Alexander the Great? Or was he? I think he should be Alexander, the ruthless conqueror. I think he should not be respected and seen as ruthless after conquering all that land, being harsh to his own troops and killing people without any mercy. I mean come on, who likes this guy after all the evil he’s done.
Alexander was the son of king Philip of Macedonia and Greece. When his father died he was 20, he began to conquer Persia. At the age of 30, he succeeded. A few years later he died
Now we all know he conquered land but there is more to it, consider that he:
- Did all the conquering and killing out of greed and was selfish
- He conquered numerous countries
- The map of his empire shows he conquered Persia, Egypt, and Greece.
This may just seem like a bunch of info but this means he was hungry to conquer land and to me that means he is not great.
Source:Etc.Usf.Edu
The most cruel thing I think he did was treat his army with cruelty. I’m going to add a quote from The Campaigns of Alexander, Lucius Flavius Arrians that shows a great example of his cruelty. “Alexander, with a word of thanks for the gift, took the helmet and in full view of his troops, poured the water on the ground.” His actions made me think bad of him and that he was ruthless and cruel by wasting water that his dehydrated, tired soldiers could have drank. Now come on this guy did actions that proves what kind of person he is. A jerk that doesn’t care about others and that is the opposite of being great.
The most barbaric thing Alexander did was completely devastating and hard for me to read. “The remaining survivors, some 30,000 in number, he sold into slavery. Two thousand men of military age were crucified1.” This was a clear way of showing how horrible he was and shows that he was the opposite of great. He had no mercy for people and didn’t think about others, to me he is no great hero, he is the formidable villain.
I think Alexander is horrible and should never be considered to be great. He is a villain.
1: Peter Green, Alexander of Macedon, University of California Press, 1991.
