equally attentive to the problems of siegecraft. Philip
introduced to the Aegean world the techniques and
siege engines developed by Dionysius, the Tyrant
of Syracuse, and used them successfully against
Perinthus and Byzantium. His son would employ them
against the more distant cities of Tyre, Halicarnassus,
and Gaza.
In ten years (334–324 B.C.) Alexander used this for-
midable army to conquer the Persian Empire and ex-
tend his authority from Greece to Egypt and from
Egypt to India (see map 3.1). His exploits caught the
imagination of his contemporaries and of historians
ever since, but his character remains something of a
mystery.
He was clearly an outstanding general. His great
battles on the Granicus in Asia Minor, at Issus in Syria,
at Gaugamela on the upper Tigris, and on the Hydaspes
in India were brilliant cavalry actions in which the in-
fantry played only a secondary role. His sieges were
consistently successful, and his ability to hold a
multiethnic army together on hard campaigns in
unfamiliar territory attest to an extraordinary capacity
for leadership. In the end, the Macedonians mutinied
and demanded to return home, but even then he
preserved their loyalty by officially making them his
kinsmen.
His purposes, however, are not entirely clear. Many
of his contemporaries saw only personal ambition. Ar-
rian, the chronicler of his campaigns, said that “if he
had found no one else to strive with he would have
striven with himself.” Others, including Plutarch, de-
tected more noble motives (see document 3.3). Alexan-
der’s publicists encouraged the notion of a vast state
based upon universal brotherhood. He proclaimed the
equality of all subjects regardless of religion or ethnic-
ity and gave this policy tangible form by marrying Rox-
ana, a princess from Bactria in central Asia.
He may also have hoped to spread the benefits of
Hellenic culture, but he seems to have stressed this
only in dealing with Greeks. Not all Greeks were con-
vinced. They resented his acceptance of foreign cus-
toms and his tendency to claim divine attributes when
dealing with easterners. His idealism, if such it was, was
accompanied by utter ruthlessness and by a casual bru-
tality aggravated by heavy drinking. When he died in
323 B.C.at the age of thirty-two, he left no successors
and only the most general plan for the governance of
his realms.The Hellenistic Kingdoms
Alexander’s death led to a prolonged struggle among
the Macedonian generals. Though Roxana was preg-
nant when he died, there was no immediate successor.
The commanders at first divided the empire into gover-
norships with the intention of preserving it for the con-
queror’s unborn heir, but they soon fell to fighting
among themselves. In the civil wars that followed, Rox-
ana and her son, together with several of the generals,
were murdered. Three main successor states emerged
from the shambles. Macedon, much of Asia Minor, and
a dominant position in the Greek alliance fell to
Antigonus (382–301 B.C.). The descendants of Ptolemy
(d. 283 B.C.) ruled Egypt as its thirty-third Dynasty un-
til the death of Cleopatra in 30 B.C., while Seleucus
(d. 281 B.C.) established an empire based on Syria and
Mesopotamia (see map 3.1).50 Chapter 3Illustration 3.4
Alexander the Great.This bust of Alexander the Great is a
Roman copy of the lost original. It closely resembles literary de-
scriptions of the conqueror’s appearance by Plutarch and Appian.