Alexander the Great

I was born at Pella in 356, son of Philip and Olympias. Aristotle placed Homer in my hands; from him I learned to question, to compare, to judge. As a boy I turned Bucephalus toward the sun and found his courage; he carried me farther than any map. When my father fell to an assassin, I took the throne. Thebes rose; I razed the city but spared Pindar’s house and the priests, so Greece would learn my resolve without forgetting its poets and gods.

In 334 I crossed the Hellespont and laid a garland at Achilles’ tomb. Granicus opened Asia; at Issus I broke Darius’s line. Tyre denied me entrance to sacrifice at Melqart; I threw a causeway into the sea and took the island. In Egypt the priests hailed me pharaoh, and I traced Alexandria between lake and sea for ships and scholars yet unborn.

At Gaugamela I shattered the Persian host and took Babylon, Susa, and Persepolis. Fire consumed Persepolis’ halls; let others dispute the reason—retribution or wine, it changed nothing of the road ahead. I set treasuries and couriers to work, kept the satrapies’ ledgers, drew Persians into command, and introduced proskynesis, to the discomfort of many Macedonians. In Bactria I married Roxana, binding the highlands to my tent.

The mountains of Bactria and Sogdiana taught me patience; arrows came from every ravine. I crossed the Indus and defeated Porus on the Hydaspes; Bucephalus died, and I named a city for him. At the Hyphasis my army would go no farther. We turned back through Gedrosia’s sands and paid dearly to the desert. At Babylon I laid plans for harbors, cities, and fleets—and then fever took me, thirty-two years old. My empire broke, but my cities, coin, and speech went on without me.