Like a great many successful rulers and generals, Alexander was able to be very severe when he thought he had to be, and this was true even when he was a young king not more than 21 years old. He had been fighting the "barbarians" (as they were later called) - the Germanic tribes who occupied parts of Europe to the north of Macedonia. The Greek cities heard that he was dead, and one of them, Thebes, revolted. Alexander took his army back to Thebes, destroyed the entire city, and either killed or made slaves of nearly everyone who lived there.
This was harsh treatment, but it made all the rest of Greece afraid to revolt against him. Then Alexander led his well-trained army into Persia, where he conquered the great king of Persia, Darius, and made himself the ruler of that country. He next conquered Egypt, then one of the centers of the civilized world, and founded the city of Alexandria. His next goal was Asia, and he marched his armies through Afghanistan and into India, and conquered India. There was no other general who was as good. In most of Alexander's great victories the enemy had larger armies than he had, but he outsmarted the enemy commanders.
He might even have gone on to conquer all of Asia, if he had lived long enough. But a fever overtook him, and he died when he was not quite 33 years old, at the city of Babylon in Persia. The greatness of Alexander is partly in the way he spread education and culture to the countries he conquered. The Greeks were the great thinkers, the great architects, and the great builders Wherever Alexander went he left colonies that transplanted the beauty and knowledge of the Greek cities to places hundreds or thousands of miles away. Many scholars believe that Alexander the Great speeded up the civilization of the world by several hundred years.
David is the author of many articles including Best Friend Quotes and also the author of Best life quotes
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