When you think of Alexander the Great, do you think of a sinister leader or a ruthless conqueror? Some might not have even heard of this man’s name before. I believe that he was a civil leader.
Alexander the Great was an ancient Greek war leader. At a young age, he was prepared for kingship by hiring the philosopher Aristotle to teach him academic subjects, politics, sports, and warfare. With a start like this Alexander developed a rather high opinion of himself, including the growing belief that he himself was a god.1 According to Alexander's legacy compiled from many sources, at his death his empire was about 2 million square miles this is about the size of the top 13 states combined! At the time this was about 44% of all the world population (according to National Interests.org), nowadays that would be like someone having over 3.3 billion people in a empire controlled by a 20 year old!
I believe that Alexander was really great, not great at being bad like some others might say, but, truly great. There are many reasons why I think this. One, Alexander was nice to some cities if they surrender and didn’t put up a fight, and below are some other of my ideas.
There is many contradictory ideas, but most of them have a answer. Below you can see how others might say he was
- Alexander beheaded the man who saved his hat band.
- This was a rightful thing to do because the prophet stated “he should not allow the head that had worn the royal headband to be safe.” Before cutting of his head he gave this man a talent (about 100 thousand dollars).
- Alexander killed about 100,000 in four major battles
- Although he killed many people (like almost every other ancient ruler), he let many people live. These were the cities that usually surrendered without a fight. Some of those city’s were happy to have the Persian’s being challenged. They usually didn’t like the ways that the Persians ruled.
After almost 500 years after Alexander’s death, people still praised him. Marcus Macrinus was one of these people, he was an ancient Roman Emperor. About 540 years after Alexander the Great’s death, he sewed a picture of Alexander on his clothes. Would you sew a ruthless, unrelenting, cold-hearted leader like Hitler onto the arm of your shirt? No. So why would Marcus Macrinus attach a image of Alexander if he thought Alexander the great was a terrible person? He wouldn’t. Thinking that Alexander the Great is a truly great leader.
While some might say he was a ruthless conqueror, I believe that he was much nicer, and Alexander had reasons for all of his action. So in the end, I believe that Alexander the Great was truly as great as his name suggests.
Dear Alexander,
Thank you for being a…
- Great
- Persistant
- Proficent
- Wonderful
- Transendent
- Fantastic
...Ruler.
Alexander Mini-Q1
