Alexander The Great Dbq

Contrary to popular belief, the young Alexander III of Macedonia was not as amazing as he is often portrayed to be. Alexander was born in 356 BCE and his father (Phillip of Macedonia) actually began the conquering of the large empire Alexander would one day rule. King Philip conquered nearby Greek city-states and had planned to conquer the Persian Empire, but before he was able to complete this attempt he was assassinated. Alexander, in 336 BCE, at the age of 20 years old had become the king of Macedonia. He completed his father’s attack on Persia and died after becoming ill in June of 323 BCE. His empire collapsed not long after (Background Essay). Due to his role in the world when he was alive, Alexander the Great’s greatness should be measured

In fact, due to his education from the great philosopher of Aristotle and preparation for kingship, Alexander “developed a rather high opinion of himself, including the growing belief that he himself was a god” (Background Essay). Later in life, as shown on the map entitled “Alexander’s Empire,” Alexander named eleven of his established cities “Alexandria” (Document A.) Not only does this show a lack of creativity, but also his large amount of self-obsession. During a journey across a desert, Alexander’s troops (who were already dying of thirst themselves), found a small trickle of water and carried what they could back to their leader. However, Alexander dumped the helmet of water onto the ground, completely wasting the good deed his soldiers had performed for him. A good leader should be humble, gracious, and thankful, but Alexander, on the other hand, was egotistical, conceited, and showed almost no gratitude to his

Ten days after he developed a sickness, Alexander died without leaving an heir to the throne. This caused an argument among his generals to fight over who would get what portion of the land (Background Essay). However, according to the chart titled “Alexander’s Legacy,” the fighting and poor leadership among them caused the empire to crumble a short ten years following Alexander’s death (Document E). Alexander’s empire, which was two million square miles at the time of his death (almost the size of the Roman empire), fell apart because of Alexander’s poor planning and lack of political finesse (Document E). This shows that Alexander had little skill as a political leader, which kept his empire on the brink of falling at any moment. Alexander also didn’t think of the future of his people because he hadn’t even thought of the idea of leaving someone to take over his empire after he died, displaying his lack of concern for others and political