Alexander the Great

Lesson Plan - Get It!

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Philip II of Macedonia

After the Athenian Golden Age in the 400s B.C., Greece had no primary power, and Persia continued to be a major threat to the entire peninsula.

Philip II of Macedonia only controlled a small empire in the north of Greece.

However, Philip II hired the Greek philosopher Aristotle to teach his son Alexander philosophy, Greek literature, and many other subjects. This was important to Philip because he wanted an educated son who would be able to rule once he was gone.

• Why was having Aristotle as a teacher so important?

Aristotle had been the student of the Athenian philosopher Plato, a student of Socrates. Aristotle represented a concentration of thought from the Athenian Golden Age.

Watch this short clip from the 2004 movie Alexander to see how Aristotle taught the boy who would one day be King.

Aristotle taught Alexander about democracy and the philosophical debates people like Plato had.

He taught Alexander that the only way he could be better than democracy, as a king, was if he were more intelligent than the average person. Only then could he justify his rule.

• Do you think educating leaders as much as possible is a good idea if they will affect our lives?

It was essential in Alexander's case because he wanted to go far beyond the borders of Greece in pursuit of glory.

Alexander the Great

Philip II of Macedon was assassinated when Alexander was 20, so he asserted himself as the heir to his father's throne.

He immediately began his Balkan Campaign. Within a year, the entire Greek peninsula was consolidated under the Kingdom of Macedonia.

Against Aristotle's advice, Alexander was determined to push east and expand his empire.

He used creativity and ingenuity to capture vast swaths of land that had been previously impenetrable.

Watch the short video below to see just one unique technique he implemented.

Macedonia and the Greek allies had a small navy compared to Persia, which could not help with conquest. However, even as far as Tyre, Alexander was able to get around this fact by building a causeway and utilizing massive siege towers to capture the impenetrable city.

• Do you see why people thought Alexander was great at the time?

He could do what nobody had ever done before. After sieging Tyre, Alexander quickly made it to Egypt, where he has crowned Pharaoh of Egypt.

Over the next decade, Alexander would never return home, deciding instead to keep pushing east.

From 333 B.C. to 323 B.C., Alexander continued his campaign to push his kingdom's borders beyond Greece. Eventually, he reached the Indus River in India.

Take a look at this map showing the Empire of Alexander the Great and note the dates on the arrows showing where and when Alexander traveled to each city.

By around 326 B.C., Alexander reached the edge of the Indus River and decided that was far enough. He started on his way back home but fell ill and eventually died in Babylon. Some suggested he was poisoned, but most historians agree he likely just got malaria.

Was He That Great?

From 336 B.C. to 323 B.C., Alexander the Great dramatically changed the eastern Mediterranean coast and the Middle East.

During his long campaign, he befriended Ptolemy I, who eventually became Pharaoh of Egypt decades after Alexander passed away.

Listen to Ptolemy discuss whether Alexander was that special in this clip from Alexander.

Ptolemy recognized Alexander as an idealized figure even in his own time. He was simply a lucky general with some good ideas. There was nothing superhuman about him.

However, one of Alexander's new ideas did make expansion well beyond Greece feasible.

Alexander the Great is considered a cosmopolitan ruler because he never held hatred for the foreign people he conquered. This may have been a result of Aristotle's influence.

This acceptance of and integration with foreign cultures is best illustrated by the three wives Alexander had in his lifetime.

• Roxana of Bactria (Central Asia)
• Stateira II of Persia
• Parysatis II of Persia

As the leader of a powerful Greek kingdom, Alexander married foreign women and encouraged all his soldiers to marry women while on the campaign as well.

• Why might this practice have been useful?

For Alexander, it could cement his claim to rule over that land since he was married to a woman from the region.

If Greeks soldiers intermingled with the empire's subjects, there was a much higher chance that people would continue to accept Greek rule as the cultures merged.

Whether his accepting attitude toward cultural interaction was a calculated strategy or a byproduct of his worldly education, Alexander was great in changing what it meant to rule over a vast empire.

Continue to the Got It? section to review Alexander's journey and consider how much of his legacy might be the result of luck.