Alexander III of Macedon or Alexander the Great, the mighty king of Macedonia and conqueror of the Persian Empire was born on July, 356 B.C. to Philip II, the King of Macedon, and Olympias, the princess of Epirus. Long before becoming a young, but already great military leader, who has not only united the Greek states, but also subdued numerous peoples of the East and South, thus, rightfully gaining the name of the King of Babylon, King of Asia, King of the Four Quarters of the World, Alexander received a profound education from the philosopher Aristotle, who is nowadays considered one the first scientists. Philip hired Aristotle to be Alexander’s personal tutor, when the boy was only 13, and during the next three years Aristotle has taught the future king rhetoric, poetry, philosophy, drama and politics, but also stimulated young Alexander’s interest in science and medicine. The philosopher found out about Alexander’s dreams of becoming a great hero of the wars inspired by the Iliad of Homer and “created an abridged version of the tome for Alexander to carry with him on military campaigns” (BIO 2014).
Alexander received military training with other soldiers and started participating in military expeditions to Greek city-states in his teens. In 338, when he was only 18, Alexander was appointed to be in charge of the Companion Cavalry and defeated the armies of Athens and Thebes at Chaeronea. These battles proved Alexander as a strong and promising warrior, who could easily become a future leader of his father’s campaigns to the East. However, Philip did not live to see the great campaign. After Philip took a new wife Cleopatra Eurydice, Alexander’s relationships with his father grew cold. Philip was assassinated in 336, allegedly under the influence of Olympias and Alexander. Alexander, as an heir of Philip, still had to prove he should be the one to take the throne. The soldiers, who remembered Alexander from the battles, supported his initiative on gaining the throne and helped him get rid of other potential heirs. Now that he was a King of Macedonia, he still had to prove his state was still a ruler over the conquered Greek cities-states, whose separatist mood rose again after the death of Philip. Alexander led the army through the country reminding his subjects of his power, and after destroying the city of Thebes, he secured his positions in the region, thus, reaching for an opportunity to finally start the great military campaign to conquer the whole world.
After arriving in Troy in 334, Alexander shortly met Darius III, the Persian King, in the battle near the Grancius River. In this and further battles the amount of warriors of the Persian army always outnumbered the soldiers, who came with Alexander. However, being a great at tactics and strategy, the King managed to make the enemies flee the battlefield with minimum losses from his side. Making it through the Asia Minor, Alexander met Darius for the second time in the battle at Issus in summer of 333 B.C. This time Darius brought an even bigger army with soldiers from different states. Darius and his generals thought that Alexander would attack at night and would keep the Persian army awake. However, Alexander decided to give his own people some sleep and refused to steal his own victory. The battle was won, Darius fled the field and Alexander kept his whole family as hostages, but decided to treat them respectfully according to their royal titles. Alexander was self-proclaimed as the King of Persia and turned his campaign to Egypt. Conquering the cities on the coast, Alexander entered Egypt that did not resist the invasion. The city of Alexandria, the most famous of all cities founded by Alexander, was built in 331 and became the center for Greek culture and commerce. After the Battle of Gaugamela the Persian Army collapsed and Alexander moved on to conquer India. In 328 B.C. the great commander defeated the armies of King Porus, who became a client king of his own state. The soldiers of Alexander realized that the world would not end here and refused to go further. Alexander agreed to move back, but led his army through the desert along the Persian Gulf, where he lost more people than in all of his battles. After entering the city of Susa in February 324, Alexander ordered Macedonians to marry or legitimize the existing marriages with Persian women. He himself married two Persian sisters, though being already married to Rhoxane. He also ordered 10000 of his veterans to return to Macedonia and the army did not like this turn of events.
Alexander was planning of conquering Carthage and Rome next, but died several days after the feast in Babylon, Persia, in 323 B.C. at the age of 33, allegedly either of malaria or poison.
Alexander’s empire did not survive long after the King’s death. The nations started regaining their independence, however, the mechanism of assimilation and synthesis of the nations and people has been triggered. The enlargement of the territory and the spread of the Greek language and culture to the east led to the birth of the Hellenistic culture. According to Lindberg: “Alexander and his successors also borrowed from the conquered peoples, creating a synthesis of Greek and foreign elements designated by the adjective “Hellenistic” – meaning “Greekish” that came to substitute the previous Hellenic culture (Lindberg 2010, 67). One of the novelties of the Hellenistic science as a part of the new culture was its adoption of the Near East traditions of state patronage over the science and the application of such patronage towards the Hellenic science created by the abstract thinking scholars.
One of the greatest outcomes of Alexander’s conquest was the foundation of the city of Alexandria. The Ptolemaic dynasty, which was ordered to rule the conquered Egypt, was in charge of creating and maintaining the greatest center of science and culture during the Hellenistic and Greco-Roman history. The center was the Museum at Alexandria. The place did not hold any exhibitions according to its modern concept. It was the place dedicated to the Muses, who inspired scientists and artists to learn and create new great things. Alexander himself was a very educated man, a student of Aristotle, who founded the Lyceum at Athens after leaving his tutoring job in Macedonia. Alexander was interested in spreading culture, science and art. While in Persepolis, he allegedly found two copies of the sacred text of Zoroastrianism called Avesta. After destroying one copy, he sent the remaining one to Alexandria to get it transliterated into the Greek script for the benefit of the Greek science: everything regarding philosophy, astronomy, medicine, and agriculture would be saved (Bosworth and Baynham 2000, 150). To keep the tradition of researches and constant scientific developments, the Museum at Alexandria was established as a sort of the research institution in the modern meaning of this concept. According to Mcclellan and Dorn (2006) the dynasty maintained: “ splendid quarters for the Museum and its staff which included rooms, lecture halls, dissection studios, gardens, a zoo, an observatory, and possibly other facilities for research. The Ptolemies added a glorious library that soon contained500,000 or more papyrus scrolls” (Mcclellan and Dorn 2006, 80). Among the greatest contributors and contributions to science made with the participation of the Museum at Alexandria are: Euclid, who studied at the Museum under the patronage of Ptolemies after moving from the Lyceum at Athens; infamous Archimedes of Syracuse, who did not study at the Museum, but traveled there and had a correspondence with the head of the Library, Eratosthenes of Cyrene; Apollonius of Perga, whose work found its first application in the astronomical theories of Johannes Kepler 1,800 years later (ibid., 82).
Another important thing that Alexander helped achieve the necessary attention was the Babylonian astronomy. Here we can see that Alexander favored not only the introduction of the Greek culture to the Eastern peoples, but also popularization and adoption of the Eastern knowledge into the Hellenic culture. Thus, when Alexander’s men found the astronomical diary of the temple of Marduk in Babylon, they decided to send it to be translated into Greek. The knowledge they received was immediately applied. Among the new findings was the first accurate estimation of the year length conducted by Kidinnu, one of the officials of the temple. He then counted that the year comprised of 365 days, 5 hours, 44 minutes, 12.52 seconds (instead of 48 minutes, 45.17 seconds, the knowledge generally accepted at the time) (Skelton and Dell 2005, 115). Another knowledge the Macedonians discovered during their time in Babylon was the knowledge about two days in a year in autumn and in spring, when the night and day have equal length.
One more huge contribution of Alexander to the world is mapmaking. The world beyond Greece and Macedonia had very vague and unclear borders and territory, and the great campaign allowed the mapmakers, who traveled with Alexander, counted their steps between the camps. Later these maps were widely used at the aforementioned Museum at Alexandria. The territories subdued by Alexander had different values and measurements. Alexander decided to introduce Greek metrological systems to the conquered nations. As Alexander brought the coins minting to the Eastern nations, he decided to make their first names corresponding to the set values, thus, standardizing the relative value of goods (ibid., 118). The creation of the irrigation system, when the water would flow from the mountain to the lowlands through the so called qanats, is one more great innovation by the Persians that was introduced to the Hellenic culture after the conquer.
Another great achievement that reached the Hellenic world is the special way the Persians used to send royal orders through the whole country. While it would take quite a lot of time to reach the addressee by sending the message with a person, who would then go to the recipient, the new method consisted of the lookout posts and people on top of them, who possessed very loud voices. They would shout the message to the next post and thus the message would achieve the recipient within the much shorter period of time.
One of the achievements the Eastern world got from the conquest is the floating bridges that are still sometimes used in India. The Macedonian soldiers would tie together two boats and then would but board on top of them, thus, allowing sending and receiving provisions across the river.
Medicine is another very important science that got a big boost by Alexander. As health was considered one of the most important aspects of life, using herbs for healing and for maintaining healthy body and spirit was very important. Alexander introduced new herbs to the Greeks and Greek achievements, as baths and incubators, to the Eastern people.
Military science was especially developing at those times, when scholars developed military theories based on a very daring and unique way of Alexander’s battles.
The reason for the development and making contributions to science was dictated first and foremost by the high educational background of Alexander and his friends. Secondly, the invasion into several new cultures and traditions during over 10 years inevitably led to the keen interest in the innovations and special features in the uncommon foreign ways to see the world. Despite the pride of Macedonians, who did not deem themselves equal with Greeks and Persians, the scholars in Greek cities, in Alexandria and in conquered states were open to the new knowledge. And however many contributions were made in the history of science and technology during Alexander’s life, even more were achieved during several centuries after his death, when the process of assimilation and synthesis with the new cultures was already unstoppable.
Bibliography
BIO. "Alexander the Great Biography." 2014. http://www.biography.com/people/alexander-the-great-9180468 (accessed 11 Jan 2014).
Bosworth, A. B and Elizabeth Baynham. Alexander the Great in fact and fiction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.
Lindberg, David C. The beginnings of western science. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010.
Mcclellan III, James E and Harold Dorn. Science and technology in world history. Baltimore, Md.: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006.
Skelton, Debra and Pamela Dell. Empire of Alexander the Great. New York: Facts On File, 2005.
