Dynasty:

Alexander III (356-323 BC),

History:

 Alexander the Great was Macedonian king and son of Philip II of Macedon and an Epirote princess named Olympias. Alexander was tutored by Aristotle in science and the political arts, and he received a complete education in military tactics and strategy from the great Macedonian generals, Antipater and Parmenion. He had his first diplomatic experience while he was still a child, when he received the ambassadors of Persiaduring his father's absence. At the age of eighteen he led the Macedonian cavalry in a victorious charge which won the Battle of Chaeronea in 338 BC.

During 332 and 331 BC. Alexander founded the Nilecity of Alexandria. Meanwhile Darius had asked for peace, offering Alexander all the territory he had won in addition to ten thousand talents and the hand of his daughter. Alexander, however, continued his advance through Syriaand access the Euphratesand Tigrisinto Assyriawhere he fought Darius again. The Persians again were routed; Darius again fled across the mountains to Media as Alexander entered Babylonia with little resistance. In 330 BC. Alexander forced his way into Persia, occupying its capital, Persepolis. In the spring of that same year, he marched north to Ecbatane against Darius, who was killed by his own officers as he fled to the Persian provinceof Bacteria, north of the Hindu Kush Mountains.

Alexander became the king of Persia, but he had to secure his title by the conquest of the remaining Persian provinces which lay eastward to the Indus River. Between 330 and 325 BC. Alexander campaigned across modern Afghanistan and Turkestanand eventually penetrating India. When his soldiers refused to proceed further east, Alexander returned to Babylonin 325 BC., having fulfilled as nearly as possible the prophecy of the Gordian knot.

Alexander's tremendous empire was now a major problem. His subjects spoke many different languages, and there where many differed customs. In the old Persian Empire Alexander was an absolute monarch, in Egypthe was worshiped as a god, to the Greek he was merely a commander-in-chief, and in Macedoniahe was anything to absolutism, as a matter of fact, divinity was resented. Alexander, in order to unite his Empire, he desired to model his whole government after Persian absolutism. He had planned to create a ruling class by intermarriage of Macedonian and Persian nobles. He himself married foreign, Roxanne of Bacteria and later a Persian princess.

In year 323 BC. Alexander died with a fever at the age of thirty-three.

Sightseeing:

In early 1995 new archaeological discoveries apparently showed that the Alexander had not been buried in Alexandria, as we all thought, but in fact in Siwa, at the Oracle of Zeus.