From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Alexander the Great
fighting the Persian king Darius (Pompeii mosaic,
from a 3rd century BC original Greek painting, now lost).
Alexandros III Philippou Makedonon
(late July, 356 BC–June 10, 323 BC), commonly
known in the West as Alexander the Great or Alexander III of Macedon,
in Greek Μέγας
Ἀλέξανδρος (Megas Alexandros), King of Macedon (336 BC-323 BC), was the
most successful military commander of ancient history, conquering most of the
known world before his death. Alexander is known in Middle
Persian literature as Alexander the Cursed due to his burning of the
Persian
capital and national library. He is also known in Eastern traditions as Dhul-Qarnayn
(the two-horned one), because an image on coins minted during his rule seemed
to depict him with the two ram's horns of the Egyptian god Ammon (it is believed
by historians that the Dhul-Qarnayn mentioned in the Qur'an is
Alexander). In north-east India and modern-day Pakistan he is known as Sikander-e-Azam (Alexander the Great) and many male children are named Sikander after him.
Following
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 non-Greeks into his army and administration, leading some
scholars to credit him with a “policy of fusion.” He encouraged marriage
between Greeks and non-Greeks, and practiced it himself. This was extremely
unusual for the ancient world. After twelve years of constant military
campaigning, Alexander died, probably of malaria, typhoid or
possibly a viral encephalitis. His conquests ushered in centuries of
Greco-Macedonian settlement and rule over non-Greek areas, a period known as
the Hellenistic Age. Alexander himself lived on in
the history and myth of both Greek and non-Greek peoples. 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.
Contents1 Early life1.1 The ascendance of Macedon2 Period of conquests 2.1 The defeat of the
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1. Early
life
Bust of
Alexander III in the British Museum.
Alexander
was the son of King Philip II of Macedon and of Epirote princess Olympias.
According to Plutarch
(Alexander 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 (Alexander
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.
Aristotle 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 Siwah, 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 (Alexander 2.1), his father descended from
Heracles
through Caranus
and his mother descended from Aeacus through Neoptolemus
and Achilles.
1.1 The ascendance of Macedon
When
Philip led an attack on Byzantium in 340 BC, Alexander, aged 16, was left in command of
Macedonia. In 339 BC Philip divorced Alexander's mother, leading to a quarrel between
Alexander and his father which 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.
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. However, in recent years Alexander's involvement has
been questioned and there is some reason to believe that it may have been
instigated by 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 to the rest of the Greek cities of how he managed to assassinate
Philip.
After
Philip's death, the army proclaimed Alexander, then aged 20, as the new king of
Macedon. Greek cities like Athens and Thebes,
which had pledged allegiance to Philip, were not quick to pledge the same
allegiance to a 20-year-old boy. As a result, Alexander razed Thebes to the
ground and sold all the population into slavery. This ultimately stunned and
defeated the rest of the greeks.
2 Period of conquests
Map of Alexander's empire
2.1. The defeat of the Persian Empire
Alexander's
army crossed the Hellespont with about 40,000 Greek soldiers. 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,
the sister of Mausolus,
whom Orontobates had
deposed. 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, 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 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.
It is difficult, perhaps impossible, to decide which story is correct.
Alexander battling Darius at the Battle of Issus, Pompei mosaic.
Alexander's
army crossed the Cilician Gates and 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.
In 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 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.
Statuette of a Greek soldier, from a 4th-3rd century BC burial site north
of the Tian
Shan, at the maximum extent of Alexander's advance in the East (Ürümqi, Xinjiang
Museum, China)
(drawing).
From
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, and he set fire to the royal palace of Xerxes, allegedly
in revenge for the burning of the Athenian Acropolis during the Second Persian War. He 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 at an end, 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).
His
three-year campaign against Bessus and his successor Spitamenes took him
through Media, Parthia, Aria, Drangiana, Arachosia, Bactria, and Scythia. In the
process he captured and refounded Herat and Samarkand, and he founded a series of new cities, all
called Alexandria, including one near modern Kandahar in Afghanistan,
and Alexandria Eschate ("The Furthest")
bordering today's Chinese Turkestan.
2.1.1. Hostility toward Alexander
During
this time, Alexander adopted some elements of Persian dress and customs at his
court, notably the custom of proskynesis,
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 Greek
countrymen. Here, too, a plot against his life was revealed, and his Companion
and friend Philotas
was executed for treason for failing to bring the plot to his attention.
Although Philotas was convicted by the assembled Macedonian army, most
historians consider this one of the king's greatest crimes, along with his
order to assassinate his senior general Parmenion,
Philotas' father. In a drunken quarrel at Macaranda Samarkand, he
also killed the man who had saved his life at the 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 proskynesis), was implicated on what most
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.
2.2 The invasion of India
Coin commemorating Alexander's campaigns in India, struck in Babylon around 323 BC.
Obv: Alexander standing, being crowned by Nike, fully armed and holding Zeus' thunderbolt.
Rev: Greek rider, possibly Alexander, attacking an Indian
battle-elephant, possibly fleeing Porus.
With
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 Omphis, ruler of Taxila, surrendered
the city to Alexander. Many people had fled to a high fortress called Aornos. Alexander took
Aornos by storm (see Siege of Aornos).
Alexander fought an epic battle against Porus, a ruler of a
region in the Punjab
in the Battle of Hydaspes (326 BC). After
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.
East
of Porus' kingdom, near the Ganges River, was the powerful kingdom of Magadha.
Exhausted and frightened by the prospect of facing another giant Indian army at
the Ganges, 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 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).
2.3 After India
Alexander and Porus by Charles
Le Brun, 1673
Discovering
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 who were over-aged and the 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.
His
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 shahanshah
("great king" or "king of kings"), but most historians
think that he did.
After
traveling to Ecbatana to retrieve the bulk of the Persian treasure, his closest
friend and probable lover Hephaestion died of an illness. Alexander was distraught.
He conducted a campaign of extermination against the Cosseans to assuage his
grief. On his return to Babylon, he fell ill and died.
While
invading the ancient city of Mali along the shore
of India he received a nearly fatal wound from an arrow in his chest. Many
historians argue if this was the cause of his death.
3. Alexander's marriages and sexuality
Alexander's
greatest emotional attachment is generally considered to have been to his
companion, cavalry commander (chiliarchos) and most probably 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 the histories at the point when Alexander reaches Troy. There the two
friends made sacrifices at the shrines of the two heroes Achilles and Patroclus,
Alexander honouring Achilles, and Hephaestion, Patroclus. As Aelian
in his Varia Historia
(12.7) claims, "He thus intimated that he was the object of Alexander's
love, as Patroclus was of Achilles."
Many
discussed his ambiguous sexuality. Letter 24 of those ascribed to Diogenes of Sinope, thought to be written in
either the 1st century or the 2nd century,
and probably reflecting the gossip of Alexander's day, exhorts him: "If
you want to be beautiful and good (kalos k'agathos), throw away the rag
you have on your head and come to us. But you won't be able to, for you are
ruled by Hephaestion's thighs." And 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 whet his appetite for the fairer sex,
King Philip and Olympias brought in a high-priced Thessalian courtesan named
Callixena.
Later
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 at
least two children, Heracles born in 327 BC by his
mistress Barsine, the daughter of
satrap Artabazus of Phrygia,
and Alexander IV of Macedon by Roxana in 323 BC. This
would be in keeping with the ancient omnivorous approach to sexuality.
Curtius
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 eromenos — the beloved — of
Alexander. The word is not used even for Hephaestion. Their relationship seems
to have been well known among the troops, as Plutarch
recounts an episode (also mentioned by Athenaios and 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." (Plutarch, The Lives).
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. (This Bagoas should not be confused
with Bagoas the former Persian Vizier, nor the Bagoas son of Pharnuches who
became one of Alexander's trierarchs.) 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 lover of Alexander, Euxenippos,
"whose youthful grace filled him with enthusiasm." (VII.9.19)
The
suggestion that Alexander was homosexual
or bisexual
remains highly controversial and excites passions in some quarters in Greece,
the Republic of Macedonia, and diasporas
thereof. People of various national, ethnic and cultural origins regard him as
a national hero. They argue that historical accounts describing Alexander's
relations with Hephaestion and Bagoas as sexual were written centuries after
the fact, and thus it can never be established what the 'real' relationship
between Alexander and his male companions were. Others argue that the same can
be said about all our information regarding Alexander. Such debates, however,
are considered anachronistic by scholars of the period, who point out that the
concept of homosexuality 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 involvement with a man
his own age, in a time when the standard model of male love was pederastic.
See History of Homosexuality for more information.
It has
been proposed that Alexander was also a "cross-dresser," on the
grounds that he was known to wear the "silvery dress" of Athena, which he
received from priests at Troy. This idea, however, subsists upon a
misunderstanding of "dress," used in the sense of "attire."
In fact, it was Athena who was the cross-dresser, wearing armor when Greek
women and other goddesses did not.
4. The army of Alexander the Great
before the Battle of Gaugamela
The
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.
4.1 Infantry
The
main infantry corps was the phalanx, composed of six regiments (taxies) numbering
about 2000 phalangites each. Each soldier had a long pike called a sarissa,
which was up to 18 feet long, and a short sword. For protection
the soldier wore a Phrygian-style helmet and a shield. Arrian mentions
large shields (the aspis)
but this is disputed; 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 pelta, 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.
Another
important unit were the hypaspists (shield bearers), arranged into three battalions
(lochoi) of 1,000 men
each. One of the battalions was named the Agema and served as the
King's bodyguards. Their armament is unknown; 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 and 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,
but 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.
In
addition to the units mentioned above, the army included some 6,000 Greek
allied and mercenary hoplites, also arranged in phalanxes. They carried a shorter spear, a dora, which was six
or seven feet long and a large aspis.
Alexander
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 then the psiloi. The best peltasts were the Agrianians
from Thrace.
4.2 Cavalry
The
heavy cavalry included the "Companion cavalry," raised from the
Macedonian nobility, and the Thessalian cavalry. The Companion cavalry (hetairoi,
friends) was divided into eight squadrons called ile, 200 strong, except
the Royal Squadron of 300. They were equipped with a 12-14 foot lance, the xyston,
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.
Of
light cavalry, the prodomoi (runners) secured the wings of the army
during battle and went on reconnaissance missions. Several hundred allied horse
rounded out the cavalry, but were inferior to the rest.
5. Death
Contemporary bust of Alexander the
Great
On the
afternoon of June 10-11, 323 BC, Alexander
died of a mysterious illness in the palace of Nebuchadrezzar II of Babylon. He was only 33 years old. Various theories have been
proposed for the cause of his death which include poisoning by
the sons of Antipater,
murder by his
wife Roxana [1],
and sickness due to a relapse of malaria he had contracted in 336 BC.
The
poisoning theory derives from the traditional story universally held in
antiquity. Alexander, coming to Babylon, had at long last disaffected enough of
his senior officers that they formed a coalition against him and murdered both
him and Hephaestion
within a space of only a few months, intending on ending his increasingly
unpopular policies of orientalism and ending any further military adventures.
The original story stated that Aristotle, who'd recently seen his nephew executed by
Alexander for treason, mixed the poison, that Cassander,
son of Antipater,
viceroy of Greece, brought it to Alexander in Babylon in a mule's hoof, and
that Alexander's royal cupbearer, a son-in-law of Antipater, administered it.
All had powerful motivations for seeing Alexander gone, and all were none the
worse for it after his death.
However,
many other scholars maintain that Alexander was not poisoned, but died of
natural causes, malaria
being the most popular. Various other theories have been advanced stating that
the king may have died from other illnesses, as well, including the West Nile
virus. These theories often cite the fact that Alexander's health had fallen to
dangerously low levels after years of overdrinking 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.
Neither
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 in early June of 323 B.C. On his death bed,
his marshals asked him who he bequethed his kingdom to - as 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.
Alexander'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.
According
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 (Varia Historia 12.64), Ptolemy stole the body and brought it to Alexandria,
where it was on display until Late Antiquity. Its current whereabouts are
unknown.
The
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.
6. Legacy and division of the Empire
Main article: Diadochi
After
Alexander's death his empire was divided among his officers, first mostly with
the pretense of preserving a united kingdom, later with the explicit formation
of rival monarchies and territorial states.
Ultimately,
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 Greece,
Lysimachus
in Thrace, Seleucus I Nicator ("the winner") in Mesopotamia
and Iran, and Ptolemy I in the Levant and Egypt. Antigonus I
ruled for a while in Asia Minor and Syria, but was soon
defeated by the other four generals. Control over Indian territory was
short-lived, ending when Seleucus I was defeated by Chandragupta Maurya, the first Mauryan emperor.
By 270 BC, Hellenistic
states consolidated, with:
·
The Antigonid Empire, centered on Greece
·
The Seleucid Empire in Asia
·
The Ptolemaic kingdom in Egypt and Cyrenaica
By 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.
Alexander'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.
Myths
of Alexander's wife having murdered Alexander have been widely discussed and
debated by historians. To date there is no evidence to support these claims.
7. Timeline
8. Alexander's
character
Equestrian statue of Alexander the Great, on the
waterfront at Thessaloniki, capital of Greek
Macedonia
Modern
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 the ancient world's equivalent of Napoleon I of France or Adolf Hitler, a megalomaniac bent on world domination. Such views tend to be anachronistic,
however, and the sources allow a variety of interpretations. Much about
Alexander's personality and aims remains enigmatic.
Alexander
is remembered as a legendary hero in Europe and much of
both Southwest Asia and Central Asia, where he is known as Iskander or Iskandar Zulkarnain.
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 a Medizing king. The
murder of his friend Clitus, which Alexander deeply and immediately
regretted, is often pointed to, as is his execution of Philotas and his general
Parmenion for failure to pass along details of a plot against him, though this
last may have been prudence rather than paranoia.
Modern
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.
Partially
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.
Alexander'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.
One
undeniable characteristic of Alexander is that he was extremely pious and devout, and began every day
with prayers and sacrifices. From his boyhood he believed "one should not
be parsimonious with the Gods."
8.1 Stories and legends
According
to one story, the philosopher Anaxarchus checked the vainglory of Alexander, when he aspired
to the honours 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 favour.
Alexander
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.
8.2. Ancient sources
The
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. These included his court historian Callisthenes,
his general Ptolemy, and a camp engineer Aristoboulus. Another
early and influential account was penned by Cleitarchus.
Unfortunately, these works were lost. Instead, the modern historian must rely
on authors who used these and other early sources.
The
five main accounts are by Arrian, Curtius, Plutarch, Diodorus, and Justin.
- Anabasis Alexandri (The Campaigns of Alexander in Greek)
by the Greek historian Arrian of Nicomedia;
- Historiae Alexandri Magni, a biography of Alexander in ten
books, of which the last eight survive, by the Roman historian Quintus Curtius Rufus;
- Life of Alexander (see Parallel
Lives) and two orations On the Fortune or the Virtue of
Alexander the Great (see Plutarch:
Other Works), by the Greek historian and biographer Plutarch
of Chaeronea;
- Bibliotheca historia (Library of world history),
written in Greek by the Sicilian historian Diodorus
Siculus, from which Book 17 relates the conquests of Alexander. The
books immediately before and after, on Philip and Alexander's
"Successors," throw light on Alexander's reign.
- The Epitome of the Philippic History of Pompeius Trogus by Junianus Justinus, which contains factual
errors and is highly compressed.
Much
is recounted incidentally in other authors, including Strabo, Athenaeus, Polyaenus,
and others.
The
"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 presents a flattering
portrait, Curtius a darker one. Plutarch can't resist a good story, light or
dark. All include a considerable level of fantasy, prompting Strabo (2.1.9) 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.
8.3.1. Alexander's legend
Alexander
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 quipped "I wonder where I was at the time.")
In the
first centuries after Alexander's death, probably in Alexandria,
a quantity of the more legendary material coalesced into a text known as the Alexander Romance, later falsely ascribed to the historian Callisthenes and
therefore known as Pseudo-Callisthenes. 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 Koran (Sura The Cave). It is the source of many incidents in Ferdowsi's
"Shahnama".
A Mongol version
is also extant.
Some
believe that, excepting certain religious texts, it is the most widely-read
work of pre-modern times.
8.3.1. Alexander's legend in non-Western
sources
Alexander
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. 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 (main
article: Alexander in the Qur'an).
Pahlavi sources on the Alexander legend devised a mythical genealogy for him whereby his mother was a concubine of Darius II, making him the half-brother of the last Achaemenid shah, Darius III, probably in order to justify his domination of the old Persian Empire. Alexander is also blamed for ending the golden age of Zoroastrianism by seizing and destroying the original golden text of the