Alexander the Great, was he really great or just a ruthless conqueror like Asoka? Let me tell you. Asoka was an Indian leader who conquered land for the good of himself and no one else. As I have said before in an essay explaining why Asoka should be remembered as a ruthless conqueror and not an enlightened ruler, “The main reason Asoka should be remembered as a ruthless conqueror was the Kalinga conquest. When Asoka became ruler of the Mauryan Empire all he wanted was more power and more land so he decided to conquer Kalinga. 350,000 people were either killed, died, or driven out of the country…” The things Alexander did were very similar to what Asoka did: kill, conquer, and he was foolish.
Alexander conquered parts of Europe, India, Asia, and Africa all for himself; he was hungry for land and power. Alexander is admired for his many accomplishments at such a young age but that doesn’t mean that the accomplishments were good. He conquered 3,000 miles of land, founded over 70 cities named after himself, Alexandria, and one city named after his horse, Bucephala. One of Alexander’s Alexandrias is the second largest city in Egypt near the Nile and it’s the most popular. After 15 years of conquest Alexander fought in 10 major battles and won every single one. This shows how selfish and self-centered Alexander the not so great was.
Alexander the so called great didn’t only conquer but he killed innocent people who believed he was good. Alexander was very religious but many times he could be called too religious or a religion fanatic. If you ask me I wouldn’t say that Alexander was a religious person, if religious meant cruel, repugnant, and murderous then maybe we could say that. “When the last organized resistance was broken, Alexander’s [soldiers] ranged through the city on a ferocious manhunt…. Alexander had ordered that all [except] those who sought sanctuary [safety in the temple] were to be slain, and his commands were executed with savage relish. The air grew thick with smoke from burning buildings. Seven thousand Tyrians died … and the number would have been far higher had it not been far higher had it not been for the men of Sidon, who entered the city alongside Alexander’s troops. Even though Tyre had been Sidon’s rival for centuries, these neighbors of the victims, horrified by what they now witnessed, managed to smuggle some 15,000 of them to safety.
The great city… was now utterly destroyed. Her king, Azimilik, and various other notables, including envoys from Carthage, had taken refuge in the temple of Melart, and Alexander spared their lives. The remaining survivors, some 30,000 in number, he sold into slavery. Two thousand men of military age were crucified.”1
Ask me how great was Alexander the Great? And I’ll say he was not great at all. I have talked about two of three things that Alexander did, kill and conquer but I have one more thing to talk about which is: How religious was Alexander the Great? Now that does not mean that Alexander only did three things to describe him as cruel, repugnant, and murderous, there are hundreds of things that will describe him as a horrible person but now I will talk about his religious life as a religious fanatic. There are legends about Alexander the Great two of them being “The Legend of the Helmet” and “The Legend of the Hat Band.” The Legend of the Helmet talks about Alexander and his army walking across the hot desert and some of his men had gone to look for water. When they found a very small patch of water they collected it for Alexander. Alexander was trying to show his army that he is a good man and wanting to show them that he wanted to treat himself as an equal to them so he just wasted his men’s hard work of trying to find water and Alexander just dumped it out on the ground. Why? Who wastes someone else's hard work just like that?! He could have at least given it to someone who actually wanted it instead of just squandering it just like that. While this tries to show him as a good person it can also show him as a very bad person if you read in between the lines. The second legend is The Legend of the Hat Band. This legend tells about a time when Alexander was steering a trireme when strong wind hit him. He was wearing a Macedonian hat with a band around it. When you are wearing a hat and strong winds hit you it's just nature that it will fall off and his hat did. “The hat, being rather heavy, fell into the water. However, the band was carried along by the wind, and was caught by one of the reeds growing near the tomb of one of the ancient kings….[O]ne of the sailors swam off towards the band and snached it from the reed. But he did not carry it in his hands because it would get wet while he was swimming. He therefore put it around his own head and brought it to the king. Most of the biographers of Alexander say that the king gave him a talent* as a reward for his zeal. Then he ordered his head to be cut off [because] the prophets had explained that… he should not allow the head that had worn the royal head band to be safe.”2 This legend proves that Alexander was a religious fanatic because although the sailor had helped him get the head band back he cut his head off because he was strictly going by the prophets saying. He could have easily thanked him given him his reward and left him be.
Over all I know that Alexander the Great should be more like Alexander the not so Great because he conquered and destroyed other peoples homes, killed innocent men and women, and he was a religious fanatic who killed people who helped him and wasted other people’s hard work.
Sources: Peter Green, Alexander of Macedon, University of California Press, 1991.1
Ian Worthington, Alexander the Great: Man of God, Longman, 20042
