Alexander the Great (
Greek ????a?d??? ? ???a? or
???a? A???a?d???,
[1] Megas Alexandros;
July 20 356 BC&_160;–
June 10 323 BC),
[2][3] also known as
Alexander III of Macedon (
Greek ????a?d??? G' ? ?a?ed??) was an ancient
Greek[4][5] king (
basileus) of
Macedon (336–323 BC). He was one of the most successful military commanders in history, and was undefeated in battle. By the time of his death, he had conquered most of the world known to the ancient Greeks.
Alexander assumed the kingship of Macedon following the death of his father Philip II of Macedon. Philip had united most of the city-states of mainland Greece under Macedonian rule (the so-called League of Corinth). After reconfirming Macedonian hegemony by quashing a rebellion of southern Greek city-states, and staging a short but bloody excursion against Macedon's northern neighbors, Alexander set out east against the Achaemenid Persian Empire, which he defeated and overthrew. His conquests including Anatolia, Syria, Phoenicia, Judea, Gaza, Egypt, Bactria, and Mesopotamia, and extended the boundaries of his own empire as far as Punjab, India.
Prior to his death, Alexander had already made plans for military and mercantile expansions into the Arabian peninsula, after which he was to turn his armies to the west (Carthage, Rome, and the Iberian Peninsula). His original vision had been to the east, though, to the ends of the world and the Great Outer Sea, as described by his boyhood tutor Aristotle.
Alexander integrated many foreigners into his army, leading some scholars to credit him with a "policy of fusion." He also encouraged marriages between his soldiers and foreigners; he himself went on to marry two foreign princesses.
