Alexander's Father Phillip example essay topic

Alexander The Great was born in Macedonia in the year 356 B.C., several hundred years before Christ and even before the rise of Rome. Despite this fact he is still a topic of discussion and study more than two millennium later for a plethora of reasons. His insight and ability on the field of battle has made him a shining example of how to conduct the art of war. He has been studied for centuries by both military journals and colleges. He has also kept the scholars of this world as busy as well.

His choices to build cities and centers for learning and the preservation of knowledge such as the library at Alexandria have been able to provide work for generations of archaeologists and other scholars. His image over the years has been one that is almost impossible to describe. He has been cast as tyrant, alcoholic, and Christ figure. It is impossible to explore the later facets of Alexander's life without at least glimpsing the years of his childhood and early adulthood. Born to Phillip II of Macedonia and Olympias, Alexander was heir to the throne of Macedonia. Probably the most important influence in his young life was the tutoring he received from Aristotle and Leonidas starting around the age of thirteen.

By Aristotle Alexander was imbued with an incredible background in science, literature, and rhetoric all of which would serve him well in the future. Though they did not always have like minds on subjects of policy it is clear that Alexander always kept his teachers musings in mind. Unfortunately his final reward for his teacher was the execution of Aristotle's nephew Callisthenes many years later. Leonidas, was hired by Philip II to train and discipline Alexander's body. He sent Alexander on frequent all night marches and rationed his food.

Alexander's schooling with his two teachers continued until he was 16 years old. Alexander's father Phillip, growing quite tired of his wife Olympias' antics, chose to marry another woman. The woman he chose was Cleopatra, the niece of one of his commanders Attalus. During the wedding feast Attalus is said to have remarked that perhaps now Phillip would produce a legitimate heir to the throne. The strong spirited Alexander leapt to his feet demanding to know the meaning of this insult.

Phillip, Alexander's own father, stood with his sword drawn, prepared to defend his new father-in-law's honor and immediately tripped to the ground. Alexander uttered his own famous taunt then: "The man who prepared to leave Europe for Asia could not cross from one chair to the next" (Snyder, P. 31). Deeply troubled, and no doubt in a great deal of danger, he fled with his mother to her homeland in Epirus. It was this turmoil filled childhood that has made some observers suggest that he may have suffered from possible Oedipus complex (Thomas, P. 860). By 336 Alexander and his father had publicly reconciled their differences. Alexander stood with his father once again.

Philip II was assassinated at his daughter's wedding feast. The assassin was an aggrieved Macedonian nobleman. Pausanias assassinated Alexander's father in the doorway to a theater. The official verdict on Philip's assassination claimed the assassin had been bribed by Darius, the king of the Persian Empire. However, many suspected Alexander and his mother because they had recently fallen from royal favor.

No one knows quite why Phillip was murdered, but it was finally declared that Alexander had taken no part in the deed. Pausanias was cut down immediately and legends say his body was crucified although there is no definitive evidence one way or another. At this time Alexander took possession of his father's throne. At first he was faced with rebellions on every side. He then began to surround himself with loyal friends and completely overhauled the upper echelons of power in Macedonia.

Before the end of the summer of 336 BC he had reestablished his position in Greece and was elected by a congress of states at Corinth. In 335 BC as general of the Greeks in a campaign against the Persians, originally planned by his father, he carried out a successful campaign against the defecting Thracians, penetrating to the Danube River. On his return he crushed in a single week the threatening Illyrians and then hastened to Thebes, which had revolted. He took the city by storm and razed it, sparing only the temples of the gods and the house of the Greek lyric poet Pindar, and selling the surviving inhabitants, about 8000 in number, into slavery. Alexander's promptness in crushing the revolt of Thebes brought the other Greek states into instant and abject submission. He was much more merciful to the Athenians who, though they had incited the unrest, were very quick kowtow to his power afterwards.

Despite this, several of the states, such as Athens and Sparta, were to cause him headaches for much of his time as ruler. At this point in his rule Alexander turned his eye to Asia and the lands of the east. Asia at this time referred almost entirely to the lands of the Persian Empire. At this time the ruler of these lands was Darius, called the Great King. Alexander's victories and triumphs in these campaigns against Darius and his armies would be far to numerous to list, but it is fact that his armies swept across the "spear won" lands of Persia.

Alexander's military innovation and insight as well as his tenacity and drive are legendary. Tacticians have long studied his strategies and have reshaped them for use in modern warfare. He was always creative and inventive and was never afraid to use those traits in the field. His problems with Darius, The Great king of Persia, would continue to plague him despite beating Darius' army on several occasions.

By the end of 331 Alexander stood on Egyptian soil and was heartily welcomed by the inhabitants there. In his travels Alexander certainly destroyed his share of cities and communities of all sorts. Perhaps this fact could diminish his building of cities, but it does not. In each case, the cities that Alexander and his followers built were vast improvements with innovations and ideas unique to the local climate, geography, and culture. However, his concept, and arguing point with Aristotle, of fusion of ethnicities never took hold. He found there was some mixing of ethnic sentiments, but his proposition of a blending was, sadly, never to be.

Upon arrival in Egypt, Alexander set about the creation of one of the greatest cultural and learning centers of the Mediterranean: Alexandria (Popovic, p. 13). While there he sought out the oracle of Amon-Ra. He was pronounced the son of that great god and was made a pharaoh by the people of Egypt before he left. Darius was to again feud with Alexander, Prompting him to leave Egypt in the summer of 331. This was the beginning of what would be the end of the conflict that seemed to drive the two men.

By 330 Alexander had completely routed Darius' armies. He pursued his foe into the mountains of Bactria. At this time the final blow befell Darius. One of his supporters' Bessus, staged a coup de tat against Darius and murdered him.

When Alexander learned of this he had himself crowned Great King of Persia a. By the spring of 327 his armies had moved all the way into India and had forced the surrender of Oxyartes. Oxyartes was to become a great friend of Alexander's. The new king eventually married Oxyartes sister, Roxanne. Alexander continued to push on into India entering into an Alliance with King Taxiles of Taxila against Porus.

With elephants and local soldiers, Alexander and Taxiles defeated Porus in a mightily fought battle along the banks of the Hydaspes. As his march east continued he conquered and befriended his foes at every turn. In less than twelve years Alexander had conquered most of the known world, a feat which none of his predecessors had accomplished in the many centuries that the Greek people had existed before him. Alexander had a huge empire. In the Mediterranean, Alexander had parts if not all of Bulgaria, Greece, and Macedonia. In the Middle East, he had parts or all of Iraq, Iran, Egypt, Israel, and Lebanon.

In Asia Minor, Alexander held parts or all of Turkey, Afghanistan, and Armenia. In Asia, he ruled parts or all of India and Pakistan. He also ruled small parts of Albania, Libya, and Russia. At this point it became necessary for him to become an administrator to this behemoth empire he had carved out. The need for competent control arose (Popovic, p. 6). At this time Alexander rewarded his faithful troops and returned many of them home with rewards for their service.

This was, of all the things that he did with his forces that have been passed down or lost through the centuries, one of the most astounding. Providing retired soldiers with any kind of service stipend was unheard of at the time. Releasing soldiers under good terms was even more rare. During his long years of warfare he never failed to honor those members of his soldiery who fell in combat, and was quick to dedicate his victories in their honor.

In 323, at age 33, Alexander The Great died of an uncontrollable fever. The specific day remains debated until now with days ranging from the 10th through the 13th of June. The cause of the fever though highly debated remains largely unknown and will probably never be revealed. Was it due to wild nights of debauchery and heavy drinking (Snyder, p. 199), or was it as at least one physician hypothesized (Sbarounis, p. 294) acute pancreatitis?

Just before his death Alexander was asked who would take over after he died. He was reported to have said simply: "The Strongest". The Generals of his army wisely chose to have two kings: Phillip Arrhidaeus son of Phillip II, and Alexander the IV Son of Alexander the Great. By 309, both kings had been assassinated and the world's most expansive empire up until that time fell to pieces. Alexander accomplished all of these things in a mere sixteen years of rule. What great gains may he have made if he were alive for another twenty or more?

He established a system of finance such that there was a common currency (usually with his own face on it) and a system of tax collections. This common currency soon broke down after the fall of his empire, but the foundation for cultural coinage had been laid and is still apparent in the local currencies of many nations. He was responsible in large part for creating a common market that extended from Macedonia to India, which allowed for trade and exchange of cultural and social ideas, concepts, and notions many of which can still be seen to this very day. Until the last couple of centuries Alexander's image had remained fairly steadfast. Recently, however, the worldview of him has shifted to seeing his actions as barbarous. The misconceptions are rampant and many.

They are fueled by the tempo centric process of viewing life in the fourth century B.C. by the moral standards of today. Alcoholism in today's reality is a problem, and judging by the vast number of accounts of Alexander's legendary debauchery and drunkenness, it was then as well. However to try to compare the two is foolish. If Alexander was an alcoholic then too were most of his contemporaries. He is never reported as having acted outside the bounds of morality. He was of course the king and that no doubt had some influence on the light he is viewed in too, but considering his accomplishments the question of his alcoholism became irrelevant Likewise, his brutality as a general in battle has been the topic of disparagement.

It was not at all uncommon, and was in fact considered perfectly acceptable, for a conquering army to raze and pillage a city they had conquered. It should also be noted; the reporter or messenger for their own ends may inflate that as in modern times casualty rates. An example of this is suggested by Bosworth (1997, p. 48) when he noted the disparity between 100 and 300,000 casualties reported in the battle for Gaugamela by different sources. For all his reported brutality, it is well known that Alexander spared the lives of his conquered foes time after time. A great demonstration of this would be that it is known that he kept Darius' mother and family alive after capturing them. He also befriended many of his defeated enemies and made them governors of the lands he took from them.

A prime example of this is the story of his wife, sister of his defeated foe, Oxyartes. As with many historical accounts, the documents in question should be taken with a grain of salt. It must be said that the original texts which are the source for all the modern interpretations are, after all, translations of archaic or dead languages and were at best written copies of an oral tradition that had been passed on sometimes for centuries. Add to this delay in reporting, the potential ambiguities in both the spoken and written accounts (Bosworth, p. 50), and the necessary conclusion is that there is really no way to be sure that any of our concepts of a single life, even one as important as Alexander's, is correct. We are at best groping in the dark for a light switch that may not even be there.

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