A long time ago there lived a man named Alexander. If you don’t know him I won’t blame you because there is a lot of justification to why. Many people today call him great but many, many, others don’t think so. I agree, because there are many reasons why he wasn’t so great. His journey started about 2372 years ago.1 Alexander grew up as royalty in an ancient area above Greece called Macedonia.2 He learned most things from the famous greek philosopher, Aristotle. This may not be the case for all royal children but Alexander grew to have an abnormally large ego and eventually came to think of himself as a god (dream on Alexander). He grew up to take over his father’s empire and conquer almost everything in between Greece and India.3
Alexander conquered a lot of land, and when I say a lot I mean A LOT. About 2,000,000 square miles of it!4 This is the type of guy who would say “ We have conquered all of Persia. Now we have Egypt, India, and the rest of the world to get under our rule.” As you can see Alexander must have been a greedy man to have ruled The Persian and Egyptian empire, all of Greece, and still want more.
You know what to do when someone helps you. Kill them is what Alexander thought. According to the Legend of the Hat Band an innocent sailor went after the royal band that belonged to Alexander. It was about to fly off the ship but the man saved it and brought it to Alexander.5 Alexander first gave him an amount of money equivalent to more than 100,000 U.S. dollars. Then he CUT OFF HIS HEAD! He killed a man for retrieving a prized possession. That is not what a great man would do. A great man is kind, caring, and grateful.
They weren’t men who unnecessarily killed others.
Such a large and powerful empire would at least be expected to last a long time , but instead Alexander’s whole empire fell apart ten years after his death. It took this this man 11 years to create this vast empire but it collapsed shortly after his death! If this is what he is remembered for, Alexander doesn’t strike me as a great man. Yet he may continue to be looked upon as a great man but all the atrocious things he did can’t be done again because, you know, he’s dead and until we see an actual greek god standing in front of us I am sure that he is going to stay that way.
1 How Great Was Alexander the Great? - Created from Various Sources
2 History Alive! The Ancient World - Wendy Frey 3 Alexander’s Empire - Created from Various Sources
4 Chart of Alexander’s Legacy - Created from Various Sources 5 The Legend of the Hat Band - Ian Worthington
