Alexander The Great

[ewx]

Alexander Of Macedon, 356-323BC: A Historical Biography, Peter Green, ISBN 0-520-07166-2.

Son of Philip II of Macedonia, himself a successful conqueror, taught by Aristotle, Alexander III distinguished himself in combat in Greece. Crossing to Asia after becoming King he fought a series successful battles and seized control of the classical Persian empire. Armed with tremendous resources his campaign extended to India; but his return to Mesopotamia was followed by his untimely demise before he could prosecute further conquests in Arabia or western Europe.

Alexander was regarded as a barbarian conqueror by the Greeks and especially the Persians: more Attila than Augustus. But with many of Darius's best troops being Greek mercenaries, it is tempting to see the Greeks as Germans to Persia as Rome, making Alexander's nearest parallel Odoacer. Perhaps Hellenization was an inevitable process, merely accelerated by his conquests?

To his troops, he was a supremely effective leader, somehow managing to persuade them to travel ever further from home despite having long since achieved all they had signed up for and more; and delivering victory after victory along the way. For all that he seems to have counted the sulk among his persuasive techniques he does appear to have quite incredible charisma.

To himself, he seems to have simply been the best, and driven to prove it by every opportunity that presented itself. If he did not in fact believe his own divine propaganda then he hid this well enough.

The charge of destructive barbarianism has merit to it; the torching of Persepolis would be first on the sheet but his habit was to wreak complete destruction on those that frustrated him. Green argues that Alexander and Olympias were the prime movers behind the murder of Philip, something that would hardly be inconsistent with his treatment of everyone else who got in his way.

The breakup of the Empire after his death, in which natural causes cannot be ruled out, often leads to Alexander being charged with caring more for victory than rule: to see the transience of his conquests as a flaw. But who can say how he might have ruled had he finally taken his armies everywhere he had planned? He died at the age of 32 - marginally younger than I am now; it was the man who was transient.

Green's book is a detailed and engaging read. The character of its subject comes alive in its pages; if his lieutenants do not always enjoy the same treatment, Alexander far outshone even the best of them. The Battle of Jhelum is particularly vividly depicted.

It is a shame, really, that it comes to a halt with the end of Alexander: half a chapter sketching the careers of the successor states to his empire would not have been out of place.

Comments

[zbtron.livejournal.com]

how can you have no opinion on port and pancakes? its ridiculous.

[ewx.livejournal.com]

I don't see what that's got to do with Alexander.

[curious-reader.livejournal.com]

I heard from some Jewish people that Alexander became Jewish name because he did something good for the Jewish people. I am actually surprised when he was rather a cruel barbarian attacker. Do you know anything about it?

[ewx.livejournal.com]

His goals at the point he passed through the region were control of the coast (to neutralize the Persian navy) and the conquest of Egypt. As such it would actually be plausible if he'd completely ignored the Jews if they did not get in his way; the historians who Green's work is based on do not mention any trip to Jerusalem, for instance.

However, Josephus wrote this on the subject (http://history.byu.edu/fac/hamblin/ALEX/18%20Josephus.htm) and the Talmud also has a positive story concerning Alexander (http://www.sacred-texts.com/jud/t03/yom12.htm); the details differ a bit though it is a priest who is the hero of the story and Samaritans the villains in each case, so they may share some common origin.

The detail may or may not be historical, but it might well be that Alexander gave Israel better terms than they'd had under the Persians; certainly they seem to have had a better time of it than under his Seleucid successors. So the Jewish elite might either have seen him as a liberator during his lifetime, or as a better ruler than his successors long after.

[ewx.livejournal.com]

I would add that one should be very careful of the word 'barbarian': it is a value judgment and one should be aware who is or was making it and why - it might be propaganda or even just snobbishness.

From the Persian and Greek point of view the Macedonians were a fairly uncultured bunch, for instance; and they were of course also their enemies, giving them a good reason to portray them in a negative light.

Against this consider that Alexander (and to some extent Philip) received some of their education from the Greeks. A good example is that some of the military tactics that Philip picked up in Thebes were important to later successes; another is that Alexander was able to exploit the cultural differences of the Greeks and Macedonians to play them off against each other.