Alexander the Great: Positive Unifier or Evil Conqueror?

Have you ever wished you could tell your parents what to do? What about being in charge of your school for the day? What laws would you make if you ran the entire country? How would you feel if every living person on earth saw you as the ultimate authority and worshipped you as a living god? It’s a safe bet the power might go to your head in any of those instances.

What if you had reached that last level where every person you came into contact with would eventually see you as their leader and thought of you as invincible since you were, according to legend, the son of Zeus? What if your personal teacher was one of the smartest people to have ever walked the earth and you learned tactics of war from one of history’s greatest generals? While many dream of having even one of the aforementioned opportunities and qualities, history tells us there was one man who possessed all of these qualities and many, many more.

His name was Alexander III of Macedon, but we know him simply as Alexander the Great. He conquered nearly the entire known world, was thought to be a living god, was essentially undefeated in battle and spread the advanced Greek culture to places as far away as India. Unbelievably, he didn’t even make it to his 33^rd birthday. According to legend, Julius Caesar wept at the foot of a statue of Alexander because at the same age Alexander had died, he felt as if he was a failure and had accomplished nothing. How could one person accomplish so much in so little time? According to history, he did so by either being a fair and powerful ruler or rather by being incredibly ruthless. Which is more true has always been the source of major debate. It is your turn to decide……….