Feb. 2: Reflection on Alexander the Great

As I reflect upon the greater part of the weekend, I realized that I came out of it a better person, more knowledgeable, more wise, and having accomplished certain things that I set out to do. I wish I could reflect at the present moment more profoundly.

On the readings of Alexander the Great. It’s remarkable to me that I almost shed a tear at the point in the book when Alexander died, because I had become so connected to the character in the book. Now, when Alexander died, or right before he died, his last words remained so true to his commitment to excellence above all else.

When asked who should succeed him? Who should be the new king of the world’s largest empire at the time, he replied, quote, the strongest one. Alexander never bothered with lineage or nationalism. What he cared about was greatness. On a fundamental level, and it’d be easy to sit back here and scrutinize all the atrocities that the Macedonians did in fact commit under his direction, dismissing him as a great evil tyrant. That would be easy. And that’s certainly a route you can take in a case you can make.

But the fact remains. Alexander’s occupation or his field of practice was war. And as far as war was an art at that time, Alexander excelled in it. He excelled in that art. I think that one conclusion that I found myself strangely admitting at the end of the book was that Alexander was truly great, not just in a mystical sense of the word, like, yeah, he expanded the Macedonian Empire, and that’s great and all.

But at his craft as a general in the art of War, he was quite literally great. However terrible the rules of war were at the time, however terrible the mechanisms through which people conducted war at that time, however terrible and awful war is in general, and as an art. But so much as it isn’t art or wasn’t art, he excelled in it.

And one of the most fascinating examples of this was on Alexander’s return back from India en route to Macedonia. Now, as he’s retreating back, Alexander stops by the tomb of the great King of Persia, Cyrus the Great. Now Persia at the time was the Greeks foe the Greeks enemy. But Alexander wanted to go and pay his respects to the great king.

And when he comes to that tomb and finds it defiled by the Greeks, we put in charge after conquering it, after conquering Persia. Alexander’s horrified that a great king, albeit an enemy king, has been mistreated. And so what does he do? He orders a massive investigation into who was responsible, severely punishing them and ordering the tombs. Immediate restoration.

All of this because greatness mattered to Alexander more than anything.