Alexander the ferocious ruler. The untrue statement. Do you know why? He started his rule of Macedonia by setting out to conquer the Persian Empire, the biggest empire at the time. Alexander did this by having an army of about 40,000 soldiers to pass through Asia Minor, Egypt, and Persia.1 I feel that a person that challenged the Persian Empire to take over and actually won would have to be very great. I say this because the Persian Empire was like twice the size of Macedonia. Alexander’s empire at his death was 2,000,000 square miles, which is only 200,000 square miles less than the size of the Roman Empire at its height.2 I mean, only someone as great as Alexander the Great would be able to build that big of an empire in 11 years2 when it took the Romans 276 years to build their empire.3
Another reason why we call Alexander, “Alexander the Great” is because of how smart, bold, and intelligent he was. He first started his track by learning from the all mighty philosopher Aristotle.
Alexander learned-
- Academic subjects
- Politics
- Sports
- Warfare
from Aristotle4
He was also very smart with his strategy. In order to conquer Persia, as I mentioned before, you had to be smart with the way you decided to attack. The way Alexander did it was by attacking and killing the Persian king Darius.4 After that, he took the throne and married Darius’ daughter. Another way Alexander showed his smartness was in the battle against a prince called Porus, in India. Here, Alexander used a good strategy to attack, and win. He started by leaving 5,000 men in full view opposite the Hydaspes River, and leading 10,000 men to cross the river 10 miles upstream.5 Porus’ army was tricked into thinking that Alexander was not going to cross, and was not prepared to be ambushed. The elephants that Porus’ army was going to use for battle got frightened, and they then stomped their big bodies around and started to attack their owners.
The last reason that I would like to talk to you about would be how Alexander showed his people that he had equality. In one legend called “The Legend of the Helmet”, it stated a time the army was crossing a desert.5 All the men were being tormented by thirst because of the fact that the water source was still far away. Alexander eased this feeling when the men saw Alexander walking beside them, and as tormented as they were. Alexander helped his men realize that they were equal to their general in at least one way.
1 The Map of Alexander’s Empire - Created by Various Sources
2 The Chart of Alexander’s Legacy - Created by Various Sources
3 How many days did it take to build Rome - Quora
4 How great was Alexander the Great? - Alexander the Great Mini-Q
5 The Campaigns of Alexander - By Lucius Flavius Arrianus
