Special Question Week 4

Was Alexander's adventure really worth it? 

I think that Alexander’s adventure to conquer the entire world at that time and see they great wonders of the world was defiantly worth it. Alexander was an inspirational leader in his ways of fighting and taking over empires. He wanted to have total control, take over the known world of that time. He had a mission within himself and the desire to do it. In that sense, I feel like Alexander’s adventure was worth it, in order to find the peace he wanted within himself, but it was not really worth is it in a governmental stance. Alexander the Great was a great Macedonian leader who led his army and empire to conquer so much land and take over whatever they wanted, but a lot of people were killed and tormented under his rule. In this sense, I don’t think that Alexander’s adventure was really worth it.

There are many fights going around from philosophers and historians that make people think differently of Alexander’s adventure. Alexander’s goal of this conquest was to “right Persian wrongs” from thousands of years ago. He came into Persia for the first time and the first battle in the city of Troy, which was very famous for the Greeks. This is where thousands of years before, they burnt the city down and left it in ruins. My personal opinion is that Alexander had a different mindset than to “right Persian wrongs” when he came into the city of Troy. He wouldn’t just so happen land right there. This, in my opinion, was an indirect way of saying that Alexander and the Macedonians were there and ready to take over. Alexander was a very smart person; he had to have known that by stepping into Persia by Troy, there was going to be war. And whenever there is war in ancient times, it usually led to the attempt of conquering more than they thought they were going to go after in the first place. He knew that this adventure was going to happen one way or another. Maybe he didn’t think it would be as immense at it ended up being, but he knew something was happening, especially when he got Egypt involved also.

When Alexander invaded Persia with the help of Egypt and they defeated Persia, Alexander began to take over many other empires. As he was defeating empire after empire, I personally think that it may have gotten into his head a little bit. This is when the real adventure began. He began to think that he was inapproachable, and anyone who tried to beat him failed; therefore he began this nearly impossible journey and adventure that led to total power. He was attempting to have control over the entire ancient world back then, and that is where I thought that his adventure got a little too out of hand. I understand having a dream of someday having control over this super empire, but that seems a little far-fetched to actually become a reality. This idea of taking over the whole world back then is not very worth it.

It doesn’t seem very necessary to have total control over the ancient world back then because we learned that Alexander would take over an empire but let them live the way that they were already living. This means that it didn’t really even matter whether or not Alexander and the Macedonian army took over their land because they were still allowed to live their normal lives. Alexander himself was the one who changed from all of this. Before taking over, he was very smart and not very violent, and he was strictly all Macedonian and anything against his ways were wrong; he even came to Persia to “right the wrongs” of the Persians which the Macedonians considered wrong. After and during this “adventure,” he became very violent and malicious towards people, but he also became fond of the Persians ways and in the end, he wanted to be considered a Persian god rather than a Greek god. It changed Alexander and his army more in a negative way than a positive, which is another reason why I don’t think that it was really worth the adventure. If Alexander and his army would have stayed in Greece minding their own business rather than bringing up something that happened thousands of years before them in Persia, they wouldn’t have turned out to be mean and violent people.

Many people have different ways of thinking about Alexander and his great adventure to take over the entire ancient world. Some people seem to think that it was worth it, and that he was an inspiring emperor. If you think that he is so “inspiring” try being part of the thousands and thousands of people him and his army killed in battle and just because they wanted to in order to have control over an empire who ended up keeping the same rights and rules that they had before he came along. It was like he was just killing people for the sake of it, and then letting the living ones live their normal lives. Yes, Alexander was a very powerful leader of an army, but he failed at creating law and ways of living for the people of his growing empire. If he was able to create reasonable rules of living that everyone in his empire lived by, then I would have a different way of looking at him and his adventure. But in the end, Alexander was just an army general who tried to take control over all of this land for the title of being “Alexander the Great,” even though he was not a completely great man to his empire and people, in my opinion of course.