Alexander the Great

I

Introduction

Alexander the Great (356-323 bc), King of Macedon (336-323 bc), known since Roman times as “Alexander the Great”. Alexander succeeded to the throne of Macedon following the assassination of his father, Philip II, in the summer of 336 bc. Macedon was the kingdom located in the region known in ancient times as Macedonia, which was roughly coterminous with the modern Greek province of Macedonia, but extended also into the southern parts of the present Balkan state of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. Alexander quickly developed his father’s plan for the invasion and conquest of the Achaemenid Empire of Persia. His expedition began in the spring of 334 bc and continued until his death in Babylon in the summer of 323 bc. He subjugated the whole empire to Macedonian rule, and also conquered (though only temporarily) the Indus Valley region. When he died he was engaged on plans for further conquests in Arabia. Though his empire was quickly divided after his death, he had, almost by accident, brought Greek culture to the whole of the Middle East and laid the foundations for a wider common culture that characterized what is called the Hellenistic Age. This Hellenistic culture provided the basis for the imposition of Roman rule on the Greek-speaking east of Alexander’s empire (see Roman Empire); and it was the Greek common culture that later enabled Christianity to spread so quickly. See also Ancient Greece.

Our knowledge of Alexander’s reign depends on several later historians—contemporary writers survive only in fragments—with very little help from inscriptions or numismatics (see below).

II

Parentage, Childhood, and Early Life

Philip II had several wives, all acquired for dynastic reasons. Alexander was Philip’s son by his third wife, Olympias, the daughter of the Molossian king, Neoptolemus of Epirus. His first two wives had produced no offspring; later, a fifth wife, Cleopatra, produced a son, Caranus, and a daughter, Eurydice. Olympias also had a daughter, Cleopatra. One of Philip’s mistresses, Philinna, had given birth to a half-brother of Alexander, Philip III Arrhidaeus, who suffered from a mental disability that would prevent him functioning independently as king.

Alexander’s parentage involved a complex mixture of Greek and non-Greek elements. Macedonians were regarded as barbarians (that is, non-Greeks) by the Greeks, though they made an exception of the royal family, who had since the 5th century bc been permitted to compete at the Olympian Games, partly on the grounds that they were believed to be descended from the legendary Greek hero Heracles. The Greek ancestry of the ancient Macedonians is much disputed. Certainly they spoke Greek, though with a strong regional accent that turned “Philip” into “Bilip”, but they may also have spoken a distinct Macedonian language.

Olympias’ family would have been regarded as even more barbarian by the Greeks. Nevertheless, the Molossians had an ethnic genealogy embedded in Greek legend, and Olympias and Philip first met during the celebration of the Greek Mysteries of Samothrace. Still, Olympias was also a devotee of a snake-handling cult that would have seemed bizarre in classical Athens.

Whatever the ethnic identity of the Macedonians, the royal family prided itself on its Greek culture. King Archelaus (d. 399 bc) had acted as patron of the Athenian poet Euripides, and when Alexander was 14 years old, Philip invited the leading intellectual of the day, Aristotle, to educate him. (Aristotle had been born in Stagira, in Macedonia, though he studied with Plato in Athens.) Thus Alexander acquired a love of the Greek classical poets, notably Homer and Euripides, as well as a curiosity about the world that was surely instilled by the polymathic Aristotle. It has sometimes been suggested that Aristotle “commissioned” the research carried out by Alexander’s scientists on his expedition, but Alexander’s own curiosity may have been at least as significant a motive. Aristotle also composed a treatise, “Alexander or Colonization”, addressed to his pupil after he became king.

During his schooldays Alexander acquired the horse, Bucephalas (“bull-head”), which was to travel the world with him. According to legend a particularly uncontrollable horse was brought as a gift to Philip; everyone was afraid of it, but Alexander noticed that the horse was shying at its own shadow. By turning its head into the Sun, he was quickly able to tame and mount it.

Alexander was short of stature but had a piercing gaze; it is possible that his eyes were of different colours. Most statues show him with a characteristic twist of the neck and heavenward gaze, which may be an idealization of a habit known as “ocular torticollis”, a posture of the head that compensates for the palsy of one eye. The accounts of his youth represent an intelligent, determined character with a strong sense of history and of mission. All his strong emotional attachments seem to have been homosexual (as was characteristic of many Greek aristocratic cultures where it was often institutionalized), notably to his life-long friend Hephaestion.

III

Legacy of Philip

Philip’s reign (359-336 bc) had been momentous for the Greek world. Drawing on the wealth acquired from the gold mines of Mount Pangaeus in Thrace, to the east of Macedonia, and on the plentiful timber of Macedonia itself, Philip had created a powerful army based on the introduction of the infantry phalanx. Each member of the phalanx was armed with an enormously long pike known as a sarissa. Approximately 5.5 m (18 ft) in length, the sarissas were carried horizontally by the soldiers as they advanced in rows, maybe ten deep, so that successive rows of points confronted the enemy before they were close enough to wield their swords. Philip also developed a highly trained cavalry, and introduced the most advanced siege machines yet known in the Greek world, which were developed yet further by Alexander.

With this powerful army Philip quickly secured control of the Greek states and, following the Battle of Chaeronea in 338 bc, united them in what was called the Hellenic League or the League of Corinth. In the autumn of 337 bc plans were drawn up for an invasion of the Achaemenid Empire, but everything was thrown into turmoil by the assassination of Philip.

In the summer of 336 bc Philip had arranged a wedding between his daughter by Olympias, Cleopatra, and the king of Epirus, Alexander the Molossian. The celebrations took place at the Macedonian capital, Aegae (which can be confidently identified with modern Vergina), where several tombs of the Macedonian kings have been excavated. On the second day of the ceremonies, Philip entered the theatre flanked by his son Alexander on the one side, and his son-in-law Alexander on the other. Suddenly, a member of the bodyguard, Pausanias, rushed forward and stabbed Philip. Pausanias was quickly seized and speared by a group of nobles; but Philip had died instantly.

Pausanias’ motive was said to have been revenge for Philip’s transfer of his affections to another man. The motive hardly seems sufficient for so public an act, and both ancient and modern scholars have speculated as to whether more lay behind it—a Persian plot, or even a plot by Olympias herself. Certainly the latter had reasons for anxiety following the birth of a son to Cleopatra in the summer of 336 bc. It was said that Olympias honoured the corpse of Pausanias, exposed on a gibbet, by placing a gold crown on it, and that she poured libations there on every anniversary of the murder. Nothing can now be proved, but it was Olympias’ family who benefited, as Alexander at once inherited the throne of Macedon.

IV

King Alexander

Alexander, barely 20 years old, quickly secured his position by eliminating the rival dynasty of the sons of Aeropus of Lyncestis. One of these, Alexander the Lyncestian, swore loyalty to the new king, but his two brothers were immediately put to death; Alexander the Lyncestian survived only until 330 bc when he was executed on suspicion of treason. Amyntas, the son of Philip’s elder brother and predecessor as king, Perdiccas III, was also soon disposed of. Amyntas was also the father of Cleopatra. In 335 bc Alexander sent orders to Olympias to dispose of Cleopatra’s son, Caranus; she went further and savagely murdered both the boy and his sister. Cleopatra also died, perhaps by her own hand.

Opposition was eliminated at home, but the Greek states responded to Philip’s death with unrest bordering on insurrection. Alexander quickly marched south and received the submission of the major states (Athens, Thebes, Megara, and the Amphictyonic League that controlled Delphi), and was acknowledged as leader of the Hellenic League before returning to conduct campaigns against the Thracians and Triballi (in modern Bulgaria), the Getae (north of the River Danube), and the Illyrians (in modern Albania). But before leaving Greece, two events occurred that seem to have impressed him deeply.

The first was his encounter with the Cynic philosopher Diogenes at Corinth. Cynics believed that it was right to live “according to nature”, showing contempt not only for wealth and social position but even for the common conveniences of daily life. Diogenes eschewed all possessions and lived, at least for a time, in a pithos (large storage jar), eating and drinking with his hands and performing all bodily functions in public. A sharper contrast between the ascetic and the all-powerful and wealthy king would be harder to imagine, and the encounter clearly “had to happen”. According to the account of Plutarch, Alexander asked Diogenes to request a favour from him, to which Diogenes replied: “You can step out of my sunlight”. Alexander was impressed. “If I were not Alexander,” he said, “I should wish to be Diogenes.” Whether such an exchange in fact took place has been questioned, (only Plutarch and the Greek historical novel, Alexander Romance, tell the story), but if the two did meet, it is very probable that Diogenes took a suitably disdainful attitude.

The second encounter took place at Delphi in November 336 bc. The oracle did not operate during the winter, but Alexander dragged the prophetess into the shrine and demanded a response. “Young man,” she gasped, “no one can resist you!” This oracle pleased the king and he gave a gift to the temple before returning home. Again, probably the story is fiction, but like the Diogenes story it sheds a vivid light on Alexander’s character and the way he was perceived by contemporaries.

Alexander’s absence in the north, however, encouraged further unrest in Greece, and the Athenian politician Demosthenes spread a rumour that the king had been killed on campaign. This led Thebes to open revolt against Macedon. Within two weeks, Alexander’s army was at the gates of Thebes. In October 335 bc, after a siege and fierce fighting, in which 6,000 Thebans were killed and 30,000 taken prisoner, the city was razed to the ground (except for the house of the poet Pindar, whom Alexander admired) and the remaining inhabitants sold into slavery. The Athenians considered resistance but realized it was futile. Greece was firmly under Macedonian control.