Lets try this again, Alexander The Great? Really great or an evil ******** ?

Answer 1

It's not as simple as "great" or "evil." You have to place these things in historical context. For hundreds of years earlier, the Persians were a very real threat to the Greeks. While the Greeks manged to push them back, time and again, the Persians always returned. After Alexander, though, the Persians were never again a threat to the Greeks.

Alexander was animated by two things: the desire permanently to remove the Persain threat, and the desire to "Hellenize" the known world. With several thousand years of hindsight you might say he was a tad arogant, but also, if you take the same hindsight, the culture he was trumpeting really was the most advanced in the ancient world at the time.

Does this make him great or evil? I don't think we can make those kinds of assessments about someone who lived so long ago. It was a different world governed by different views of reality, of right and of wrong. You have to look at the man's achievements irrespective of any moral tinge and make your assessment that way. From that standpoint, I'd say he's pretty great.

Answer 2

I don't think he was really evil. There are theories that he killed his own father, since his friends killed the man who directly killed Phillip, maybe to shut him up. Also, he was not going to be the heir to the throne, since even though he was the legitimate son of Phillip, his mother was not Macedonean, and when Phillip took a Macedonian queen and had a child by her, the child was the rightful heir. After Phillip died, Alexander seized the throne anyway, and I believe either he or his mother killed the child.

At the same time, however, he was one of the most learned men of his age. Aristotle was his tutor. He never lost a battle, and was a great strategist. He was extremely upset that some of his men killed Darius, his foe in Turkey, rather than let him live. Some say he was gay, because he kept a boyhood friend with him until the friend died (homosexuality was more accepted then), and he died soon afterward, possibly from grief.

So was he really great or evil? I'd say he was a military genius with serious family issues.

Answer 3

Depends on your personal point of view. He became king at a young age. He united his own kingdom behind him. He showed great skills in battle, otherwise he would have become king upon the death of his father Philip. He built up his kingdom financially, economically, and militarily. He had a kingdom that was free from risk of invasion as the Greek city states were not united at this time. He took his army on foot and conquered the known world of his time. His battle tactics were spectacular as he suffered very few defeats, and were taken up by the Romans and are still taught today at Sandhurst (UK) and by the US military.

He did what no-one else had managed to do, i.e. defeat the Afghans. The Russians failed to do this and the US and the UK are not doing so well today either. Alexander took his army into Russia and should have crossed the Black Sea to discover new lands, but the belief at that time was that this was the northern limit of land, so he headed south to India where he ran into trouble as his army was exhausted by 10 years of fighting and morale was low, re-inforcements were few, and heat and disease took its toll, etc. Not many military leaders would have lasted half as long. If Alexander had not died of poisoning (supplied by his physician in a wrong and fatal dose) then who knows what else he may have achieved.

Whether you view him as evil or not his achievements make him one of the greats from history

Answer 4

It's not logical to judge historical figures, like Alexander.

He was not evil, nor he was an angel. Historical figures are human in the first place, it's not a black or white thing. After all, we have not enough accurate information to evaluate them. We are talking about way more than two thousand years here.

Again, he was -as far as I know- not a number, you cannot calculate and say he's 1 or he's 0. He was a great conqueror, definitely, that's all you could say.

Answer 5

He was at his winning spree. Settled nowhere except his own land, probabltly looted nothing to carry back to his native place (if i am not wrong to assume). The only mission to conquer entire world, which cannot be approved for humanitarian reasons. War is against man and his kind. The chap was great if fits in the category of great olympians.

Answer 6

I THINK HE WAS GREAT!
imagine how a man could own the world in Asia;Africa & Europe
connecting them together may be for the only time in the history
even if he was evil i am sure he wasn't as bad as Bush for example!

Answer 7

He was great, he did great things, terrible, evil, but great, yes, he wasn't morally great, but he is considered great.

Why some people have made him out as a hero, i'll never understand.He was an evil, selfish man who's only concern was self gratification, riches, and power.

Answer 8

I would say both...

He did conquer 90% of the known world, an achievement unrivalled before or since his reign...

But then again, he probably did have his father murdered...

More great than evil...but a lot of evil...

Answer 9

By the standards of his day he was amongst the greatest of men and was an exemplar of many of the most prized virtues.
If he lived in the modern era his behaviour would have been considered dubious to say the least.

Answer 10

Like everything it depends on which side of the fence you are. To Greeks, Egyptians and homosexuals he is great, to Persians, Afghans and Indian Moghuls he is a ******** as you so eloquenlty put it.