Alexander the Great, Term Paper Example

The historical figure known to most people as Alexander the Great perished over twenty centuries ago. Although the world has known many kings and many conquerors, there is something special about the life and legacy of Alexander of Macedon. The details of his life are incomplete to historians, but enough information has survived to reveal that Alexander was not only a military conqueror and leader, but a cultural and philosophical revolutionary. The legacy of this single ruler is such that world history is sometimes easily divided into two periods: the time before Alexander and the time after his death. As Brooke Allen notes in “Alexander the Great-Or the Terrible?” (2005): “Alexander of Macedon died more than 2300 years ago, but he is a subject of perennial fascination.” (Allen). Part of this fascination stems from Alexander’s accomplishments, and part of it emerges from the moral ambiguity of his life and career.

Allen goes on to suggest that making a determination about Alexander’s personal moral stature has been a subject of great debate among historians. Allen writes that “posterity has never been able to decide whether Alexander was a good guy or a bad guy.” (Allen). This kind of uncertainty about the most basic aspect of Alexander’s character indicates the general difficulty in studying Alexander’s impact on history. The best approach is to regard the historical facts as they are known without holding any predetermined idea about Alexander’s character. No doubt, the unknown elements of his biography contribute to the ongoing scholarly and even popular interest in Alexander the Great. However, even more compelling than the unknown aspects of his life and character are the historically verifiable facts of his accomplishments. According to The Columbia Encyclopedia (2013) “Alexander the Great or Alexander III, 356–323 BC, [was] king of Macedon, conqueror of much of Asia.” (“Alexander the Great”). This is a succinct way of expressing Alexander’s life, but reveals little of the true depth of his legacy.

Early Life

Alexander was born to royalty being “The son of Philip II of Macedon and Olympias.” He spent his earliest youth in classical studies as a student of the great philosopher Aristotle. His father was murdered after becoming estranged from Olympias, Alexander become king in 336 BC. He was able to quell initial rebellions against his rule. By doing so he established himself as a noted leader. His fame spread and he pursued greater conquests. At one point “Thebes revolted on a false rumor that Alexander was dead. The young king rushed south and sacked the city, sparing only the temples and Pindar’s house.” (“Alexander the Great”). This part of Alexander’s life can be considered an educational prelude to his greater career, during which he went on to conquer most of the known world.

Conquests

One of the most important things to understand about Alexander’s career as an adventurer-conqueror is that he was motivated by strong personal ambitions. That is to say, his conquests were based on a sense of personal merit and destiny, rather than a sense of nationalism or globalism. As Allen notes, “”Alexander was the first to dream of world domination… He may have hoped to be a benign ruler-he may even have been ‘a kind of proto-multiculturalist’-but there is no doubt that he wanted the glory, and the booty, to be his and his alone.” (Allen). This is an important thing to remember because it helps to define what kind of person and historical influence Alexander was at the most fundamental level. The historical fact is that Alexander was a deeply ambitious man who valued glory, fame, and the spoils of military conquest.

Only two years after assuming power, Alexander began a sustained war against Persia. This campaign was the fulfillment of an unrealized ambition of his father’s. In fact, Philip II had gone as far as to devise a strategic plan for the war against Persia. When Alexander undertook the mission, “he entered N Syria and there in the battle of Issus met and routed the hosts of Darius III of Persia, who fled before him.” This led to fueling Alexander’s ambitions and he now decided to attempt the conquest of the entire Persian Empire. After more than a year his battles led him to invade Egypt and Mesopotamia. Alexander fought with great determination and ultimately conquered Babylon and Persepolis. At this point, Alexander “was now the visible ruler of the Persian Empire.” His pursuit of conquest and war then led to “the desert regions of modern Baluchistan, S Afghanistan, and S Iran. The march, accomplished with great suffering, finally ended at Susa in 324.” (“Alexander the Great”). Alexander was poised to be a true world conqueror. He was barely into his thirties.

Death and Legacy

The most interesting question about Alexander’s death is whether or not it prevented him from actually conquering the world. While there can be no doubt that his ambition would have driven him further onward in pursuit of glory and accomplishment, it is less clear whether or not he would have eventually met with military defeat. The debate is fascinating and yet it is moot because Alexander, at the height of his power and potential died at the age of thirty-two. Many historians claim that he died from a fever that he contracted, while others argue that he may have been poisoned. Richard Stoneman writes in Alexander the Great (2004) that there is controversy about the exact cause of Alexander’s death. Stoneman concedes that this is only natural given the facts of Alexander’s life and the fervor with which historians over the ensuing centuries have pursued their pet theories. While acknowledging that many of the theories of Alexander’s death have merit, the best evidence points to one of two possibilities. The first possibility is “excessive drinking of wine was the primary cause.” The second is “that Alexander had succumbed to malaria in the Tigris marshes… His constitution …indubitably weakened by his numerous wounds and hard campaigning.” (Stoneman 106). These two possibilities are equally supportable by historical evidence according to Stoneman.

Whether Alexander died from excessive drinking or from exotic disease, his brief life exploded like a supernova across the landscape of history. He was a legend before his death and in death became an even more exalted figure. While his primary fame was that of an Emperor and military leader, his resulting legacy branches out into diverse areas including literature and philosophy. As mentioned previously, the facts of Alexander’s career are dazzlingly impressive, but they are also rooted in moral ambiguity. Allen points out that Alexander committed war-crimes and atrocities: “What about Alexander’s wholesale destruction of Thebes, when he razed every house in the city (with the exception of the poet Pindar’s), killed all the men and enslaved 30,000 women and children? Many historians have called this, not unreasonably, an atrocity.” (Allen). With this firmly in mind it is easy to see that the legend of Alexander the Great would probably be more appealing to the average person than the historical reality.

Assessing Alexander the Great’s legacy is no easy task. Roisman points out that his death divides Greek history and actually changed the course of Greek self-identity. He notes that “The history of the Greek world assumes a different complexion following the death of Alexander… Within the space of a few years, its subject changes from that of the Greek homeland … to that of the whole near east including Egypt and the lands west of the Indus.” (Roisman 325). The influence that was created by Alexander extended to politics and culture. A majority of historians, for example, consider Alexander to be the starting point for the Hellenistic Age in Greece. This shift in political and geographical focus also led to changes in styles of art and literature as well as philosophy and music.

The facts of his legacy are startling. For example, “in literature, Alexander became a subject not only of historians but of contemporary writers of epic and, as the hero of the Alexander Romance.” This influence was also felt in visual art, as well as “in philosophic writing of all kinds, from the simplest collections of exempla to the subtlest political discussions.” (Roisman 325). The magnitude of Alexander’s influence over the cultural and political evolution of Greece is impossible to overestimate. He impacted cultural areas such as those mentioned above, political realities, economics, and geography, but he also impacted military strategy and the concept of what it meant to be a conqueror.

His example would go on to inspire others to chase the dream of world domination. This is one reason why it is so important to understand the role that personal ambition played in Alexander’s life. When it is understood clearly that he lived to pursue his own fevered dreams of conquest, then his present degree of posthumous fame that has endured over so many centuries is even more impressive because it represents the ultimate vindication of his ambitions. Whether or not Alexander was amorally commendable person may be a question that will be debated for many centuries to come. What is certain is that Alexander’s life and career represent one of the most historically significant events in world history. His legacy is not only that of a soldier and Emperor, but of a legendary figure that blurs the line between myth and reality.

Works Cited

“Alexander the Great.” The Columbia Encyclopedia. 6th ed. 2013.

Allen, Brooke. “Alexander the Great-Or the Terrible?” The Hudson Review 58.2 (2005): 220+.

Roisman, Joseph, ed. Brill’s Companion to Alexander the Great. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 2003.

Stoneman, Richard. Alexander the Great. 2nd ed. London: Routledge, 2004.