In , Alexander defeated King Porus' armies in northern India. Finding himself impressed by Porus, Alexander reinstated him as king and won his loyalty and forgiveness. Alexander forged eastward to the Ganges but headed back when his armies refused to advance any farther. On their way back along the Indus, Alexander was wounded by Malli warriors. In , after Alexander had recovered, he and his army headed north along the rugged Persian Gulf, where many fell prey to illness, injury and death.
In February , Alexander at last reached the city of Susa. Desperate to retain his leadership and recruit more soldiers, he tried to connect Persian nobles to Macedonians in order to create a ruling class. To this end, at Susa he commanded that a large number of Macedonians marry Persian princesses.
After Alexander managed to recruit tens of thousands of Persian soldiers into his army, he dismissed many of his existing Macedonian soldiers. This enraged the soldiers, who spoke critically of Alexander's new troops and condemned him for adopting Persian customs and manners.
Alexander appeased the Macedonian soldiers by killing 13 Persian military leaders. The Thanksgiving Feast at Susa, which had been geared towards solidifying the bond between Persians and Macedonians, shaped up to be quite the opposite. He was just 32 years old. Rhoxana gave birth to his son a few months later.
After Alexander died, his empire collapsed and the nations within it battled for power. Over time, the cultures of Greece and the Orient synthesized and thrived as a side effect of Alexander's empire, becoming part of his legacy and spreading the spirit of Panhellenism. We strive for accuracy and fairness. If you see something that doesn't look right, contact us! Subscribe to the Biography newsletter to receive stories about the people who shaped our world and the stories that shaped their lives.
Charles II was the monarch of England, Scotland and Ireland during much of the latter half of the 17th century, marking the Restoration era. Nicholas II was the last tsar of Russia under Romanov rule. By winning wars and expanding territories, he established Prussia as a strong military power. Philip II reigned over Macedonia from to B. He became the head of an empire that was expanded by his son and successor, Alexander the Great.
Akbar the Great, Muslim emperor of India, established a sprawling kingdom through military conquests but is known for his policy of religious tolerance. Peter the Great was a Russian czar in the late 17th century, who is best known for his extensive reforms in an attempt to establish Russia as a great nation.
In B. The versatile force included cavalry and heavily armed foot soldiers, who wielded spears and formed a phalanx, advancing relentlessly behind raised shields. Alexander deployed his troops with great skill and earned their devotion by leading them in battle and suffering several wounds. Alexander visited the fabled city of Troy as he crossed the Bosporus into Asia Minor and routed the Persian forces there. Greek cities in Asia Minor that had been under Persian control welcomed his rule.
At the Gulf of Issus in B. Refusing to make peace unless Darius yielded to him as emperor, Alexander swept south along the sea toward Egypt. He seized strategic ports, including the defiant Phoenician port of Tyre. He met with more reverence in Egypt, where he was honored as a god-king like the pharaohs of old—veneration he considered his due.
Once again, Alexander demonstrated that a small army acting in concert was superior to a sprawling, disorganized one. When a gap opened in the Persian ranks, he and his elite cavalrymen dashed into the breach, splitting the opposing army in two. He had conquered the Persians at last.
By adding the vast Persian realm to his Balkan kingdom, Alexander forged a Eurasian empire of unprecedented scope. He subdued Bactria in modern-day Afghanistan and wed Roxana, the daughter of a Bactrian chief.
He then invaded India in B. But monsoons made his troops feverish and mutinous; in B. He made fitful efforts to organize his huge empire in the style of the Persians; he hired Persian officials and wed Persian princesses as did dozens of his commanders.
Many Macedonians felt he placed too much trust in people they still viewed as enemies, and Greeks consented only reluctantly to his demand to be recognized as divine like some Near Eastern monarchs.
The mortal Alexander died suddenly perhaps from typhoid fever in Babylon in B. And when he learned that the Greeks were defeated, he proclaimed the end of the "Hellenic Crusade" and discharged all-Greek forces in his army. He no longer needed these hostages and potential troublemakers.
Alexander continued his pursuit of Darius for hundreds of miles from Persepolis. When he finally caught up to him, he found the Persian king dead in his coach. He was assassinated by Bessus, the satrap of Bactria which now proclaimed himself "King of the Kings", assuming the title of the Persian kings. Alexander gave Darius a royal funeral and set out for Bactria after his murderer. Trial of Philotas and the Murder of Parmenio To win the support of the Persian aristocracy Alexander appointed many Persians as provincial governors in his new empire.
He adopted the Persian dress for ceremonies, gave orders for Persians to be enlisted in the army, and encouraged the Macedonians to marry Persian women. But the Macedonians were unhappy with Alexander's Orientalization for they were proud of their Macedonian customs, culture, and language.
His increasingly Oriental behavior eventually led to conflict with the Macedonian nobles and some Greeks in the train.
In BC series of allegations were brought up against some of Alexander's officers concerning a plot to murder him. Alexander tortured and executed the accused leader of the conspiracy, Parmenio's son Philotas, the commander of the cavalry. Several other officers were also executed according to Macedonian law, in order to eliminate the alleged attempt on Alexander's life.
During the trial of Philotas Alexander raised the question of the use of the ancient Macedonian language. He spoke:. For he alone disdains to learn it.
But let him by all means speak in whatever way he desires, provided that you remember that he holds out customs in as much abhorrence as our language. The trial of Philotas took place in Asia before a multiethnic public, which has accepted Greek as their common language. Alexander spoke Macedonian with his conationals, but used Greek in addressing the Greeks and the Asians, as Greek was widely taken as international language in ancient times.
Like Carthaginian, Illyrian, and Thracian, ancient Macedonian was not recorded in writing. However, on the bases of about hundred glosses, Macedonian words noted and explained by Greek writers, some place names from Macedonia, and names of individuals, most scholars believe that ancient Macedonian was a separate Indo-European language. Evidence from phonology indicates that the ancient Macedonian language was distinct from ancient Greek and closer to the Thracian and Illyrian languages.
Some modern writers have erroneously concluded that the Macedonians spoke Greek based on few Greek inscriptions discovered in Macedonia, but that is by no means a proof that the Macedonian was not a distinct language. Greek inscriptions were also found in Thrace and Illyria, the Thracians even inscribed their coins and vessels in Greek, and we know that both the Illyrians and the Thracians were not Greeks who had distinct languages. After Philotas was executed according to the Macedonian custom, Alexander ordered next the execution of Philotas' father, general Parmenio.
But the death of the old general did not sit well with every Macedonian in the army. Parmenio was a veteran, proven solder of Philip's guard, a men who played a major part in leading the Macedonian armies and rising the country to a world power. In fact Philip II had often remarked how proud he was to have Parmenio as his general.
Marble bust of Alexander the Great. Archaeological Museum Istanbul. Murder of Cleitus and the execution of Callisthenes. Alexander next killed Cleitus, another Macedonian noble, in a drunken brawl.
Heavy drinking was a cherished tradition at the Macedonian court and that day Cleitus publicly denounced the king before the present for the murders of Parmenio and Philotas. He went further by ridiculing Alexander for claiming to be "son of Ammon" and for denouncing his own father Philip II. Alexander lost his temper, snatched the spear from the bodyguard standing near, and ran Cleitus through with it. Although he mourned his friend excessively and nearly committed suicide when he realized what he had done, all of Alexander's associates thereafter feared his paranoia and dangerous temper.
He next demanded that Europeans, just like the Asians, follow the Oriental etiquette of prostrating themselves before the king - which he knew was regarded as an act of worship by the Greeks.
But resistance put by Macedonian officers and by the Greek historian Callisthenes, the nephew of Aristotle who had joined the expedition, defeated the attempt.
Callisthenes was soon executed on a charge of conspiracy, and we can only imagine how Aristotle received the news of his death. The Macedonians spent two hard years in Bactria fighting a guerilla war against the followers of Bessus and the Sogdian ruler Spitamenes. Finally, Bessus was caught and executed for the murder of his king Darius III, and Spitamenes was killed by his own wife which was tired of running away.
Bactria and Sogdiana, the most eastern provinces of the Persian Empire came under Macedonian control. It is here that Alexander fell in love with and married the beautiful Sogdian princess Roxane. March on India. The greatest of Alexander's battles in India was at the river Hydaspes, against king Porus, one of the most powerful Indian rulers. In the summer of BC, Alexander's army crossed the heavily defended river during a violent thunderstorm to meet Porus' forces. The Indians were defeated in a fierce battle, even though they fought with elephants, which the Macedonians had never seen before.
Porus was captured and like the other local rulers he had defeated, Alexander allowed him to continue to govern his territory. In this battle Alexander's horse Bucephalus was wounded and died. Alexander had ridden Bucephalus into every one of his battles in Europe and Asia, so when it died he was grief-stricken.
He founded a city which he named Buckephalia, in his horse's name. The army continued advancing as far as the river Hydaspes but at this point the Macedonians refused to go farther as reports were coming of far more larger and dangerous armies ahead equipped with many elephants and chariots.
General Coenus spoke on army's behalf to the king. Reluctantly, Alexander agreed to stop here. Not too long afterwards Coenus died and the army buried him with the highest honors. It was agreed that the army travel down south the rivers Hydaspes and Indus so that they might reach the Ocean on the southern edge of the world and from there head westward toward Persia. Macedonian ships traveling traveling down Hydaspes and Indus rivers. One of the villages in which the army stopped belonged to the Malli, who were said to be one of the most warlike of the Indian tribes.
Alexander was severally wounded in this attack when an arrow pierced his breastplate and his ribcage. The Macedonians rescued him in a narrow escape from the village. Still the Malli surrendered as Alexander became to recover from the grave wound.
The travel down the river resumed and the Macedonian army reached the mouth of the Indus in the summer of BC. Then it turned westward to Persia. Crossing of the Gerdosian desert on the way to Babylon. But the return was a disaster.
The army was marching through the notorious Gerdosian desert during the middle of the summer. By the time Alexander reached Susa thousands had died of heat and exhaustion.
Alexander's Death. In the spring of , Alexander held a great victory celebration at Susa. He and 80 of his close associates married Persian noblewomen. In addition, he legitimized previous so-called marriages between soldiers and native women and gave them rich wedding gifts, no doubt to encourage such unions.
Little later, at Opis he proclaimed the discharge of 10, Macedonian veterans to be sent home to Macedonia with general Craterus. But the army mutinied hearing this. Enraged Alexander pointed the main ringleaders to his bodyguards to be punished and then gave his famous speech where he reminded the Macedonians that without him and his father Philip, they would have still been living in fear of the nations surrounding Macedonia, instead of ruling the world.
After this the Macedonians were reconciled with their king and 10, of them set out for Europe, leaving their children of Asian women with Alexander. In the same time 30, Persian youth already trained in Macedonian manner were recruited in the army. Alexander prayed for unity between Macedonians and Persians and by breeding a new army of mixed blood he hoped to create a core of a new royal army which would be attached only to him.
But Alexander will never see this happen. Shortly before beginning of the planned Arabian campaign, he contracted a high fever after attending a private party at his friend's Medius of Larisa. The fever became stronger with each following day to the point that he was unable to move and speak. The Macedonians were allowed to file past their leader for the last time before he finally succumbed to the illness on June 7, BC in the Macedonian month of Daesius. Alexander the Great, the Macedonian king and the great conqueror of Persian Empire, died at the age of 33 without designating a successor to the Macedonian Empire.
The Macedonian Empire of Alexander the Great. After Alexander. After his death, nearly all the noble Susa marriages dissolved, which shows that the Macedonians despised the idea. There never came to unity between Macedonians and Persians and there wasn't even a unity among the Macedonians. Alexander's death opened the anarchic age of the Successors and a bloody Macedonian civil war for power followed. As soon as the news of Alexander's death were known, the Greeks rebelled yet again and so begun the Lamian War.
The Macedonians were defeated and expelled from Greece, but then Antipater received reinforcements from Craterus who brought to Macedonia the 10, veterans discharged at Opis.
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