Alexander the Great (or Alexander the Great) was born in 356 BC in Macedonia, northern Greece, was a prince and king of Macedonia.
He conquered one of the largest empires in the world, with territory ranging from Macedonia to India.
Biography of Alexander the Great
Alexander was the son of Philip II, King of Macedon, and he 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 Philip II was assassinated in 336 BC, Alexander became King of the Macedonians and assumed the posts of head of the League of Corinth (a union of several Greek city-states) and commander of the Macedonian army.
Then he 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 diffusion of the Greek culture in the East. The most famous of these, in Egypt, housed the most important library of 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 in 323 BC.
Despite this, Alexander's empire united the Western and Eastern worlds, and spread 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 consolidated power before the mighty Antenas, he marched to conquer the East.
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 BC, Alexander crossed the Hellespont, a strip of sea between European Greece and Asiatic Greece, and took possession of Asia Minor.
He then defeated the Persian army, commanded by King Darius III himself. He went to Phoenicia, where he took the port of Tyre. He marched to 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 it was refused.
In 331 BC the Persians were definitely 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 roamed the region of the Indus River. As he tried to make his way to the river Ganges, he suffered his first and only defeat:his army's refusal to continue. Tired of eight years of fighting, his warriors wanted to go 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 Greek 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 Eastern and Greek culture was called Hellenistic culture. To consolidate his power, Alexander also did not hesitate to marry three local princesses.
In administration, Persian gold was absorbed into 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 sprang up.
Most regional rulers were retained, but were supervised. Each provincial group had a finance officer, who was accountable to Babylon, where Harpalus, the emperor's trusted man, directed the economy.
Army of Alexander the Great
Alexander the Great had a powerful army – the phalanx – typical Macedonian military formation, perfected by Philip II. It was made up of several side rows of soldiers armed with a five to seven meter spear (sarissa).
The soldiers were formed in rows of six each and totaled nine thousand men. These were distributed in six battalions forming a true wall of spears.
The infantry was made up of soldiers from the League of Corinth, while the cavalry was one of the most experienced parts, as it brought together soldiers with several generations of fighting.
There were also battalions of archers and javelin throwers (short throwing spears), in addition to special groups made up of cartographers, engineers and scientists who were capable of building machines to overcome any other obstacle.
See also :Hellenistic Period
Death of Alexander the Great
Alexander the Great died in 323 BC. aged 32, leaving one of the most vast empires known until then. As his sons were still small, Alexander's empire ended up divided among his top generals.
To this day, historians speculate on 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 his vast and heterogeneous empire would crumble. In the 2nd and 1st centuries BC, the Hellenistic kingdoms were gradually conquered by the Romans, who became successors of the empire created by Alexander the Great.
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