Alexander The Great: The Good Of Man

In Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle argues that the human good is the soul’s activity that expresses virtue. Aristotle concludes this from an invalid argument. On the one hand I do agree that the activity expressing virtue is a requirement for the human good. But on the other hand, I insist that the human good is a state and not an action. By modifying this argument, I believe we can reach a new conclusion that will help us better understand what Aristotle meant by these concepts.

Alexander the Great can be both considered a hero and a villain . Alexander the Great became the king of Macedonia at the age of nineteen. He conquered many places when he was king. Some of those places were Persia, Egypt, and Asia. The reasons that people call Alexander a villain is because he killed and sold more than six thousand people, destroyed Thebes so that other city-states in Greece would be afraid of him., and said no to “uncivilized” customs.

Therefor, Alexander followed up on that plan and conquered Persia. But for the other lands, they were conquered for the reason of trying to be the best and conquer the most lands. Alexander ended up killing about anyone who got in his way, which totals up to 250,000 killed people in his lifetime. This makes him a villain because more than half the people that were killed, were completely innocent and didn’t deserve to be

Alexander of Macedon was a great leader, and expanded his influence across multiple lands, including Greece and Persian ruled Egypt. A lot of the time, he used military force to gain control of a new place. He is called Alexander the Great, but to those he conquered, he most likely doesn’t seem that “great”. Despite the fact that Alexander of Macedon used a lot of military force to gain control of new places, he was still a great leader. Alexander gave gave his enemies a chance to surrender to him before attaching them.

"Do you think," said he, ‘I have not just cause to weep, when I consider that Alexander at my age had conquered so many nations, and I have all this time done nothing that is memorable’” (Lives). Caesar’s desire for glory parallels the desire and actions of Alexander the Great. The Romans loved to read about glorious acts of their empire, and they undoubtedly enjoyed the comparison of Julius Caesar’s glory to that of Alexander the Great, one of the world’s greatest conquerors. Plutarch says that Alexander, as a young man, “was extremely eager and vehement, and in his love of glory, and the pursuit of it, he showed a solidity of high spirit and magnanimity far above his age” (Lives).

Alexander started killing his closest followers. It became clear that Alexander was no longer able to properly govern his wide spread empire. There was a huge culture difference between Persia and Macedonia led to Alexander having to separate his administration to deal with different problems. Even though Alexander was having troubles governing his wide spread empire, he set out on a mission to conquer the entire world. Alexander the Great established Greek city- states to control the population.

Paul Doherty has written many historical works, three of those being around the life of Alexander the Great, and the causes and actions leading up to his death. This book provides a biography and intriguing insights not by what the ancient sources say but what they leave out. “Who—or what—killed Alexander the Great?” The million dollar question that no one really knows. The book opens with Alexander and his father, Philip II, arguing.

Alexander the Great was a great military leader, but that doesn’t mean that he was a very good person. His reputation as a strategist, leader, and king spread with each of his conquest, but so did his reputation as a ruthless and merciless conqueror. He crushed rebellions, transversed a thousand miles, and even took down the once powerful Persia. Sure he was great, but was he great for being good.

In order to claim and conquer his position towards the Greek city-states, he completely destroyed Thebes which resulted in a riot of angry citizens towards Alexander. One of the main concerns on Alexander’s mind was to conquer Persia (Freeman). He defeated and conquered many territories before he was able to reach the Great King of Persia, Darius, whom was murdered later on. In the two battles at Issus and Gaugamela, Alexander and his men remained victorious while he also was able to conquer Babylon, Egypt and Phoenicia.

The Persian Empire was not something to be conquered as much as an achievement to be acquired” (Ansari). Alexander enjoyed killing people, “But according to some intriguing research, the young Macedonian's achievements may not have been as great as his name implies. The evidence suggests quite strongly that Greek material culture, at least, flourished as far away as the coast of what is now Israel at least a century before Alexander's conquests” (Dye). Those are all the reason why Alexander the Great was a villain.

In the old ages, when men leaded they had to do things that would insure the safety of the empire, but sometimes men go over the top and can become ruthless. Alexander the Great had to face things that were caused by his father’s ruling, but it counted against him. I believe Alexander was “great” because of his conquest to unite Greece and to him conquering Persia. He controlled his kingdom with an iron fist and that is needed when you have uprisings. When coming into power, Alexander was faced with one of the hardest obstacles, he had been having revolts in Macedonia, his homeland, but then Thebes declared Independence from Alexander.

One can say perhaps that was what drove Alexander to greatness; however, that was perhaps only a part, as a student’s of philosophy and literature, Alexander was infatuated with Iliad, and Achilles severed as his role model. He was 18 years old, when he won the Battle of Chaeronea by leading the charge of the Macedonian cavalry (Marx). Alexander inherited the throne of Macedonia after this father’s assassination in October 336.

Alexander’s successes were numerous, and he had only faced extreme resistance a handful of times before he met the Scythians. This group challenged him immensely and declared victory over him in one of their early engagements. After this, the Scythians were basically taunting Alexander and it forced him to go against his advisors and attack them yet again. This time around, he was victorious as he caused the Scythians to retreat.

Also, Alexander drank and that made him make poor judgemental calls, which led to more bad stuff. Alexander had ordered that all those who were in sanctuary or even thought about it were to be killed (Document C). This shows that he hurt people, even those who were in the temple to keep safe, were to be killed. He had also set policies saying that his soldiers can’t be married to local woman, and that shouldn’t have been his choice to make, it should have been the people’s choice because that’s what a great king does, he listens to his fellows questions and askings. His thinking was cruel and all the power that he got from conquering cities and not losing any battles made him think that he was the most powerful man in the world, and that led to all the bad judgemental calls that he had made and at some point regretted that he made

This proves that Alexander not only liked the cultures and religions, he wanted to learn and understand these