ABSTRACT
Alexander established an empire greater than the world had ever known, is part of every Western schoolchild's education. Ruthless and generous by turns - the kind of paradoxical behaviour so typical of despots - Alexander became more and more a victim of his own reputation. One man, Alexander the Lyncestrian prince, who had been under close arrest for three years accused of treasonable correspondence with the Persians and have been involved in the plot, was brought out of confinement and executed simply because he was a political embarrassment. With mainland Greece subdued and the rest of the Greek world suitably overawed, Alexander set about his 'mission', the conquest of the Persian Empire. Some writers have tended to excuse his actions in so far as he brought Greek culture to the East. But he became increasingly obsessional, driven by daimons rather than muses, voices that reaffirmed his divinity and told him that his destiny was one of unending conquest.
