Insights

[251] The resulting syncretism known as Greco-Buddhism influenced the development of Buddhism[citation needed] and created a culture of Greco-Buddhist art. [190], Ancient authors recorded that Alexander was so pleased with portraits of himself created by Lysippos that he forbade other sculptors from crafting his image. Pausanias writes that Alexander wanted to dig the Mimas mountain (today at the Karaburun area), but he didn't succeed. In November 332 he reached Egypt. Then Philip, taking Attalus's part, rose up and would have run his son through; but by good fortune for them both, either his over-hasty rage, or the wine he had drunk, made his foot slip, so that he fell down on the floor. [17] Alexander named it Bucephalas, meaning "ox-head". [27], At age 16, Alexander's education under Aristotle ended. He also dispatched Heracleides, an officer, to explore the Hyrcanian (i.e., Caspian) Sea. His determination to incorporate Persians on equal terms in the army and the administration of the provinces was bitterly resented. [4][5] In 334 BC, he invaded the Achaemenid Empire (Persian Empire) and began a series of campaigns that lasted 10 years. [271], In pre-Islamic Middle Persian (Zoroastrian) literature, Alexander is referred to by the epithet gujastak, meaning "accursed", and is accused of destroying temples and burning the sacred texts of Zoroastrianism. [189] His intelligent and rational side was amply demonstrated by his ability and success as a general. The Athenians, led by Demosthenes, voted to seek alliance with Thebes against Macedonia. He also received news of a Thracian uprising. He was undefeated in battle and became the measure against which military leaders compared themselves. [248] Furthermore, town planning, education, local government, and art current in the Hellenistic period were all based on Classical Greek ideals, evolving into distinct new forms commonly grouped as Hellenistic. When King Phillip invaded Thrace, he left Alexander in charge of Macedonia at the age of 16. Along the way his army conquered the Malhi (in modern-day Multan) and other Indian tribes and Alexander sustained an injury during the siege. Apart from a few inscriptions and fragments, texts written by people who actually knew Alexander or who gathered information from men who served with Alexander were all lost. Alexander was emboldened to divide his forces, and Ambhi assisted Hephaestion and Perdiccas in constructing a bridge over the Indus where it bends at Hund,[115] supplied their troops with provisions, and received Alexander himself, and his whole army, in his capital city of Taxila, with every demonstration of friendship and the most liberal hospitality. Leaving Parmenio in Syria, Alexander advanced south without opposition until he reached Gaza on its high mound; there bitter resistance halted him for two months, and he sustained a serious shoulder wound during a sortie. Darius fled the battle, causing his army to collapse, and left behind his wife, his two daughters, his mother Sisygambis, and a fabulous treasure. "[53] At Corinth, Alexander took the title of Hegemon ("leader") and, like Philip, was appointed commander for the coming war against Persia. In the process, both Alexander IV and Philip III were murdered. [182] The Macedonian phalanx, armed with the sarissa, a spear 6 metres (20 ft) long, had been developed and perfected by Philip II through rigorous training, and Alexander used its speed and manoeuvrability to great effect against larger but more disparate[clarification needed] Persian forces. Instead of taking the direct route down the river to Babylon, he made across northern Mesopotamia toward the Tigris, and Darius, learning of this move from an advance force sent under Mazaeus to the Euphrates crossing, marched up the Tigris to oppose him. He murdered Cleitus, one of his most-trusted commanders, in a drunken quarrel, but his excessive display of remorse led the army to pass a decree convicting Cleitus posthumously of treason. His vast empire stretched east into India. On his reaching the oracle in its oasis, the priest gave him the traditional salutation of a pharaoh, as son of Amon; Alexander consulted the god on the success of his expedition but revealed the reply to no one. In the area of architecture, a few examples of the Ionic order can be found as far as Pakistan with the Jandial temple near Taxila. Many of Aristotle's teachings stayed with Alexander and guided him throughout his life. [180] Nevertheless, Perdiccas read Alexander's will to his troops.[60]. [129] Alexander reached Susa in 324 BC, but not before losing many men to the harsh desert. Alexander's settlement of Greek colonists and the resulting spread of Greek culture in the east resulted in a new Hellenistic civilization, aspects of which were still evident in the traditions of the Byzantine Empire in the mid-15th century AD and the presence of Greek speakers in central and far eastern Anatolia until the Greek genocide and the population exchange in the 1920s. Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. He had his cousin, the former Amyntas IV, executed. Alexander personally defeated the Scythians at the Battle of Jaxartes and immediately launched a campaign against Spitamenes, defeating him in the Battle of Gabai. [18], When Alexander was 13, Philip began to search for a tutor, and considered such academics as Isocrates and Speusippus, the latter offering to resign from his stewardship of the Academy to take up the post. Later in the same year he attacked Oxyartes and the remaining barons who held out in the hills of Paraetacene (modern Tajikistan); volunteers seized the crag on which Oxyartes had his stronghold, and among the captives was his daughter, Roxana. [246], The core of the Hellenistic culture promulgated by the conquests was essentially Athenian. [210] However, Alexander also was a pragmatic ruler who understood the difficulties of ruling culturally disparate peoples, many of whom lived in kingdoms where the king was divine. Some parts of Caria held out, however, until 332. After visiting Ilium (Troy), a romantic gesture inspired by Homer, he confronted his first Persian army, led by three satraps, at the Granicus (modern Kocabaş) River, near the Sea of Marmara (May/June 334). [121] Alexander founded two cities on opposite sides of the Hydaspes river, naming one Bucephala, in honour of his horse, who died around this time. [137], Afterwards, Alexander travelled to Ecbatana to retrieve the bulk of the Persian treasure. Be on the lookout for your Britannica newsletter to get trusted stories delivered right to your inbox. There is no basis for the tradition that he turned aside to visit Jerusalem. Shortly afterward, however, Callisthenes was held to be privy to a conspiracy among the royal pages and was executed (or died in prison; accounts vary); resentment of this action alienated sympathy from Alexander within the Peripatetic school of philosophers, with which Callisthenes had close connections. However, Alexander met with resistance at Gaza. With these victories, he secured his northern frontier. He colonized it with Greeks, and founded a city named Alexandropolis. Moreover, he needed the wealth of Persia if he was to maintain the army built by Philip and pay off the 500 talents he owed. In 336, however, on Philip’s assassination, Alexander, acclaimed by the army, succeeded without opposition. He is considered a great military leader and was an inspiration to future leaders such as Julius Caesar and Napoleon Bonaparte. [267] His court historian Callisthenes portrayed the sea in Cilicia as drawing back from him in proskynesis. [274] Later Persian writers associate him with philosophy, portraying him at a symposium with figures such as Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, in search of immortality. After the defeat, Spitamenes was killed by his own men, who then sued for peace. Alexander III of Macedon (Greek: Αλέξανδρος Γʹ ὁ Μακεδών, Aléxandros III ho Makedȏn; 20/21 July 356 BC – 10/11 June 323 BC), commonly known as Alexander the Great (Greek: ὁ Μέγας, ho Mégas), was a king (basileus) of the ancient Greek kingdom of Macedon[a] and a member of the Argead dynasty. [49] Alexander spared Arrhidaeus, who was by all accounts mentally disabled, possibly as a result of poisoning by Olympias. This victory exposed western Asia Minor to the Macedonians, and most cities hastened to open their gates. Subsequently, however, the two rivals were reconciled by the personal mediation of Alexander; and Taxiles, after having contributed zealously to the equipment of the fleet on the Hydaspes, was entrusted by the king with the government of the whole territory between that river and the Indus. [144][175], Perdiccas initially did not claim power, instead suggesting that Roxane's baby would be king, if male; with himself, Craterus, Leonnatus, and Antipater as guardians. Alexander then marched for three days to the Danube, encountering the Getae tribe on the opposite shore. Alexander now planned to recall Antipater and supersede him by Craterus, but he was to die before this could be done. However, his successors explicitly rejected such policies. Though outmanoeuvered by Darius' significantly larger army, he marched back to Cilicia, where he defeated Darius at Issus. The cosmopolitan art and mythology of Gandhara (a region spanning the upper confluence of the Indus, Swat and Kabul rivers in modern Pakistan) of the ~3rd century BC to the ~5th century AD are most evident of the direct contact between Hellenistic civilization and South Asia, as are the Edicts of Ashoka, which directly mention the Greeks within Ashoka's dominion as converting to Buddhism and the reception of Buddhist emissaries by Ashoka's contemporaries in the Hellenistic world. [235], The eastern borders of Alexander's empire began to collapse even during his lifetime. The Theban resistance was ineffective, and Alexander razed the city and divided its territory between the other Boeotian cities. [144] Another theory is that his successors wilfully or erroneously misheard "tôi Kraterôi"—"to Craterus", the general leading his Macedonian troops home and newly entrusted with the regency of Macedonia. In the years following his death, a series of civil wars tore his empire apart, resulting in the establishment of several states ruled by the Diadochi, Alexander's surviving generals and heirs. [250] On the Silk Road trade routes, Hellenistic culture hybridized with Iranian and Buddhist cultures. In spring 324 he was back in Susa, capital of Elam and administrative centre of the Persian empire; the story of his journey through Carmania in a drunken revel, dressed as Dionysus, is embroidered, if not wholly apocryphal. [114] Ambhi hastened to relieve Alexander of his apprehension and met him with valuable presents, placing himself and all his forces at his disposal. After that victory he was sent by Alexander in pursuit of Porus (Indian name Puru), to whom he was charged to offer favourable terms, but narrowly escaped losing his life at the hands of his old enemy.

The Thirteenth Tale Symbols, James Franciscus Cause Of Death, Lamar Odom Stats, William Rondo Barbershop, Believer Lyrics Meaning, Class Of 1999 Online, Alexis Rodman, Bone Daddy's New Uniforms, The Goldfinch Docs,