Alexander the Mortal

King at twenty. Dead at thirty-two.

The life of Alexander the Great and the history of his empire.

[Alexander the Mortal @Alex_TheMortal]

Welcome to @Alex_TheMortal

A page dedicated to the life of Alexander the Great, the mightiest warrior ever!

Follow for the history of his empire, battles, friendships, rivalries and the people who followed him or stood in his way.

King at twenty. Dead at thirty-two.

[Alexander the Mortal @Alex_TheMortal]

@HellenisticPod The statue thought to be Arsinoe II should be a highlight: an Egyptian queen’s stance, but the clinging dress of a Greek Aphrodite. Her head is still missing, which makes the identification much harder.

[Alexander the Mortal @Alex_TheMortal]

As promised, the full thread on Philip’s murder and the accusations against Alexander:

https://t.co/xQGeETEitj

[Alexander the Mortal @Alex_TheMortal]

October, 336 BC. Philip II told his guards to keep their distance as he entered a packed theatre.

One of them killed him.

Alexander became king at twenty. Had he helped arrange his father’s murder?

This thread tells the story of the murder that made Alexander king. ↓

[Alexander the Mortal @Alex_TheMortal]

Around this time, 2,361 years ago, Philip II was murdered at his daughter’s wedding. His killer was one of his own bodyguards.

Alexander was twenty. His father’s troops were already in Asia.

Tomorrow: the murder that made Alexander king.

[Alexander the Mortal @Alex_TheMortal]

Philip’s invasion was now Alexander’s. But his father’s commanders and the Greek cities did not all fall into line.

Our first essay follows the general Alexander had killed and the city that gambled on news of Alexander’s death:
https://t.co/z0ZvsP3HbZ

[Alexander the Mortal @Alex_TheMortal]

October, 336 BC. Philip II told his guards to keep their distance as he entered a packed theatre.

One of them killed him.

Alexander became king at twenty. Had he helped arrange his father’s murder?

This thread tells the story of the murder that made Alexander king. ↓

[Alexander the Mortal @Alex_TheMortal]

Aristotle, a contemporary, also links the murder to Philip’s tolerance of Attalus’s abuse.

Pausanias had a reason to kill the king. We cannot establish whether anyone encouraged him. Alexander’s part, if he had one, remains unproved.

[Alexander the Mortal @Alex_TheMortal]

Thracian defenders roll wagons down at Alexander’s men.

He orders his men to open gaps or lie under joined shields. Arrian says the wagons kill no one.

Women and children are captured after the battle.

Mount Haemus, 335 BC.

[Alexander the Mortal @Alex_TheMortal]

@alexandria_pod Xenophon says Agesilaus refused a kiss from the Persian Megabates, then asked a friend to persuade him to try again. He still insisted he wouldn’t kiss him.

[Alexander the Mortal @Alex_TheMortal]

@lefineder Pergamum did very well out of Rome’s victory. Its king, Eumenes II, received much of Antiochus III’s lost land in Asia Minor. Livy says the Roman commander gave him Antiochus’s elephants too.

[Alexander the Mortal @Alex_TheMortal]

@LegoRacers2 Strabo reports that Tyre’s houses had more storeys than Rome’s. That’s Roman-period Tyre, though, and he doesn’t say whether several families shared them. For Hellenistic housing, try Trümper’s “Modest Housing in Late Hellenistic Delos” on lodgings above shops.

[Alexander the Mortal @Alex_TheMortal]

Sparta refuses to follow Alexander.

He asks the Greek states for command of the invasion of Persia, as they had granted his father. The Spartans reply that their ancestral custom is to lead others, not follow them.

336 BC.