- Did you know that Alexander the Great
had a habit of renaming cities after himself,
and in one case, he even named a city
after his beloved horse.
Stick around to learn all about Alexander the Great
in honor of his birthday.
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Hello, and welcome to "World History Encyclopedia."
My name is Kelly, and in honor of the birth
of Alexander the Great on either the 20th
or 21st of July, 356 BCE,
we're going to be answering the questions,
who is Alexander the Great?
Why is he so famous and was he ever defeated?
Happy birthday, Alexander.
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Alexander the Great, also known as Alexander III
of Macedon became king of Macedon after the death
of his father, King Philip II, in 336 BCE.
Alexander is known for both his military might
and his diplomatic skills, which aided in his expansion
of the Macedonian Kingdom to an empire of a size
his father had not even dreamed of.
Alexander is recognized as a key figure in the spread
of Greek culture and language throughout the ancient world.
And his death sparked
the beginning of the Hellenistic period,
which spanned from 323 to 31 BCE.
After his death, his campaigns became legendary,
and later Greek and Roman generals learned
from his successes and failures
and were influenced by his tactics.
When Alexander was young, he was taught to fight
and ride by Leonidas of Epirus and how to read, write,
and play the lyre by Lysimachus of Acarnania.
When he was 13 or 14, he was tutored
by the Greek philosopher, Aristotle until he was 16/
Perhaps due to Aristotle's teachings
which encouraged tolerance, Alexander never forced
the Greek culture on those he conquered,
but simply introduced it to them.
Despite his father, Philip II laying the groundwork
for Alexander to be successful,
Alexander claimed all the credit for himself
and chose to call himself a son of Zeus,
claiming to be a demigod, modeling his behavior
after his two favorite heroes, Hercules and Achilles.
This claim was in part due to Olympias,
Alexander's mother claiming that his was a virgin birth
and that she was miraculously impregnated by Zeus.
Alexander's childhood friends, Hephaestion, Cassander
and Ptolemy would all become lifelong companions
and generals in his army.
And Aristotle's great nephew, Callisthenes,
who was also a friend, would become the court historian
and follow Alexander on campaign.
At 18 years old in 338 BCE at the Battle of Chaeronea
fought between the Macedonian Empire
and the Greek allied city states,
Alexander's military skill was first noted when he turned
the tide of the battle for a Macedonian victory,
and afterwards the Greek city states
were brought under Macedonian rule.
In 336 BCE, just two years after the battle of Chaeronea,
Philip II died and Alexander assumed the throne
as King of Macedon.
Alexander wasted no time in embarking on the extensive
campaign that his father had been planning,
the conquest of the Persian empire.
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As King, Alexander the Great moved into Asia Minor,
modern day Turkey in 334, BCE, with 32,000 infantry
and 5,100 cavalry.
And in May of 334, he fought the Persian satraps
or governors at the Battle of Granicus and was victorious.
According to Alexander, he then liberated the cities
of Sardis and Ephesus from Persian rule.
Although, his word liberated has been understood
as the conquest of these cities.
In 333 BCE, Alexander fought the Persian King Darius III
at the Battle of Isis, a battle famous
for its depiction on the Alexander Mosaic.
Alexander defeated Darius's larger force
and he then sacked the Phoenician cities
of Baalbek and Sidon and in 332, he laid siege
to the island city of Tyre.
The siege of Tyre is a famous example of his commitment
to victory and his ruthfulness.
In order to bring his siege engines within striking distance
of Tyre's walls, he had his army build a land bridge
out to the island, which is how the island city
became linked to the land as the site still is today.
And in response to the stubbornness of the inhabitants
of the city refusing to surrender,
he slaughtered most of them
and then sold the survivors as slaves.
In 331, he moved to Egypt and conquered it
and founded the city of Alexandria there,
named after himself, of course.
Alexander had a habit of naming cities
after himself and even his horse Bucephalus,
but we'll get to that later.
Alexander marched his army across the desert to the oasis
of Siwa so that he could visit the Oracle of Zeus Ammon
that presided there.
Alexander knew of the infallible reputation of the oracle
who had been consulted by the hero's Heracles and Perseus.
Alexander asked the oracle whether his father
was truly Philip II, and the Oracle declared his true father
to be Zeus Ammon.
There was no military value to marching to Siwa
and losing some men to the desert.
It was either to satisfy his megalomania
or a cleverly calculated PR stunt to spread the myth
of him being a demigod or both.
We will never know.
The next phase of Alexander's conquests
is known as the Persian campaigns.
In 331, Alexander met Darius III in battle, once again.
This time at the battle of Gaugamela,
which is also known as the battle of Arbela.
Alexander was victorious again.
Darius fled the battle,
and then Alexander took the cities of Babylon and Susa,
which both surrendered to him.
It's safe to say that Alexander was on a roll.
In the winter of 330, Alexander and his army
marched to Persepolis and defeated the Persian hero,
Ariobarzanes and his sister Youtab Ariobarzane
at the battle of the Persian Gates,
and after Alexander was victorious,
he set Persepolis on fire, probably in a drunken folly.
In the summer of the same year, Darius was assassinated
by his cousin and General Bessus,
which Alexander thought was deplorable.
After the death of Darius, Alexander crowned himself
the King of Asia, gave Darius the burial
of a Persian emperor and then marched his army
into Bactria what is now modern day Afghanistan.
If you haven't noticed by now, this man does not stop.
Between the years 330 and 327, Alexander campaigned
in Bactria and Sogdiana and won every engagement.
And in 329, he destroyed the city of Cyropolis,
defeated the Scythians and founded another city named
after himself, Alexandria Eschate on the Jaxartes River.
It was around this point that Alexander
began to portray himself not just as a liberator
of cities, but as a God.
He adopted the title that the rulers
of the first Persian empire used shahansha,
which means king of kings.
And the Persian custom of proskynesis,
which meant that those who addressed him had to kneel
and kiss his hand.
To say that his Macedonian troops were unhappy about this,
is an understatement.
His troops became increasingly unhappy with his adoption
of Persian customs and were growing more
and more uncomfortable.
So much so that assassination plans were formed.
Of course, the conspirators and those who committed treason
or questioned his authority were found out and executed,
including his close friends, Cleitus,
who was killed with the javelin
and Callisthenes who was imprisoned and died in confinement.
In 327, Alexander married the Batrian woman, Roxana,
and then set his sights on India.
The Indian king Ambhi of Taxila surrendered quickly,
but the Aspasioi and Assakenoi tribes resisted.
By 326, Alexander had subdued the tribes,
then fought King Porus of Paurava
and his war elephants at the battle of Hydaspes River.
In true Alexander fashion, he won the battle
and then made Porus ruler of a larger region
than he'd previously held.
because of how bravely he and his troops had fought.
During this battle, his horse Bucephalus was killed,
and so of course, he named the city Bucephala after him.
By now, Alexander's troops were exhausted
and they didn't wanna go any further,
and it took some convincing.
But finally, Alexander decided to head back to Susa.
Half his troops were sent by sea,
and half he marched through the Gedrosian Desert
where many died of thirst and starvation.
Why he chose to do this, we don't really know.
When he finally arrived back in Susa, he found that many
of the satraps he left in charge had abused their power,
so he executed them, as well as those
who vandalized Cyrus the Great's tomb.
Alexander wanted to merge the cultures of Macedonia
and Persia more, so in 324, he held a mass marriage service
in Susa, where he married Persian noble women
to senior members of his staff
and to connect himself to Persian royalty,
he married one of Darius III's daughters.
His men rejected this cultural merging
and his adoption of Persian dress,
and they really didn't like how he merged the Macedonian
and Persian army units and promoted Persians
to high positions, even though it seems
this was an effective policy in furthering his goal
of uniting the two cultures.
So after looking at all these battles,
which Alexander the Great took part in
during his short life,
was Alexander the Great ever defeated?
No, no, he was not.
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In the year 324, his closest companion, Hephaestion died
of a fever and Alexander's grief was inconsolable.
Arian wrote that Alexander killed Hephaestion's doctor
because he failed to heal him.
Alexander declared a period of mourning
and gave him the funeral rights usually reserved for a king.
A year after the death of his closest friend and companion,
Alexander the Great suffered 10 days of a high fever
before he died on June 10 or 11 in 323 at the age of 32.
There are a few competing hypotheses regarding the death
of Alexander the Great, ranging from poisoning
or assassination, typhoid or malaria,
and new hypotheses continue to be suggested.
More recent suggestions for the cause of Alexander's death
are the West Nile Virus or Guillain-Barre syndrome.
Ancient sources say that Alexander's body
didn't begin decomposing until six days
after he was proclaimed dead,
and GBS could be the reason why.
Alexander may have been experiencing paralysis,
which meant his body would not have needed as much oxygen,
so it may have looked as if he wasn't breathing.
Ancient doctors didn't use the pulse
to determine if someone was alive,
but rather if they were breathing or not.
So when Alexander was confirmed dead,
he may have not actually been dead for another six days.
He left no will and named no successor,
resulting in the wars then waged by his generals,
which tore apart the empire he had created.
Out of these two so-called successor states,
two became powerful states in their own right.
Ptolemaic Egypt and Seleucid, Persia.
Do you believe Alexander the Great really was great?
Let us know why or why not, down in the comments below.
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