Steve
L.A.
Alexander the Great
How exactly did Alexander the Great , an awesome general, die? Growing up in Greece, with great warriors and an overall great army turns you into a warrior, or at least it did for Alexander. He was born, became a warrior, gained power over Greece, became famous, and died a strange death for a great warrior.
Alexander was born in Pella, Macedonia on July 20, 356 B.C.E. His father was King Philip, the King of Macedonia. His mother was Olympias, a princess of Epirus.
In addition to being born into royalty, a warrior named Leonidas trained him. Alexander was taught many different useful things. He was taught to ride horses and perform basic military drills. He was also taught to use a sword, spear, and how to run swiftly.
Alexander also had the great Greek philosopher, Aristotle, as a tutor. Aristotle taught him science, math, and to read. What really rubbed off on Alexander was his love for poetry.
Being born in Greece helped Alexander the Great on his way to greatness. Having tutors really was a big part in becoming great but he was born with some traits that also helped. One of Alexander's great traits was that he would never give up on anything. He would try to do what people said was impossible and amaze them by doing it.
Alexander's father was assassinated, leaving the throne to Alexander at the age of 20. Alexander killed the people he thought where conspiring against him which set everyone straight. Everybody then knew he was a worthy king.
Macedonia was too small for the likes of Alexander, so he to decide to move to Greece. There he was elected by the Congress to rule as a great general. So he became an awesome general of the Greek army.
He fought many battles that he won by far. Like when he killed an army of 40,000 Persians and Greeks, and he only lost 110 men. He then defeated King Darius the lll's army of 500,000. He then captured Tyre.
Later he met up with King Darius again. King Darius' army was much larger now. It had 1,000,000 men. Or at least that is what was said and is now believed, but it could have been smaller.
After he defeated King Darius, he took the treasure of Susa and of the Persians. After many more battles, he had conquered Egypt. He then made the Egyptian Gods accept him as a son.
That is not the only place he conquered. After many more vicious battles with many different armies, he conquered all of Central Asia. He took the survivors of the battles as slaves, but all that would happen is that some Greeks would live with them. All of that only took him 3 yrs.
As his last thing to do( he didn't know it would be his last), Alexander wanted to conquer India. He had no idea that it was so large. Also, not knowing the terrain or knowing about the deadly snakes, gave him a disadvantage.
The other army also had trained war elephants. That would make it hard to use their Calvary. So they attacked and defeated the opposing army's war elephants. After that attack, Alexander's army went on strike. They complained that they had been gone from home for too long. So Alexander took them home.
When he returned, he married a princess named Roxane. After that he started to get stomach cramps but nobody paid attention to it. Then he got pneumonia and could not speak. His troops filed past his bed to say their last goodbyes. He then died June 10, 323 B.C.E. at the age of 23.
Alexander the Great died a not so great death as you can see. He had grown up in the midst of great warriors and became one of them. He was born, became a warrior, gained power, became famous, and died.
Resources
Encarta 98
Miriam Greenblatt, Alexander The Great