34 Surprising Facts About Alexander The Great

# Alexander III of Macedon, better known as Alexander the Great, was a king of the ancient Greek kingdom of Macedon and a member of the Argead dynasty, an ancient Greek royal house from Peloponnese.

# The name Alexander is derived from the Greek alexo, "defend," andr, "man," hence his name means "protector of men."

# Because of his unparalleled success as a military commander Alexander got the epithet "the Great."

# At the age of 20, Alexander The Great succeeded his father, Philip II, to the throne of Macedonia.

# At the same time Alexander the Great was King of Macedonia, Pharaoh of Egypt, King of Persia and King of Asia.

# The mother of Alexander, Olympias, was the daughter of the Molossian king Neoptolemus I, an ancient Greek tribe in Epirus.

# Alexander the Great had heterochromia iridum: one of his eyes was blue and the other was brown.

# Aristotle tutored Alexander the Great until the age of 16.

# Alexander the Great suffered from ailurophobia, the fear of cats.

# To keep it shiny and orange Alexander the Great washed his hair in saffron.

# Alexander the Great loved his horse Bucephalus so much that when he died he gave him a state funeral and named a city after him.

# Alexander The Great may have been bisexual, which wasn't controversial in his time.

# Three times, Alexander the Great married: Roxana, out of love; and for political reasons, the Persian princesses Stateira II and Parysatis II.

# Alexander is believed to have two children: Herakles, a son with his mistress Barsine, and Alexander IV, Roxane's son. Unfortunately, both of his children were murdered after his death before they could reach adulthood.

# Alexander The Great started dressing like them after defeating the Persians and took two Persian wives.

# Alexander The Great never lost a single battle in 15 years of conquest.

# The Battle of Gaugamela (now in Northern Iraq) is one of the most famous battles of Alexander the Great.

# Alexander The Great started his reign by eliminating potential rivals to the throne including his cousin, the former Amyntas IV, who was executed.

# Phillip II of Macedon sent a representative to Sparta threatening: "If I win this war, you will be slaves forever." The Spartans replied: "If." Both Phillip and his son Alexander the Great avoided Sparta entirely.

# The army of Alexander the Great conquered the world while wearing linen armor, which could stop any arrow made at the time.

# Alexander the Great led his army 11,000 miles in total, and created an empire that covered more than 20 million square miles.

# once, Alexander the Great held a drinking contest among his soldiers. By the time it was over, 42 people had died of alcohol poisoning.

# Alexander the Great invaded India in 326BC, declaring he wanted to conquer the entire world (the Ancient Greeks thought that India was the end of the earth). However, many people died and his army decided to turn back.

# Alexander The Great's testament called for a transplant of Asian and European populations to "bring the largest continent to common unity and friendship through intermarriage and family ties."

# In 326 BCE, a 14-year-old named Chandragupta Maurya met Alexander the Great. By the age of 20, Chandragupta had managed to forge his own empire across northern India, and would eventually unify almost the entire subcontinent.

# Alexander the Great built 70 cities and named at least 20 cities after himself and one after his horse.

# During his lifetime Alexander the Great was not much admired, and many saw him as a drunken tyrant.

# The body of Alexander The Great was laid in a gold anthropoid sarcophagus filled with honey, which in turn was placed in a gold casket.

# Alexander the Great had the most expensive funeral ever when he died. The whole funeral in today's currency amounted to US$ 600,000,000.

# At the age of 32, Alexander The Great died in Nebuchadnezzar II's palace, in Babylon. He was a king for just 12 years.

# Alexander's favorite books were the Iliad and The Odyssey. He was inspired by the heroes of Homer since childhood and slept under his pillow with The Iliad. Besides that, he was fascinated by the Greek warrior Achilles, who fought at Troy and captured his imagination in the epics more than anyone else.

# A New England Journal of Medicine article in 1998 attributed the death of Alexander The Great to typhoid fever complicated by bowel perforation and ascending paralysis.

# Julius Caesar, Mark Antony, and Octavian all made pilgrimages to the tomb of Alexander the Great in Alexandria.