That's an epically insightful take. Give Roman Emperor Augustus his due - although he led from behind and reportedly had little military talent, his improvised, craven, thinly disguised kingship without formal succession lasted hundreds of years.
In light of yet another English loss, I’ve been thinking a lot about the British Empire lately and how they were able to hold itself together for about 400 years.
I (selfishly) love your post as it reinforces many of my own views on Alexander. A military genius handed the keen advantage of an army revolutionized by a preceding military genius. Utterly brilliant on battlefields but, apart from the city-foundings and mass marriages between Greeks and locals, negligent of building permanency. An intensely flawed man who, in a drunken rage, kills a man who previously saved him on the battlefield (i.e., Black Cleitus). A man who also, to his regret once sober, burned the conquered and beautiful city Persepolis in yet another drunken fit.
A man with traits certainly worth admiring. But, like many other successful and accomplished men, not necessarily worth admiring as a Great Man.
Well said. One of the things that fascinated me is how often his greatest strengths and greatest flaws seem to come from the same place. The fearlessness, the charisma, the relentless drive… they won him an empire, but they also made him seem almost incapable of imagining a world after Alexander.
The city-building and mass marriages were really brilliant for forging lasting peace with the peoples he conquered. Cultural legacy from these actions stretched for centuries, and in some ways even longer.
The problems, as said so well by this piece and comments, is that he didn’t, or couldn’t administer so much territory and so many people, and I doubt he could have managed even if he’d lived longer.
What I can imagine is he and his trusted advisors living longer and gaining the wisdom peacefully dividing it all up into natural territories that WERE governable, most likely through continued marriage to local elites.
It was a different time, and while his father had taught him much, and left him with an elite army and expanded in Greece, 32 years old is still young, dumb, and full of cum, as it were.
I also wonder whether the drinking started as a bit of liquid courage that aided his military creativity and fearlessness, but then just evolved into him going mad with the drink, perhaps to numb the horrors he must have seen, over and over. This might have fed the megalomania that led to him insisting on more conquering.
I think he’d have stopped earlier, certainly before finding himself in India and having traverse the passes of what is now Pakistan and Afghanistan - even modern times, Afghanistan manages to high altitude AND very hot - he might have survived and his subordinates might not have been so ready to sharpen their knives. Plus if he’d stayed alive in Persia, Roxana and his heir could have been kept secure.
But I suppose his conquests became like his drinking; past a certain point, once he started doing either, he couldn’t stop. In a way I’m sure both problems worked together to be the end of him.
That's a great read. You have to be one of the hardest workers on the internet. I'm no Alexander but identify with the struggle in my business story. Some nice conquests and victories, but now wondering how I ironclad the "empire" to win the decades that follow me. (yeah, it's probably not with an ironclad)
I fully agree with the assessment that Alexander was certainly no humanitarian by any stretch of the imagination, and his chronic neglect of bureaucratic details left a legacy of chaos for others to manage, especially after he died so unexpectedly. His empire, as magnificent as it appeared, was held together almost entirely by his personal presence and charisma, and once he was gone, the mess he left behind became the problem of his generals and administrators scrambling to impose order.
Yet, compared to many of his contemporaries, Alexander demonstrated a much greater sense of duty, honor, and commitment to upholding justice and the rule of law. One vivid example is his decision to enforce Persian law when he learned that Bessus had betrayed and murdered his king. Alexander’s relentless pursuit of Bessus—capturing and punishing him according to Persian legal standards—reflects a side of him that few acknowledge: a ruler willing to respect and enforce the justice system of the lands he had conquered. If people want a version of Alexander that feels ethically grounded, this is perhaps the strongest case for it.
As a battlefield commander, Alexander remains second to none in the opinion of most historians, and his campaigns are still studied for their brilliance and audacity. For those interested in a more detailed exploration of this episode, I wrote a multi-part series told in Alexander’s own voice, chronicling his pursuit of Bessus. It is available on my Substack under my list of publications for anyone who would like to read it.
Cool read. I think it is important to remember that the history of Alexander the Great comes from Roman sources 400 years later. They may have used primary sources, but they certainly had an agenda and wanted to impart of a point of view not necessarily an accurate history. So any judgment needs to keep that in mind. I get that there is a certain type of modern male that worships the ancient Greeks and Roman philosophy and history. I certainly love learning about that.
For me though, it is less of a life guide than just a fascination of imaging the life of X. When I imagine, what it must of been like for the Macedonian soldier to see a war elephant for the first time to me is fascinating. We have pretty much the collective human knowledge at our fingertips. I don't rank or judge people back then because there is no basis for me to do so. I just cannot inhabit that world, it is too foreign to me to say whether Alexander was good or great or terrible or overrated etc. What I can appreciate is that he seems like he did have a special intellect in an immature and traumatized brain. Like any male in his 20s and 30s he probably thought himself invincible, so it makes sense to me that he would behave like an immature emotionally stunted child with an impressive army. He certainly as you pointed out had a big impact on western history and for that I think he could be considered "great"
I think we agree more than it looks. You’re describing a brilliant, immature, invincible-feeling young man who inherited enormous power, and so am I. The only place I go further is the aftermath, and I’d argue the aftermath isn’t a modern judgment call. Whether the empire survived him is just a fact you can check, and it didn’t. The character stuff I’m happy to leave as unknowable, same as you.
You are right about the aftermath. Alexander is compared to Cyrus the Great or Augustus and under that standard he falls short there in terms of stability. It was still not the norm for succession to go smoothly. Charlemagne and Ghengis Khan were old men and had plenty of time to set things up, yet it still fell apart within two generations. Chinese dynasties usually became a mess after 2 generations.
So it's fair to say he was great in accomplishing so much at such a young age, and average for establishing a stable empires. So ya I guess you are right if we can average those he would be Alexander the very good, 😂
The key to Rome’s longevity was their engineering, and the fact that the Republic (then the Empire) conquered slowly enough to build the roads that enabled them to better project power and communicate much more quickly. Gaining that much territory as Alexander in such a brief time left an empire that simply was too large but too immature technologically to ever last.
But it was the immense territory that did Rome in. They could not even manage it. You could make the same claim with the Mongols, incas, and aztecs. What made the Roman empire last was probably more to do with luck than anything structural. The right leader stepped in at pivotal times for a few centuries then their luck ran out.
First off, I *never* discount luck as a major factor in basically any endeavor. Too many random events and decisions, right down to how a particular person interpreted the results of what they saw in the entrails of a sacrificed animal.
But when something lasts the test of time, there have to be other, more *concrete* factors. (Pun very intentional.) Was it luck that caused Rome to grow over centuries? Or did it have to do with incentives around triumphs and their political and military decision making? Maybe it just took longer because they never had a military genius on the level of Alexander? Or maybe it just had to do with the territories involved and the people conquered and the technology of their time against their opponents.
So I agree that they certainly had lucky breaks, but you’ve got to administer your territory to hang together for centuries, and I think this really was a combination of technology (Roman roads), an evolving but fairly stable - early on at least - political system that allowed roads to continue to be built for a long time, and the more organic growth of their territory continued for provide slaves from conquered peoples to make it all work.
I focus on a couple things that did them in:
1. Their unwillingness or inability to keep growing and supplying the slave economy.
2. Relatedly, Germania and Persia were just too tough. Eastern Rome and Persia completely exhausted themselves to the point where Muhammad and his descendants could take very valuable territory from an agricultural perspective like Egypt in a very short time.
3. Just an absolute shambles of Imperial succession. I’m sure @David Roman could write a complete tome on this alone.
Finally, even without the various Germanic tribes who practically were Romanized themselves by Late Antiquity taking much of the Western Empire, there were going to be the Plague of Justinian and the volcanic winters by the 500s anyway. But even before this, Roman birthrates were declining, which is never good for an economy or a military.
That said, the Empire lasted until 1453 in some form or another. But yes, usually smaller.
Most modern historians dispute the “to the strongest” last words story. In Ancient Greek, that would be “toi kratistoi.” That would sound incredibly like “toi Krateroi,” especially if muttered by a dying man suffering from fever. Krateroi (Craterus, as rendered in modern Greek and most history books) was one of Alexander’s most loyal, senior and prominent military commanders. He was not, however at the deathbed, having been sent on a mission by Alexander. An intentional “mishearing” by the Diadochi (the Successors - Alexander’s generals who set up their own competing kingdoms; e.g. Ptolemy, Seleucus, etc) who were present gave them the pretext to justify their fighting among themselves to claim his empire.
I (selfishly) love your post as it reinforces many of my own views on Alexander. A military genius handed the keen advantage of an army revolutionized by a preceding military genius. Utterly brilliant on battlefields but, apart from the city-foundings and mass marriages between Greeks and locals, negligent of building permanency. An intensely flawed man who, in a drunken rage, kills a man who previously saved him on the battlefield (i.e., Black Cleitus). A man who also, to his regret once sober, burned the conquered and beautiful city Persepolis in yet another drunken fit.
A man with traits certainly worth admiring. But, like many other successful and accomplished men, not necessarily worth admiring as a Great Man.
That's an epically insightful take. Give Roman Emperor Augustus his due - although he led from behind and reportedly had little military talent, his improvised, craven, thinly disguised kingship without formal succession lasted hundreds of years.
In light of yet another English loss, I’ve been thinking a lot about the British Empire lately and how they were able to hold itself together for about 400 years.
Was there a single Alexander-like figure? Nope.
William the conqueror might be the closest.
Yeah. And Victoria stands out.
"The world's greatest conqueror was, functionally, the world's greatest impulse purchase": brilliant.
The comparison between Alexander and bros who have never had to deal with consequences is 🤌
I (selfishly) love your post as it reinforces many of my own views on Alexander. A military genius handed the keen advantage of an army revolutionized by a preceding military genius. Utterly brilliant on battlefields but, apart from the city-foundings and mass marriages between Greeks and locals, negligent of building permanency. An intensely flawed man who, in a drunken rage, kills a man who previously saved him on the battlefield (i.e., Black Cleitus). A man who also, to his regret once sober, burned the conquered and beautiful city Persepolis in yet another drunken fit.
A man with traits certainly worth admiring. But, like many other successful and accomplished men, not necessarily worth admiring as a Great Man.
Well said. One of the things that fascinated me is how often his greatest strengths and greatest flaws seem to come from the same place. The fearlessness, the charisma, the relentless drive… they won him an empire, but they also made him seem almost incapable of imagining a world after Alexander.
I wonder if the last sentence would be more accurate without the word 'almost'?
The city-building and mass marriages were really brilliant for forging lasting peace with the peoples he conquered. Cultural legacy from these actions stretched for centuries, and in some ways even longer.
The problems, as said so well by this piece and comments, is that he didn’t, or couldn’t administer so much territory and so many people, and I doubt he could have managed even if he’d lived longer.
What I can imagine is he and his trusted advisors living longer and gaining the wisdom peacefully dividing it all up into natural territories that WERE governable, most likely through continued marriage to local elites.
It was a different time, and while his father had taught him much, and left him with an elite army and expanded in Greece, 32 years old is still young, dumb, and full of cum, as it were.
I also wonder whether the drinking started as a bit of liquid courage that aided his military creativity and fearlessness, but then just evolved into him going mad with the drink, perhaps to numb the horrors he must have seen, over and over. This might have fed the megalomania that led to him insisting on more conquering.
I think he’d have stopped earlier, certainly before finding himself in India and having traverse the passes of what is now Pakistan and Afghanistan - even modern times, Afghanistan manages to high altitude AND very hot - he might have survived and his subordinates might not have been so ready to sharpen their knives. Plus if he’d stayed alive in Persia, Roxana and his heir could have been kept secure.
But I suppose his conquests became like his drinking; past a certain point, once he started doing either, he couldn’t stop. In a way I’m sure both problems worked together to be the end of him.
That's a great read. You have to be one of the hardest workers on the internet. I'm no Alexander but identify with the struggle in my business story. Some nice conquests and victories, but now wondering how I ironclad the "empire" to win the decades that follow me. (yeah, it's probably not with an ironclad)
Thank you for the compliment 💜💙
I love your work. It is a joy to read and always has excellent insight, all with fantastic style and elegant prose.
Thank you 😊
I think you've got everything there just about right. Thank you very much - great read x
Amen. The lessons are rarely learned.
I fully agree with the assessment that Alexander was certainly no humanitarian by any stretch of the imagination, and his chronic neglect of bureaucratic details left a legacy of chaos for others to manage, especially after he died so unexpectedly. His empire, as magnificent as it appeared, was held together almost entirely by his personal presence and charisma, and once he was gone, the mess he left behind became the problem of his generals and administrators scrambling to impose order.
Yet, compared to many of his contemporaries, Alexander demonstrated a much greater sense of duty, honor, and commitment to upholding justice and the rule of law. One vivid example is his decision to enforce Persian law when he learned that Bessus had betrayed and murdered his king. Alexander’s relentless pursuit of Bessus—capturing and punishing him according to Persian legal standards—reflects a side of him that few acknowledge: a ruler willing to respect and enforce the justice system of the lands he had conquered. If people want a version of Alexander that feels ethically grounded, this is perhaps the strongest case for it.
As a battlefield commander, Alexander remains second to none in the opinion of most historians, and his campaigns are still studied for their brilliance and audacity. For those interested in a more detailed exploration of this episode, I wrote a multi-part series told in Alexander’s own voice, chronicling his pursuit of Bessus. It is available on my Substack under my list of publications for anyone who would like to read it.
https://thomasejohnson.substack.com/p/the-worlds-edge-the-manhunt-for-bessus?r=3932bl&utm_medium=ios
Damn, Emma, damn. You told me more about him in a few minutes than I learned in my entire life. Kudos,
Great read!
Cool read. I think it is important to remember that the history of Alexander the Great comes from Roman sources 400 years later. They may have used primary sources, but they certainly had an agenda and wanted to impart of a point of view not necessarily an accurate history. So any judgment needs to keep that in mind. I get that there is a certain type of modern male that worships the ancient Greeks and Roman philosophy and history. I certainly love learning about that.
For me though, it is less of a life guide than just a fascination of imaging the life of X. When I imagine, what it must of been like for the Macedonian soldier to see a war elephant for the first time to me is fascinating. We have pretty much the collective human knowledge at our fingertips. I don't rank or judge people back then because there is no basis for me to do so. I just cannot inhabit that world, it is too foreign to me to say whether Alexander was good or great or terrible or overrated etc. What I can appreciate is that he seems like he did have a special intellect in an immature and traumatized brain. Like any male in his 20s and 30s he probably thought himself invincible, so it makes sense to me that he would behave like an immature emotionally stunted child with an impressive army. He certainly as you pointed out had a big impact on western history and for that I think he could be considered "great"
I think we agree more than it looks. You’re describing a brilliant, immature, invincible-feeling young man who inherited enormous power, and so am I. The only place I go further is the aftermath, and I’d argue the aftermath isn’t a modern judgment call. Whether the empire survived him is just a fact you can check, and it didn’t. The character stuff I’m happy to leave as unknowable, same as you.
You are right about the aftermath. Alexander is compared to Cyrus the Great or Augustus and under that standard he falls short there in terms of stability. It was still not the norm for succession to go smoothly. Charlemagne and Ghengis Khan were old men and had plenty of time to set things up, yet it still fell apart within two generations. Chinese dynasties usually became a mess after 2 generations.
So it's fair to say he was great in accomplishing so much at such a young age, and average for establishing a stable empires. So ya I guess you are right if we can average those he would be Alexander the very good, 😂
The key to Rome’s longevity was their engineering, and the fact that the Republic (then the Empire) conquered slowly enough to build the roads that enabled them to better project power and communicate much more quickly. Gaining that much territory as Alexander in such a brief time left an empire that simply was too large but too immature technologically to ever last.
But it was the immense territory that did Rome in. They could not even manage it. You could make the same claim with the Mongols, incas, and aztecs. What made the Roman empire last was probably more to do with luck than anything structural. The right leader stepped in at pivotal times for a few centuries then their luck ran out.
First off, I *never* discount luck as a major factor in basically any endeavor. Too many random events and decisions, right down to how a particular person interpreted the results of what they saw in the entrails of a sacrificed animal.
But when something lasts the test of time, there have to be other, more *concrete* factors. (Pun very intentional.) Was it luck that caused Rome to grow over centuries? Or did it have to do with incentives around triumphs and their political and military decision making? Maybe it just took longer because they never had a military genius on the level of Alexander? Or maybe it just had to do with the territories involved and the people conquered and the technology of their time against their opponents.
So I agree that they certainly had lucky breaks, but you’ve got to administer your territory to hang together for centuries, and I think this really was a combination of technology (Roman roads), an evolving but fairly stable - early on at least - political system that allowed roads to continue to be built for a long time, and the more organic growth of their territory continued for provide slaves from conquered peoples to make it all work.
I focus on a couple things that did them in:
1. Their unwillingness or inability to keep growing and supplying the slave economy.
2. Relatedly, Germania and Persia were just too tough. Eastern Rome and Persia completely exhausted themselves to the point where Muhammad and his descendants could take very valuable territory from an agricultural perspective like Egypt in a very short time.
3. Just an absolute shambles of Imperial succession. I’m sure @David Roman could write a complete tome on this alone.
Finally, even without the various Germanic tribes who practically were Romanized themselves by Late Antiquity taking much of the Western Empire, there were going to be the Plague of Justinian and the volcanic winters by the 500s anyway. But even before this, Roman birthrates were declining, which is never good for an economy or a military.
That said, the Empire lasted until 1453 in some form or another. But yes, usually smaller.
Most modern historians dispute the “to the strongest” last words story. In Ancient Greek, that would be “toi kratistoi.” That would sound incredibly like “toi Krateroi,” especially if muttered by a dying man suffering from fever. Krateroi (Craterus, as rendered in modern Greek and most history books) was one of Alexander’s most loyal, senior and prominent military commanders. He was not, however at the deathbed, having been sent on a mission by Alexander. An intentional “mishearing” by the Diadochi (the Successors - Alexander’s generals who set up their own competing kingdoms; e.g. Ptolemy, Seleucus, etc) who were present gave them the pretext to justify their fighting among themselves to claim his empire.
This makes a LOT of sense.
I (selfishly) love your post as it reinforces many of my own views on Alexander. A military genius handed the keen advantage of an army revolutionized by a preceding military genius. Utterly brilliant on battlefields but, apart from the city-foundings and mass marriages between Greeks and locals, negligent of building permanency. An intensely flawed man who, in a drunken rage, kills a man who previously saved him on the battlefield (i.e., Black Cleitus). A man who also, to his regret once sober, burned the conquered and beautiful city Persepolis in yet another drunken fit.
A man with traits certainly worth admiring. But, like many other successful and accomplished men, not necessarily worth admiring as a Great Man.
Ouch. Bit harsh of an obit for a 32 year old who just conquered the world's first superpower. Nice insights on Hephaestion though.
He’s been dead 2,300 years, I think he can take it. But thank you on Hephaestion