Would you be able to accomplish what Alexander did before the age 20? Maybe college, maybe start a job, but not rule and build an empire! The beginning of Alexander’s successful life started when he was born into a wealthy family in Macedonia in the year 356 BCE, Alexander was born into a wealthy family. Son of King Philip of Macedonia and his Mother, Olympia, it was fated he was going to receive the throne. But he soon showed that he had high interest in gaining the land of Persia himself, rather than his father, who soon died. At age 20 he set out with his army, that was a legacy from his father, to lead the charge to gain Persian land. So the question we are asking, is Alexander the Great deserving of his title? Courage, remarkable achievements, and leadership are three characteristics of the term 'great'. By these measures, Alexander accomplished these characteristics, he was courageous, he had many remarkable achievements, and he has the skills of a leader, all of this contributes to how great Alexander the Great was.
One reason that Alexander was great was because using his courage, he was able to conquer many lands. Our first evidence to this claim is, “Philip was assassinated in 336 BCE and, at age 20, Alexander inherited his father's kingdom and set out with the army to conquer Persia" (Background Essay). This piece of evidence proves that Alexander is great because of his courage. He was forced from a young age to take his legacy, and continue the Kings work. Without having any prior knowledge, Alexander pushed himself through and figured out how to fight, and rule a empire. Another piece of evidence is, "Alexander pitched camp on the bank of the Hydaspes, and Porus was to be seen on the other bank with his whole army and his force of elephants. He realized that he could not cross at the point where Porus was encamped – his elephants were too numerous" (Document B). Even though he had a set back because of the elephants he still went on as a courageous figure. Instead of backing off, he decided to make Porus confused by sending his troops different directions. This is an example of courage because he didn't know if it would work or not but he tried it. The last piece of evidence is shown through numbers, "Estimated enemy soldiers and civilians killed in four major battles… 100,000” (Document E). This proves courage because he had fought in four major battles. These were the four major battles at the time and deciding to go against trying to gain land is pretty scary. If he didn't win one battle, he kept going against them till he won. Even though this piece of evidence looks bad since 100,000 people died from the four major battles, he had to do it in order to make his empire the best. Without doing so, Alexander wouldn’t be able to make his empire 2,000,000 square miles. Alexander is a clear example of a courageous person and was really great.
A second reason Alexander's was great was because throughout his journey he made many remarkable achievements. The first remarkable achievement was, "Size of Alexander's empire at his death (sq. miles)… 2,000,000" (Document E). This piece of evidence clearly proves that Alexander is great because of one of his many remarkable achievements. The first one is that once he died, his total empire was 2,000,000 square miles. This is really an achievement because gaining this much land through war in 11 years isn't that simple. The second piece of evidence is, "Number of cities founded by Alexander… 70" (Document E). The second piece of evidence also proves Alexander great because of his remarkable achievements. He founded 70 cities. 70 is a pretty large number to found in 11 years. Founding 70 cities is proof he actually did something when he was alive and it’s worth being known for. The last piece of evidence that proves our point is, "Number of years after Alexander that Greek literature and theater remained strong cultural influences in the eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East… About 900” (Document E). This shows that when he had conquered the land for his empire, he had influenced the culture of the the eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East. Greek culture from Alexander and his army mixed with the culture of the eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East, causing it to be directly influenced. All these pieces of evidence really embraced his remarkable achievements and proved him to be great.
A final reason that Alexander was great was because he was able to use his leadership skills to lead an army of soldiers. Our first piece of evidence to prove this is, “Alexander, with a word of thanks for the gift, took the helmet and, in full view of his troops, poured the water on the ground. So extraordinary was the effect of this action that the water wasted by Alexander was as good as a drink for every man in the army" (Document D). This proves that Alexander was great because of his leadership. He tipped over the water because there was only one glass and he had been doing the same amount of walking and work as his men. If he drank water his men wouldn't have it and that wasn't fair so instead he didn't drink it. Our second piece of evidence to prove that Alexander is a leader is, "He conquered the world, and was a very great man, brave and dauntless and generous to his followers" (Document F). This second piece of evidence also proves that he was a great leader. Kasi Khushnawaz stated that he was really great man and generous to his followers. This proves he was a leader otherwise, Kasi wouldn't have been able to say so! Our last piece of evidence is, "Alexander was stopped – not by enemy, but by his own army, which refused to go farther. After eight years of combat and conquest, Alexander reluctantly turned back" (Background Essay). The third piece of evidence might seem like its a bad thing because they didn't want to go back, but they had their own reasons, we can infer that they were most likely really tired and wanted to see their families. Alexander could've still forced them to go on and not just stop but instead he was being a leader and wasn't being selfish and stopped, he didn't want to stop as stated but he did. In the end it is clear that his leadership skills really contributed to giving him the title “great.”
It is true that Alexander had some bad points, like how he had killed a total of 100,000 enemy soldiers and civilians along his way to make his great empire. Without doing this he couldn’t really build and grow his empire, so this was required. A good think of this was he founded 70 cities. Another bad thing that many people can argue is that he’s selfish and named many places from his name. But he might’ve done that in order to confuse other people, by saying let’s meet at Alexandria but not tell them which Alexandria. Even though 100,000 people died, Alexander still has the characteristics that make a person great, courage, remarkable achievements and leadership. All of this show that when all is said and done, Alexander was a great historical figure.