Day of Empire_ How Hyperpowers Rise to Global Dominance--And Why They Fall - Amy Chua [21]
ALEXANDER THE GREAT
Classical writers give us a physical description of Alexander. At thirteen, he was not especially tall, but unusually muscular, compact, and fleet of foot. He was fair-skinned and had blond tousled hair resembling a lion's mane. His eyes were an unsettling mismatch, one gray-blue, the other dark brown. He had sharply pointed teeth—“like little pegs.” His voice was slightly high-pitched, and his gait was fast and edgy. He held his head tilted upward and to the left, possibly an affectation. In the historian Peter Green's words, “There is something almost girlish about his earliest portraits, a hint of leashed hysteria behind the melting charm.”
Alexander grew up believing that he was a blood descendant of heroes and divinities such as Achilles and Herakles, and this idea nourished his lifelong ambition. By his father's arrangement, and for a hefty honorarium, Alexander was tutored by Aristotle, who was warned that the boy was “a trifle unmanageable.” Like most Greeks at the time, Aristotle was unrelentingly ethnocentric. He believed that all “barbarians”—non-Greeks—were born to be slaves and that it was just and fitting for Greeks to rule over them. It is said that Alexander relied on a version of the Iliad annotated by his teacher as a “handbook of warfare.” Whether young Alexander originally shared and then later shed his tutor's contempt for “barbarians” is a matter of debate. In any event, immediately after his father's assassination in 336, Alexander ascended to the Macedonian throne, consolidated his military allies, and began his conquest of Persia.46
Was Alexander tolerant? In his recent biography of Alexander, the historian Guy MacLean Rogers cautions against applying modern concepts to a distinctly pre-modern figure: “[Alexander] cannot be resolved into an individual who was either gay or straight (as some have claimed), an ultranationalist or someone who went native, a mass murderer or a messiah. Rather, Alexander was an ambiguous genius who defeats our polarized and polarizing modern categories.” At the same time (using some pretty modern concepts himself), Rogers describes Alexander as “a kind of unacknowledged proto-feminist, limited multi-culturalist, and religious visionary” who established an extraordinary empire ruled by the “best” among humankind. What is indisputable is this: As his power grew, Alexander increasingly followed the great Persian emperors before him, employing strategic tolerance to win favor with his conquered peoples and incorporating the most talented warriors and leaders of all ethnicities into his military and administration.47
When Alexander entered Persia, he presented himself not as a foreign conqueror but as the avenger of the murdered Darius—his former opponent—and as the legitimate successor to the Achaeme-nid throne. Alexander conspicuously honored Cyrus and reinstated a number of the Achaemenid satraps even though they had fought against him. He also married a Persian, encouraging other Greeks to do the same. Although these policies baffled and frustrated many of his Greek subjects, they succeeded in winning the support of the Persian aristocracy and much of the local population.
After conquering Babylon, Alexander ordered the rebuilding of temples that Xerxes had allegedly destroyed, including the temple of Baal, the powerful storm god. Alexander pointedly made sacrifices to Baal, following the precise instructions of the Babylonian priests. Whether the Babylonians actually saw Alexander as their deliverer from Persian oppression or merely feared his wrath, they welcomed him with open arms. They also gave his Macedonian troops the time of their lives. For an entire month, Alexander's