Alexander the Great, the most celebrated conqueror of the ancient world,was born in 356BC, in Pella, the capital city of Macedonia. His father, King Phillip II of Macedon, was a man of truly outstanding ability and foresight. Phillip enlarged and reorganised the Macedonian army, and converted it into a fighting force of the highest caliber. He first used this army to conquer surrounding regions to the north of Greece, and then turned south and conquered most of Greece itself. Next, Phillip created a federation of the Greek city-states, with himself as leader. He was planning to make war on the vast Persian Empire to the east of Greece; indeed, the invasion had already commenced, in 336BC, when Phillip, still only forty-six years old, was assinated. Alexander was only twenty years old when his father died, but he suceeded to the throne without difficulty. Phillip had carefully prepared his son to suceed him, and the young Alexander already had considerable military experience. Nor had his father neglected his intellectual education. Alexander's tutor had been the brilliant philosopher Aristotle, perhaps the greatest scientist and philosopher of the ancient world. In both Greece and the northern territories, the peoples conquered by Phillip saw the ocassion of his death as a good opportunity to throw off the Macedonian yoke. However, Alexander, in the two years following his accession to the throne, was able to subdue both regions. He then turned his attention to Persia. For two hundred years, the Persians had governed a vast territory that stretched all the way from the Meditereanean to India. Although Persia was no longer at the height of it's powers, it was still a formidable adversary-the largest, mightiest, and wealthiest empire on Earth. Alexander launched his invasion of the Persian Empire in 334BC. Since he had to leave part of his army at home to maintain control of his European possesions, Alexander had only 35,000 troops with him when he set out on his audacious quest-a very small force compared with the Persian armies. In spite of the numerical disadvantage, Alexander won a series of crushing victories over the Persian forces. There were three main reasons for his sucess. In the first place, the army which Phillip had left him was better trained and organized than the Persian forces. In the second place, Alexander was a general of outstanding genius, perhaps the greatest of all time. The third factor was Alexander's own personal courage. Although he would direct the early stages of each battle from behind the lines, Alexander's policy was to lead the decisive cavalry charge himself. This was a risky procedure, and he was frequently wounded. But his troops saw that Alexander was sharing their danger, and was not asking them to take any risks that he himself would not take. The effect on their morale was enourmous. Alexander first led his troops through Asia Minor, defeating the smaller Persian armies stationed there. Then, moving into northern Syria, he routed an immense Persian army at Issus. Alexander then moved further south , and after a difficult seven-month siege, conquered the Phoenician island-city of Tyre, in present-day Lebanon. While Alexander was besieging Tyre, he received a message from the Persian king offering to cede Alexander half of his empire in return for a peace treaty. One of Alexander's generals, Parmenio, thought the offer rather good. "I would take that offer, if I were Alexander" he said. "And so would I," Alexander replied, "if I were Parmenio". After the fall of Tyre, Alexander continued south. Gazza fell after a two-month siege. Egypt surrendered to him without a fight. Alexander then paused for a while in Egypt to rest his troops. There, though still only twenty-four years old, he was crowned pharaoh and declaired a god. He then led his armies back into Asia, and at the decisive battle of Arbela, in 331BC, he completely routed a much larger Persian army. After that victory Alexander led his troops into Babylon, and into the Persian capitals of Susa and Persepolis. The Persian king, Darius III (not to be confused with his predissor, Darius the Great), was assinated by his officers in 330BC, to prevent him from surrendering to Alexander. Nevertherless, Alexander defeated and killed Darius's sucessor, and in three years of fighting, subdued all of eastern Iran and pushed on into Central Asia. With the whole Persian Empire now subject to him, Alexander might now have returned home and reorganized his new dominions. But his fhirst for conquest was still unslaked, and he continued on, into Afghanisthan. From there he led his army across the Hindu Kush mountains into India. He won a series of victories in western India, and intended to continue on to eastern India. His troops, however, exhausted by years of fighting, refused to go any farther, and Alexander reluctantly returned to Persia. After returning to Persia, Alexander spent the next year or so reorganizing his empire and army. And a major reorganization it was. Alexander had been brought up to believe that Greek culture represented the only true civilasation, and that all of the non-Greek peoples were barbarians. Such, of course, was the prevailing view throughout the Greek world, and even Aristotle had shared it. But, despite the fact that he had thoroughly defeated the Persian armies, Alexander had come to realize that the Persians were not barbarians at all, and that individual Persians could be as intelligent,capable, and worthy of respect as individual Greeks. He therefore conceived the notion of fusing the two parts of his empire together, thereby creating a joint Graeco-Persian culture and kingdom, with himself, of course, as ruler. So far as we can determine, he really intended the Persians to be equal partners with the Greeks and Macedonians. To implement this plan, he took large numbers of Persians into his army. He also held a great feast, "the marriage of East and West," at which several thousand Macedonian troops were formally married to Asian women. He himself, although he had previously married an Asian princess, the daughter of Darius. It is plain that Alexander intended to make additional conquests with this reorganized army. We know that he planned invade Arabia, and probably also the regions north of the Persian Empire. He may also have intended another invasion of India, or the conquest of Rome, Carthage, and Western Mediterreanean . Whatever his plans may have been, as it turned out, there were to be no further conquests. In early June, in the year 323BC, while in Babylon, Alexander suddenly fell ill of a fever, and he died ten days later. He was not yet thirty-three years old. Alexander had named no sucessor, and soon after his death a fight for power ensued. In the struggle that followed, Alexander's mother, wives, and children were all killed. His empire was eventually divided amongs his generals. Because Alexander died young and and undefeated, there has been much speculation as to what might have occured had he lived. If he lead the invasion of the western Mediterreanean lands, he would have most likely to be sucessful, and the entire history of western Europe, wouldn't have been vastely different. Alexander was perhaps the most dramatic figure in history, and his career and personality have remained a source of fascination. The true facts of his career are dramatic enough, and dozens of legends have grew up with his name. As a general, he was supreme, and in eleven years of fighting, he never lost a single battle. At the same time, however, he was an intellectual who had studied under Aristotle and treasured the poetry of Homer. Alexander reputedly could be very charming, and he was often extremely conciliatory and charitable to defeated enemies. On the other hand, he was also an egomaniac with a fericious temper. On one ocassion, in a drunken argument, he killed a close associate of his, Cleitus, a man who once saved his life. Like Napoleon and Hitler, Alexander had an overwhelming effect upon his own ggeneration. His short-term infleunce, however, was less than theres, simply because the limited means of travel and communication existing at the time restricted his infleunce to a smaller portion of the globe. In the long run, the most important effect of Alexander's conquest was to bring the Greek and Middle Eastern civilasation into close contact with each other, and thereby to greatly enrich both cultures. During and immediately after Alexander's career, Greek culture spread rapidly into Iran, Mesopotamia,Syria,Judea, and Egypt; before Alexander, Greek culture had been entering these regions slowly. Also, Alexander spread Greek infleunce into India and Central Asia, areas which it had never reached before. But the cultural infleunce was by no means a one-way affair. During the Hellenistic Age (the centuries immediately after Alexander' caree), eastern ideas-particularly religious ideas-spread into the Greek world. It was this Hellenistic culture-predominantly Greek but with strong oriental infleunces-that eventually effected Rome. In the course of his career, Alexander founded more than twenty new cities. The most famous of these was Alexandria, in Egypt, which soon became one of the leading cities of the world, and a notable center of learning and culture. A few other, such as Herat and Kandahar in Afghanisthan, also developed into cities of importance. Alexander , Napoleon, and Hitler seem fairly close in overall infleunce. One gets the impression, though , that the infleunce of the other two men will be less enduring than that of Alexander. On that basis, he has been ranked slightly above them, even though his short-term infleunce was somewhat less than theirs.