Peace?
- After two major battles lost, darius III was ready to give up some land in hoopes that alexander would stop his conquest
- the macedonian advisors to alexander told him to take the offer, but alexander refused
- alexanders goal was to conquer all of the persian empire
Alexander in Egypt
- alexander was welcomed into egypt as a liberator even though egypt was persian territory
- was even crowned pharaoh
- alexander named a city, alexandria after himself, very common thing for him to do
Continuing the conquest
- alexander still wanted to kill king darius III of persia so he pursued him
- this pursuit mad him a great conquered but bad at governing the land he conquered
- he eventually found king darius, dead, one of his own men had killed him
Are we there yet?
- many thought that once darius was dead alexander might stop the conquest, they were wrong
- he invaded certain areas of india and successfully defeated them there as well
- only problem alexander struggled with was the low morale of the his army
Low morale
- alexander's troops had been fighting for a very long time and traveled far
- had fought for 11 years
- had marched 11000 miles
- in bad conditions, deserts and even monsoon rains
- very disappointed, alexander agreed to return home
Governor?
- when alex had reached babylon, he announces that he wants to unite his empire by building new cities, roads and harbors and conquer arabia
- he became seriously ill with a fever and died at the age of 32 after big promises and vows
Legacy
- married a persian princess
- he even wore persian dress and presided over a mass marriage of 80 of his men to persian women
- very interesting cultural impact-spreading Hellenistic culture
- at the time of his death, alexander had conquered a vast amount of land
- generals fought over who got the power of the empire
Generals
- eventually these 3 generals of alex got control of his conquered land
- Antigonus became the king of macedonia and took control of the greek city states
- Ptolemy seized egypt, took the title of pharaoh, and began a dynasty
- Seleucid got cotrol over the old Persian empire. he didnt take the demographic approach with him, the rulers had all the power not the people
Alexander was greedy and desperate to prove himself by going to extremes. I think he drove himself crazy looking for king darius and left an impression on his people that wouldn't be forgotten, and he was very power hungry. He was self driven to extremes when he allowed his army to travel that long and far, and kharma got the best of him at the end.
Comments