Alexander the Great of Macedonia is one of the most exciting and controversial figures of antiquity. Probably only Jesus Christ is more famous from the ancient world. Alexander was only 20 years old when he became king of Macedonia in 336 BC, and only 33 when he died in Babylon in 323. Yet in that time he fought hard battles against vastly superior numbers to expand the Macedonian empire from mainland Greece to what the Greeks called India (present day Pakistan), including Syria, and Egypt. Alexander was all set to invade Arabia when he died.
Alexander facilitated the spread of Greek civilization to the east, broadened contacts between east and west, brought to the Greeks a sense of belonging to a greater world than just the Mediterranean, and was worshipped as a god by some of his subjects while he was still alive. Perhaps it’s not a surprise that he came to believe in his own divinity, given his unparalleled conquests. He was a legend in his own lifetime, and he remains one today, as the outpouring of books about him and even movies prove.
But Alexander could not have done anything he did without the achievements of his father Philip II, who became king in 359 and ruled until his bloody assassination in 336. Because without Philip, there would have been no Alexander. Without Philip, and what he did for Macedonia politically, militarily, economically, socially and culturally, no Macedonian king would have been able to undertake the bold venture of invading Asia.
Spontaneous generation is one of those wrong theories that clutter the basements of the biological sciences and that now look so very obviously wrong that it is hard to see how anyone could have taken them seriously in the first place. Why wouldn’t it occur to anyone that flies might be laying eggs that were too small for us to see? How simple would the crucial experiment be? What I have tried to do in much of my work is to turn this ‘obvious wrongness’ on its head—why, exactly, does it seem so obviously wrong?—and see what the new picture that emerges from that inquiry says about science and our belief in its results.Daryn Lehoux, Interview of November 13, 2017
It’s commonplace to say that humor is subjective, since what’s funny to you might not be funny to me. But humor is also a loaded concept. If you – or your people – have no sense of humor, or the wrong one, that means you’re less rational, tolerant, understanding, or civilized. You don’t get it. Or, worse, you lack something human. Modern Chinese debates about humor were very much caught up with these fundamental questions of value.Christopher Rea, Interview of October 26, 2016
In a nutshell
Alexander the Great of Macedonia is one of the most exciting and controversial figures of antiquity. Probably only Jesus Christ is more famous from the ancient world. Alexander was only 20 years old when he became king of Macedonia in 336 BC, and only 33 when he died in Babylon in 323. Yet in that time he fought hard battles against vastly superior numbers to expand the Macedonian empire from mainland Greece to what the Greeks called India (present day Pakistan), including Syria, and Egypt. Alexander was all set to invade Arabia when he died.
Alexander facilitated the spread of Greek civilization to the east, broadened contacts between east and west, brought to the Greeks a sense of belonging to a greater world than just the Mediterranean, and was worshipped as a god by some of his subjects while he was still alive. Perhaps it’s not a surprise that he came to believe in his own divinity, given his unparalleled conquests. He was a legend in his own lifetime, and he remains one today, as the outpouring of books about him and even movies prove.
But Alexander could not have done anything he did without the achievements of his father Philip II, who became king in 359 and ruled until his bloody assassination in 336. Because without Philip, there would have been no Alexander. Without Philip, and what he did for Macedonia politically, militarily, economically, socially and culturally, no Macedonian king would have been able to undertake the bold venture of invading Asia.