333 BC, Alexander met King Darius
III in battle for the second time at a mountain pass called Issus [is-yous], in northeastern Syria.
The exact size of Darius's army is unknown, but although the Persian army greatly outnumbered
the Macedonians, the narrow field of battle between the mountains allowed Alexander to
defeat the Persians. The Battle of Issus ended in a great victory for Alexander. Cut off from his
army, King Darius again ran away, this time abandoning his mother, wife, and children to be
captured by Alexander, who treated them with respect because they were royalty. They later
continued to serve Alexander as their king.
Alexander entered Egypt in 331 BC. When he arrived, he chased out and defeated the
Persians there and he was welcomed by the Egyptians for freeing them from Persian rule.
Alexander ordered a city to be designed after Greek cities and built in his name at the mouth of
the Nile River. The city of Alexandria, as it was named, would become one of the major Greek
cultural centers in the Mediterranean world in the following centuries.
After arriving, Alexander was voluntarily made pharaoh (ruler) by the Egyptians, who
had despised (hated) living under Persian rule. Alexander exchanged letters with Persian King
Darius III while he was in Egypt, and Darius offered a truce with Alexander with a gift of several
western provinces (lands) of the Persian Empire.
Alexander refused to make peace unless he
could have the whole empire. In the middle of 331 BC, Alexander marched back to into Persia
to find King Darius and conquer the whole Persian empire.
Alexander reorganized his forces and headed for
Babylon, in present day Iraq, with an army of 40,000
infantry (foot-soldiers) and 7000 cavalry (soldiers on
horses). He conquered the lands between the rivers
Tigris and Euphrates and found the Persian army which,
according to the exaggerated accounts, was said to
number a million men. The two armies met on the
battlefield the next morning in the Battle of Gaugamela
and the Macedonian forces swept through
the Persian army and slaughtered them. Again, King Darius fled as he had done in the past, this
time to his mountain palace in Ecbatana called the Palace of Persepolis, in present-day Iran. At
the end of the battle the remainder of Darius’ soldiers surrendered and Alexander was
proclaimed King of Persia. To win the continued support of the Persian aristocracy (rulers) he
appointed mainly Persians who became loyal to him as governors in the conquered lands. After
four months, the Macedonians made their way to King Darius’ palace in Ecbatana, but didn’t
find him there. They burned the royal palace at Ecbatana to the ground putting an end to the
ancient Persian Empire.
Alexander continued his pursuit of King Darius for hundreds of miles. When he finally
caught up to him, he found the Persian king dead in his coach, assassinated by his own men
who turned on him. Alexander had the assassins executed for treason and gave King Darius a
royal funeral, because it was the way royalty was to be treated.
ALEXANDER IN INDIA
In the spring of 327 BC, Alexander and his army marched into India
invading the ancient country of Punjab. This led to one of the greatest of
Alexander's battles in India against King Porus, one of the most powerful
Indian leaders, at the river Hydaspes [hi-das-pees]. In July of 326 BC,
Alexander's army crossed the heavily defended river in dramatic fashion during
a violent thunderstorm to meet King Porus' forces. The Indians were defeated
in a fierce battle, even though they fought with elephants, which the
Macedonians had never before seen. Alexander captured Porus and, like
many of the other local rulers he had defeated, Alexander made him swear
loyalty to Greece and allowed him to continue to govern his territory.
Alexander's next goal was to travel south down the Indus River so that they might reach
the ocean on the southern edge of the known world. The army rode down the rivers on rafts
and stopped to along the way to attack and subdue villages when necessary. During this trip,
Alexander also searched for the Indian philosophers, called the Brahmins, who were famous for
their wisdom, and debated them on philosophical issues. He became legendary for centuries in
India for being both a wise philosopher (which he had learned from Aristotle) and a fearless
conqueror and leader.
One of the villages in which the army stopped belonged to the Malli, who were said to
be one of the most warlike of the Indian tribes. Alexander was wounded several times in this
attack, most seriously when an arrow pierced his breastplate (armor) and his ribcage. The
Macedonian officers rescued him in a narrow escape from the village. After this near-death
experience, when Alexander and his army reached the mouth of the Indus River in July 325 BC,
they turned westward and headed for home, back to Macedonia. Alexander had enough. He
wanted to return to his homeland of Greece and rule his kingdom.
ALEXANDER'S DEATH
Alexander the Great, the Macedonian king and the great conqueror, died unexpectedly
at the age of 33, on June 10, 323 BC. It is believed that he died from the disease we now
know as Malaria which he contracted from a mosquito bite while in the damp, swampy,
monsoons of India. When Alexander died, he had no son of his own, so he died without
choosing an heir or a successor to rule the empire he had fought so hard to create. This led to
chaos in the Greek Empire.
Alexander’s top generals began to greedily split up the territories of the empire between
themselves. General Seleucus [sell-yu-kus] took control of Persia, General Antigonas took
control of Macedonia, and General Ptolemy took control of Egypt. This was the beginning of
the end of the Greek civilization. By 146 BC, Greece and Macedonia to the north had both
been conquered by the Romans. The Romans stole many statues and works of art from the
Greek temples, and by 30 BC the Romans had also conquered Persia and Egypt and taken it
away from the Greeks. However, the Romans admired many things about the Greek way of
life and they copied many of the ideas to use in Rome, which helped the Greek ways and the
Greek culture to continue on even until today.