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Sarah Neal

Professor Combs

Western Civilization I

21 October 2021

Alexander the Conqueror

After the rule of Alexander, son of King Philip II of Macedonia, the Romans referred to

him as “Alexander the Great”. He seemingly earned this title from his uniting of the Macedonian

and Greek armies and from there, spreading new Greek culture as he carried out his plans for

conquest shortly after his father’s death (Cole, Symes). While the Greeks thought Alexander was

one of their greatest men and a strong ruler, in more modern times, he is starting to not be seen as

such. Alexander the Great may be more fitted to a name such as Alexander “the Conqueror” and

seen as less of a hero than his Greek subjects regarded him as.

Alexander’s rule began in 336 B.C.E., following the assassination of King Phillip II,

Alexander’s father. He gained the throne already having strong support of the army and swiftly

had his father’s assassins and enemies executed (Reynolds). This set the start of his thirteen-year

long rule, which would continue to be filled with bloodshed as he carried out his conquests. In

his first year on the throne, Alexander crushed out ideas of revolt in Thebes, murdering at least

six thousand people, and enslaving those he let live (Reynolds). He would then continue to hunt

down King Darius for the rest of Darius’s life and would even punish the ruler that executed

Darius for treason. Alexander was clearly intent on chasing down and killing any people or

leaders who opposed Alexander in any way or stood in his way of achieving greatness. While the

Greeks may have found him as “great” and as a wonderful leader, the people from the areas he
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destroyed did not have such nice words to describe Alexander. Asian would reportedly refer to

him as “the accursed one” or “two-horned Satan” after he spread death and total destruction to

their land on a level that would not be seen again until the time of Genghis Khan (Allen).

The Greeks and even some present-day people may argue that Alexander was a strong

leader and strategists, and some even have referred to him as a genius (Reynolds), but this is so

far from the truth. Accomplishments, like spreading Hellenistic culture and the acquisition of

more land for Greece, were positive outcomes for the Greek people as a whole, but Alexander

never really got the chance to rule these new lands that he conquered. He died from binge

drinking and long-term alcohol abuse in 323 B.C.E at age thirty-three, leaving any people with

questions on how he planned to rule the lands he successfully took over and how many more

lands he could have conquered if he had lived longer.

After reading about Alexander the Great’s life, a person may question what kind of man

and leader he really was. Was he a strong leader and great military man? Or, rather, was he an

evil man that ruined lives and entire civilizations? The inexcusable murder of thousands of

people and enslavement of thousands more seems to make this question a little easier to answer.

He was spreading Greek culture, but at the cost of already existing cultural of people he

eventually brutally murdered.

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Works Cited

Cole, Joshua, and Symes, Carol. Western Civilizations (Full Twentieth Edition) (Vol. 1).

Available from: eCampus, (20th Edition). W. W. Norton, 2020.

Reynolds, Clark G. “Alexander the Great.” Salem Press Biographical Encyclopedia, 2021.

EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?

direct=true&db=ers&AN=88258646&site=eds-live.

Allen, Brooke. “Alexander the Great—or the Terrible?” Hudson Review, vol. 58, no. 2, Summer

2005, pp. 220–230. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?

direct=true&db=a9h&AN=17604501&site=eds-live.