Alexander the Great
ALEXANDER THE GREAT ALEXANDROS PHILIPPOU MAKEDONON (356-323 BC). More than any other world conqueror, Alexander III of Macedon, or ancient Macedonia, deserves to be called the Great. Although he died before the age of 33, he conquered almost all the then known world and gave a new direction to history. Alexander was born in 356 BC at Pella, the capital of Macedon, a kingdom north of Hellas (Greece). Under his father, Philip II, Macedon had become strong and united, the first real nation in European history. Greece was reaching the end of its Golden Age. Art, literature, and philosophy were still flourishing, but the small city-states had refused to unite and were exhausted by wars. Philip admired Greek culture. The Greeks despised the Macedonians as barbarians. Alexander was handsome and had the physique of an athlete. He excelled in hunting and loved riding his horse Bucephalus. When Alexander was 13 years old, the leading Greek thinker and philosopher Aristotle came to Macedon to tutor him. Alexander learned to love Homer's 'Iliad'. He also learned something of ethics and politics and the new sciences of botany, zoology, geography, and medicine. His chief interest was military strategy
Leaving Egypt in the spring of 331 BC, Alexander went in search of Darius. Alexander reached Susa in the spring of 324 BC. With Greece secure, Alexander prepared to carry out his father's bold plan and invade Persia. He allowed the other city-states to keep their democratic governments. Some of his followers, including the rank and file of the Macedonian army, wanted to preserve the empire. Darius fled once more, and Alexander won a great and decisive victory in October 1, 331 BC. Alexander the Great is, arguably, the most famous worldly figure in history. Alexander, however, was determined to press on to the eastern limit of the world, which he believed was not far beyond the Indus River. Babylon, the walled Persian city so large, wrote Aristotle, that it took two days for the word of its surrender to reach all its people, welcomed the conqueror, and Alexander made sacrifices to the Babylonians' god Marduk. The Persian capital, Susa, also opened its gates. He had already ordered a fleet built on the Hydaspes, and he sailed down the Indus to its mouth. His men now wanted to return home. With the army went geographers, botanists, and other men of science who collected information and specimens for Aristotle.
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