Oh. My. Gosh. Alexander the Great. Don’t even get me started on him. But that’s why you’re here reading this isn’t it? Alexander was what, 20? when he inherited the position of King of Macedonia.1 He was such an arrogant guy, naming and renaming over 70 cities after himself when he conquered them, he even named on after his horse!2 He was like, super spoilt too, his father hired ARISTOTLE to teach Alexander, which made him so big-headed he began to believe he was a god!1 While on his little 8 year long conquering spree, Alexander somehow ‘tricked’ the Egyptians into believing he was a god, and required the Greeks to accept him as a son of Zeus.3 Evidently “a most agreeable odor” exuded from Alexander’s skin, and “His breath and body all over was so fragrant as to the perfume the clothes which he wore.”4 What I’m getting from this is that somehow, somebody who lived 400 years after Alexander had maybe been told this through family from a relative who had sniffed Alexander a long time ago? Also, Alexander was kinda aggressive, I mean, trampling people with their own elephants when you couldn’t defeat them the, after fighting for ? That’s the best you could come up with? The fact that he entered Tyre after fighting for 7 months and then breaking down their walls because they lived on an island in a “ferocious manhunt”5. He crucified 2,000 men of military age, and burned it down because they wouldn’t surrender to him is just cruel.5 Didn’t his mother ever teach him not to burn down cities when he has a tantrum? 540 years after Alexander’s death, Roman Emperor Marcus Macrinus had images of Alexander sewn into his clothes.6 I get that Marcus was respecting Alexander and all but seriously? That’s a bit creepy don’t you think?. Imagine how awkward that would be. “ Hey! Who’s that on your shirt?” “ Oh, just that guy who ruled an empire 400 years ago and killed a bunch of people too! I want to be just like him with this empire!” “ Okay then, I’m just gonna walk away now, maybe I’ll go to a different empire.” Like Alexander wasn’t a Justin Bieber or Beyoncé over there, just that one guy who conquered 2,000,000 square miles of land and killed a bunch of people.6 The point is, what Alexander did was impressive, but he shouldn’t be considered great judging from the impressiveness of his empire,
but what he did to get that empire.
1The Mini Q - How Great Was Alexander the Great?
3History Alive! The Ancient World
4 Plutarch’s “Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans”
5 Lucius Flavius Arrianus “The Campaigns of Alexander”
6 Chart of Alexander’s Legacy - various sources
