It is said that he was born from Zeus himself, a demi-god in the flesh.
He tamed an unbreakable wild stallion that full-grown men feared to approach at the age
of 12, and that horse would carry him to military victory after military victory until his untimely
death at the age of 32.
He was tutored by one of the ancient world's greatest thinkers.
His name says it all- Alexander The Great.
But how much about Alexander is really true, and what's fiction?
And ultimately, with a whopping zero instagram followers, can we truly say he was all that
great?
Haters and historians alike will tell you that Alexander the Great was born in 356 BC
to the Macedonian king Phillip II and his wife, Olympias.
A true Greek however knows that Alexander was actually the love child of Zeus himself,
who had a nasty habit of popping down to earth and taking various animal shapes to con women
into sleeping with him.
In many ways, Zeus was the original frat boy.
Alexander's father was already an impressive figure - a brilliant military leader and politician
both.
Through force of arms and political maneuvering, he turned Macedonia into a military and cultural
power house- which was a pretty impressive feat because in the ancient world, Macedonia
was basically the backwoods of Greece.
Phillip's ambitions though weren't limited to his strengthening of Macedonia, and he
had a dream that would be handed down to his son, Alexander- to conquer the mighty empire
of Persia.
To date, Persia had been a world superpower, premier in many fields of science and philosophy,
it was backed by a formidable military which tried again and again to destroy the stubborn,
and defiant, Greeks.
To dream of conquering this mighty nation was to put it lightly, a very optimistic dream.
At the age of 13, Alexander was personally tutored by Aristotle, a man so famous that
even if you know nothing about his teachings, you definitely recognize the name.
One of the ancient world's greatest minds, Aristotle fostered a curiosity in the young
prince, and sharpened an already formidable intellect.
Alexander learned philosophy, medicine, politics, and art from Aristotle- and also that he should
treat non-Greeks as if they were slaves.
Thankfully, when Alexander would begin his military conquests later in life, he would
discard this belief, and this would help establish his mighty, if short lived empire.
In 340 BC, Philip went off to attack Byzantium, and left the young Alexander in charge of
things at home.
Alexander used the opportunity to prove that even though he was just a teenager, he was
destined to be a great leader, and gathered the army for a successful attack against the
Maedi - a people who lived in what is now the southeastern Baltics.
Two years later Philip returned home, determined to unite Greece under one banner, and went
to war against a coalition of Greek city-states led by Thebes and Athens.
In that battle Alexander led the cavalry to a triumphant defeat of the legendary Sacred
Band of Thebes, a fighting force made up of 150 pairs of lovers.
This victory catapulted an already popular Alexander to new heights of popularity with
the Macedonian military.
Alexander would need that popularity too, as a year later Philip divorced Alexander's
mother, and then in a feast to celebrate his new marriage, Philip got into a fight with
Alexander over his new wife.
Alexander and his mother fled for fear of their lives, though Philip and Alexander were
soon reconciled and he was allowed to return home.
When Philip was assassinated shortly after though, Alexander was not the clear heir to
the throne, and he rallied the support of the military to help him kill his potential
rivals.
Solidifying his grip over Greece, Alexander then attended an assembly of Greek city-states
which had already been called for by his father.
The Greeks were finally going to make good on the ancient dream of conquering Persia,
and the assembly unanimously voted to make Alexander supreme commander of Greek forces.
Before crushing Greece's ancient rival though, he needed to secure the Greek peninsula.
Alexander spent some time bringing wayward city-states into the fold- often by military
force- as well as waging campaigns against the Thracians to the north.
While in battle though, rumors of his death circulated back in Greece, and the city-state
of Thebes used the opportunity to revolt.
As many other Greek city-states favored Thebes over Alexander, support for the fledgling
rebellion flowed in- especially from Athens.
Upon hearing of the brewing revolt, Alexander forced a hard march on his troops, traveling
an astounding 240 miles (386 km) in just two weeks to the gates of Thebes.
The Thebans however refused to rejoin Alexander and he was forced to lay siege to the city,
ultimately burning it to the ground and selling off any survivors into slavery.
With the rest of the city-states terrified at the treatment of Thebes, they quickly fell
in line, and in an act of generosity which would earn him some favor with the Greeks,
he forgave Athens' betrayal.
Leaving behind three garrisons, Alexander was now free to take on Persia.
By comparison, Greece was tiny versus mighty Persia, but Alexander was confident that his
men were better trained and equipped.
His superior troops would outweigh Persia's superior numbers.
That theory would be put to the test in 333 BC, when Alexander's forces met with a massive
Pesian army led by the new king, Darius III.
Alexander's belief that his superior troops could win out over superior numbers was well-founded.
The Persians had largely become complacent in the last century, and their military forces
suffered from a noticeable lack of discipline- as well as a lack of cavalry.
Alexander by comparison fielded an army comprised of archers, javelin throwers, infantry, and
heavy cavalry.
His mastery of what was in that day combined arms warfare saw him utterly crush the Persian
forces laid out against him.
With defeat inevitable, the Persian king fled the battlefield with the few forces that he
could muster into a hasty withdrawal.
Darius III was so hasty in his retreat that he even left behind his own wife and family,
and his mother was so ashamed of him that she disowned him publicly and adopted Alexander
as her own son.
This gesture would be paramount to Alexander's cementing of his grip on what was formerly
the Persian empire.
Over the next few years Alexander would continue his push east and south, striking deep into
the Persian empire and taking Egypt.
Time and again Darius sued for peace, and Alexander rejected each overture.
At last, he forced a confrontation with Persia's king at Gaugamela in 331 BC, and faced off
against another large Persian force.
The fighting was intense, each side knowing they were fighting for total victory and the
fate of Persia.
Ultimately though, Alexander's forces would be triumphant, and once more Darius fled the
battle.
This time though, his own men caught and killed him for his cowardice.
Alexander however proved to be honorable, and upon finding Darius' body, he gave the
former Persian king a royal funeral.
Some sources also state that he punished the murderers for daring to strike down their
king.
With Darius dead, Alexander was free to claim the throne of Persia for himself- except another
Persian leader, Bessus, had already claimed the throne for himself.
This would prove to be what historians call, a slight miscalculation.
Alexander's forces pursued Bessus and his army until finally Bessus' own troops captured
him and handed him over to the Greeks.
Bessus was tortured and then killed, and Alexander was finally king of Persia.
The empire that had threatened Greece for centuries was now at last, itself a Greek
territory.
In order to secure his hold on Persia, Alexander granted large amounts of freedom to Persian
territories, even allowing them to govern themselves in exchange for loyalty to him.
He did not force conversions of Persian culture or religion, the way most rulers did back
in his day, and instead actually adopted many Persian customs for himself.
This made him very popular with the Persians, although it made him just as unpopular with
his own Macedonian troops.
One of his generals and close friends, drunkenly insulted Alexander's adoption of Persian culture,
and in a fit of rage, Alexander killed him.
This proved to further drive a wedge between him and his native Macedonians.
Feeling that further conquests would help stabilize his political situation, and further
feeding his appetite for glory, Alexander rallied his forces once more and marched on
India.
Many tribes surrendered to Alexander without a fight, and in exchange he once more granted
them many freedoms that other conquerors wouldn’t have given them.
In 326 BC though, Alexander faced King Porus of Paurava, whose army was less experienced
but packed a superweapon- the war elephant.
Initially the war elephants sowed fear and devastation upon Alexander's army, but the
big beasts were vulnerable to Alexander's lightning-fast cavalry.
The elephants were brought down and Alexander secured defeat.
His troops though, completely exhausted, refused to continue with Alexander's plan to push
further into India and seize all of it.
Instead, Alexander wisely chose to let his troops rest.
Though the Greeks had been enriched greatly off Persia's vast wealth, they resented the
Persians after centuries of warfare.
Knowing he would never hold on to his new empire unless he could unite the two sides,
he forced the mass marriage of his Greek officers to Persian princesses, hoping that their sons
and daughters would be explicitly loyal to him.
This move turned out to be even more unpopular, and many Greeks threatened to mutiny until
Alexander replaced them with Persian officers and soldiers.
Not wanting to be left out of future spoils, his troops backed off their threats to mutiny,
and in an attempt at reconciliation, Alexander threw a fantastic banquet for all and returned
all military titles and honors to the mutinous officers.
Alexander’s conquest of Persia and forays into India helped spread Greek culture and
influence across the ancient world, as well as bringing some of the best of Persian thinking
to the Greek world.
The unity that his conquests had brought to two of the greatest people of the ancient
world would spur the Hellenistic age, and Alexander founded many of the ancient world's
most important centers of cultural and scientific development.
Among many of his accomplishments was the setting of a silver standard for currency,
which facilitated trade all across his former empire.
His liberating of huge amounts of wealth from the former Persian empire's treasury also
greatly boosted trade and wealth across the Mediterranean, and a period of prosperity
settled over the region.
Alexander's empire proved to be short-lived though, following his mysterious death at
the age of 32 made him one of history's shortest-lived rulers.
Some believe that he was poisoned by a political rival- of which he had many both on the Greek
and the Persian side.
Others though believe that he died due to malaria which he contracted during his travels
in India.
Whatever the cause of his death, Alexander proved to be the only thing holding the fragile
empire he had created together, and following his passing it immediately began to fall apart
at the seams.
His generals began to war amongst themselves in a bid to become the new supreme ruler.
Ultimately it's unknown if Alexander could have really held his empire together even
if he had lived.
His conquests had brought together many disparate peoples under one banner, most of them who
did not share a common culture.
Even while alive his empire strained and groaned under the pressure of revolution, and it was
only his political shrewdness along with savagery against his political enemies that kept it
together while alive.
How long this could have lasted though remains in doubt, and ultimately it's likely even
if he had not died from disease or poison, it would have eventually imploded anyways.
For more crazy stories about history’s world leaders go watch “Genghis Khan - Greatest
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