Alexander the Great (or Alexander, the Great), was born in 356 a. C., in Macedonia, north of Greece, he was prince and king of Macedonia.
He conquered one of the greatest empires in the world, with territory stretching from Macedonia to India.
Biography of Alexander the Great
Alexander was the son of Philip II, king of Macedonia, and taught him the art of war. His mother was a devout follower of the god Bacchus and told her son that his real father was Zeus.
At the time, Macedonia was a peripheral territory of Magna Graecia, and Alexander was a student of the philosopher Aristotle, assimilating values from Greek culture.
When king Filipe II was assassinated in 336 a. C., Alexander became king of the Macedonians and assumed the posts of chief of the League of Corinth (a union of several Greek city-states) and of commander of the Macedonian army.
He then set out for the territorial expansion of his kingdom, taking Asia Minor, Persia and reaching the banks of the Indus River in India.
While subjugating the kingdoms, he founded cities with the name of Alexandria that became the center of dissemination of Greek culture in the East. The most famous of these, in Egypt, housed the most important library in antiquity.
He married three times in order to strengthen alliances with the kingdoms of the Persian Empire. Although he had two children, both were murdered as children by Alexander's rivals.
His vast empire lasted twelve years and ended with his death, which occurred in 323 BC. Ç.
Despite this, Alexander's empire united the western and eastern worlds, and spread the Greek values of virtue and beauty across Asia.
Empire of Alexander the Great
Alexander the Great, or Alexander the Great, took over the kingdom of Macedonia after his father's death. Once he consolidated his power before the mighty Antennae, he marched to conquer the Orient.
This region, as an obligatory passage between the West and the East, was always coveted by the Greeks. There was the Persian empire, which was an obstacle to the expansion of the Hellenes.
In the year 334 a. C., Alexander crossed the Hellespont, the strip of sea between European Greece and Asian Greece, and took possession of Asia Minor.
He then defeated the Persian army, commanded by King Darius III himself. He made his way to Phoenicia, where he took the port of Tyre. He marched into Egypt, which was also dominated by the Persians, and there he had himself crowned Pharaoh. Faced with the power of Alexander the Great, Darius III proposed a peace agreement, but this was refused.
In 331 a. Ç. the Persians were definitively defeated. As emperor, Alexander advanced to major Persian cities such as Babylon, Susa and Persepolis.
Alexander's army continued on and reached India, where it traveled through the Indus River region. While trying to head for the Ganges River, he suffered his one and only defeat: his army's refusal to continue. Tired of eight years of fighting, his warriors wanted to return home.
Administration of Alexander the Great's Empire
To manage his vast empire, Alexander the Great sought to incorporate elements of Asian culture into the Greeks' way of governing.
This generated some conflicts, as the Greeks and Macedonians did not agree that a human being was a deity. For the Greeks, all people had the capacity to be virtuous and would not be dominated by a tyrant.
This fusion of elements of oriental and Greek culture was called hellenistic culture. To consolidate his power, Alexander also did not hesitate to marry local princesses three times.
In administration, Persian gold was absorbed in the minting of coins that circulated throughout the empire. The paths of conquest became roads; and in the various Alexandrias he founded, centers of culture and commerce arose.
Most of the regional rulers were retained, but they came under supervision. Each provincial group had a responsible for finance, who was accountable to Babylon, where Harpalus, the emperor's trusted man, directed the economy.
Alexander the Great's Army
Alexander the Great had a powerful army – the phalanx – typical Macedonian military formation, perfected by Philip II. It was composed of several side rows of soldiers armed with a five to seven meter spear (sarissa).
The soldiers were formed in lines of six each and numbered nine thousand men. These were distributed into six battalions forming a veritable wall of spears.
The infantry was composed of soldiers from the League of Corinth, while the cavalry was one of the more experienced parts, as it brought together soldiers with several generations of fighting.
There were also battalions of archers and javelins (short throwing spears), in addition to special groups formed by cartographers, engineers and scientists who were able to build machines to transpose any other obstacle.
See too: Hellenistic Period
Death of Alexander the Great
Alexander the Great died in 323 a. Ç. at 32 years old, leaving one of the largest empires known to date. As his children were still small, Alexander's empire was divided among his main generals.
To this day, historians speculate about the cause of his death. Some think he was poisoned by an enemy, while others maintain that he contracted malaria while traveling to Babylon.
Soon its vast and heterogeneous empire would crumble. In centuries II and I a. C., the Hellenistic kingdoms were gradually conquered by the Romans, who became successors of the empire created by Alexander the Great.
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