亚历山大大帝(前356～西元前323年)

Alexander the Great，亦称亚历山大三世（Alexander III）。

古代最伟大的军事领袖。马其顿国王腓力二世之子。受教於亚里斯多德。十八岁时在喀罗尼亚战役中指挥马其顿军队，展现了过人的军事才华。西元前336年腓力二世遇刺身亡，亚历山大继承王位，不久便控制色萨利和色雷斯；他残酷地镇压底比斯，将全城夷为平地，仅留下神庙和品达尔的故居；这种严厉手段是他一贯的手法，目的在使其他希腊城邦变得温驯服从。西元前334年到达波斯，在格拉尼卡斯河（Granicus River）击败了一支波斯军队。传说他在弗里吉亚切开了戈尔迪乌姆结（Gordian Knot，西元前333年），而这个绳结只有能够统治亚洲的人才能解开。西元前333年，在伊苏斯战役（Battle of Issus）中击败波斯国王大流士三世领导的军队，大流士三世仓皇逃窜。後来又拿下叙利亚和腓尼基，切断了波斯舰队与港口的联系。西元前332年结束了对提尔的进攻，他顺利的抵达并统治埃及，这是他最大的军事成就。他被戴上传统的双重法老王冠，建立了亚历山大里亚，还拜访了阿蒙（Amon）神殿。为控制地中海东部海岸，西元前331年亚历山大在高加梅拉（Gaugamela）击败大流士三世，大流士三世再度逃亡。接着他攻下了巴比伦省。西元前330年他在波斯波利斯焚毁了薛西斯宫殿，这时他已开始设想由马其顿人和波斯人联合组成统治阶层。他继续东进。控制了奥克苏斯河（Oxus River）和贾克撒特斯河（Jaxartes River），并一一建立城市（多数均命名为亚历山大里亚）以宣示其势力范围。在今塔吉克，他与罗克桑娜公主结婚，还接受了波斯专制主义，他穿上波斯皇帝服装，厉行波斯的宫廷礼仪。西元前326年亚历山大来到了印度的希法西斯（Hyphasis），他的军队叛变。在班师回国途中发生了多次战斗及重大的无情屠杀；抵达苏萨（Susa）时亚历山大身负重伤，使他身体变弱。他继续进行他的不受欢迎的种族融合政策，企图将马其顿人和波斯人融为一个优秀种族。西元前324年赫费斯提翁（Hephaestion）去世，亚历山大为他最亲密的朋友举行帝王葬礼，并要求将赫费斯提翁尊为英雄，这同亚历山大要求他本人被授予神的荣誉的意图也许相关。在一次延长的宴会和狂饮後他在巴比伦突然病倒了，数天後逝世，得年三十三岁。遗体葬於埃及亚历山大里亚。他的帝国，从色雷斯到埃及，从希腊到印度河谷地，在当时是最大的帝国。

English version：

前356～西元前323年

Alexander the Great

Greatest military leader of antiquity. The son of Philip II of Macedonia, he was taught by Aristotle. He soon showed military brilliance, helping win the Battle of Chaeronea at 18. He succeeded his assassinated father in 336 and promptly took Thessaly and Thrace; he brutally razed Thebes except for its temples and the house of Pindar. Such destruction was to be his standard method, and other Greek states submitted meekly. In 334 he crossed to Persia and defeated a Persian army at the Granicus River. He is said to have cut the Gordian knot in Phrygia (333), by which act, according to legend, he was destined to rule all Asia. At the Battle of Issus in 333, he defeated another army, this one led by the Persian king Darius III, who managed to escape. He then took Syria and Phoenicia, cutting off the Persian fleet from its ports. In 332 he completed a seven-month siege of Tyre, considered his greatest military achievement, and reached and took Egypt. There he received the pharaohs' double crown, founded Alexandria, and visited the oracle of the god Amon, the basis of his claim to divinity. In control of the eastern Mediterranean coast, in 331 he defeated Darius in a decisive battle at Gaugamela, though Darius again escaped. He next took the province of Babylon. In Persia he burnt Xerxes' palace at Persepolis in 330, and he envisioned an empire ruled jointly by Macedonians and Persians. He continued eastward, quashing real or imagined conspiracies among his men and taking control to the Oxus and Jaxartes rivers, founding cities (most named Alexandria) to hold the territory. Taking present-day Tajikistan, he married the princess Roxana and embraced Persian absolutism, adopting Persian dress and enforcing Persian court customs. By 326 he reached the Hyphasis in India, where his weary men mutinied; he turned back, marching and pillaging down the Indus, and reached Susa with much loss of life. He continued to promote his unpopular policy of racial fusion, a seeming attempt to form a Persian-Macedonian master race. On the death of his favorite, Hephaestion (324), he gave him a hero's funeral and demanded that divine honors be given at his own funeral. He fell ill at Babylon after long feasting and drinking and died at 33. He was buried in Alexandria, Egypt. His empire, the greatest that had existed to that time, extended from Thrace to Egypt and from Greece to the Indus Valley.