Alexander the Great: Tyrant or Philanthropist

Prior to defining Alexander the Great at either the apex of philanthropy or the nadir of tyranny, it is worthwhile to examine all the definitions this King of Macedonia had to fulfill in between. It is only then that a true appreciation can be formulated of all that Alexander was able to accomplish in the relatively short time of his military career and all that he bestowed on the then known world thereafter.

Political and Military Impositions on Philanthropy

In the Greek mindset it must be remembered that all foreigners were viewed as barbarians. This belief, as Green points out, was impressed on the young Alexander by no other than his formative tutor, Aristotle:

He [Aristotle] believed slavery to be a natural

institution, and equally that all 'barbarians' (i.e.,

non-Greeks) were slaves by nature. It was therefore right and fitting for Greeks to rule over barbarians, but not for barbarians to rule over Greeks . . .In one celebrated fragment he counsels Alexander to be 'a hegemon (leader) to the Greeks and a despot to the barbarians, to look after the former as after friends and relatives, and to deal with the latter as with beasts or plants (p58).

Thus, as Alexander advanced deeper into Asia, taking the Achaemenid Empire into his hands, he was continually faced with the tricky problem of how to balance his role as the "Lord of Asia" (for the Persians) and as the conquering general (for his fellow G

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the scope of the empire he sought to establish and control. Of critical importance was Alexander's willingness to tolerate, if not accept, the religious beliefs and customs of those he conquered. His magnanimity in this regard, as noted by Wood, went far in securing the good will of the Persians. Alexander, as usual, was solicitous of the local cults. Most pointedly, like a Babylonian king, he promised to rebuild the Esagila, the great shrine of the god Marduk, which Greek propaganda falsely claimed had been levelled by the Persian Xerxes the previous century (p95). The basis of Alexander's liberality in this regard is, as Hammond reports, his own religious upbringing: It was an advantage of polytheism that the number of gods was not limited, and Alexander could see Zeus in the Libyan Ammon and in the Babylonian Belus, and Heracles in the Tyrian Melkart or the Indian Krishna (p.200). Cultural and Governmental Assimilation To further secure a cross-cultural toleration and the ready exchange of cultural wisdom û as well as planting the seed of a Hellenic heritage he sought to plant in the cities he founded across Asia û Alexander had many of his army, including himself and his officers, take Persian women as their
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