Imagine that you have a kind friend that likes the way you think, who respects and is fond of learning about your culture/religion. But you realize that when he doesn’t get what he wants, that a day or two later , he gets into trouble. Yet, people don’t say anything because they are not wanting anything to happen to them. So he can have two sides but both are just because he goes for his goals.Which side would you think of him?
Alexander was a replica of that, he was a type of person who reached for what he wanted. If he wanted a city that didn’t want him, he would still go to get it. He had a personality of being:
-Kind
-Helped put down rebellions in city-states
-Respectful ( of different cultures/religions, and their gods)
Yet stubborn .He was what you would call a force to be reckon with. He would be all those things unless he didn’t get what he wanted. And if that happened then he would’ve done something like burning city-states and killing people or have them crucified.
This is an example of a burning city.
Source: www.cais-soas.com
Whether it was given or not , he still made great accomplishments.
Now I would call conquering 2,000,000 sq. miles in his empire by the time of his death a great accomplishment.1 Having that amount is only 200,000 more needed to get to the size of the roman empire at it’s greatest. Another accomplishment is the amount of years the empire held together after his death to how long it took to build it. Usually it wouldn’t be as long as it took to build it, but Alexander’s empire held up to 10 years after his death. Which is only one year away from how long it took to build it which was 11 years. And within those 11 years, there were 70 cities founded by Alexander but 11 named after him.
With all of the greatness we know there has to be some badness. As easy as it sounds, we all know that taking over 2,000,000 (sq.) miles is not the easiest thing. So with that there are going to be battles and fights, but when 100,000 enemy soldiers and civilians are killed in 4 major battles, you get a hint of badness.
Even though Alexander can be stubborn(literally), and did bad things, he has done some remarkable,amazing accomplishments especially for at a young age. Even so he still could be like the other rulers in history. Would you call him an usual ruler in history or Alexander the Great?
1 The Chart of Alexander’s Legacy- Created by Various Sources
