Alexander III
King of Macedonia
(356 BC–323 BC)

Other names: The Great

Other Titles

King of Persia, 330 BC–323 BC†
Pharaoh of Egypt (?), 332 BC–323 BC†
King of Babylonia, 331 BC
Lord of Asia (Persian empire), 330 BC–323 BC†

Biographical

The son of Philip of Macedon and Olympias, daughter of Neoptolemus of Epirus, Alexander was trained by Aristotle in every branch of human learning. He was just sixteen when his father marched against Byzantium, and left him regent in his absence; and he displayed singular courage at the battle of Chaeronea. Philip, being appointed generalissimo of the Greeks, was preparing for a war with Persia, when he was assassinated in 336 BC, and Alexander, not yet twenty years of age, ascended the throne. Having crushed the rebellious lllyrians, and razed Thebes to the ground (to prevent a coalition with Athens), Alexander crossed the Hellespont in 334 BC, and obtained a great victory over the Persians at the river Granicus; whereupon most of the cities of Asia Minor at once opened their gates to him. At a pass near lssus, in Cilicia, he met Darius, who had advantage in numbers, and utterly defeated him. The family of Darius, as well as his treasure, fell into the hands of the conqueror who treated them with the greatest magnanimity. Alexander now occupied Damascus, and took and destroyed Tyre, after seven months of incredible exertion in 332 BC. From then on he marched victoriously through Palestine. Egypt, weary of the Persian yoke, welcomed him as a deliverer (he was probably crowned pharaoh of Egypt in 331 BC), and there he restored native institutions and founded Alexandria in 331 BC. After consulting the oracle of Ammon in the Libyan Desert, he again set out to meet Darius, and near Arbela in 331 BC, he won another decisive victory over an even greater army than at lssus. Darius escaped on horseback. Babylon and Susa, the treasure-houses of the East, opened their gates to Alexander, who also entered Persepolis in triumph, the capital of Persia. That in a fit of drunkenness, and at the instigation of Thäis, an Athenian courtesan, he set fire to Persepolis, the wonder of the world, and reduced it to a heap of ashes, is mere legend. In 329 BC he overthrew the Scythians on the banks of the Jaxartes; and in the next year he subdued the whole of Sogdiana, and married Roxana. whom he had taken prisoner. The murder of his foster-brother, Clitus, in a drunken brawl, followed. ln 326 BC, proceeding to the conquest of India, hitherto own only by name, Alexander crossed the lndus near to the modern Attock, and at the Hydaspes (Jhelum) overthrew Porus, after a bloody conquest, in which he lost his his charger Bucephalus; from there he marched through the Punjab establishing Greek colonies. Having then fought his way to the ocean, he ordered Nearchus to sail to the Persian Gulf, while he himself marched back through Gedrosia (Baluchistan). Of all the troops which had set out with Alexander, little more than a fourth part arrived with him in Persia in 325 BC. At  Susa he married Stateira, the daughter of Darius. At Babylon he was busy with gigantic plans of conquest and civilisation, when he was taken ill after a banquet, and died eleven days later. His body was deposited in a gold coffin at Alexandria by Ptolemaeus. His empire soon broke up, and was divided amongst his generals. Alexander was more than a conqueror. He diffused the language and civilisation of Greece; and to him the ancient world owed a vast increase of knowledge in geography and natural history.

Place of birth: Pella
Place of first marriage: Sogdiana
Place of second marriage: Susa
Place of death: Babylon
Place of burial: Alexandria