When did Alexander become Great?

[elegantlion]

Ds is working on a WWS assignment and wonders when Alexander assume the title of "Great". I can't seem to find the information fast enough for him. :tongue_smilie: Was it early on? After a few victories? After his death? Please help, thank you.

[Roadrunner]

When he had nothing else to conquer :lol:. This is a joke. I don't know the answer. :tongue_smilie:

[elegantlion]

When he had nothing else to conquer :lol:. This is a joke. I don't know the answer. :tongue_smilie:

 

:lol: :lol: :lol:

[MamaT]

Your question made me curious, so I tried to find out. The only thing I could find was an excerpt from an article stating that he deserved the epitaph "the great." That seems to imply after death, but it was very vague.

[JudoMom]

According to Hakim in The Story of Science, "One victory topped another until he had put together an enormous empire that stretched from Southern Russian to Greece to India to Egypt to Libya. His soldiers called him Alexander the Great, and soon everyone else did too...".

 

He died at the age of 33 from drinking too much.

 

You could just tell him he became known as Alexander the Great on June 22, 310 BC. Of course, I just made that up, but he doesn't have to know that :D.

[elegantlion]

Your question made me curious, so I tried to find out. The only thing I could find was an excerpt from an article stating that he deserved the epitaph "the great." That seems to imply after death, but it was very vague.

 

Well that makes me wonder what kind of title I would garner after my death. :tongue_smilie:

 

According to Hakim in The Story of Science, "One victory topped another until he had put together an enormous empire that stretched from Southern Russian to Greece to India to Egypt to Libya. His soldiers called him Alexander the Great, and soon everyone else did too...".

 

He died at the age of 33 from drinking too much.

 

You could just tell him he became known as Alexander the Great on June 22, 310 BC. Of course, I just made that up, but he doesn't have to know that :D.

 

I will share that with him, all of it, because he'll appreciate the humor. I knew we needed that book for some reason.

[Laura Corin]

 

He died at the age of 33 from drinking too much.

 

Laura

[Finnella]

I can't find anything specific, and I looked through all my books from a seminar I took on Alexander in college. Since Alexander did ask the Greeks (the Corinthian League in particular) to refer to him as a god, he may well have acquired the appellation while still alive. And he did defeat Darius, whose titles included that of "Great King."

 

The early histories tend to refer to him simply as Alexander, possibly because he needed no further introduction. It should be noted that the earliest extant history is by Diodorus and was written a few hundred years after Alexander's death. Most of the titles of these extant works do not include "the Great" although Quintus Curtius Rufus did, writing in the 9th century A.D. I scanned parts of Arrian since his history is supposed to be the most reliable but couldn't find references to Alexander as Alexander the Great.

 

As to his death, it is unlikely it was directly the result of drinking too much. The existing histories had first person accounts to draw from, and Alexander apparently didn't drink much immediately before his illness. He, along with his men, did often drink to great excess. He had been severely wounded in a siege after the ladder collapsed and he was left without companions on the ramparts. That would be in addition to the many injuries he suffered during his campaigns. We tend to think of someone 33 years old as fairly young, but he had lived a very rough life with much physical hardship and many injuries.

 

In his final days, he suffered from a fever of unknown origin. Some modern historians have suggested malaria. The likelihood of poison is remote. Whatever caused the fever, the numerous stresses he had put on his body would have only hastened his death.

 

Your son's question was really interesting, and I'm sorry I couldn't come up with a better answer.

[elegantlion]

I can't find anything specific, and I looked through all my books from a seminar I took on Alexander in college. Since Alexander did ask the Greeks (the Corinthian League in particular) to refer to him as a god, he may well have acquired the appellation while still alive. And he did defeat Darius, whose titles included that of "Great King."

 

The early histories tend to refer to him simply as Alexander, possibly because he needed no further introduction. It should be noted that the earliest extant history is by Diodorus and was written a few hundred years after Alexander's death. Most of the titles of these extant works do not include "the Great" although Quintus Curtius Rufus did, writing in the 9th century A.D. I scanned parts of Arrian since his history is supposed to be the most reliable but couldn't find references to Alexander as Alexander the Great.

 

As to his death, it is unlikely it was directly the result of drinking too much. The existing histories had first person accounts to draw from, and Alexander apparently didn't drink much immediately before his illness. He, along with his men, did often drink to great excess. He had been severely wounded in a siege after the ladder collapsed and he was left without companions on the ramparts. That would be in addition to the many injuries he suffered during his campaigns. We tend to think of someone 33 years old as fairly young, but he had lived a very rough life with much physical hardship and many injuries.

 

In his final days, he suffered from a fever of unknown origin. Some modern historians have suggested malaria. The likelihood of poison is remote. Whatever caused the fever, the numerous stresses he had put on his body would have only hastened his death.

 

Your son's question was really interesting, and I'm sorry I couldn't come up with a better answer.

 

Thank you, that was most helpful!