Alexander the Great
In eleven years he conquers from Greece to the Indus and dies at thirty-two.
- When
- —
- Duration
- 13 years
- Known to
- ± 1 year
- Era
- Classical, Holocene
Alexander inherits a professional Macedonian army in 336 BCE, destroys the Achaemenid Empire in three battles, takes Egypt and Persia, pushes to the Punjab until his troops refuse to go further, and dies in Babylon in 323. His empire fragments immediately among his generals. What survives is the fusion: Greek becomes the common language from Egypt to Afghanistan for centuries, and Greek and Indian, Persian and Egyptian traditions mix in ways that shape everything from Buddhist sculpture to Roman philosophy.