Now I’m not going to lie to anyone. While Leonidas was awesome, nothing beats Alexander the Great. And I mean that literally, he is one of the few military commanders who was never defeated in battle. Ever. Think about that for a second.

In a way I’m rather displeased with listing Alexander as #4, seeing as he is my all-time favourite and the rest will only be slightly down-hill from here. Alas, I’m doing them chronologically so I don’t have that much of a choice. Before continuing to his biography I would like to mention 1 of his accomplishments; he was basically king of the world. By the time he was in the prime of his life (30), he had actually conquered what was then known as the majority of the world (at least the civilized world, not counting the barbaric middle and northern Europe where only shepherds lived). His empire stretched all the way from Macedonia to the India, thus including basically the whole of Greece, the Middle East, Egypt and quite a large part of India itself. Also, historians to this day exhibit their doubts about his sanity.

Biography

Alexander was born in 356 BC as a bastard Prince of Macedon, son to the king of Macedon, Philip II. Philip was quite a good conqueror himself and managed to subjugate several Greek city states, most notably Athens and Thebes.

Alexander himself was tutored by none other than Aristotle himself. That’s right; the great Greek philosopher was the teacher of the Greek king of the world. I guess success seeks success. Several stories about Alexander’s childhood are known. For instance, this one time he tamed a fierce horse that was given as a gift to his father by some other king. Noone else could find a way to calm the steed until Alexander realized the goddamn beast was afraid of his own shadow and tamed him thus (I’m not exactly sure how that works, but I’m not exactly into husbandry). Another story was that he was reprimanded by his teacher for throwing to much frankincense into a sacrificial fire, followed by the mocking words “you can waste all the frankincense that you want after you have conquered the spice-bearing regions”. Alexander retorted by sending his old teacher 15 tons of myrrh after actually doing so. The final childhood story I want to share is when Philip was celebrating something with a great feast and eventually called for a toast that he was to wish for an heir. This infuriated Alexander who threw his silver cup at his father and exclaimed; “What am I, a bastard then?”. His drunken father rose up to put his son in his place with sword in hand until he drunkenly fell over after which Alexander proclaimed; “Here is the man planning on conquering from Greece to Asia, and he cannot even move from one table to another.” Following this he fled Macedon with his mother but later all things were sorted out and he was allowed to return.

Fast forward to 338 BC, Alexander fought as a commander for his father at the Battle of Chaeronea, pitting Macedonia versus the city states of Athens and Thebes. Alexander was put in charge of a part of the army, and in what would become his first conquest, completely annihilated the so called ‘Sacred Band of Thebes’, an elite military division previously regarded as invulnerable.

Two years later the father Philip was assasinated, Alexander was made King of Macedon at the ripe age of 20. Looking at this as a golden opportunity, the newly annexed states like Athens and Thebes decided to rebel and regain their independence. How does a tactical genius solve this? He marches to Thebes and they surrender instantly.

With the city-states under his control, the Macedonian King expaned his territory Northwise. While campaigning, Athens and Thebes decided to test their strength once more. This time, not missing a beat, Alexander marched in there and ripped Thebes apart. The rebellions quickly quelled after that.

The next part of Alexander’s life concerns his conquests, I’m not going to go in great detail for these, as they are not particularely interesting, the most important thing is the final result. Alexander crossed the Hellespont between Greece and Persia (what is now Turkey) and started waging war on the Persians. Alexander would find his greatest foe the Persian king Darius III. Where ‘greatest’ is relative, as Alexander would proceed to never lose a single battle. Around 332 BC, he entered Persian-occupied Egypt and was hailed as a liberator. The priests proclaimed him son of their deity Amun. He also founded Alexandria in Egypt, which is still very important for the national Egyptian economy today.

Long story short, Alexander defeated the Persians at every opportunity and finally defeated a continously fleeing Darius. In the meantime Alexander did not make himself too popular at home, he adopted Persian clothing and customs (including kissing of one’s superior’s hand, a token of divinity in Macedonia) which did not help the cause. Several plots against his life were unmasked and all involved (or semi-involved, as Alexander became slightly paranoid) were executed.

After the subjugation of Persia, Alexander went eastward to what is now India. Here a few of Alexander’s more megalomaniacal traits became apparent. The Macedon-Persia warrior king slaugthered the Indian strongholds of Aornos, Ora and Massaga and even reduced the very buildings to rubble. After campaigning against the tribe of Assakenoi, Alexander promised to spare the lives of those who surrendered. All who surrendered were executed. And afterwards of course the rest of the population followed.

Eventually the king stopped his killing-spree and returned home. Here he executed even more people, usually his own appointed governors for misbehaving.

 Eventually he died on June 11 323 BC, almost 33 years old. The exact reasoning of his death is unkown and speculations range from poisoning to alcohol abuse. On his deathbed he would proceed to utter one more famous line; upon questioning by his generals who would succeed him, he is said to have uttered “To the strongest!”. Alternatively he may have said “To Craterus”, one of his generals who was not present at the time and the others may have chosen to mishear him.

Legacy

Alexander’s impact on history is tremendous. It are his conquests that are often taught to be responsible for the massive spread in Greek culture (and hence, Roman culture by proxy). He founded multiple cities (all called Alexandria or a variant thereof) some of which still exist today. He was in fact already a mythical figure when he was alive, and would almost be revered after his death by military commanders worldwide.

 Finally, his name ‘Sikander’ in Hindi (Indian language) is synonymous with ‘expert’ or ‘very skilled’

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