ABSTRACT
Alexander’s conquests was one which was already proving popular, and perhaps even fashionable, among the ruling élites in regions beyond the political control of the Greek cities.
HISTORICAL OUTLINE
This process of expansion was made possible when the long-established and rather weak kingdom of Macedon was transformed into a major military power by Philip II. He had by 338 BC reduced the Greek cities of mainland Greece to the condition of satellites, and in 337 BC despatched an army to invade the territories of the Persian Empire in Asia Minor. This was a natural target for any ambitious and powerful ruler, since the Persian territories were rich (offering the prospect of enormous booty) and the empire had been showing signs of weakness; it had the additional advantage that such an invasion could be represented in propaganda to the Greek world as an act of piety and just vengeance for the Persian invasions at the beginning of the fifth century. Philip’s assassination in 336 prevented him from going to Asia himself, but his plan was taken up in 334 by his son Alexander III (336-323 BC). What Alexander aimed to achieve was a ‘hostile take-over’ of the whole Persian Empire as a going concern. He would have known from Herodotos’ History that the founder of that empire, Cyrus I, had built it up by defeating the rulers, and annexing the territories, of three large empires, the Median, the Lydian and the Babylonian. Alexander’s task would be more straightforward since he had only a single target, Dareios III of Persia (336-330) and his armies. They were defeated in two great battles, Issos (333) and Gaugamela (331), and the discredited Dareios was murdered by some of his own satraps, or provincial governors, in 330. Alexander then presented himself as Dareios’ legitimate heir, pursued and punished his assassins, married one of his daughters, and even made eighty of his own senior officers marry Iranian noblewomen. But the full development of his plans for his existing conquests and for further campaigns were cut short by his death at the age of thirty-three in 323 BC.
