WHO WAS ALEXANDER THE GREAT

                                                        By

                                        Konstantinos Tachtsidis

                                                      

                                                           English 116

                                                Professor Theofanopoulou

                                                     

                                                          30 May 2001

                                                                                                                     Tachtsidis 1

              The life and character of Alexander the great is perhaps the most exciting mystery of the history, despite the plethora of information which we have about him is almost impossible to define his persona. Many of the sources that are available refer to Alexander as a butcher and megalomaniac and place him in the same list with Stalin and Hitler, while others see him as a generous military genius who had the great vision to unite the world under a peaceful ruling. Characteristics such as charismatic and kind but also ruthless and alcoholic have been also attached to Alexander’s personality. It is a fact that there is a big confusion and contrast between the sources about Alexander’s life, but there is some information, which are accepted as facts and lead us to answer the question of who was Alexander the great?  (Alexander the great).

               It is said that Alexander was born on 20th of July in 356 B.C. in Pella the capital of the Macedonian kingdom, his parents were Philip and Olympias (Alexander’s birth and parentage).

The Greeks at that time used to say that everyone who’s not Greek is a barbarian, so Alexander grew up in a not so civilized environment, but it was obvious that this young boy had a special personality. There is a narration about some Persian ambassadors who visited Pella but Alexander’s father king Philip wasn’t there, so they met with the very young prince who was asking them all the time about the geographical elements of their country and that impressed the

                                                                                                             Tachtsidis 2

Persians very much. “The famous tale of Alexander’s taming of the horse Bucephalus is in the same vein. The horse brought to Philip by a Thessalian breeder and was named after his distinctive brand mark: ‘ox-head’. To everyone’s amusement Alexander bet his father that he could, and facing the horse into the sun (so it would not be disturbed by its own shadow), he walked it round, calmed it down, then jumped on and rode off. King Philip laughed ‘ Get yourself another kingdom my boy, for Macedonia is not big enough to hold you’” (Alexander’s Early Years).

                  Unfortunately for Alexander, his parents hated each other. In keeping with the Macedonian tradition Philip had several wives and Olympias regarded these other women and their children with great hostility. Alexander had inherited elements of personality from both his parents. He was a merciless general and a good politician like his father but also a religious fanatic like his mother (Alexander’s birth and parentage).

            Philip ruled Macedonia from 382 to 336 B.C. and he was the son of king Amyntas the second. Philip became king unexpectedly because his older brother Perdiccas was killed in a battle. He was a very capable general and politician and he managed to create a very powerful army and to conquer the rest of the Greek cities. A young Macedonian soldier named Pausanias murdered for unknown reasons king Philip in a celebration.

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                 Philip’s relationship with Alexander was very antagonistic, the alternation of feelings between these two people was very common. “Alexander never got along with his father, although Philip was very proud of his son, as seen in the Bucephalus incident. Alexander had always been closer to Olympias than to Philip. This, in an addition to a number of other reasons, was the reason why Philip and Olympias did not get along all that well”(Philip II of Macedonia 1-2)

              Olympias was not a Macedonian, she was born in Epirus and she was the daughter of the king of that region. It is said that Olympias was a very jealous, violent and religious woman, after Philip left her and remarried she took Alexander and left to Epirus. She was also murdered by an old friend of Alexander, Cassandrus. Her relationship with Alexander was very strong. Some people used to say that they were so attached to each other that she was even jealous of Alexander’s best friend Hephaestion (Olympias: The Mother).

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               When Alexander was seven years old, Olympias hired a strict teacher named Leonidas to teach the young boy how to exersice his body and what he should eat. But Philip understood that he wanted to raise a king and not just a simple soldier, so he was trying to find the best instructor for his son. Alexander at the age of thirteen was very lucky because his father gave him the chance to be instructed by one of the most important philosophers of the history, Aristotle (Aristotle). This Great philosopher was born in ...

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