~History~
ALEXANDER
THE GREAT
Alexander was born to Philip II, King of Macedonia,
and his wife Olympias on the 6th day of the Macedonian month
Loios, the month of the Lion, (about July 20) in the year 336
B.C.
He was born at a time when his father's army had just won a
major victory over a united force of powerful tribes, occupying
regions roughly equivalent to Albania and Serbia.
The Olympic games had just ended, with King Phillip's entry
for the horse-race winning first place. (Philip publicly commemorated
his Olympic victory by issuing new silver coins. The head of
Zeus is portrayed on the obverse; the reverse pictures a diminutive,
nude jockey crowned with the victory wreath and waving a palm-branch,
astride a large, spirited horse.) It was also the day when the
revered Temple of Artemis was set fire and destroyed at Ephesos
(1).
Alexander's early years, as all young children's, were spent
under his mother's care. Unfortunately, Queen Olympias was a
stormy, jealous, possessive woman prone to screaming rages,
casting spells and uncontrollable weeping. She ultimately murdered
a number of friends, relatives and family members (2). At the
age of 7, Alexander was removed from his mother's care but remained
very close to her throughout their lives.
Alexander's childhood friends were Ptolemy (3) and Hephaistion.
When the boys were 9, Plato infuriated Aristotle by selecting
another man to head the school at Athens. Aristotle left Athens
and ultimately came to Macedonia to tutor Alexander and his
friends. To the ancient Greeks, the word "philosopher"
meant someone who explored many things; the philosopher Aristotle
chronicled plants and animals (4).
Alexander
was an extraordinary youth. He knew the poet Homer's works by
heart and could quote them at length. His taming of Boukephalos,
an enormous and spirited stallion, was remarkable and became
a favorite story. He had an exceptional voice and excelled at
playing the kithara, an instrument with 12 strings and ivory
keys, played standing. As a surprise to his father, he once
performed for dinner guests. Outraged, King Philip shamed him
for singing so well. Plutarch wrote that Alexander was so angry
that he never played the kitara again.
During the childhood and early teen years of these boys, Philip
II continued his world conquest. At 16, Alexander was entrusted
with the command of experienced troops in a situation of critical
strategic significance. At 20, his father was assassinated and
Alexander found himself King of Macedon. There were those who
suspected that he may have conspired with others, including
his mother Queen Olympias, to murder his father.
With a brilliance for war and diplomacy alike, Alexander first
established his supremacy over all Greece and then embarked
on a world conquest. He conquered the entire Persian Empire
and forged into India, reaching the Ganges River, having previously
sailed down the Indus River into the Indian Ocean.
As he traveled, Alexander founded cities along the way - from
Greece to Persia to India to Egypt (5). He is said to have founded
seventy new cities, many sited as trade centers. His cities
were founded in easily defensible locations, on reliable trading
routes, with clean water supplies (a year-round spring for the
public fountain) and arable land around it. Once a city was
built, Alexander would people it with veteran soldiers (Macedonian
and those he had conquered) and with craftsmen, women and children.
Alexander would then dedicate the city to Hercules and Apollo.
Before he left a fledgling city, Alexander set forth the laws
- laws which the conquered could understand and abide by, laws
which were fair and just.
On the Euphrates at Babylon, Alexander built a huge harbor able
to accommodate a thousand ships. One of his admirals was sent
to survey the seacoast from the Indus to the Persian Gulf, with
a view toward establishing more efficient trade routes between
East and West. Alexander discovered that the Persians were the
heirs to an old and rich civilization and that India was a fabulous
country. To the dismay of his soldiers, he began wearing Persian
clothes and adopted much of the palace ceremony of an oriental
emperor. His second wife was the conquered Persian king's daughter.
He left Persian governors in control of conquered provinces
and tried to eradicate the old Greek assumption that there were
only two sorts of people in the world - Greeks and barbarians.
Under King Alexander, a new concept of international relationship,
the marriage of East and West, dawned.
When Alexander's lifelong companion Hephaistion died, probably
of typhoid, the doctor was hanged for neglect. The King then
requested of Zeus Ammon's oracle to grant his friend divine
status, which had already been conferred upon him. So there
was no doctor available when Alexander was pierced by an arrow,
which perforated his lung. On a desert march, he had field surgery
without anesthesia and never completely recovered. He most likely
died of pneumonia. Alexander the Great was 32.
When he died in 323 B.C., Alexander had conquered all the then
known world. The fruit of the conquest, Greek culture, was firmly
entrenched throughout the Near East, in the newly-founded cities
and over the continent almost to India. It is widely believed
that no other person evoked in his own lifetime, from so many
men, so ardent an allegiance as Alexander the Great.
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(1) Many later thought this to be a birth omen, a fire in Asia
to symbolize Alexander's conquest of the Asian
peoples.
(2) After Alexander's death in 323 B.C., Olympias' ensuing execution
was carried out by the relatives of her
victims.
(3) Ptolemaios was the illegitimate son of Philip II and a married
woman. Ptolemy was raised in Philip II's
home as a friend and brother to Alexander. He became one of
Alexander’s most trusted officers. After
Alexander's death, Ptolemy ruled at Alexandria and became King
of Egypt, founder of the Ptolemaic dynasty
(including Cleopatra), and wrote an extensive history of the
life of Alexander the Great.
(4) Aristotle had a lifelong passion for natural science and
medicine. During Alexander the Great's conquest
of Asia, he gave Aristotle 800 talents, a vast sum, to accommodate
his collection of unusual flora and fauna which
he and his nobles found.
(5) And named many of them Alexandria. The most famous of his
cities was Alexandria, Egypt, which later housed the famous
library and flourished under the Ptolemiac dynasty. Alexandria
replaced Athens as the new center of Greek culture and learning.