Alexander the Great: Life and Reign of the King of the Macedonian Empire

Did you know that Alexander the Great had a habit of renaming cities after himself? And in one case he even named a city after his beloved horse. Stick around to learn all about Alexander the Great in honor of his birthday. Hello and welcome to World History Encyclopedia. My name is Kelly and in honor of the birth of Alexander the Great on either the 20th or 21st of July 356 BCE, we're going to be answering the questions Happy birthday Alexander! Don't forget the easiest way to support us is by giving this video a thumbs up and subscribing to our channel and hitting the bell icon for notifications so you don't miss out on our new uploads every Tuesday and Friday. Alexander the Great, also known as Alexander III of Macedon, became king of Macedon after the death of his father, King Philip II in 336 BCE. Alexander is known for both his military might and his diplomatic skills which aided in his expansion of the Macedonian kingdom to an empire of a size his father had not even dreamed of. Alexander is recognized as a key figure in the spread of Greek culture and language throughout the ancient world and his death sparked the beginning of the Hellenistic period which spanned from 323 to 31 BCE. After his death, his campaigns became legendary and later Greek and Roman generals learned from his successes and failures and were influenced by his tactics. When Alexander was young, he was taught to fight and ride by Leonidas of Epirus and how to read, write and play the lyre by Lysimachus of Achanania. When he was 13 or 14, he was tutored by the Greek philosopher Aristotle until he was 16. Perhaps due to Aristotle's teachings which encouraged tolerance, Alexander never forced the Greek culture on those he conquered but simply introduced it to them. Despite his father Philip II laying the groundwork for Alexander to be successful, Alexander claimed all the credit for himself and chose to call himself a son of Zeus, claiming to be a demigod, modelling his behaviour after his two favourite heroes Hercules and Achilles. This claim was in part due to Olympias, Alexander's mother, claiming that his was a virgin birth and that she was miraculously impregnated by Zeus. Alexander's childhood friends Hephaestion, Cassander and Ptolemy would all become lifelong companions and generals in his army and Aristotle's great nephew Callisthenes, who was also a friend, would become the court historian and follow Alexander on campaign. At 18 years old in 338 BCE at the Battle of Chaeronea, fought between the Macedonian Empire and the Greek allied city-states, Alexander's military skill was first noted when he turned the tide of the battle for a Macedonian victory and afterwards the Greek city-states were brought under Macedonian rule. In 336 BCE, just two years after the Battle of Chaeronea, Philip II died and Alexander assumed the throne as king of Macedon. Alexander wasted no time in embarking on the extensive campaign that his father had been planning, the conquest of the Persian Empire. As king, Alexander the Great moved into Asia Minor, modern-day Turkey, in 334 BCE with 32,000 infantry and 5,100 cavalry and in May of 334 he fought the Persian satraps or governors at the Battle of Granicus and was victorious. According to Alexander, he then liberated the cities of Sardis and Ephesus from Persian rule, although his word liberated has been understood as the conquest of these cities. In 333 BCE, Alexander fought the Persian king Darius III at the Battle of Issus, a battle famous for its depiction on the Alexander Mosaic. Alexander defeated Darius's larger force and he then sacked the Phoenician cities of Baalbek and Sidon and in 332 he laid siege to the island city of Tyre. The Siege of Tyre is a famous example of his commitment to victory and his ruthlessness. In order to bring his siege engines within striking distance of Tyre's walls, he had his army build a land bridge out to the island, which is how the island city became linked to the land as the site still is today. And in response to the stubbornness of the inhabitants of the city refusing to surrender, he slaughtered most of them and then sold the survivors as slaves. In 331 he moved to Egypt and conquered it and founded the city of Alexandria there, named after himself, of course. Alexander had a habit of naming cities after himself and even his horse Bucephalus, but we'll get to that later. Alexander marched his army across the desert to the oasis of Siwa so that he could visit the oracle of Zeus Amon that presided there. Alexander knew of the infallible reputation of the oracle who had been consulted by the heroes Heracles and Perseus. Alexander asked the oracle whether his father was truly Philip II and the oracle declared his true father to be Zeus Amon. There was no military value to marching to Siwa and losing some men to the desert. It was either to satisfy his megalomania or a cleverly calculated PR stunt to spread the myth of him being a demigod. Or both. We will never know. The next phase of Alexander's conquests is known as the Persian Campaigns. In 331, Alexander met Darius III in battle once again, this time at the Battle of Gorgomela, which is also known as the Battle of Arbela. Alexander was victorious again. Darius fled the battle and then Alexander took the cities of Babylon and Susa, which both surrendered to him. It's safe to say that Alexander was on a roll. In the winter of 330, Alexander and his army marched to Persepolis and defeated the Persian hero Ariobarzanes and his sister Yutab Ariobarzane at the Battle of the Persian Gates. And after Alexander was victorious, he set Persepolis on fire, probably in a drunken folly. In the summer of the same year, Darius was assassinated by his cousin and general Bessus, which Alexander thought was deplorable. After the death of Darius, Alexander crowned himself the King of Asia, gave Darius the burial of a Persian emperor, and then marched his army into Bactria, what is now modern-day Afghanistan. If you haven't noticed by now, this man does not stop. Between the years 330 and 327, Alexander campaigned in Bactria and Sogdiana and won every engagement. And in 329, he destroyed the city of Cyropolis, defeated the Scythians and founded another city named after himself, It was around this point that Alexander began to portray himself not just as a liberator of cities, but as a god. He adopted the title that the rulers of the first Persian empire used, Shahanashah, which means king of kings, and the Persian custom of proskenesis, which meant that those who addressed him had to kneel and kiss his hand. To say that his Macedonian troops were unhappy about this is an understatement. His troops became increasingly unhappy with his adoption of Persian customs and were growing more and more uncomfortable, so much so that assassination plans were formed. Of course, the conspirators and those who committed treason or questioned his authority were found out and executed, including his close friends Cletus, who was killed with the javelin, and Callisthenes, who was imprisoned and died in confinement. In 327, Alexander married the Bactrian woman Roxana and then set his sights on India. The Indian king Omphis of Taxila surrendered quickly, but the Aspasioi and Asekhenoi tribes resisted. By 326, Alexander had subdued the tribes, then fought King Porus of Porava and his war elephants at the Battle of Hydaspes River. In true Alexander fashion, he won the battle and then made Porus ruler of a larger region than he'd previously held because of how bravely he and his troops had fought. During this battle, his horse Bucephalus was killed and so, of course, he named the city Bucephala after him. By now, Alexander's troops were exhausted and they didn't want to go any further, and it took some convincing, but finally Alexander decided to head back to Susa. Half his troops were sent by sea and half he marched through the Gedrosian Desert where many died of thirst and starvation. Why he chose to do this, we don't really know. When he finally arrived back in Susa, he found that many of the satraps he left in charge had abused their power, so he executed them as well as those who vandalized Cyrus the Great's tomb. Alexander wanted to merge the cultures of Macedonia and Persia more, so in 324 he held a mass marriage service in Susa where he married Persian noblewomen to senior members of his staff and to connect himself to Persian royalty, he married one of Darius III's daughters. His men rejected this cultural merging and his adoption of Persian dress and they really didn't like how he merged the Macedonian and Persian army units and promoted Persians to high positions even though it seems this was an effective policy in furthering his goal of uniting the two cultures. So after looking at all these battles which Alexander the Great took part in during his short life, was Alexander the Great ever defeated? No, no he was not. In the year 324, his closest companion Hephaestion died of a fever and Alexander's grief was inconsolable. Arian wrote that Alexander killed Hephaestion's doctor because he failed to heal him. Alexander declared a period of mourning and gave him the funeral rites usually reserved for a king. A year after the death of his closest friend and companion, Alexander the Great suffered 10 days of a high fever before he died on June 10 or 11 in 323 at the age of 32. There are a few competing hypotheses regarding the death of Alexander the Great ranging from poisoning or assassination, typhoid or malaria and new hypotheses continue to be suggested. More recent suggestions for the cause of Alexander's death are the West Nile virus or Julian Barr syndrome. Ancient sources say that Alexander's body didn't begin decomposing until six days after he was proclaimed dead and GBS could be the reason why. Alexander may have been experiencing paralysis which meant his body would not have needed as much oxygen so it may have looked as if he wasn't breathing. Ancient doctors didn't use the pulse to determine if someone was alive but rather if they were breathing or not so when Alexander was confirmed dead he may have not actually been dead for another six days. He left no will and named no successor resulting in the wars then waged by his generals which tore apart the empire he had created. Out of these two so-called successor states two became powerful states in their own right Ptolemaic Egypt and Seleucid Persia. Do you believe Alexander the Great really was great? Let us know why or why not down in the comments below. If you enjoyed this video make sure to give it a thumbs up and subscribe to our channel and hit that bell icon for notifications so you don't miss out on our new videos every Tuesday and Friday. This video was brought to you by World History Encyclopedia. For more great articles and interactive content head to our website via the link below. 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