Alexander the Great
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Transcript of Alexander the Great
Alexander the Great
Athens loses its empire406 BC: Trial of the generals after the
Battle of Arginusae404 BC: “After the defeat at Aegospotami,
the Aegean cities passed under the control of Sparta... Thirty pro-Spartan oligarchs were set up in Athens, with a Spartan garrison.” (Bradley 2001: 281)
403 BC: “Democracy was fully restored in Athens in 403.” (Bradley 2001: 281)
399 BC: Trial and execution of Socrates
404 – 371 BC: Spartan leadership of Greece
371 – 361 BC: Theban leadership of Greece
359 – 336 BC: Philip of Macedon
Macedonia today
357 BC: Philip marries Olympias
356 BC: Olympias gives birth to Alexander
Aristotle
• Student of Plato
• 343 BC: brought to Macedonia by Philip and hired to tutor Philip’s son, Alexander, and Alexander’s friends.
The Philipics of Demosthenes
351 BC: The first Philipic
346 BC: The second Philipic
341 BC: The third Philipic
338 BC: The Battle of Chaeronea
The Macedonian PhalanxSarissas in rear row hid manoeuvres going on behind
Sarissas – 6 metre long spears that really hurt if you found yourself on the wrong end of them
Professional soldiers (who could therefore afford to fight all year round)
Philip dies in 336 BC
– Assassinated in 336 B.C.E. shortly before a planned invasion of Persia.
– Killed by a man named Pausanius. A member of his body guard and, possibly, a scorned lover.
334 BC: The Battle of the Granicus
333 BC: The Battle of Issus
332-331 BC: The entry into Egypt
326 BC: Invasion of India
The End of Alexander’s CampaignAs for the Macedonians, however, their struggle with Porus blunted their courage and stayed their further advance into India. For having had all they could do to repulse an enemy who mustered only twenty thousand infantry and two thousand horse, they violently opposed Alexander when he insisted on crossing the river Ganges also, the width of which, as they learned, was thirty-two furlongs, its depth a hundred fathoms, while its banks on the further side were covered with multitudes of men-at-arms and horsemen and elephants. For they were told that the kings of the Ganderites and Praesii were awaiting them with eighty thousand horsemen, two hundred thousand footmen, eight thousand chariots, and six thousand war elephants.
- Plutarch
323 BC: Death of Alexander
The Diadochoi Wars
The sources• Only fragments remaining from
contemporary sources
• Five sources who wrote within 3 and 5 centuries after his death
• Arrian draws on Ptolemy and Aristobulus
• Plutarch draws on Callisthenes