Alexander The Great

This week has a small historical event associated with it that I am sure will pass without much notice, but it holds special significance to me. This week in 323 B.C. Alexander The Great died. That is special to me because Alexander is one of my favorite historical figures. He lead an army on foot from Greece to India. Constantly outnumbered, he fought and won his way across the entire Middle East and Southwestern Asia. As impressive as that is, what impresses me even more was his genius for governing the peoples of so far flung an area comprised of so many cultures and so many religions. The fact that he was able to hold so many conflicting interests together is what makes me admire him so very much.

Alexander the Great, the young Macedonian military genius who forged an empire stretching from the eastern Mediterranean to India, died in Babylon, in present-day Iraq, at the age of 33.

Born in Macedonia to King Phillip II and Queen Olympias, Alexander received a classical education from famed philosopher Aristotle and a military education from his father. At the age of 16, Alexander led his first troops into combat and two years later commanded a large part of his father's army that won the Battle of Chaeronea and brought Greece under Macedonian rule. In 336 B.C., Phillip II was assassinated, and Alexander ascended to the throne.

Two years later, the young king led a large army into Asia Minor to carry out his father's plans for conquering Persia. Consistently outnumbered in his battles against superior Persian forces, Alexander displayed an unprecedented understanding of strategic military planning and tactical maneuvers. He never lost a single battle, and by 330 B.C. all of Persia and Asia Minor was under his sway. Within his empire, he founded great and lasting cities, such as Alexandria in Egypt, and brought about sweeping political and economic changes based on the advanced Greek models taught to him in his youth.

Although Alexander controlled the largest empire in the history of the world, he launched a new eastern campaign soon after his return from Persia. By 327 B.C., he had conquered Afghanistan, Central Asia, and northern India. In the next year, his army, exhausted after eight years of fighting, refused to go farther, and Alexander led them on a difficult journey home through the inhospitable Makran Desert.

Finally reaching Babylon, Alexander began constructing a large fleet to take his army back to Egypt. However, in June 323 B.C., just as the work on his ships was reaching its conclusion, Alexander fell sick after a prolonged banquet and drinking bout and died. Perhaps earnestly believing himself to be a god (as many of his subjects did), he had not selected a successor, and within a year of his death his army and his empire broke into a multitude of warring factions. His body was later returned to Alexandria, where it was laid to rest in a golden coffin.

 As a personal observation, Alexander The Great also depresses me a little when I realize that he conquered most of the known world (on foot) and by the time he was my age -he had been dead for over 30 years....

French Chicken

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