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\n\n\n(not in frame) [i]Alexander Mosaic[/i] from Pompeii, from a 3rd
century BC original Greek painting, now lost).\n\n[b]Alexander the
Great[/b] (in Greek [b][/b], transliterated [i]Megas Alexandros[/i]) was
born in Pella, Macedon, in July, 356 BC, died in Babylon, on June 10,
323 BC, King of Macedon 336–323 BC, is considered one of the most
successful military commanders in world history, conquering most of the
known world before his death. Alexander is also known in the Zoroastrian
Middle Persian work [i]Arda Wiraz N?mag[/i] as \"the accursed Alexander\"
due to his conquest of the Persian Empire and the destruction of its
capital Persepolis. He is also known in Middle Eastern traditions as
[i]Dhul-Qarnayn[/i] in Arabic and [i]Dul-Qarnayim[/i] in Hebrew and
Aramaic (the two-horned one), apparently due to an image on coins minted
during his rule that seemingly depicted him with the two ram\'s horns of
the Egyptian god Ammon. He is known as \"Sikandar\" in Hindi; in fact in
India, the term Sikandar is used as a synonym for \"expert\" or
\"extremely skilled\".\n\nFollowing the unification of the multiple
city-states of ancient Greece under the rule of his father, Philip II of
Macedon, (a labor Alexander had to repeat twice because the southern
Greeks rebelled after Philip\'s death), Alexander conquered the Persian
Empire, including Anatolia, Syria, Phoenicia, Gaza, Egypt, Bactria and
Mesopotamia and extended the boundaries of his own empire as far as the
Punjab. Alexander integrated foreigners (non-Macedonians, non-Greeks) into
his army and administration, leading some scholars to credit him with a
\"policy of fusion.\" He encouraged marriage between his army and
foreigners, and practiced it himself. After twelve years of constant
military campaigning, Alexander died, possibly of malaria, typhoid or a
viral encephalitis. His conquests ushered in centuries of Greek settlement
and rule over foreign areas, a period known as the Hellenistic Age.
Alexander himself lived on in the history and myth of both Greek and
non-Greek cultures. Already during his lifetime, and especially after his
death, his exploits inspired a literary tradition in which he appears as a
towering legendary hero in the tradition of Achilles.\n\n\nEarly life\n\n\n
of Alexander III in the British Museum. \nAlexander was the son of
King Philip II of Macedon and of Epirote princess Olympias. According to
Plutarch ([i]Alexander[/i] 3.1,3), Olympias was impregnated not by Philip,
who was afraid of her and her affinity for sleeping in the company of
snakes, but by Zeus. Plutarch ([i]Alexander[/i] 2.2-3) relates that both
Philip and Olympias dreamt of their son\'s future birth. Olympias dreamed
of a loud burst of thunder and of lightning striking her womb. In
Philip\'s dream, he sealed her womb with the seal of the lion. Alarmed by
this, he consulted the seer Aristander of Telmessus, who determined that
his wife was pregnant and that the child would have the character of a
lion.\n\nAristotle was Alexander\'s tutor; he gave Alexander a thorough
training in rhetoric and literature and stimulated his interest in
science, medicine, and philosophy. After his visit to the Oracle of Ammon
at Siwa, according to all five of the extant historians (Arrian, Curtius,
Diodorus, Justin, and Plutarch), rumors spread that the Oracle had
revealed Alexander\'s father to be Zeus, rather than Philip. According to
Plutarch ([i]Alexander[/i] 2.1), his father descended from Heracles
through Caranus and his mother descended from Aeacus through Neoptolemus
and Achilles.\n\n\nThe ascent of Macedon\n\n\n \nWhen Philip led an
attack on Byzantium in 340 BC, Alexander, aged 16, was left in command of
Macedonia. In 339 BC, Philip took a second wife, to the chagrin of
Alexander\'s mother Olympias, which led to a quarrel between Alexander and
his father and threw into question Alexander\'s succession to the
Macedonian throne. In 338 BC, Philip created the League of Corinth.
Alexander also assisted his father at the decisive battle of Chaeronea in
this year. The cavalry wing led by Alexander annihilated the Sacred Band
of Thebes, an elite corps previously regarded as invincible. Philip was
content to deprive Thebes of her dominion over Boeotia and leave a
Macedonian garrison in the citadel.In 336 BC, Philip was assassinated at
the wedding of his daughter Cleopatra to King Alexander of Epirus. The
assassin was supposedly a former lover of the king, the disgruntled young
nobleman Pausanias, who held a grudge against Philip because the king had
ignored a complaint he had expressed. Philip\'s murder was once thought to
have been planned with the knowledge and involvement of Alexander or
Olympias. Another possible instigator could have been Darius III, the
recently crowned King of Persia. Plutarch mentions an irate letter from
Alexander to Darius, where Alexander blames Darius and Bagoas, his grand
vizier, for his father\'s murder, stating that it was Darius who had been
bragging with the Greek cities of how he managed to assassinate
Philip.\n\nAfter Philip\'s death, the army proclaimed Alexander, then aged
20, as the new king of Macedon. Greek cities like Athens and Thebes, which
had been forced to pledge allegiance to Philip, saw in the new king an
opportunity to retake their full independence. Alexander moved swiftly and
Thebes, which had been most active against him, submitted when he appeared
at its gates. The assembled Greeks at the Isthmus of Corinth, with the
sole exception of the Spartans, elected him to the command against Persia,
which had previously been bestowed upon his father.\n\nThe next year, (335
BC), Alexander felt free to engage the Thracians and the Illyrians in
order to secure the Danube as the northern boundary of the Macedonian
kingdom. While he was triumphantly campaigning north, the Thebans and
Athenians rebelled once again. Alexander reacted immediately and while the
other cities once again hesitated, Thebes decided this time to resist with
the utmost vigor. The resistance was useless; in the end, the city was
conquered with great bloodshed. The Thebans encountered an ever harsher
fate when their city was razed to the ground and its territory divided
between the other Boeotian cities. Moreover, all of the city\'s citizens
were sold into slavery, sparing only the priests, the leaders of the
pro-Macedonian party and the descendants of Pindar, whose house was the
only one left untouched. The end of Thebes cowed Athens into submission
and it readily accepted Alexander\'s demand for the exile of all the
leaders of the anti-Macedonian party, Demosthenes first of
all.\n\n\nPeriod of conquests\n\n\nThe fall of the Persian
Empire\n\nAlexander\'s army had crossed the Hellespont with about 42,000
soldiers primarily Macedonians and Greeks, but also including some
Thracians, Paionians and Illyrians. After an initial victory against
Persian forces at the Battle of Granicus, Alexander accepted the surrender
of the Persian provincial capital and treasury of Sardis and proceeded down
the Ionian coast. At Halicarnassus, Alexander successfully waged the first
of many sieges, eventually forcing his opponents, the mercenary captain
Memnon of Rhodes and the Persian satrap of Caria, Orontobates, to withdraw
by sea. Alexander left Caria in the hands of Ada, who was ruler of Caria
before being deposed by her brother Pixodarus. From Halicarnassus,
Alexander proceeded into mountainous Lycia and the Pamphylian plain,
asserting control over all coastal cities and denying them to his enemy.
From Pamphylia onward, the coast held no major ports and so Alexander
moved inland. At Termessus, Alexander humbled but did not storm the
Pisidian city. At the ancient Phrygian capital of Gordium, Alexander
\"undid\" the tangled Gordian knot, a feat said to await the future \"king
of Asia.\" According to the most vivid story, Alexander proclaimed that it
did not matter how the knot was undone, and he hacked it apart with his
sword. Another version claims that he did not use the sword, but actually
figured out how to undo the knot.\n\n, Pompei mosaic.\n\nAlexander\'s
army crossed the Cilician Gates, met and defeated the main Persian army
under the command of Darius III at the Battle of Issus in 333 BC. Darius
fled this battle in such a panic for his life that he left behind his
wife, his children, his mother, and much of his personal treasure.
Sisygambis, the queen mother, never forgave Darius for abandoning her. She
disowned him and adopted Alexander as her son instead. Proceeding down the
Mediterranean coast, he took Tyre and Gaza after famous sieges (see Siege
of Tyre). Alexander passed near but probably did not visit
Jerusalem.\n\nIn 332 BC - 331 BC, Alexander was welcomed as a liberator in
Egypt and was pronounced the son of Zeus by Egyptian priests of the god
Ammon at the Oracle of the god at the Siwa Oasis in the Libyan desert. He
founded Alexandria in Egypt, which would become the prosperous capital of
the Ptolemaic dynasty after his death. Leaving Egypt, Alexander marched
eastward into Assyria (now northern Iraq) and defeated Darius and a third
Persian army at the Battle of Gaugamela. Darius was forced to flee the
field after his charioteer was killed, and Alexander chased him as far as
Arbela. While Darius fled over the mountains to Ecbatana (modern Hamadan),
Alexander marched to Babylon.\n\n, at the maximum extent of Alexander\'s
advance in the East (Ürümqi, Xinjiang Museum, China)
(drawing).\n\nFrom Babylon, Alexander went to Susa, one of the
Achaemenid capitals, and captured its treasury. Sending the bulk of his
army to Persepolis, the Persian capital, by the Royal Road, Alexander
stormed and captured the Persian Gates (in the modern Zagros Mountains),
then sprinted for Persepolis before its treasury could be looted.
Alexander allowed the League forces to loot Persepolis. A fire broke out
in the eastern palace of Xerxes and spread to the rest of the city. It was
not known if it was a drunken accident or a deliberate act of revenge for
the burning of the Athenian Acropolis during the Second Persian War. The
[i]Book of Arda Wiraz[/i], a Zoroastrian work composed in the 3rd or 4th
century AD, also speaks of archives containing \"all the Avesta and Zand,
written upon prepared cow-skins, and with gold ink\" that were destroyed;
but it must be said that this statement is often treated by scholars with
a certain measure of skepticism, because it is generally thought that for
many centuries the Avesta was transmitted mainly orally by the
Magians.\n\nHe then set off in pursuit of Darius, who was kidnapped, and
then murdered by followers of Bessus, his Bactrian satrap and kinsman.
Bessus then declared himself Darius\' successor as Artaxerxes V and
retreated into Central Asia to launch a guerrilla campaign against
Alexander. With the death of Darius, Alexander declared the war of
vengeance over, and released his Greek and other allies from service in
the League campaign (although he allowed those that wished to re-enlist as
mercenaries in his imperial army).\n\nHis three-year campaign against first
Bessus and then the satrap of Sogdiana, Spitamenes, took him through Media,
Parthia, Aria, Drangiana, Arachosia, Bactria, and Scythia. In the process,
he captured and refounded Herat and Maracanda. Moreover, he founded a
series of new cities, all called Alexandria, including modern Kandahar in
Afghanistan, and Alexandria Eschate (\"The Furthest\") in modern
Tajikistan. In the end, both were betrayed by their men, Bessus in 329 BC
and Spitamenes the year after.\n\n\nHostility toward Alexander\n\nDuring
this time, Alexander adopted some elements of Persian dress and customs at
his court, notably the custom of [i]proskynesis[/i], a symbolic kissing of
the hand that Persians paid to their social superiors, but a practice of
which the Greeks disapproved. The Greeks regarded the gesture as the
preserve of deities and believed that Alexander meant to deify himself by
requiring it. This cost him much in the sympathies of many of his
countrymen. Here, too, a plot against his life was revealed, and his
companion Philotas was executed for treason for failing to bring the plot
to his attention. Parmenion, Philotas\' father, who was at the head of an
army at Ecbatana, was assassinated by command of Alexander, who feared
that Parmenion might attempt to avenge his son. Several other trials for
treason followed, and many Macedonians were executed. Later on, in a
drunken quarrel at Maracanda, he also killed the man who had saved his
life at Granicus, Clitus the Black. Later in the Central Asian campaign, a
second plot against his life, this one by his own pages, was revealed, and
his official historian, Callisthenes of Olynthus (who had fallen out of
favor with the king by leading the opposition to his attempt to introduce
[i]proskynesis[/i]), was implicated on what many historians regard as
trumped-up charges. However, the evidence is strong that Callisthenes, the
teacher of the pages, must have been the one who persuaded them to
assassinate the king.\n\n\nThe invasion of India\n\naround 323
BC.\n[b]Obv:[/b] Alexander standing, being crowned by Nike, fully armed
and holding Zeus\' thunderbolt.\n[b]Rev:[/b] Greek rider, possibly
Alexander, attacking an Indian battle-elephant, possibly fleeing
Porus.\n\nWith the death of Spitamenes and his marriage to Roxana
(Roshanak in Bactrian) to cement his relations with his new Central Asian
satrapies, in 326 BC Alexander was finally free to turn his attention to
India. King Ambhi, ruler of Taxila, surrendered the city to Alexander.
Many people had fled to a high fortress called Aornos. Alexander took
Aornos by storm. Alexander fought an epic battle against Porus, a ruler of
a region in the Punjab in the Battle of Hydaspes in (326 BC). After
attaining victory, Alexander made an alliance with Porus and appointed him
as satrap of his own kingdom. Alexander continued on to conquer all the
headwaters of the Indus River.\n\nEast of Porus\' kingdom, near the Ganges
River, was the powerful empire of Magadha ruled by the Nanda dynasty.
Exhausted by years of campaigning, his army mutinied at the Hyphasis
(modern Beas), refusing to march further east. Alexander, after the
meeting with his officer, Coenus, was convinced that it was better to
return. Alexander was forced to turn south, conquering his way down the
Indus to the Indian Ocean. He sent much of his army to Carmania (modern
southern Iran) with his general Craterus, and commissioned a fleet to
explore the Persian Gulf shore under his admiral Nearchus, while he led
the rest of his forces back to Persia by the southern route through the
Gedrosia (present day Makran in southern Pakistan).\n\n\nAfter
India\n\n[i] by Charles Le Brun, 1673.\n\nDiscovering that many of his
satraps and military governors had misbehaved in his absence, Alexander
executed a number of them as examples on his way to Susa. As a gesture of
thanks, he paid off the debts of his soldiers, and announced that he would
send those over-aged and disabled veterans back to Macedonia under
Craterus, but his troops misunderstood his intention and mutinied at the
town of Opis, refusing to be sent away and bitterly criticizing his
adoption of Persian customs and dress and the introduction of Persian
officers and soldiers into Macedonian units. Alexander executed the
ringleaders of the mutiny, but forgave the rank and file. In an attempt to
craft a lasting harmony between his Macedonian and Persian subjects, he
held a mass marriage of his senior officers to Persian and other
noblewomen at Opis, but few of those marriages seem to have lasted much
beyond a year.\n\nHis attempts to merge Persian culture with his Greek
soldiers also included training a regiment of Persian boys in the ways of
Macedonians. It is not certain that Alexander adopted the Persian royal
title of [/i]shahanshah\'\' (\"great king\" or \n\"king of kings\").
However, most historians believe that he did.\n\nAlexander let it be known
that he intended to launch a campaign against the tribes of Arabia. After
they were subjugated, it was assumed that Alexander would turn westwards
and attack Carthage and Italy.\n\nAfter traveling to Ecbatana to retrieve
the bulk of the Persian treasure, his closest friend and possible lover
Hephaestion died of an illness. Alexander was distraught and on his return
to Babylon, he fell ill and died.\n\n\nAlexander\'s marriages and
sexuality\n\nAlexander\'s greatest emotional attachment is generally
considered to have been to his companion, cavalry commander
([i]chiliarchos[/i]) and probable lover, Hephaestion. They had most likely
been best friends since childhood for Hephaestion too received his
education at the court of Alexander\'s father. Hephaestion makes his
appearance in history at the point when Alexander reaches Troy. There the
two friends made sacrifices at the shrines of the two heroes Achilles and
Patroclus; Alexander honoring Achilles, and Hephaestion honoring
Patroclus. As Aelian in his [i]Varia Historia[/i] (12.7) claims, \"He thus
intimated that he was the object of Alexander\'s love, as Patroclus was of
Achilles.\" Following Hephaestion\'s death, Alexander mourned him
greatly, and did not eat for days.\n\nMany have discussed Alexander\'s
ambiguous sexuality. Curtius reports that, \"He scorned [feminine] sensual
pleasures to such an extent that his mother was anxious lest he be unable
to beget offspring.\" To encourage a relationship with a woman, King
Philip and Olympias brought in a high-priced Thessalian courtesan named
Callixena.\n\nLater in life, Alexander married several princesses of
former Persian territories, Roxana of Bactria, Statira, daughter of Darius
III, and Parysatis, daughter of Ochus. He fathered two children,
(Heracles), born by his concubine Barsine (the daughter of satrap
Artabazus of Phrygia) in 327 BC, and Alexander IV of Macedon, born by
Roxana shortly after his death in 323 BC.\n\nCurtius maintains that
Alexander also took as a lover \"Bagoas, a eunuch exceptional in beauty
and in the very flower of boyhood, with whom Darius was intimate and with
whom Alexander would later be intimate,\" (VI.5.23). Bagoas is the only
one who is actually named as the [i]eromenos[/i] — the beloved
— of Alexander. Their relationship seems to have been well known
among the troops, as Plutarch recounts an episode (also mentioned by
Dicaearchus) during some festivities on the way back from India) in which
his men clamor for him to openly kiss the young man: \"Bagoas [...] sat
down close by him, which so pleased the Macedonians, that they made loud
acclamations for him to kiss Bagoas, and never stopped clapping their
hands and shouting till Alexander put his arms round him and kissed him.\"
At this point in time, the troops present were all survivors of the
crossing of the desert. Bagoas must have endeared himself to them by his
courage and fortitude during that harrowing episode. Whatever
Alexander\'s relationship with Bagoas, it was no impediment to relations
with his queen: six months after Alexander\'s death Roxana gave birth to
his son and heir, Alexander IV. Besides Bagoas, Curtius mentions yet
another possible lover of Alexander, Euxenippus, \"whose youthful grace
filled him with enthusiasm\" (VII.9.19).\n\nAllegations concerning
Alexander\'s sexuality remain highly controversial and excite passions in
some quarters. People of various national, ethnic and cultural origins
regard him as their hero. Some argue that historical accounts describing
Alexander\'s love for Hephaestion and Bagoas as sexual were written
centuries after the fact, and thus it can never be established what the
historical relationship between Alexander and his male companions were.
Others argue that the same can be said about much of our information
regarding Alexander. Such debates, however, are generally considered
anachronistic by scholars of the period, who point out that the concept of
homosexuality as understood today did not exist in Greco-Roman antiquity.
Sexual attraction between males was seen as a normal and universal part of
human nature since it was believed that men were attracted to beauty, an
attribute of the young, regardless of gender. If Alexander\'s love life
was transgressive, it was not for his love of beautiful youths but for his
probable involvement with a man his own age, in a time when the standard
model of male love was pederastic. See Pederasty in ancient Greece for
more information.\n\n\nThe army of Alexander the Great before the Battle
of Gaugamela\n\n\nThe army of Alexander was, for the most part, that of
his father Philip. It was composed of light and heavy troops and some
engineers, medical and staff units. About one third of the army was
composed of his Greek allies from the Hellenic
League.\n\n\nInfantry\n\nThe main infantry corps was the phalanx, composed
of six regiments ([i]taxies[/i]) numbering about 2000 phalangites each.
Each soldier had a long pike called a [i]sarissa[/i], which was up to 21
feet long, and a short sword. For protection, the soldier wore a
Phrygian-style helmet and a shield. Arrian mentions large shields (the
[i]aspis[/i]), but this is disputed, as it is difficult to wield both a
large pike and a large shield at the same time. Many modern historians
claim the phalanx used a smaller shield, called a [i]pelta[/i], the shield
used by peltasts. It is unclear whether the phalanx used body armor, but
heavy body armor is mentioned in Arrian (1.28.7) and other ancient
sources. Modern historians believe most of the phalangites did not wear
heavy body armor at the time of Alexander.\n\nAnother important unit were
the hypaspists (shield bearers), arranged into three battalions
([i]lochoi[/i]) of 1000 men each. One of the battalions was named the
[i]Agema[/i] and served as the King\'s bodyguards. Their armament is
unknown and it is difficult to get a clear picture from ancient sources.
Sometimes hypaspists are mentioned in the front line of the battle just
between the phalanx and the heavy cavalry. Moreover, they seem to have
acted as an extension of the phalanx fighting as heavy infantry while
keeping a link between the heavily clad phalangites and the companion
cavalry. They also accompanied Alexander on flanking marches and were
capable of fighting on rough terrain like light troops so it seems they
could perform dual functions.\n\nIn addition to the units mentioned above,
the army included some 6000 Greek allied and mercenary hoplites, also
arranged in phalanxes. They carried a shorter spear, a [i]dora[/i], which
was six or seven feet long and a large [i]aspis[/i].\n\nAlexander also had
light infantry units composed of peltasts, psiloi and others. Peltasts are
considered to be light infantry, although they had a helmet and a small
shield and were heavier than the [i]psiloi[/i]. The best peltasts were the
Agrianians from Thrace.\n\n\nCavalry\n\nThe heavy cavalry included the
Companion cavalry raised from the Macedonian nobility, and the Thessalian
cavalry. The Companion cavalry ([i]hetairoi[/i], friends) was divided into
eight squadrons called [i]ile[/i], 200 strong, except the Royal Squadron of
300. They were equipped with a 12 - 14 foot lance, the [i]xyston[/i], and
heavy body armor. The horses were partially clad in armor as well. The
riders did not carry shields. The organization of the Thessalian cavalry
was similar to the Companion Cavalry, but they had a shorter spear and
fought in a looser formation.\n\nOf light cavalry, the [i]prodomoi[/i]
(runners) secured the wings of the army during battle and went on
reconnaissance missions. Several hundred allied horses rounded out the
cavalry, but were inferior to the rest.\n\n\nDeath\n\nof Alexander the
Great.\n\nOn the afternoon of June 10 - 11, 323 BC, Alexander died of a
mysterious illness in the palace of Nebuchadrezzar II of Babylon. He was
just one month shy of attaining 33 years of age. Various theories have
been proposed for the cause of his death which include poisoning by the
sons of Antipater or others, sickness that followed a drinking party, or a
relapse of the malaria he had contracted in 336 BC.\n\nWhat is certain is
that on May 29, Alexander participated in a banquet organized by his
friend Medius of Larissa. After some heavy drinking, immediately or after
a bath, he was forced to bed badly ill. The troops started rumors, more
and more anxious, and on June 9, the generals decided to let the soldiers
see their king alive one last time. They were admitted to his presence one
at a time, while the king, too ill to speak, confined himself to move his
hand. The day after, Alexander was dead.\n\nThe poisoning theory derives
from the story held in antiquity by Justin and Curtius. The original story
stated that Cassander, son of Antipater, viceroy of Greece, brought the
poison to Alexander in Babylon in a mule\'s hoof, and that Alexander\'s
royal cupbearer, Iollas, brother of Cassander, administered it. Many had
powerful motivations for seeing Alexander gone, and were none the worse
for it after his death. Deadly agents that could have killed Alexander in
one or more doses include hellebore and strychnine. In R. Lane Fox\'s
opinion, the strongest argument against the poison theory is the fact that
twelve days had passed between the start of his illness and his death and
in the ancient world, such long-acting poisons were probably not available
(though this discounts the possibility of multiple doses).\n\nHowever, the
warrior culture of Macedon favored the sword over strychnine, and many
ancient historians, like Plutarch and Arrian, maintained that Alexander
was not poisoned, but died of natural causes. Instead, it is likely that
Alexander died of malaria or typhoid fever, which were rampant in ancient
Babylon. Other illnesses could have also been the culprit, including
acute pancreatitis or the West Nile virus. Recently, theories have been
advanced stating that Alexander may have died from the treatment not the
disease. Hellebore, believed widely used as a medicine at the time but
deadly in large doses, may have been overused by the impatient king to
speed his recovery, with deadly results. Disease-related theories often
cite the fact that Alexander\'s health had fallen to dangerously low
levels after years of heavy drinking and suffering several appalling
wounds (including one in India that nearly claimed his life), and that it
was only a matter of time before one sickness or another finally killed
him.\n\nNo story is conclusive. Alexander\'s death has been reinterpreted
many times over the centuries, and each generation offers a new take on
it. What is certain is that Alexander died of a high fever on June 10 or
11 of 323 BC. On his death bed, his marshals asked him to whom he
bequeathed his kingdom. Since Alexander had only one heir, it was a
question of vital importance. He answered famously, \"the strongest.\"
Before dying, his final words were \"I foresee a great funeral contest
over me.\" Alexander\'s \'funeral games\', where his marshals fought it
out over control of his empire, lasted for nearly forty
years.\n\nAlexander\'s death has been surrounded by as much controversy as
many of the events of his life. Before long, accusations of foul play were
being thrown about by his generals at one another, making it incredibly
hard for a modern historian to sort out the propaganda and the half-truths
from the actual events. No contemporary source can be fully trusted because
of the incredible level of self-serving recording, and as a result what
truly happened to Alexander the Great may never be known.\n\nAlexander\'s
body was placed in a gold anthropid sarcophagus, which was in turn placed
in a second gold casket and covered with a purple robe. Alexander\'s
coffin was placed, together with his armor, in a gold carriage which had a
vaulted roof supported by an Ionic peristyle. The decoration of the
carriage was very rich and is described in great detail by
Diodoros.\n\nAccording to legend, Alexander was preserved in a clay vessel
full of honey (which acts as a preservative) and interred in a glass
coffin. According to Aelian ([i]Varia Historia[/i] 12.64), Ptolemy stole
the body and brought it to Alexandria, where it was on display until Late
Antiquity. It was here that Ptolemy IX, one of the last successors of
Ptolemy I, replaced Alexander\'s sarcophagus with a glass one, and melted
the original down in order to strike emergency gold issues of his coinage.
The citizens of Alexandria were outraged at this and soon after Ptolemy IX
was killed. Its current whereabouts are unknown.\n\nThe so-called
\"Alexander Sarcophagus,\" discovered near Sidon and now in the Istanbul
Archaeological Museum, is now generally thought to be that of Abdylonymus,
whom Hephaestion appointed as the king of Sidon by Alexander\'s order. The
sarcophagus depicts Alexander and his companions hunting and in battle
with the Persians.\n\n\nLegacy and division of the empire\n\n\n
inscription.\nAfter Alexander\'s death, his empire was divided among his
officers, mostly with the pretense of first preserving a united kingdom.
Later, his officers were focused on the explicit formation of rival
monarchies and territorial states.\n\nUltimately, the conflict was settled
after the Battle of Ipsus in Phrygia in 301 BC. Alexander\'s empire was
divided at first into four major portions: Cassander ruled in Macedon,
Lysimachus in Thrace, Seleucus in Mesopotamia and Iran, and Ptolemy in the
Levant and Egypt. Antigonus ruled for a while in Asia Minor and Syria but
was eventually defeated by the other generals at Ipsus (301 BC). Control
over Indian territory was short-lived when Seleucus was defeated by
Chandragupta Maurya, the first Mauryan emperor.\n\nBy 270 BC, Hellenistic
states consolidated, with:\n:*The Antigonid Empire centered on
Macedon.\n:*The Seleucid Empire in Asia\n:*The Ptolemaic kingdom in Egypt,
Palestine and Cyrenaica\n\nBy the 1st century BC though, most of the
Hellenistic territories in the West had been absorbed by the Roman
Republic. In the East, they had been dramatically reduced by the expansion
of the Parthian Empire and the secession of the Greco-Bactrian
kingdom.\n\nAlexander\'s conquests also had long term cultural effects,
with the flourishing of Hellenistic civilization throughout the
Middle-East and Central Asia, and the development of Greco-Buddhist art in
the Indian subcontinent.\n\nInfluence on Ancient Rome\n\n\n\n, depicting
the marriage of Alexander to Barsine (Stateira) in 324 BC. The couple are
apparently dressed as Ares and Aphrodite.\nAlexander and his exploits
were admired by many Romans who wanted to associate themselves with his
achievements, although very little is known about Roman-Macedonian
diplomatic relations of that time. Julius Caesar wept in Spain at the mere
sight of Alexander\'s statue and Pompey the Great rummaged through the
closets of conquered nations for Alexander\'s 260-year-old cloak, which
the Roman general then wore as the costume of greatness. However in his
zeal to honor Alexander, Octavian Augustus accidentally broke the nose off
the Macedonian\'s mummified corpse while laying a wreath at the hero\'s
shrine in Alexandria, Egypt. The unbalanced emperor Caligula later took
the dead king\'s armor from that tomb and donned it\nfor luck. The
Macriani, a Roman family that rose to the imperial throne in the 3rd
century A.D., always kept images of Alexander on their persons, either
stamped into their bracelets and rings or stitched into their garments.
Even their dinnerware bore Alexander\'s face, with the story of the
king\'s life displayed around the rims of special bowls¹.\n\nIn the
summer of 1995 during the archaeological work of the season centered on
excavating the remains of domestic architecture of early-Roman date a
statue of Alexander was recovered from the structure, which was richly
decorated with mosaic and marble pavements and probably was constructed in
the 1st century A.D. and occupied until the 3rd
century².\n\nNotes\n\n\n\n1- Frank L. Holt. Alexander the Great and
the Mystery of the Elephant\nMedallions. University of California
Press.\n\n2- Salima Ikram. Nile Currents\n\n\nGeneral
timeline\n\n\n\n\nAlexander\'s character\n\n\n\n, on the waterfront at
Thessaloniki, capital of Greek Macedonia.\n\nModern opinion on Alexander
has run the gamut from the idea that he believed he was on a
divinely-inspired mission to unite the human race, to the view that he was
a megalomaniac bent on world domination. Such views tend to be
anachronistic, however, and the sources allow for a variety of
interpretations. Much about Alexander\'s personality and aims remains
enigmatic.\n\nAlexander is remembered as a legendary hero in Europe and
much of both Southwest Asia and Central Asia, where he is known as
[b]Iskander[/b] or [b]Iskandar Zulkarnain[/b]. To Zoroastrians, on the
other hand, he is remembered as the destroyer of their first great empire
and as the leveller of Persepolis. Ancient sources are generally written
with an agenda of either glorifying or denigrating the man, making it
difficult to evaluate his actual character. Most refer to a growing
instability and megalomania in the years following Gaugamela, but it has
been suggested that this simply reflects the Greek stereotype of an
orientalizing king. The murder of his friend Clitus, which Alexander
deeply and immediately regretted, is often cited as a sign of his
paranoia, as is his execution of Philotas and his general Parmenion for
failure to pass along details of a plot against him. However, this may
have been more prudence rather than paranoia.\n\nModern Alexandrists
continue to debate these same issues, among others, in modern times. One
unresolved topic involves whether Alexander was actually attempting to
better the world by his conquests, or whether his purpose was primarily to
rule the world.\n\nPartially in response to the ubiquity of positive
portrayals of Alexander, an alternate character is sometimes presented
which emphasizes some of Alexander\'s negative aspects. Some proponents of
this view cite the destructions of Thebes, Tyre, Persepolis, and Gaza as
examples of atrocities, and argue that Alexander preferred to fight rather
than negotiate. It is further claimed, in response to the view that
Alexander was generally tolerant of the cultures of those whom he
conquered, that his attempts at cultural fusion were severely practical
and that he never actually admired Persian art or culture. To this way of
thinking, Alexander was, first and foremost, a general rather than a
statesman.\n\nAlexander\'s character also suffers from the interpretation
of historians who themselves are subject to the bias and idealisms of
their own time. Good examples are W. W. Tarn, who wrote during the late
19th century and early 20th century, and who saw Alexander in an extremely
good light, and Peter Green, who wrote after World War II and for whom
Alexander did little that was not inherently selfish or ambition-driven.
Tarn wrote in an age where world conquest and warrior-heroes were
acceptable, even encouraged, whereas Green wrote with the backdrop of the
Holocaust and nuclear weapons. As a result, Alexander\'s character is
skewed depending on which way the historian\'s own culture is, and further
muddles the debate of who he truly was.\n\n\nStories and
legends\n\nAccording to one story, the philosopher Anaxarchus checked the
vainglory of Alexander, when he aspired to the honors of divinity, by
pointing to Alexander\'s wound, saying, \"See the blood of a mortal, not
the ichor of a god.\" In another version, Alexander himself pointed out
the difference in response to a sycophantic soldier. A strong oral
tradition, although not attested in any extant primary source, lists
Alexander as having epilepsy, known to the Greeks as the Sacred Disease
and thought to be a mark of divine favor.\n\nAlexander had a legendary
horse named Bucephalus (meaning \"ox-headed\"), supposedly descended from
the Mares of Diomedes. Alexander himself, while still a young boy, tamed
this horse after experienced horse-trainers failed to do so.\n\nThere is
an apocryphal tale, appearing in a redaction of the pseudo-historical
Alexander Romance, which details another end for the last true Pharaoh of
Egypt. Soon after Alexander\'s divinity was confirmed by the Oracle of
Zeus Ammon, a rumor was begun that Nectanebo II did not travel to Nubia
but instead to the court of Philip II of Macedon in the guise of an
Egyptian magician. He coupled with Phillip\'s wife Olympias and from his
issue came Alexander. This myth would hold strong appeal for Egyptians who
desired continuity in rule and harbored a strong dislike for foreign
rule.\n\nAnother legend tells of Alexander\'s campaign down into the
Syrian world toward Egypt. On the way, he planned to lay siege to the city
of Jerusalem. As the victorious armies of the Greeks approached the city,
word was brought to the Jews in Jerusalem that the armies were on their
way. The high priest at that time, who was a godly old man by the name of
Jaddua (mentioned also in the Bible book of Nehemiah) took the sacred
writings of Daniel the prophet and, accompanied by a host of other priests
dressed in white garments, went forth and met Alexander some distance
outside the city.\n\nAll this is from the report of Josephus, the Jewish
historian, who tells us that Alexander left his army and hurried to meet
this body of priests. When he met them, he told the high priest that he
had had a vision the night before in which God had shown him an old man,
robed in a white garment, who would show him something of great
significance to himself, according to the account, the high priest then
opened the prophecies of Daniel and read them to Alexander.\n\nIn the
prophecies Alexander was able to see the predictions that he would become
that notable goat with the horn in his forehead, who would come from the
West and smash the power of Persia and conquer the world. He was so
overwhelmed by the accuracy of this prophecy and, of course, by the fact
that it spoke about him, that he promised that he would save Jerusalem
from siege, and sent the high priest back with honors.\n\n\nAncient
sources\n\nThe ancient sources for Alexander\'s life are, from the
perspective of ancient history, relatively numerous. Alexander himself
left only a few inscriptions and some letter-fragments of dubious
authenticity, but a large number of his contemporaries wrote full
accounts. The key contemporary historians are considered Callisthenes, his
general Ptolemy, Aristobulus, Nearchus and Onesicritus. Another influential
account was penned by Cleitarchus, who, while not a direct witness of
Alexander\'s expedition, used the sources which had just been published.
His work was to be the backbone of that of Timagenes, who heavily
influenced many surviving historians. Unfortunately, all these works were
lost. Instead, the modern historian must rely on authors who used these
and other early sources.\n\nThe five main accounts are by Arrian, Curtius,
Plutarch, Diodorus, and Justin.\n* [i]Anabasis Alexandri[/i] ([i]The
Campaigns of Alexander[/i] in Greek) by the Greek historian Arrian of
Nicomedia, writing in the 2nd century AD, and based largely on Ptolemy
and, to a lesser extent, Aristobulus and Nearchus. It is considered
generally the most trustworthy source.\n* [i]Historiae Alexandri
Magni[/i], a biography of Alexander in ten books, of which the last eight
survive, by the Roman historian Quintus Curtius Rufus, written in the 1st
century AD, and based largely on Cleitarchus through the mediation of
Timagenes, with some material probably from Ptolemy;\n* [i]Life of
Alexander[/i] (see [i]Parallel Lives[/i]) and two orations [i]On the
Fortune or the Virtue of Alexander the Great[/i] (see [i]Moralia[/i]), by
the Greek historian and biographer Plutarch of Chaeronea in the second
century, based largely on Aristobulus and especially Cleitarchus.\n*
[i]Bibliotheca historia[/i] ([i]Library of world history[/i]), written in
Greek by the Sicilian historian Diodorus Siculus, from which Book 17
relates the conquests of Alexander, based almost entirely on Timagenes\'s
work. The books immediately before and after, on Philip and Alexander\'s
\"Successors,\" throw light on Alexander\'s reign.\n* The [i]Epitome of
the Philippic History of Pompeius Trogus[/i] by Justin, which contains
factual errors and is highly compressed. It is difficult in this case to
understand the source, since we only have an epitome, but it is thought
that also Pompeius Trogus may have limited himself to use Timagenes for
his Latin history. To these five main sources some like to add the [i]Metz
Epitome[/i], an anonymous late Latin work that narrates Alexander\'s
campaigns from Hyrcania to India. Much is also recounted incidentally in
other authors, including Strabo, Athenaeus, Polyaenus, Aelian, and
others.\n\nThe \"problem of the sources\" is the main concern (and chief
delight) of Alexander-historians. In effect, each presents a different
\"Alexander,\" with details to suit. Arrian is mostly interested in the
military aspects, while Curtius veers to a more private and darker
Alexander. Plutarch can\'t resist a good story, light or dark. All, with
the possible exception of Arrian, include a considerable level of fantasy,
prompting Strabo to remark, \"All who wrote about Alexander preferred the
marvellous to the true.\" Nevertheless, the sources tell us much, and
leave much to our interpretation and imagination.\n\n\nAlexander\'s
legend\n\nAlexander was a legend in his own time. His court historian
Callisthenes portrayed the sea in Cilicia as drawing back from him in
proskynesis. Writing after Alexander\'s death, another participant,
Onesicritus, went so far as to invent a tryst between Alexander and
Thalestris, queen of the mythical Amazons. When Onesicritus read this
passage to his patron, Alexander\'s general and later King Lysimachus,
Lysimachus reportedly quipped \"I wonder where I was at the time.\"\n\nIn
the first centuries after Alexander\'s death, probably in Alexandria, a
quantity of the more legendary material coalesced into a text known as the
[i]Alexander Romance[/i], later falsely ascribed to the historian
Callisthenes and therefore known as [i]Pseudo-Callisthenes[/i]. This text
underwent numerous expansions and revisions throughout Antiquity and the
Middle Ages, exhibiting a plasticity unseen in \"higher\" literary forms.
Latin and Syriac translations were made in Late Antiquity. From these,
versions were developed in all the major languages of Europe and the
Middle East, including Armenian, Georgian, Persian, Arabic, Turkish,
Hebrew, Serbian, Slavonic, Romanian, Hungarian, German, English, Italian,
and French. The \"Romance\" is regarded by most Western scholars as the
source of the account of Alexander given in the Qur\'an (Sura [i]The
Cave[/i]). It is the source of many incidents in Ferdowsi\'s \"Shahnama\".
A Mongolian version is also extant.\n\nSome believe that, excepting certain
religious texts, it is the most widely-read work of pre-modern
times.\n\n\nAlexander\'s legend in non-Western sources\n\n\nAlexander was
often identified in Persian and Arabic-language sources as Dhul-Qarnayn,
Arabic for the \"Two-Horned One\", possibly a reference to the appearance
of a horn-headed figure that appears on coins minted during his rule and
later imitated in ancient Middle Eastern coinage. If this theory is
followed, Islamic accounts of the Alexander legend, particularly in the
Qur\'an and in Persian legends, combined the Pseudo-Callisthenes
legendary, pseudo-religious material about Alexander. The same legends
from the Pseudo-Callisthenes were combined in Persia with Sasanid Persian
ideas about Alexander in the Iskandarnamah.\n\n\nMain towns founded by
Alexander\n\nAround seventy towns or outposts are claimed to have been
founded by Alexander. Some of the main ones are:\n\n* Alexandria, Egypt\n*
Alexandria Asiana, Iran\n* Alexandria in Ariana, Afghanistan\n* Alexandria
of the Caucasus, Afghanistan\n* Alexandria on the Oxus, Afghanistan\n*
Alexandria of the Arachosians, Afghanistan\n* Alexandria on the Indus
(Alexandria Bucephalous), Pakistan\n* Alexandria Eschate, \"The
furthest\", Tajikistan\n* Iskenderun (Alexandretta), Turkey\n* Kandahar
(Alexandropolis), Afghanistan\n\n\nAlexander in popular media\n\n*A 1956
movie starring Richard Burton titled [i]Alexander the Great[/i] was
produced by MGM.\n*A 1941 Hindi movie [i]Sikandar[/i] directed by Sohrab
Modi depicts Alexander the Great\'s Indian conquest.\n*Bond\'s 2000 album
[i]Born[/i] includes a song titled [i]Alexander the Great[/i].\n*Oliver
Stone\'s film [i]Alexander[/i], starring Colin Farrell, was released on
November 24, 2004.\n*Baz Luhrmann had been planning to make a very
different film about Alexander, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, but the
release of Stone\'s film eventually persuaded him to abandon the project.
1\n*Numerous television series about Alexander have been created.\n*The
British heavy metal band Iron Maiden had a song entitled \"Alexander the
Great\" on their album [i]Somewhere in Time[/i] (1986). The song describes
Alexander\'s life, but contains one inaccuracy: in the song it is stated
that Alexander\'s army would not follow him into India.\n* Brazilian
musician Caetano Veloso\'s 1998 album [i]Livro[/i] includes an epic song
about Alexander called \"Alexandre.\"\n*From 1969 to 1981, Mary Renault
wrote a historical fiction trilogy, speculating on the life of Alexander:
[i]Fire from Heaven[/i] (about his early life), [i]The Persian Boy[/i]
(about his conquest of Persia, his expedition to India, and his death,
seen from the viewpoint of a Persian eunuch), and [i]Funeral Games[/i]
(about the events following his death). Alexander also appears briefly in
Renault\'s novel [i]The Mask of Apollo[/i]. In addition to the fiction,
Renault also wrote a non-fiction biography, [i]The Nature of
Alexander[/i].\n*A 1965 Hindi movie [i]Sikandar-e-Azam[/i] directed by
Kedar Kapoor starring Dara Singh as Alexandar depicts Alexandar\'s Indian
conquest with Porus.\n*A further trilogy of novels about Alexander was
written in Italian by Valerio Massimo Manfredi and subsequently published
in an English translation, entitled [i]The Son of the Dream[/i], [i]The
Sands of Ammon[/i] and [i]The Ends Of The Earth[/i].\n* David Gemmel\'s
\"Dark Prince\" features Alexander as the chosen vessel for a
world-destroying demon king. ISBN 0345379101.\n*Steven Pressfield\'s 2004
book [i]The Virtues of War[/i] is told from the first-person perspective of
Alexander.\n\n*An epic science fiction animated retelling of the story
called [i]Reign: The Conqueror[/i], based on the novel [i]Alexander
Senki[/i] by Hiroshi Aramata, with character designs by Peter Chung of
[i]Aeon Flux[/i] fame, debuted in Japan in 1997 and on the Cartoon
Network\'s [i]Adult Swim[/i] block variety show in 2003.\n* Alexander is a
character in the computer game Civilization.\n* The [i]Smallville[/i]
season 1 episode \"Rogue\", Lex Luthor shows Clark Kent the shield that
Alexander the Great wore in battle. The shield is gold, with red and blue
diamonds (the colors that represent Superman), and a snake shaped like
the letter S.\n* The 1975 film [i]The Man Who Would Be King[/i] starring
Sean Connery and Michael Caine is based on the Rudyard Kipling story of
two British adventurers who cross the Hindu Kush to the land of
Kafiristan, once conquered by Alexander. Daniel (Connery) is believed by
the natives to be the return of Alexander and is crowned
King.\n\n\nNotes\n\n Whether the Macedonians of Alexander\'s time and
before were Hellenes (Greeks) is disputed by scholars. The question
largely depends on the classification of the Ancient Macedonian language.
By separating Macedonians and Greeks in this sentence and others, no
position in this debate is implied.\n See note
1.\n\n\nReferences\n\n*Fuller, J.F. C; [i]A Military History of the
Western World: From the earliest times to the Battle of Lepanto[/i]; New
York: Da Capo Press, Inc., 1987 and 1988. ISBN 0306803046\n*De Santis,
Marc G. ?At The Crossroads of Conquest.? Military Heritage. December 2001.
Volume 3, No. 3: 46-55, 97 (Alexander the Great, his military, his strategy
at the Battle of Gaugamela and his defeat of Darius making Alexander the
King of Kings).\n\n[b]Primary Sources[/b]\n*Alexander the Great: An
annotated list of primary sources from Livius.org\n*Alexander the Great -
O Megas Alexandros Alexander the Great forum, articles, and referenced
information.\n*Wiki Classical Dictionary, extant sources and fragmentary
and lost sources\n*Plutarch, \'\'Life of Alexander\'\' (in
English)\n*Justin, \'\'Epitome of the Philippic History of Pompeius
Trogus\'\' (in English)\n*Plutarch, \'\'Of the Fortune or Virtue of
Alexander the Great\'\' (in English)\n*Quintus Curtius Rufus,
\'\'Histories of Alexander\'\' (in Latin)\n*Alexander\'s Death from
Alexander the Great on the Web: 1,000 resources about Alexander the
Great\n\n*Alexander The Great in the french museum Le
Louvre\n\n[b]Projects[/b]\n*Alexander the Great on the Web, a
comprehensive directory of some 1,000 sites\n*Livius Project articles on
Alexander by Jona Lendering\n*Pothos.org: Alexander\'s Home on the
Web\n*Wiki Classical Dictionary: Category Alexander the Great, a Mediawiki
based project, with stricter guidelines and editors\n*Alexander the Great
Coins, a site depicting Alexander\'s coins and later coins featuring
Alexander\'s image\n*Alexander the Great Site, a site dedicated to
Alexander. Features Articles about Alexander, his life, armies, mysteries
surrounding his death, and the Hellenistic Period that came after this
great Hellenic Leader.\n\n[b]Narratives[/b]\n*Alexander the Great of
Macedon, a project by John J. Popovic\n*The loves of Alexander III of
Macedon\n\n[b]Discussion[/b]\n*Pothos Forum\n*Alexander the Great Forum, a
forum for Alexander the Great and the history surrounding
him.\n[b]Bibliography[/b]\n*PDF: A Bibliography of Alexander the Great by
Waldemar Heckel\n\n\n|-\n| width=\"30%\" align=\"center\" | Preceded
by:[b]Philip II[/b]\n| width=\"40%\" align=\"center\" | [b]King of
Macedon[/b]336–323 BC\n| width=\"30%\" align=\"center\"
rowspan=\"4\"| Succeeded by:[b]Philip III & Alexander IV[/b]\n\n|-\n|
width=\"30%\" align=\"center\" rowspan=\"2\"| Preceded by:[b]Darius
III[/b]\n| width=\"40%\" align=\"center\" | [b]Great King of Media and
Persia[/b] 330–323 BC\n|-\n| width=\"40%\" align=\"center\" |
[b]Pharaoh of Egypt[/b]332–323 BC\n|-\n\n\n\n\nCategory:323 BC
deaths\nCategory:356 BC births\n\nCategory:Ancient Greek
generals\nCategory:Ancient Greeks\nCategory:City
founders\nCategory:Macedonian monarchs\nCategory:Mummies\nCategory:Nine
Worthies\nCategory:Pederastic lovers\n\n\n\n\n\naf:Alexander die
Grote\nar:???????? ??????\nast:Aleixandre\'l Grande\nbg:??????????
??????????\nbs:Aleksandar Veliki\nca:Alexandre el Gran\ncs:Alexandr
Veliký\nda:Alexander den Store\nde:Alexander der
Große\nel:?????????? ? ?????\neo:Aleksandro la Granda\nes:Alejandro
Magno\net:Aleksander Suur\neu:Alexandro Handia\nfa:??????
??????\nfi:Aleksanteri Suuri\nfr:Alexandre le Grand\nfy:Aleksander de
Grutte\ngl:Alexandre o Grande\nhe:??????? ?????\nhr:Aleksandar
Veliki\nhu:Nagy Sándor\nid:Alexander Agung\nis:Alexander
mikli\nit:Alessandro Magno\nja:????????3?\nko:?????? ??\nku:Eskenderê
Mezin\nla:Alexander Magnus\nlt:Aleksandras Didysis\nlv:Aleksandrs
Lielais\nmk:?????????? ??????????\nnl:Alexander de Grote\nno:Aleksander
den store\npl:Aleksander Macedo?ski\npt:Alexandre, o Grande\nro:Alexandru
cel Mare\nru:????????? ???????????\nscn:Lissandru lu
Granni\nsimple:Alexander the Great\nsk:Alexander Ve?ký\nsl:Aleksander
Veliki\nsq:Leka i Madh\nsr:?????????? ??????????\nsv:Alexander den
store\ntl:Alexander ang Dakila\ntr:Büyük
?skender\ntt:?skändär\nuk:????????? ????????????\nzh:??????\n\n\nThe
Wikipedia article is licensed under http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html
and uses material from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander. A preview
of this article is available at
http://www.blinkbits.com/en_wikifeeds/Alexander.\n
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