"Who was Alexander the Great?

When we study the life of Alexander of Macedonia, we begin with a truth and a problem. The truth is that Alexander is one of the most famous people in history. The problem is that what we know about him is a mixture of fact and legend. We do know that he was born in 356 BCE, more than 300 years before Jesus of Nazareth, in a kingdom on the edge of northern Greece called Macedonia. His father, King Philip of Macedonia, and his mother, Olympia, prepared Alexander for kingship by hiring the philosopher Aristotle to teach him academic subjects, politics, sports, and warfare. With a start like this, Alexander developed a rather high opinion of himself, including the growing belief that he himself was a god.
During Alexander’s boyhood, his father built the Macedonian army into a deadly fighting machine. First, Philip used his army and the frightening Macedonian phalanx (“fay-lanks”) to conquer
nearby Greek city-states. Next, Philip planned to attack the huge Persian Empire.
Alexander was eager to lead the attack himself. He would soon get his chance. Philip was assassinated in 336 BCE and, at the age of 20, Alexander inherited his father’s kingdom and set out with the army to conquer Persia.
At the time, Persia was probably the most powerful kingdom in the world. This mattered little Alexander. Using his disciplined cavalry and infantry in bold ways, Alexander fought his way through lands controlled by Persia – across Asia Minor , down the Mediterranean coast, into Egypt and then east to Mesopotamia. There he defeated a huge Persian army at Gaugamela (“go-ga-mill-a”). The Persian king, Darius, was killed in the aftermath and Alexander replaced him on the throne.
Instead of being satisfied with his expanded empire, Alexander pushed further eastward into lands no Greek had ever seen. He led his troops across Central Asia, fighting battles and establishing garrison towns along the way. More than once, Alexander was at the front of an attack. Finally, at the Indus River in western India, Alexander was stopped – not by any enemy, but by his own army, which refused to go further. After eight years of combat and conquest, Alexander reluctantly turned back.
Alexander returned to the Persian city of Susa, where he tried to unify his huge empire by taking Darius’s daughter as his second wife and ordering his officers to marry Persian women. Many Macedonians resented Alexander’s attempts to join the two races.
Alexander’s push to expand his empire took its toll. Over the years, he had suffered severe wounds that weakened his health. In June of 323 BCE, after a bout of heavy feasting and celebrating, Alexander became ill; ten days later, he was dead. For reasons that are unclear, he had not named an Heir to the throne. After much fighting, Alexander’s generals split up the land. More quickly than it took to build the empire, it began to fall into pieces.
Flash forward three centuries. A Roman military commander named Julius Caesar is on campaign in Spain. There he encounters a statue of Alexander and is said to have wept, overcome by the thought that Alexander had achieved so much at such a young age. But did Alexander deserve Caesar’s tears and respect?"


After reading, In 1-2 sentences how would you summarize who Alexander the great was?