Episode 13: Alexander the Great, Twentysomething Genius
Teen Idol
Alexander of Macedonia is pretty special. Many would say great. Very few people in history have grabbed the ring of immortality that accompanies a life worth retelling more than 2,000 years later. And certainly, no one else in history has built a global empire by his mid-twenties.
The story of Alexander starts in Greece, which is divided into small kingdoms with names like Macedon, Thessaly, Aetolia, Attica, and Peloponnesus. Amongst these kingdoms were storied city-states like Sparta, Athens, and Thebes.
Jutting into the Mediterranean is the Greek peninsula and hundreds of islands, including the massive island Crete. Across the Ionian Sea on one side of the peninsula is Rome and across the Aegean Sea on the other side of the peninsula is the Persian Empire.
According to history.com Alexander III was born in Pella, Macedonia, in 356 B.C. to King Philip II and Queen Olympias—although legend had it his father was none other than Zeus, the ruler of the Greek gods. Philip II was an impressive military man in his own right. He turned Macedonia (a region on the northern part of the Greek peninsula) into a force to be reckoned with, and he fantasized about conquering the massive Persian Empire.
In A Companion to Ancient Macedonia, Roisman and Worthington detail a key moment in his early life: When Alexander was ten years old, a trader from Thessaly brought Philip a horse, which he offered to sell for thirteen talents. The horse refused to be mounted, and Philip ordered it away. Alexander, however, detecting the horse's fear of its own shadow, asked to tame the horse, which he eventually managed. Plutarch stated that his father, Philip, overjoyed at this display of courage and ambition, kissed his son tearfully, declaring: "My boy, you must find a kingdom big enough for your ambitions. Macedon is too small for you", and bought the horse for him. Alexander named it Bucephalus, meaning "ox-head". Bucephalus carried Alexander through many of his battles and as far as India. When the animal died of old age at thirty, Alexander named a city after him, Bucephala.
In Alexander the Great, Nick McCarty writes: When Alexander turned 13, his father searched far and wide for a suitable tutor. Philip chose Aristotle and provided the Temple of the Nymphs as a classroom. In return for teaching Alexander, Philip agreed to rebuild Aristotle's hometown of Stageira, which Philip had razed, and to repopulate it by buying and freeing the ex-citizens who were slaves, or pardoning those who were in exile. The temple was like a boarding school for Alexander and the children of Macedonian nobles, such as Ptolemy, Hephaistion, and Cassander. Many of these students would become his lifelong friends and future generals.
McCarty goes on to detail: Aristotle taught Alexander and his companions about medicine, philosophy, morals, religion, logic, and art. Under Aristotle's tutelage, Alexander developed a passion for the works of Homer, and in particular the Iliad; Aristotle gave him an annotated copy, which Alexander later carried on his campaigns.
In addition to academics, Alexander was learning how to fight and lead men. But it wasn’t done in the traditional sense. Steven Pressfield, in The Virtues of War, provides this detail from Alexander: My father never schooled me in warfare as such. Rather he plunged me into it. I first fought beneath his command at twelve, led infantry at fourteen, cavalry at sixteen. I never saw him so proud as to when I showed him my first wound, a lance thrust through my left shoulder.
At sixteen, Alexander was left in charge of the kingdom when his father went north to fight the Thracians. At eighteen in 338 B.C., Alexander commanded the left flank of his father’s army where his father pitted him against the legendary Sacred Band of Thebes, who were considered the best soldiers of that era. Utilizing coordinated cavalry charges and diagonal attacks, he routed the band and helped win the day for his father.
But misfortune was around the corner. Soon after the battle, Philip took another wife, Cleopatra, a Macedonian girl of high nobility. The marriage made Alexander's position as heir less secure since any son of Cleopatra Eurydice would be a fully Macedonian heir, while Alexander was only half-Macedonian.
According to thehistoryofmacedonia.com: At the wedding banquet, Cleopatra's uncle, general Attalus, made a remark about Philip fathering a ‘legitimate’ heir, i.e., one that was of pure Macedonian blood. Alexander threw his cup at the man, blasting him for calling him 'bastard child’. Philip stood up, drew his sword, and charged at Alexander, only to trip and fall on his face in his drunken stupor at which Alexander shouted: "Here is the man who was making ready to cross from Europe to Asia, and who cannot even cross from one table to another without losing his balance."
He then took his mother and fled the country but returned in six months. A few years later, Philip was assassinated by the captain of his bodyguards, some say at the orders of Alexander. Regardless, he was proclaimed king by the nobles and the army and assumed the throne at the age of 20.
With a professional army and a thirst for global conquest, Alexander set out to establish Macedon, and himself, as the ruler of the largest kingdom in the world.
