The epithet is about his conquests, not his character.
I think it's one of the clearest cases of someone deserving that epithet given his influence on the history of the rest of Antiquity
What's your opinion about the greatness of Alexander? Do you think his epithet is justified?
After finishing my extensive readings, it's clear to me that he distinguished himself through unparalleled ambition and drive. This same fiery character (as Plutarch describes it) might be the cause of some of his unforgivable acts - principally the murder of Cleitus, a close friend and companion who had saved his life once, in a fit of drunken rage
>Alexander seized a spear from one of his guards [...] and ran him through.
but from his actions on the whole it's clear hat he was also open to reason and prone to forgiveness. His magnanimous treatment of prisoners, soldiers and royal subjects played a large part in his success according to the chroniclers. He typically spearheaded assaults and charges during battles, sharing in the success as well as in the suffering of his men at all times. And when Darius heard of Alexander's restraint towards his imprisoned family members, Darius is supposed to have said:
>If the fated time is at hand when the rule of the Persians must cease [...] grant that no other man but Alexander shall sit upon the throne of Cyrus.
Still, I wouldn't say that Alexander showed extraordinary skill as a statesman, diplomat, or strategist. I think it's commonly believed that he did, as we are prone to judging men by their results more than their actions. Cultured Bernds are already aware that the rise of Macedon was an accomplishment of Alexander's father. Philip II inherited a kingdom surrounded by enemies and demoralized by defeats, but left Alexander a hegemonic state with a well-drilled army, of which an expeditionary force of 10,000 in Asia Minor was already preparing for an invasion of Persia. Funnily enough, part of Alexander's rage against Cleitus came from Cleitus belittling his achievements as merely satisfactory in light of what Philip left him (per Arrian).
My second point is one that even cultured Bernds may not be familiar with. The execution of a Persian expedition was almost expected by the time Philip got to it. From Cimon's expedition in Egypt to Xenophon's successful retreat after Cunaxa, Greeks were to Persia what Germanic hordes were to Western Rome, and everyone knew it, to the point where much of Darius' army consisted of Greek mercenaries. But the main character of interest to me is Agesilaus II, one of the two Spartan kings of the first half of the 4th century B.C. His small coalition of Peleponnesian allies ravaged Asia Minor and met with continuous successes. He ultimately was forced to retreat not by arms, but by Persian bribes to statesmen in rival cities such as Thebes and Athens.
>Persian coinage carried the design of an archer, and as he departed Agesilaus declared that the Great King was driving him out of Asia with 30,000 archers. This was the sum of money which had been sent to Athens and Thebes and distributed to their popular leaders.
In truth, all that kept the city-states of inland Greeks from conquering Persia were these internal rivalries. In fact, there's an obscure passage in Xenophon's Hellenika where he praises Jason of Pherai for his achievements in uniting the Thessalians (the people just south to the Macedonians, who provided Alexander with much of his elite cavalry) under his rule and expertly drilling their military forces. His life was cut short by an assassination, so who knows - couldn't he have been the Philip to his son's Alexander? I believe that a Greek conquest of the east would have been a matter of time - Alexander or not. All it took was one skilled despot with enough time and a bit of fortune to unite the Greeks, and I'm sure a slight deviation in historical events would see us praising an entirely different man for his greatness.
My argument is that his conquests were not due to much greatness on his part.
Philip was relatively young when he was assassinated. Much about his death is unclear. The murderer was one of his own bodyguards, that the historians agree about, but the motive presented by them is unsatisfactory. There's a less popular narrative that Alexander and his mother Olympias were involved, as Philip had married a Macedonian woman, Cleopatra, by this time. Alexander and Olympias were exiled after this for some months in concern of being displaced as the heir and heir-mother. Olympias also cruelly murdered Philip's children by Cleopatra after his death. It's not a very popular narrative though, since Alexander purged those implicated in his father's death. But Olympias was known to be a very politically involved individual, overbearing to Alexander even, endlessly communicating with him in letters (none of these were passed down to us, btw. wtf?), quarreling with his governors... It's an interesting thought.
Anyway, even if Philip had already built up Macedon as a great power, Alexander was still the one who made it THE great power in the Western world, if only for a very brief period. In my opinion he is much more clearly
deserving of the title of Great than eg. Constantine, Catherine the Great or Frederick the Great.
I don't think Alexander wasn't great, but reading more about him nuanced my views a lot and I wanted to play devil's advocate and introduce Bernd to some little-known facts about him. People often like to talk about what sort of different turn history could've taken if Alexander had lived just a little longer and proceeded with conquering the Arabs. But he also had designs on Carthage, like Alcibiades before him. Maybe a Greek conquest of Carthage wouldn't have been so destructive and we'd be familiar with their historians and playwrights and whatever else they had...
>it's very late to reply
Not on this board
>could those letters and/or the diary be fabrications?
I'm just an amateur historian, but I checked it out and there doesn't seem to be a scholarly consensus. So you're right to point it out. Looking back to my own sources, it seems that Plutarch and Arrian were not quoting directly from the diary, but merely citing their own source's quotes from the diary. All works about Philip, Alexander and the Diadochi by contemporary historians were lost which makes it impossible to say for sure...
Even some works of Plutarch and Arrian were lost. I was reading a Byzantine summary of Arrian's Events after Alexander this evening, written by a patriarch no less (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photios_I_of_Constantinople). I would describe it an elaborate book review, lacking in detail by design. The little author critiques he finishes with are amusing though, some excerpts from his reviews:
>second to none of the best historical writers
>The style is more careless than it should be, and the phraseology often descends to the commonplace
>clear, agreeable, concise, and full of charm
>His style is distinct, euphonious, and terse, characterized by a combination of smoothness and loftiness
>foolish and preposterous, [...] these eight books are so much study and labor lost
He could be a professional reviewer in this day and age tbh