Alexander's conquests, on a map

Macedonia was a kingdom in the north of Greece. Alexander was born there in 356 BC. His father, King Philip II, had made Macedonia strong and had built a powerful army. When Alexander was about thirteen, Philip invited the famous philosopher Aristotle to be his teacher. The writer Plutarch says that they studied together at Mieza, in a quiet place sacred to the nymphs. As a boy, Alexander also tamed a difficult horse called Bucephalas, which later carried him into many battles.

In 336 BC Philip was murdered. Alexander became king, the βασιλιάς of Macedonia, at only twenty years old. Two years later, in 334 BC, he crossed from Europe into Asia with his στρατός, his army. His goal was the huge Persian Empire, which was ruled by King Darius III. This was the start of his great κατάκτηση, his conquest.

Take a χάρτης, a map, of the Mediterranean and the Middle East, and follow Alexander's army step by step. Today his route crosses many different countries.

• 334 BC, the river Granicus (north-west Turkey today): his first big νίκη, a victory, over the Persians.
• 333 BC, Issus (southern Turkey): he defeats Darius III, who flees from the battle, first in his chariot and then on horseback.
• 332 BC, Tyre (Lebanon): the city on an island resists for months, but in the end it falls.
• 331 BC, Egypt: Alexander founds Alexandria by the sea.
• 331 BC, Gaugamela (northern Iraq): he beats Darius again, and the Persian Empire falls to him.
• 326 BC, the river Hydaspes (Pakistan today): he defeats King Porus, who waits for him on the other bank with his war elephants, the ελέφαντες.

Then, at the river Beas in India, his tired soldiers refused to go any further. They had been marching for eight years, far from home. So Alexander had to turn back.

Alexander did not only fight. He also founded new cities, and he gave many of them his own name. The most famous is Alexandria in Egypt, the Αλεξάνδρεια, founded in 331 BC on the coast. Plutarch tells a funny story about it. The builders had no chalk to mark the plan of the city on the ground, so they used barley flour. Then huge flocks of birds came down and ate it all! Alexander was worried, but his seers told him that the city would one day feed people from every land.

In a way, they were right. Alexandria grew into one of the greatest cities of the ancient world. It is still a big city in Egypt today, and in Greek it still has the same name.

Other cities were much further east, like Alexandria Eschate, which means “the furthest Alexandria”, in Central Asia. Alexander even founded a city in memory of his horse Bucephalas, who died after the battle at the Hydaspes. Plutarch says that he named another city after his dog, Peritas.

In 323 BC Alexander fell ill in Babylon, in today's Iraq. He had a high fever for about ten days, and then he died. He was only 32 years old, and nobody knows for sure what killed him. His empire, his αυτοκρατορία, stretched from Greece to India, but there was no heir who was able to rule it.

So his generals fought each other for many years, and in the end they divided the empire into several kingdoms. Ptolemy took Egypt, and his family ruled there until 30 BC. Seleucus built a large kingdom in Asia.

In Macedonia, a powerful man called Cassander married Thessalonike. She was a daughter of Philip II, so she was Alexander's half-sister. Around 315 BC, Cassander founded a new city by the sea and named it after his wife. That city is Thessaloniki, today the second-largest city in Greece.