5/30/2023 0 Comments Custom world conqueror 3 generals![]() ![]() Although only 18 years old, he helped turn the tide of battle in the decisive Macedonian victory which defeated the Greek allied city-states. ![]() Of Alexander's youth, the historian Worthington writes that Alexander "would have been educated at home, as was the custom in Macedonia, and he would have grown used to seeing (and then participating in) the drinking contests that were part of Macedonian court life" but that, aside from that, "we know surprisingly little about Alexander's boyhood" (33).Īlexander's military prowess was first noted at the Battle of Chaeronea in 338 BCE. Hephaestion remained his best and dearest friend throughout his life and second-in-command of the army. He would become court historian and follow Alexander on campaign. 360-327 BCE), another friend, was Aristotle's great-nephew, and came to the Macedonian court with the philosopher. 356-324 BCE) would become his lifelong companions and generals in his army.Ĭallisthenes (l.c. Though his birth is well documented by historians, there is little information on his youth, aside from tales of his precociousness (he allegedly interviewed visiting dignitaries about the boundaries and strengths of Persia when he was seven years old), his tutors, and his childhood friends. ![]() ![]() (Plutarch, Life of Alexander, I)Īt the Oracle of Siwa, he was proclaimed a son of the god Zeus- Ammon. And all the Eastern soothsayers who happened to be then at Ephesus, looking upon the ruin of this temple to be the forerunner of some other calamity, ran about the town, beating their faces, and crying that this day had brought forth something that would prove fatal and destructive to all Asia. The temple, he says, took fire and was burnt while its mistress was absent, assisting at the birth of Alexander. Plutarch writes:Īlexander was born the sixth of Hecatombaeon, which month the Macedonians call Lous, the same day that the temple of Diana at Ephesus was burnt which Hegesias of Magnesia makes the occasion of a conceit, frigid enough to have stopped the conflagration. His birth was associated with great signs and wonders, such as a bright star gleaming over Macedonia that night and the destruction of the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus. This belief in his divinity was instilled in him by Olympias who also told him that his was a virgin birth as she had been miraculously impregnated by Zeus himself. He called himself the son of Zeus, and so claimed the status of a demigod, linking his bloodline to his two favorite heroes of antiquity, Achilles and Hercules, and modeling his behavior after theirs. While it is clear that his father had a great impact on him, Alexander himself chose to see his success as ordained by divine forces. He died of unknown causes in 323 BCE without clearly naming a successor (or, according to some accounts, his choice of the commander Perdiccas was ignored) and the empire he built was divided among the Diadochi. He is further recognized for spreading Greek culture, language, and thought from Greece throughout Asia Minor, Egypt, and Mesopotamia to India and thus initiating the era of the Hellenistic Period (323-31 BCE) during which four of his generals (his successors, known as the Diadochi), in between their wars for supremacy, continued his policies of integrating Greek ( Hellenistic) culture with that of the Near East. He is known as 'the great' both for his military genius and his diplomatic skills in handling the various populaces of the regions he conquered. 359-336 BCE) who became king upon his father's death in 336 BCE and then conquered most of the known world of his day. 336-323 BCE), was the son of King Philip II of Macedon (r. Alexander III of Macedon, better known as Alexander the Great (l. ![]()
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