Alexander the Terrible.

Alexander the great doesn’t live up to his name in the slightest. He conquered a lot of places, he blended cultures, but what else did he do? He had some serious issues. When two of his advisors disagreed with him in adopting so much of Persia’s culture, he killed both of them, one by execution, and the other killed by Alexander himself in a fit of drunken rage. He committed numerous acts of violence, but suffered no consequences because he was above the law. He worked his soldiers to the point where they died of exhaustion, and at one point, one of his of his generals died, and he killed an entire town of people as a “sacrifice” for that general’s death. Alexander Made little to no political or financial advancements for society. The Persians hated him as a leader, even if he adopted more of the culture and even married a Persian woman. He was egotistical, short-tempered, and irrational. Brooke Allen seems to agree with me, as they said that Alexander’s greatness should be brought into question more often than it is.

Alexander’s father and mother were Philip the II of Macedon and Olympias, respectively. His mother was where he got most of his bad habits and character traits. She was arrogant, self-centered, short-tempered, and irrational, much like he turned out to be. His father was a bit more positive towards him, but still didn’t uphold punishment when he committed those aforementioned acts of violence. His father hired Aristotle, who taught him art, literature, philosophy, drama, and most other important arts at the time. But the one Alexander liked the most, was the art of war. He was taught by his own father about the strategy of war. He remained friends with aristotle until he died, however never really used too much of what Aristotle taught him.

Alexander was a nasty little man, and he did some dumb and pointless stuff. I’ve already mentioned the countless acts of violence, but how about the bad political decisions he made? Alexander the great halted all political advancement in order to conquer all the places he did. That’s like if Obama decided not to pass or veto bills for either of his terms, and just opted to try and make certain islands off Florida’s coast part of the US. It’s just not how being king works.

Alexander the Great did some terrible things, but he got out of it without consequences because he was above the law. That’s one thing Alexander was great at. Abusing power. He used his power to keep himself off the ground by killing people if they disagreed with him and blaming others when important decisions needed to be made. Alexander is the King of not just Macedon, but also of abusing power.

Anyways, that’s what makes Alexander not so great. He had a plethora of negative character traits, which led him to making poor decisions and doing some stupid stuff. He almost qualifies as clinically insane. He friggin’ killed an entire town of people just for one general! He murdered hundreds of people for absolutely no reason, even outside of the aforementioned general thing. Alexander was never great, and people need to know this. He was extremely stupid, incredibly violent, and least of all great. He was, in fact, terrible.