Alexander the Great

Alexander was one of the greatest military geniuses of all times. He was known as Alexander the Great because he did many accomplishments .One of his biggest accomplishments was spread of Greek culture, ideas, and life styles to the countries he had conquer from Greece to western India and eventually a new civilization emerge in those countries.

Alexander was born in Della, 356 B.C. He is the son of Phillip 2, king of Macedonia, and Oympias, princess of Epirus and daughter of king Neoptolemus. Aristotle had tutor Alexander rhetoric, literature, science, and medicine. Alexander had tamed a Bucephalus as a horse at the age twelve and name the city of Bucephala after his horse had fallen down at Hydaspas River. At the age eighteen, Alexander had led a group of cavalry in the battle of Chaeronea against the two Greek cities-states Athens and Thebes that had helped his father win the battle in 338B.C, which made Philp2 supreme over Greece. The defeat at Chaeronea ended Greek freedom and independence and gained over control of most of the Greek city-states except for Sparta. Phillip 2 planned to have war with Persian after defeating the Greek city- state along the coastline. Then, his father was assassinated in 336B.C, at his daughter's wedding.

Alexander decides to finish his father's dreams by conquering the Persian Empire and its wealth, which stretched more than 2000 miles from Egypt to India. One of Alexander first victory against the Persian was at the Granicus River. At Granicus River, Alexander was attacking 40,000 Persians and Greek hoplites with an army of 35,000.He had defeated them with only losing 110 men of his army. Later, Alexander took countries through Asia Minor into Palestine and south to Egypt. He conquered Gordium, Issus, Tryre, Palestine, Gaza, Alexandria, and Memphis during his journey from Macedonia to south of Egypt. At Issus, in northeastern Syria, Alexander had faced king Darius3 main Persian army. The size of Darius's army was unknown. It said to be about 500,000 men according to ancient tradition.

He had been victorious. On October 1, 331B.C, Alexander had faced the Babylon in the battle of Gaugamela, which there was about one million men he had face in the battle according to ancient tradition and ended with a victory for Alexander. Darius fled away from the battle and then he was killed by two of Alexander generals. Later, Alexander conquered Persepolis, the capital of Persian, which was the down fall of Persian Empire.

When he crossed the Hindu Kush Mountains, It was his fist time encountering soldiers mounted on elephants. Alexander had never lost a single battle in his life. His soldiers refused to go any further because they were tired of the long campaign. So Alexander decides to turn back. When he marched back to Babylon, he decided to plan a new campaign, but he died of a sudden fever in 323 BC.

He wanted to be worshiped as a god. Alexander left his immense empire to the strongest general in his army. There were three generals that had spited up the land that Alexander had conquered. The three generals are Antigon, became king of Macedonia and took control of the Greek city-states, Ptolemy, seized Egypt and established a dynasty and seleuous took most of the Old Persian Empire and became known as Seleucid empire. He had spread the Greek culture to the countries he had conquered. As a result, the Hellenistic civilization had been developed with the mixture of Greek, Persian, Egyptian, and Indian Customs. During his long Campaign, Alexander had founded many cities. Most of them were called Alexandria.