Alexander ante Portas

Alexander III of Macedon (a principality in Northern Aegean), would grow up to become the founder of the world’s first cross-cultural empire in the true sense; an empire spanning 5,200,000 km², with Greek, Persian, Egyptian, Indian and other subjects would compel history to confer on him the epithet of “ὁ Μέγας ” (ho Mégas/the Great). The breadth of his achievement is nothing short of breathtaking, taking into account both the constrained logistics of transport of the times, as well as the young age at which he died. It can be safely assumed, today, that he was almost perpetually on the march, save for recuperation after a particularly difficult siege. His forces were almost always outnumbered, yet he was defeated only by his own mortality, which finally enveloped him in the grand palace of Nebuchadnezzar II at Babylon (323 BC).