Current Events > What made Alexander III of Macedon so great?

(+) Yeah! (+)

A friend wants to know.

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Self promotion.

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Nothing he's an asshole who obviously didn't listen to Aristotle enough.

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conquered the persian empire
Changed history
Had a kingdom from Greece to Egypt to part of India

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he was the proto-chad

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charisma, a good education, and a privileged background.

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He was the textbook definition of person who burns bright and fast and then dies

He had a very long string of incredible military successes in a short period of time. But then he died. I am pretty sure he was not even 30 yet when he died

Also his lasting legacy didn't really survive. His wife and son were immediately captured upon his death by enemies and put in a dungeon that they never emerged alive from

His empire almost immediately splintered into different nations all fighting each other. He had made each of his best friends a ruler of a kingdom. After Alexander was gone, none of them agreed on who would be leader of the empire and just cut ties with each other

Basically nothing he did really mattered in the end. He kill a lot of people and conquered a bunch of land and then died and the world moved on

One word: Elephants

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Big_Nabendu posted...

conquered the persian empire
Changed history
Had a kingdom from Greece to Egypt to part of India

Yes with a kingdom and army his father had built out of a crumbling Macedonian kingdom. Seriously Macedonia before Philip II experienced 8 Macedonian kings on the throne in the span of 40 years from 400 BC to 359 BC. Beset by the Illyrians, who had smashed the Macedonian levy and killed the Macedonian king Amyntas, under king Bardylis, being preyed on by the Chalcidian League and Athens and also facing raids from the Thracians. Philip pretty much inherited a mess of a kingdom and by using state finances and capturing the gold mines of Amphipolis from Athens, diplomacy, he had multiple wives from diplomatic marriages, and military reforms that reshaped the Macedonian levy he managed to conquer Thessaly, Illyria and Thrace before crushing the Greeks at Chaeronea and securing the Southern Greek states, minus Sparta, to his will. This is what Alex inherited from his father after his death.

Not to say his military exploits weren't great, they were, but at the same time where Kyros the Great established the Achaemenid Empire empire that lasted more than 200 years while Alexander who inherited the Persian Empire saw it collapse shortly after his death while his generals sought to carve it up to themselves. Eumenes of Kardia, a Greek secretary who served under Philip II, tried to protect his heir but was later betrayed by his Macedonian troops who handed him and Alex's wife, mother and child to Antigonus, one of Alexander's generals, and were later killed.

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He got drunk a lot

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UnholyMudcrab posted...

One word: Elephants

Are you thinking of Hannibal?

I think Alexander only fought against elephants.

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If he's so great, how come he's dead?

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