Alexander The Great Essay Research Paper 3897BBLOCK

Alexander The Great Essay, Research Paper 3/8/97B-BLOCK Alexander the Great was one of the greatest generals of all time, he helped set forthstandard for the proceeding Greek militaries. Alexander was born in 356 B.C., in Pella,Macedonia; he was born the son of King Philip the 2nd. He was tutored by the well famousAristotle. He at the age of twenty, took over his fathers thrown after he had been assassinated( it is believed that Darius paid for the assassination of King Philip the 2nd), rulingMacedonia and Olympias. And for the next 13 years, he lead his army to many victories( Alexander ). With Alexander in the, commander-in-chief position, he had to regain a sense stabilityback to the league of Cornith (The league of Cornith was a league formed of Greekcity-states, they

held together by treaties and alliances) which was starting to break apart. Hestarted by executing all potential enemies of Philip in court. Next, he had to regain the supportof Thessaly, which had broken off from the league. Quickly, Alexander rounded up 30,000troops and headed for the southern region. The Thessalians were not prepared for the attackand did not even bother to resist the Macedonians. He was off to a positive start as a King(Wepman 41). Next he asked the rest of the league to endorse him on the fight against Persia, since hehad the strongest on army on the peninsula, nobody bothered to reject him accept for Sparta.Alexander then marched his troops northward to the Danube river, on his conquest of Persia.Alexander planned on little opposition along the way, but on

a narrow pass in the moutains,he was confronted by local tribesmen. Alexander had fought them before and knew theirstrategy, they were going to roll wagons down the sides of the cliffs and crush theMacedonian army. Acting quickly, Alexander sent every wagon through first, and the men onfoot second. The soldiers who did not make it through were instructed to lie down flat on theirbacks and cover themselves with their shields, so that the wagons would roll over them, andthe light javelin spears that they threw would not penetrate his soldiers shields. Not a man onthe Macedonian side was lost, soon after, 1500 Thracian soldiers lay dead. And now the pathto the Danube was clear (Wepman 43). The next step for Alexander s men, was to move across the Danube river. However, hismen had

never seen such a swift, large, and wide river. One the other side of the river, therewas the Getae tribe, which felt safe from attack, but they were wrong. Alexander had his menmade their tents into flotation devices, which were made of animal hides, then they stuffedthem with hay. A total of 5,500 men ended up crossing the river. Once on the other side, theGetae spotted them and ran. Alexander s men took the woman and children for slaves, andlater sacrificed some of them to the gods for not letting any of his men drown. Later, othertribes heard word of what happened to the Getae, and decided to not receive the same fate, sothey instead came and paid tribute to Alexander (Ash 34). The next stop on Alexander s trip was the city of Thebes. Thebes had just signed atreaty with

Persia and Athens that stated to oppose Alexander and all other MacedonianKings. Before moving into Thebes, Alexander offered the Thebans to surrender with nocasualties. But Thebes rejected the offer. So, Alexander s army moved into the city andoverran it. They destroyed everything in the city, except for the temples and Pindar s house (Pindar was Greek poet who was praised and therefor saved by Alexander). Alexander wantedto make Thebes an example of what would happen to people should they interfere with him orhis army. It is said that after that, when he would come across a Theban, he would help thembecause he destroyed their home (Ash 37). After the victory in Thebes, Alexander prepared for another attack on the Persians.Alexander, prior to attacking the Persians consulted the