Alexander The Great'S Life

While no contemporary textual evidence has survived over the years, Alexander the Great’s legacy has lived on. The unstoppable force that was Alexander the Great was the most accomplished conqueror that lived in the third century. His significance to history can be examined by studying the expanding or his territory, conquered by his father Philip II, with the destruction and conquering of the Persian empire as well as absorbing Egypt. Through his vast knowledge of history, he was able to use what he learned to help him conquer and unite once formidable enemies together.

Alexander the great was born in Pelle, Greece in 356 BC. As legend says, even at a young age he was extremely strong, intelligible, and had the distinguished characteristic that set him apart from the norm. According to Green, An example of this is Where it is stated that he tamed a horse, Bucephalus, who had a notorious reputation of being untamable at age 13. An achievement also noteworthy was his academic training under famous philosopher Aristoteles. Under this influence, Alexander was given his first understandings of politics and theory of how the world worked. After the passing of Alexander’s father, King Philip II, Alexander was the area to the throne. His father had accomplished the conquering of Greece, with an empire already at his fingertips, this probably was his greatest influence to continue his father’s work.

After abolishing an uprising revolution after his father died, he confronted the Persian Empire. The king of the Persian Empire was Darius III, due to a misleading adviser, week army, and the inexperienced the weaknesses of the Persian Empire began to be exposed. The victories of Alexander’s fast-moving tactics proved not only his strategies but also technology was far superior to Darius III (Cole and Symes, 123). This eventually caused Darius to flee, later killed by a chieftain who in turn was executed for treason. After this victory, Alexander was welcomed into Egypt with no resistance due to Egypt being governed by the now slain Persian empire. According to Cole and Symes, 123-124, Egypt had been viewed as an inspiration toward the Greeks and have never had militaristic issues due to its great distance away and absorption into Alexanders new founded empire was only less than seamless.

With these new cultures clashing together underneath one empire, Alexander used his historical knowledge to take aspects of each culture and mesh them together. By doing this he created a common ground to build a new merged culture from. An example of this was combining the Gods of Greek culture to the gods of Egyptian culture. Further explained by Cole and Symes 124, the Egyptians believed pharaohs were gods in human form or even descendants from gods. Alexander was proclaimed the oracle of Ammon-Ra. Ammon-Ra was dubbed to be their interpretation of Zeus. So the Greeks started to call Alexander the son of Zeus. It is also stated that he had further plans of merging traditions though halted by his untimely death. “..{H}e took steps that indicated how he would have tried to combine his Greco-Macedonian Empire with that of Persia, had he lived. He announced that he would begin training Persian youths to fight alongside Greeks and Macedonians..” (Cole and Symes, 125). This action of integration would have unified one army from the two. Before his death, he even went as far to courageously dress in traditional attire to show respect for Persian history and beliefs.

Though Alexander the Great’s life, we can see how his triumphant childhood evolved into the unmatched empire he created. Through his knowledge of history, he was able to conquer and merge cultures by learning from the past. By alexander’s death in 323 BCE he had toppled the Persian empire and claimed it as his own as well as absorbing Egypt with welcomed arms. We can see his significance in the history of the western world as well as his influence to many generations later that desired to use his tactics walk in his footsteps.

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