Best known among his successors are the Ptolemies of Egypt, whose empire lasted until Cleopatra. Within a short time after Alexander’s death in Baghdad, his empire began to fracture. Alexander spent nearly all his adult life away from his homeland, and he and his men helped spread the Greek language throughout western Asia, where it would become the lingua franca of the ancient world. Shortly after taking command of the army, he launched an invasion of the Persian empire, and continued his conquests as far south as the deserts of Egypt and as far east as the mountains of present-day Pakistan and the plains of India. Tutored as a boy by Aristotle, Alexander had an inquisitive mind that would serve him well when he faced formidable obstacles during his military campaigns.

Our interest in him has never faded.Īlexander was born into the royal family of Macedonia, the kingdom that would soon rule over Greece. He established the greatest empire of the ancient world Greek coins and statues are found as far east as Afghanistan. He flashed across the sky of history like a comet, glowing brightly and burning out quickly: crowned at age nineteen, dead by thirty-two. He was a general of such skill and renown that for two thousand years other great leaders studied his strategy and tactics, from Hannibal to Napoleon, with countless more in between.

The celebrated Macedonian king has been one of the most enduring figures in history. In the first authoritative biography of Alexander the Great written for a general audience in a generation, classicist and historian Philip Freeman tells the remarkable life of the great conqueror.

Alexander the Great by Philip Freeman