Alexander the Great

"There is nothing impossible to him who will try"

Alexander II was born in the year 356 BCE within the walls of the ancient Macedonian capital city Pella, whose ruins still stand to this day. His father was King Philip II and his mother was Olympias, daughter of King Neoptolemus of Epirus. Alexanders future was bright, a kingdom one day to be his, popularity amongst the people and the highest form of education from the ancient world where he was tutored by Aristotle himself. He had his first taste of battle when he was just 18 years old at the Battle of Chaeronea, a crucial victory that helped subdue all of Greece under his father. Despite this, his mother was one of seven wives to Philip and his fathers last marriage to Cleopatra Eurydice was the one that threatened Alexanders smooth path as heir to the throne. She was a much younger woman out of Philips wives which meant she had a high likely hood of baring him another son. Alongside this, the bond between father and son was rocky around this time. Alexander was exiled from his fathers kingdom in 337 BCE to Illyria after a heated argument in front of guests erupted between the pair. Two of his closest friends, Hephaestion and Ptolemy accompanied young Alexander in exile which lasted a year before he returned to his fathers kingdom to make amends. It is also worth mentioning that his friend Ptolemy was the founder of the Ptolemaic dynasty of Egypt that lasted 275 years, before it came crashing down after the death of Cleopatra VII. A year after Alexander had returned from exile, Philip was assassinated by one of his body guards Pausanius. This murder has ignited many debates amongst historians, some believe it was a move constructed by the Persians and others believe it was an instruction by Olympias, who wanted to ensure her son inherited what was rightfully his. Either way Alexander took the Macedonian crown at just 20 years old.

Alexanders early life

The Persian campaign

At the time Persia’s territory was 2 million square miles with the mesmerising city of Babylon as its capital. For 3 demanding years, packed with back to back battles, Alexander led his army to victory over Persia’s king, Darius III.

Fight at Halicarnassus 334 BCE

The siege of Halicarnassus proved to be a difficult one for Alexander and his army. It was heavily fortified with two high walls encircling the city as well as a deep moat dug right in front of its gates. Inside of these walls stood a force of Greek mercenaries lead by Memnon of Rhodes. Memnon had proved himself as a worthy commander and was given leadership over the Persian navy by Darius. The first few attempts at breaching the cities defence were unsuccessful, however with determination and perseverance the Macedonians were able to force Memnon into giving up and fleeing the city. Before he disembarked from the harbour, Memnon sent out orders to burn down as many buildings possible. With no leadership Alexander took the city with ease, putting out the fires and sparing its inhabitants. It took Alexander a couple of months to complete the siege of Halicarnassus, which gave him and his men a gruelling insight of the challenge ahead.

Moving deeper into Persia

Leaving a force of 3,000 infantry and around 200 cavalry stationed at Halicarnassus, Alexander and the rest of his army moved on through the region of Phrygia venturing deeper into Persian territory. He took numerous cities without any significant force and imposed heavy tax levies on its inhabitants. Alexander received reports around this time of betrayal committed by Alexander the son of Aëropus, one of the companions and commander of the Thessalian cavalry. He had previously sent a letter to Darius offering his services in assassinating Alexander the Great. Sisines, a man from Darius’ inner circle was despatched to meet with the conspirer but Sisines was caught by Parmenion who then discovered the conspiracy. Both men were imprisoned and Alexander continued his campaign unharmed.

Alexander received reports of Memnons movement around Greek territory, he had captured islands such as Chios, Lesbos and now had moved to take the city of Mytilene. During the siege of Mytilene, Memnon died from an illness and the command was passed down to his nephew Pharnabazus who continued his work alongside a man named Authophradates. It wasn't long before the Mytilenaens requested a negotiation for surrender in which both parties accepted terms unfavourable to the defenders. A key factor in this agreement was that the Mytilenaeans would drop the alliance they had with Alexander and become allies of Darius. On entry into the city, Pharnabazus and Authophradates installed a man of their own choice called Diogenes as ruler of the city, as well as extorting money from them. The two men soon left the island with 100 ships to submit the inhabitants of Tendos, whilst a Persian general named Datames was sent to an island called Cyclades with 10 ships. Alexander sent a fleet under the command of Proteas, son of Andronichs, to find Datames. Proteas eventually does find him and succeeded in taking 8/10 ships along with its crews, but Datames managed to flee the scene.

Battle of Issus 333 BCE

During his fast and aggressive approach of capturing Persian towns and cities, Alexander fell ill with his health falling into a rapid decline. Fortunately for him, a doctor from Acarnania named Philip gave the Macedonian King medicine that seemed to have saved him. At first Permenion did not trust Philip and even warned Alexander of the physician, claiming he had been sent by Darius to kill him. Alexander dismissed this for paranoia. His health soon bettered as he made his way through the Cicilian Gates taking the cities Tarsus, Anchialus and Soli. Whilst at Soli word reached Alexander that his generals Ptolemy and Asander, who had been sent on a mission beforehand, had defeated a force under the Persian officer called Orontobates. It was reported that the Macedonians killed around 750 of Orontobates' men with a further thousand imprisoned. Shortly after receiving this good news, Alexander was informed of Darius' army camped roughly 2 days march from him. He wasted no time before marching his army out to face the Persians. The two forces met face to face on a favourable battle ground to the Macedonians, which was nice and compact for their smaller force of 75,000 compared to Darius' army of around 600,000. On the day of battle, Alexander waited patiently for the gap between both armies to close in before he lead an abrupt charge that smashed into the enemy's left flank. The Persians struck back thanks to their Greek mercenaries who targeted a gap between Alexanders right flank and middle. Many Macedonians died in this ferocious counter attack, one being Alexanders general Ptolemy, son of Seleucus. It didn't take long however for the Macedonian right flank to sort itself out before charging inwards at Darius' Greek mercenaries and slaughtering most of them. Soon hope of victory had begun to slip away from the Persians and Darius decided to flee the battlefield before he could be caught. Overall around 100,000 soldiers from the Persian army were killed, Arsames, Artizyes and Rheomithres were just few of the names of the nobility that were included in this number. On the other hand, the Macedonians dead were said to be just below the 500 mark. Alexander was lucky enough to finish the battle with just a wound to the thigh.

Siege of Tyre 332 BCE

Despite Darius losing the battle of Issus he was still alive with many Persians ready to fight for him and because of this the people of Tyre were unsure on whose side to support. In the end they chose to forbid any Macedonian or Persian into their city. This angered Alexander who then decided to lay siege on the city, which proved to be one of the most challenging sieges the Macedonians had come to face so far. This was mainly due to the city being on an island enclosed with high walls. To tackle these obstacles the attackers built a mole from mainland to the island, but the next problem they had was as Alexanders men moved closer to the island, the inhabitants would unleash arrows and whatever else they could find to throw at the Macedonians. The Tyrians also had ships sailing around the area constantly attacking the structure and its builders. Luckily for Alexander, Enylus the king of Byblus and Gerostratus the king of Aradus had abandoned Autophradates' navy, taking roughly 80 ships to Alexanders aid. Twenty two more ships came from Rhodes, Soli, Mallus and Lycia and lastly another 120 came from Cyprus bringing the overall number to 222 ships. As well as this, Alexander welcomed 4,000 fresh Greek mercenaries who had been brought over by Cleander the son of Polemocrates. The Tyrian fleet was destroyed with the defenders left hopeless. It only took Alexander a further 2 days to infiltrate the cities wall. The number killed on the Tyrian side was around 8,000 and a further 30,000 sold into slavery, whereas Alexander lost roughly 400 men. At some point during the siege Alexander received word from Darius with a proposal to end the war. He offered Alexander 10,000 talents for the release of his family, all the land between the Aegean Sea and river Euphrates as well as his daughter's hand in marriage. Alexander refused this proposal because he had already took Darius’ country and money anyway, so the preposition made no difference to him. One again both men prepared again for battle.

Siege of Gaza 332 BCE

After the siege of Tyre Alexander turned to conquering Gaza, a city of the Achaemenid Empire. This city was governed by a man named Batis who readied his city for a long siege by gathering plenty of food and supplies to outlast the Macedonian attack. Just like the many other cities Alexander had come up against, Gaza too had high walls that circled its city, but their defence was no match for the Macedonian siegecraft. During the building process of these siege engines, the defenders attempted numerous times to set fire to the structures until Alexander himself took a force to fight these attacks off. In the process of this Alexander was hit by a catapult to the shoulder that, fortunately for him, was nothing more than a bad wound and when the towers had been complete, the Macedonians made it over the wall and defeated the Gazaeans.

The Battle of Gaugamela, October 331 BCE

Shortly after infiltrating the city of Gaza and proceeding to cross the River Tigris, Alexander learned from captured fighters the full scale of Darius' army. The figures reported to him were much higher than the previous battle, with the Persian king said to possess over a million fighters that included 15 elephants. Alexanders confidence in himself and his soldiers capabilities was proven at The Battle of Gaugamela, where the Macedonians battered Darius’ army for a second time. The fighting was fierce with both sides having success of their own at times, but when things went from bad to worse for the Persians, Darius chose to flee the battleground again. Unaware of their kings departure, the Persian cavalry managed to infiltrate the Macedonian left flank. Parmenion was near the left flank at the time and was fighting extremely hard to hold off the enemy cavalrymen who had now poured into his section. He managed to send a messenger to Alexander who instantly despatched the companion cavalry to Parmenions aid and headed himself directly for the Persians right flank. Alexander was successful in fighting the cavalrymen off and fortunately for him, the young general managed to survive a dangerous counter attack the Persians had retaliated with that killed 60 of his own men. Now he had regained control of his left flank, Alexander finished off Darius’ army he had left behind. The estimated deaths for Alexanders force was as little as 100, whereas Darius’ was believed to be as high as 300,000.

Alexander the Great's death

The mysterious death of Alexander has left open many debates on what killed the successful general. We know from historical sources he was dared to down an entire krater of wine by a friend the night before he fell seriously ill. This creates suspicion to whether alcohol poison had killed Alexander, however, there are other theories that argue against this. One theory written by Dr. Katherine Hall, states that he may have suffered from a neurological disorder called Guillian-Barré syndrome. Hall believes Alexander’s breathes would have been so subtle due to his unconscious state that the physicians at the time mispronounced his death. The fact that Alexanders body did not decompose for 6 days after he was pronounced dead supports this point. If Halls theory is true then Alexander would have endured an excruciating death during the embalming process. At just 32 years old he died on foreign soil, within the spectacular ancient city of Babylon. The aftermath of his death saw mass revolts throughout the Macedonian empire and his generals would also go onto fight amongst themselves for power over the throne.