Of all the kings of history who have tried to conquer the whole world, Alexander the Great was the earliest and he may have been the one who came closest to it. This was more than 2,300 years ago. Alexander was the king of Macedonia, a small country north of Greece. In those days, the Greek countries were the most civilized on earth. Before Alexander died, he made Macedonia the most powerful country on earth. The father of Alexander was King Philip of Macedonia.
Philip was a great warrior and wise statesman. When Alexander became king, his father Philip had already established the control of Macedonia over the great Greek states, though they did retain independent governments of their own. Greece was the center of learning then, and Alexander studied as a boy under the great Greek philosopher Aristotle. He was born in 356 B.C. and became king when he was only 20 years old. He was already given a great country to rule. He immediately set out to make it greater. There are many legends about Alexander the Great, and this should be expected.
When he lived, the gods of the ancient Greek mythology were still thought to have been real gods, and many stories were made up to make it appear that Alexander's great victories were caused by the blessings of the gods and not by his own skill. One story says that when he was only a boy, he tamed and rode the famous horse Bucephalus that no one else could ride. These stories usually have Alexander continuing to ride Bucephalus for 15 or 20 years, which is unlikely because horses do not remain young and strong that long even if they do live that many years. However, there had been a prophecy that the rider of this horse would be a great king of Macedonia, and the stories were told to prove that Alexander the Great deserved to be the king.
Then there was the old legend of the Gordian Knot, about which there is a special article later in this encyclopedia. Whoever could untangle the Gordian knot was supposed to be the next ruler of all of Asia, and Alexander cut it through with his sword. It is probably true that he cut a representation of this knot with his sword, but he probably would have won his great victories in Asia anyway.
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