Alexander the Not so ‘Great’

Alexander the Not so ‘Great’

Plutarch’s biography, Life of Alexander, portrays Alexander as a less than great King. Ancient history has outlined the true qualities a King should possess, and they include leadership, virtue, and even mercy. He earned the title Alexander the ‘Great’ due to his massive ownership of land far and wide. He owned the land from Macedonia to the borders of the Indus valley. By conquering Egypt, Persia, as well as the northern frontiers of India, he becomes one of the ultimate captors in less than a decade. Although Alexander is often regarded as one of the greatest conquerors in all of ancient history, his actions in combat completely tarnish his legacy as the King of Macedonia. Plutarch ineffectively discredits any possible challenges to Alexander’s character in order to ensure the narrative of his accomplishments remains unscathed. Plutarch does this by mentioning Alexander’s shortcomings as a King, but by following up by attempting to justify his actions in the case of the merciless slaughter of hundreds of thousands of people and his drinking problems in order to appeal to the audience. Alexander the Great’s history is known, and therefore Plutarch tries to address a mutual knowledge as well as belief while trying to persuade the audience to believe how he has portrayed Alexander.

To start with, Plutarch portrays Alexander as an excellent conqueror whose behaviors are justified through the circumstances at hand and  Plutarch neutralizes these outbursts with stories to prove his character. However, through the various examples from Alexander’s time of rule, Plutarch does not successfully resolve the issue and is not able to establish convincing evidence to prove it right. The disreputable demolition of Thebes challenges Plutarch depictions of Alexander as a great king. Alexander inherited the throne of Macedonia at the young age of twenty. At this time, Alexander decided to invade Thebes as the first order of business. Once Alexander’s army invaded, Plutarch says “Their city was taken, plundered, and razed to the ground” (Plutarch 255). Alexander and his men took the life of more than six thousand Thebans and sold over thirty thousand into slavery. During this time, wars were fought until one side had a clear advantage and the other decided to forfeit. Plutarch attempts to cover up the slaughter by saying “This was done, in the main, because Alexander expected that the Greeks would be terrified by so great a disaster and cower down in quiet” (Plutarch 255). However, instead of murdering innocent people and selling others into slavery, Alexander could have simply commanded control of the entire city to send a message instead of utilizing human lives as pawns in his game of chess. This scenario does not portray him as a great ruler instead, a cruel tyrant.

Throughout the biography, the main message Plutarch uses to hide Alexander’s deficiencies as a King is that Alexander was a great military ruler. Plutarch indicates that Alexander created the most extensive empire that the world had ever seen. Nonetheless, Plutarch’s verdicts are not valid because Alexander did not even necessarily control the empires

After conquering new land, Alexander left the traditional administrative system to govern it. In battle of Hydaspes, after acquiring it he not only let King Porus continue with the ruling, but he

added more land for him to rule. Moreover, Alexander would then locate cities and troops in the land to ensure loyalty. After peacemaking with local rulers, he gets their loyalty, and allows them to govern his empires. Even if Alexander died at a young age for his realms to get tested, it is clear that he did not establish the Macedonia-Greek world power and only used up his time leading military missions. This caused his political capabilities and therefore his experiences to be lackluster to say the least. Plutarch’s opinions are not convincing to the reader because his greatness was not merely founded on his efforts of conquest, instead, it was formed by the political leadership of other rulers.

Although Alexander was an overambitious conqueror, he was also, at times, seen as a generous King. An argument could be made that Alexander was a great King because Plutarch mentions that he would always share the spoils of his victories with others. Plutarch says, “Moreover, as he was dispatching great quantities of the spoils home to Olympias and Cleopatra and his friends, he sent also to Leonidas his tutor five hundred talents’ weight of frankincense and a hundred of myrhh in remembrance of the hope with which that teacher had inspired his boyhood” (Plutarch 297). This point can easily be refuted because the death toll from the wars from which he received his spoils tallied to over two hundred thousand. The result of his greed was widespread death on both his side, and that of the enemy. Alexander’s kingdom of Macedonia was never struggling to the point where invasions and conquests should have been

number one priority. Instead of establishing peace and relationships with other countries, Alexander’s quest for fame overtook his duty as King.

Additionally, to be seen, or to be extraordinary was not enough for Alexander; he had to be both seen and exceptional. Alexander drinking contests in India that led to the death of

several people due to alcohol poisoning portrayed him as an immoral leader. In the beginning of the story, Plutarch introduces Alexander’s drinking by saying, “To the use of wine also he was less addicted than was generally believed. The belief arose from the time which he would spend over each cup, more in talking than in drinking” (Plutarch 289). Even before the tragedies that result from alcohol are introduced to the reader, Plutarch says that Alexander’s drinking habits were moderate and controlled. As the story goes on, Plutarch adds, “But Alexander, after returning from the funeral pyre and assembling many of his friends and officers for supper, proposed a contest in drinking neat wine, the victor to be crowned” (Plutarch 419). The result of the contest was the death of forty-one people. A true king would never put his own friends and officers in harm’s way unless absolutely necessary, and here Alexander’s desire to be seen as ‘great’ led to the superfluous death of many. Ironically, and despite Plutarch’s neutralizing

commentary, alcohol played a huge part in Alexander’s death. According to Plutarch, “After drinking all the next day, he began to have a fever” and a few days later “He had a raging fever, and that when he got very thirsty he drank wine, whereupon he became delirious, and died on the thirtieth day of the month Daesius” (Plutarch 433). This informs the audience that Alexander’s alcoholism played a much bigger role than Plutarch ever let on.

Unlike his father, King Philip, Alexander did not set up his empire to continue for generations to come. Plutarch mentions Alexander’s countless accomplishments, but he fails to give proper credit to his father. Alexander inherited a huge kingdom complete with military strategies that were known as the “Greek phalanx” that would help Alexander in all of his military endeavors. Once Alexander took over, his primary focus was on attaining lands far and wide, without establishing a proper kingdom for his successor. The mere fact that Alexander’s empire was built on fear and respect from the exterior lands he controlled would be the exact reason why his empire would fall after his passing. Plutarch ensures that the reader remains on course by simply believing that the empire was built on strong foundation that had the potential to last instead of offering any insight on the posthumous course of the kingdom.

Plutarch paints a vivid picture of Alexander’s conquests as a military leader and he attempts to defend his claims and any of Alexander’s imperfections with a smoke-screen of his accomplishments. Plutarch tries to neutralize any objections by offering reasoning to validate Alexander’s actions. However, he is ineffective in doing so because Alexander’s flaws outweigh his accomplishments. The drinking problem that was warranted by Plutarch as a means of socializing and said to be controlled led to the death of many individuals including himself. The inhumane killing of over two hundred thousand enemies and the death of thousands of his own people cannot be justified by the mere establishment of a temporary empire. Therefore, Alexander should be known as not so ‘great’.