Alexander the Great
 
 Alexander the Great was born in 356 BC, and died in 323
BC. He was the king of Macedonia, conqueror of the
Persian Empire, and one of the greatest military geniuses
of all times. Born in Pella, the ancient capital of
Macedonia, Alexander was the son of Philip II, king of
Macedonia, and of Olympias, a princess of Epirus.
Alexander's tutor was Aristotle; Aristotle gave Alexander
extremely good training in rhetoric and literature while
also stimulating his interest in science, medicine, and
philosophy. Philip was assassinated in the summer of 336
BC. Alexander ascended to the Macedonian throne and
unfortunately then found himself surrounded by enemies at
home and threatened by rebellion abroad.
 
 With little hesitation, Alexander disposed quickly of all
conspirators and domestic enemies by ordering them to be
executed. Next, Alexander descended on Thessaly, where
partisans of independence had gained ascendancy, and also
successfully restored Macdeonian rule. Before the end of
the summer of 336 BC, he had reestablished his position in
Greece and was elected by a congress of states at Corinth.
In 335 BC as general of the Greeks in a campaign against
Persians, he carried out a successful campaign against
the defecting Thracians, penetrating to the Danube River,
which was all originally planned by his own father. During
Alexander's return, in as little as a single week, he
crushed the threatening Illyrians and then hastened to
Thebes, which had revolted. He took the city by storm and
razed it, sparing only the house of the Greek lyric poet
Pindar and the temples of the gods, and then selling about
8000 surviving inhabitants into slavery. Because of
Alexander's quickness in destroying the revolt of Thebes,
the other Greek states were brought into instant and
abject submission. 

 With an army of 35,000 Macedonian and Greek troops,
Alexander began his war against Persia in the spring of
334 BC by crossing the Hellespont. His chief officers
were all Macedonians and included such people as
Antigonus, Ptolemy, and Seleucus. Near the ancient city of
Troy, at the river Granicus, Alexander attacked a Persian
army and Greek mercenaries (hoplites) totaling 40,000
men. His forces defeated the enemy and, according to
tradition, lost only 110 men. All the states of Asia Minor 
 submitted to him after this battle. In passing
through Phrygia he is said to have cut with his sword the 
Gordian knot. Continuing to advance southward, Alexander
ran into the main Persian army which was commanded by
King Darius III at Issus, in northeastern Syria. The size
of Darius's army is unknown, however the ancient
tradition which said it contained up to 500,000 men is now
considered a wild exaggeration. In 333 BC, The Battle of
Issus ended in a great victory for Alexander. Cut off
from his base, Darius fled northward, abandoning his 
mother, wife, and children to Alexander, who treated them
with the respect due to royalty. A strongly fortified
seaport by the name of Tyre, offered obstinate
resistance, but Alexander once again took it by storm in
332 BC after a seven month siege. Next, Alexander
captured Gaza and then continued on into Egypt, where he
was greeted as a deliverer. In the spring of 331 BC,
Alexander made a pilgrimage to the great temple and
oracle of Amon-Ra, whom the Greeks identified with Zeus.
The earlier Egyptian pharaohs were believed to be sons of
Amon-Ra, therefore Alexander, the new ruler of Egypt,
wanted the god to acknowledge him as his son. The
pilgrimage apparently was successful, and it may have
confirmed in him a belief in his own divine origin.
Turning northward again, he reorganized his forces at
Tyre and started for Babylon with an army of 40,000 
infantry and 7000 cavalry. Alexander then met Darius at the
head of an army of unknown size, which, according to the
exaggerated accounts of antiquity, was said to number a
million men. Alexander completely defeated the army in
the Battle of Gaugamela, October 1, 331 BC. Darius then
fled as he had done at Issus but was later slain by two
of his own generals. Babylon surrendered after this, and
the city of Susa with its enormous treasures was soon
conquered. Then, in midwinter, Alexander forced his way to
Persepolis, the capital of Persia. After plundering the
royal treasuries and taking other rich booty, he burned
the city during a drunken binge and thus completed the 
destruction of the ancient Persian Empire. By these
successes he secured control of the entire eastern 
Mediterranean coastline. Later in 332 he founded, at the
mouth of the Nile River, the city of Alexandria, which
later became the literary, scientific, and commercial
center of the Greek world. The capital of the ancient North
 African kingdom of Cyrenaica, Cyrene, submitted to
Alexander soon afterward, extending his dominion to
Carthaginian territory. In order to complete his
conquest of the remnants of the Persian Empire, which had
once included part of western India, Alexander crossed 
the Indus River in 326 BC, and invaded the Punjab as far as
the river Hyphasis; at this point the Macedonians
rebelled and refused to go farther. In September 325 BC,
he constructed a fleet and passed down the Indus, 
reaching its mouth. The fleet then sailed to the Persian
Gulf. He returned overland across the desert to Media
with his army. Severe losses and hardship among the
troops was caused by shortages of food and water. 
Alexander spent about a year organizing his dominions and
completing a survey of the Persian Gulf in preparation
for further conquests. In the spring of 323 BC in
Babylon, Alexander arrived. Then in June he contracted a
fever and died. He left his empire, in his own words, "to
the strongest"; this ambiguous testament resulted in dire
conflicts for half a century. Noted for his brilliance
as a tactician and troop leader, Alexander was one of the
greatest generals of all time. Usually Alexander was brave
and generous, but he could be very cruel and ruthless
when politics were at hand. One theory even states he was
a alcoholic, for example, he killed his friend Clitus in
a drunken fury but later regretted the act deeply. Shortly
before Alexander died, he ordered the Greek cities to
worship him as a god. Although he probably gave the order
for political reasons, he was, in his own view and that
of his contemporaries, of divine birth. Due to his death
shortly after he issued this, the order was largely
nullified. To bind his conquests together, Alexander
founded a number of cities, most of them named
Alexandria. These cities were well located, well paved, 
and provided good water supplies. Greek veterans from his
army often settled in them, along with young men,
traders, merchants, and scholars. From this, Greek
culture was introduced and the Greek language became 
widely known. Thus, Alexander vastly extended the influence
of Greek civilization and prepared the way for the
kingdoms of the Hellenistic period and the conquests of
the Roman Empire. I believe Alexander The Great was the
greatest military genius ever. His skills were so amazing,
no other military leader could traverse great expanses of
territory with his rapidity. The way he could also make
people follow and believe in him is even more impressive
than that of Adolf Hitler.