Qin Shi Huang

. Some of the main ones are:.
. Around seventy towns or outposts are claimed to have been founded by Alexander. He also hired several "doubles" to make it less clear which figure was the emperor. For example, he is held to be the companion of Aristotle and the direct student of Plato. Late in life, after his assassination had been attempted too often for comfort, he grew paranoid of remaining in one place too long and would hire servants to bear him to different buildings in his palace complex to sleep in each night. The traditional non-Western accounts differ from what we now know about the life of Alexander on a number of points.

Nevertheless, these trips provided opportunities for assassins, the most famous of whom was Zhang Liang. By the 12th century such important writers as Nezami Ganjavi were making him the subject of their epic poems, and holding him up as the model of the ideal statesman or philosopher-king, an idea adopted from the Greeks and elaborated on by Muslim philosophers like al-Farabi. (It was on one of these tours that he died). Despite his supposed sins, by the Islamic period the adoption of Pseudo-Callisthenes' accounts meant that the image of Alexander was on balance positive. The emperor often took tours to major cities in his empire to inspect the efficiency of the bureaucracy and to symbolize the presence of Qin's prestige. Alexander is also blamed for ending the golden age of Zoroastrianism by seizing and destroying the original golden text of the Zend Avesta by throwing it into the sea. The myth also claims that this is the reason why the Japanese language is so similar to the Chinese one, and also the fact that the Japanese people look so similiar to the Chinese. Pahlavi sources on the Alexander legend devised a mythical genealogy for him whereby his mother was a concubine of Darius II, making him the half-brother of the last Achaemenid shah, Darius III, probably in order to justify his domination of the old Persian Empire.

The myth claims that they settled down in one of the Japanese islands. Islamic accounts of the Alexander legend, particularly in Persia combined the Pseudo-Callisthenes material with indigenous Sasanid Persian ideas about Alexander. These people never returned, as they knew that if they did return without the "immortality pill", they would surely be executed. Alexander was often identified in Persian and Arabic-language sources as "Dhû-'l Qarnayn", Arabic for the "Horned One", possibly a reference to the appearance of the Hercules head that appears on coins minted during his rule. These deeds became a popular story of the emperor sending a Zhifu islander as the religious leader of ships with hundreds of young men and women in search of the pill of immortality. Some believe that, excepting certain religious texts, it is the most widely-read work of pre-modern times. Qin Shi Huang was interested in immortality and visited Zhifu Island. A Mongol version is also extant.

The video game Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb sends the archaeologist into the tomb of Qin Shi Huang to recover a secret artifact hidden there. It is the source of many incidents in Ferdowsi's "Shahnama". The Great Wall is actually the symbol for 'help' in his language, and the true reason for its construction was in hope that a passing alien ship would find it and rescue him. The "Romance" is regarded by most Western scholars as the source of the account of Alexander given in the Koran (Sura The Cave). In the Area 51 book series, Qin Shi Huang is revealed to be an alien exile stranded on Earth during an interstellar civil war. From these, versions were developed in all the major languages of Europe and the Middle East, including Armenian, Georgian, Persian, Arabic, Turkish, Hebrew, Serbian, Slavonic, Romanian, Hungarian, German, English, Italian, and French. Bob Bainborough portrayed Qin Shi Huang in an episode of History Bites. Latin and Syriac translations were made in Late Antiquity.

The 2002 movie Hero tells the story of assassination attempts of Qin Shi Huang (played by renowned Chinese actor Chen Daoming) by legendary warriors. This text underwent numerous expansions and revisions throughout Antiquity and the Middle Ages, exhibiting a plasticity unseen in "higher" literary forms. The time traveller also interferes with a lot of important historical events related to the emperor. In the first centuries after Alexander's death, probably in Alexandria, a quantity of the more legendary material coalesced into a text known as the Alexander Romance, later falsely ascribed to the historian Callisthenes and therefore known as Pseudo-Callisthenes. In the show, Qin Shi Huang is actually a person named Zhao Pan from the Kingdom of Zhao who takes over the identity of Ying Zheng and rises to power with the help of a time traveller from the 21st century. (When Onesicritus read this passage to his patron, Alexander's general and later King Lysimachus, Lysimachus quipped "I wonder where I was at the time."). The 2001 Hong Kong TVB drama serial, A Step into the Past, presents a whole new perspective on the emperor's story, with Raymond Lam Fung as Qin Shi Huang. Writing after Alexander's death, another participant, Onesicritus, went so far as to invent a tryst between Alexander and Thalestris, queen of the mythical Amazons.

The 1999 movie The Emperor and the Assassin focused on the identity of his father, his heartless treatment of his officials, and betrayal by a concubine, paving the way for Jing Ke's assassination attempt. His court historian Callisthenes portrayed the sea in Cilicia as drawing back from him in proskynesis. The 1996 movie The Emperor's Shadow uses the various legends about him to make a political statement on Chinese Communism, and focuses on his relationship with the rebellious musician, Gao Jianli. Alexander was a legend in his own time. The 1984 book Bridge of Birds (by Barry Hughart) portrays him as a power-hungry megalomaniac who achieved immortality by having his heart removed by an Old Man of the mountain. All include a considerable level of fantasy, prompting Strabo (2.1.9) to remark, "All who wrote about Alexander preferred the marvellous to the true." Nevertheless, the sources tell us much, and leave much to our interpretation and imagination. Jing Ke, in contrast, was a chivalrous warrior and one of his lines was "tens of thousands of injured people are all my comrades." A huge newspaper ad for this play proclaimed: "Invasion will definitely end in defeat; peace must be won at a price." The underdog fighting against the aggression of a cruel and powerful foreign invader and being supported by a sympathetic volunteer from another country was obviously a theme with considerable contemporary relevance. Plutarch can't resist a good story, light or dark.

In the play Ying Zheng was portrayed as a cruel tyrant and an aggressor and invader of other states. Arrian presents a flattering portrait, Curtius a darker one. The play was based on an actual historical event, the attempted assassination of Ying Zheng by Jing Ke of Wei, at the request of the Prince of Yan, in 227 BC. In effect, each presents a different "Alexander," with details to suit. During the Korean War, the play Song of the Yi River was produced. The "problem of the sources" is the main concern (and chief delight) of Alexander-historians. To be sure, Qin Shi Huang could always be seen as relevant in fiction and folklore. Much is recounted incidentally in other authors, including Strabo, Athenaeus, Polyaenus, and others.

The new theory claimed that the cause of the fall of Qin lay in the lack of thoroughness of Qin Shi Huang's "dictatorship over the reactionaries, even to the extent of permitting them to worm their way into organs of political authority and usurp important posts.". The five main accounts are by Arrian, Curtius, Plutarch, Diodorus, and Justin. To round out this re-evaluation, a new interpretation of the precipitous collapse of the Qin Dynasty was put forward in an article entitled "On the Class Struggle During the Period Between Qin and Han" by Luo Siding, in a 1974 issue of Red Flag, to replace the old explanation. Instead, the modern historian must rely on authors who used these and other early sources. Unfortunately, he was not as thorough as he should have been and after his death, hidden subversives, under the leadership of the chief eunuch Zhao Gao, seized power and used it to restore the old feudal order. Unfortunately, these works were lost. The new evaluations described how, in his time (an era of great political and social change), he had no compunctions in using violent methods to crush counter-revolutionaries, such as the "industrial and commercial slave owner" chancellor Lü Buwei. Another early and influential account was penned by Cleitarchus.

Personal attributes, such as his quest for immortality, so emphasized in traditional historiography, were scarcely mentioned. These included his court historian Callisthenes, his general Ptolemy, and a camp engineer Aristoboulus. In the new era, Qin Shi Huang was seen as a farsighted ruler who destroyed the forces of division and established the first unified, centralized state in Chinese history by rejecting the past. Alexander himself left only a few inscriptions and some letter-fragments of dubious authenticity, but a large number of his contemporaries wrote full accounts. The work was published by the state press to be a mass popular history, and sold 1.85 million copies within two years. The ancient sources for Alexander's life are, from the perspective of ancient history, relatively numerous. The reevaluation movement was launched by Hong Shidi's biography Qin Shi Huang. Alexander himself, while still a young boy, tamed this horse after experienced horse-trainers failed to do so.

Since 1972, however, a radically different official view of Qin Shi Huang has been given prominence throughout China. Alexander had a legendary horse named Bucephalus (meaning "ox-headed"), supposedly descended from the Mares of Diomedes. The perennial debate of the fall of the Qin Dynasty was also explained in Marxist terms, the peasant rebellions being a revolt against oppression - a revolt which undermined the dynasty, but which was bound to fail because of a compromise with "landlord class elements". A strong oral tradition, although not attested in any extant primary source, lists Alexander as having epilepsy, known to the Greeks as the Sacred Disease and thought to be a mark of divine favour. The work described the First Emperor's major steps toward unification and standardization as corresponding to the interests of the ruling group and the merchant class, not the nation or the people, and the subsequent fall of his dynasty a manifestation of the class struggle. According to one story, the philosopher Anaxarchus checked the vainglory of Alexander, when he aspired to the honours of divinity, by pointing to Alexander's wound, saying, "See the blood of a mortal, not the ichor of a god." In another version Alexander himself pointed out the difference in response to a sycophantic soldier. This is exemplified in the Complete History of China, which was compiled in September, 1955, as an official survey of Chinese history. From his boyhood he believed "one should not be parsimonious with the Gods.".

The new interpretation given of Qin Shi Huang was generally a combination of traditional and modern views, but essentially critical. One undeniable characteristic of Alexander is that he was extremely pious and devout, and began every day with prayers and sacrifices. The establishment of the new, revolutionary regime meant another re-evaluation of the First Emperor, this time following Marxist theory. As a result, Alexander's character is skewed depending on which way the historian's own culture is, and further muddles the debate of who he truly was. With the coming of the Communist Revolution in 1949, new interpretations again surfaced. Tarn wrote in an age where world conquest and warrior-heroes were acceptable, even encouraged, whereas Green wrote with the backdrop of the Holocaust and nuclear weapons. Chiang's Northern Expedition of the late 1920s, which directly preceded the new Nationalist government at Nanjing was compared to the unification brought about by Qin Shi Huang. Tarn, who wrote during the late 19th century and early 20th century, and who saw Alexander in an extremely good light, and Peter Green, who wrote after World War II and for whom Alexander did little that was not inherently selfish or ambition-driven.

Ma compared him with the contemporary leader Chiang Kai-shek and saw many parallels in the careers and policies of the two men, both of whom he admired. W. He called Qin Shi Huang one of the great heroes of Chinese history. Good examples are W. Another historian, Ma Feibai (馬非百), published in 1941 a full-length revisionist biography of the First Emperor entitled Qin Shi Huangdi Zhuan (《秦始皇帝傳》). Alexander's character also suffers from the interpretation of historians who themselves are subject to the bias and idealisms of their own time. In the time when he was writing, when Chinese territory was encroached upon by foreign nations, leading Kuomintang historian Xiao Yishan emphasized the role of Qin Shi Huang in repulsing the northern barbarians, particularly in the construction of the Great Wall. To this way of thinking, Alexander was, first and foremost, a general rather than a statesman.

In the three decades between the fall of the Qing Dynasty and the outbreak of the Second World War, with the deepening dissatisfaction with China's weakness and disunity, there emerged a new appreciation of the man who had unified China. It is further claimed, in response to the view that Alexander was generally tolerant of the cultures of those whom he conquered, that his attempts at cultural fusion were severely practical and that he never actually admired Persian art or culture. The political rejection of the Confucian tradition as an impediment to China's entry into the modern world opened the way for changing perspectives to emerge. Some proponents of this view cite the destructions of Thebes, Tyre, Persepolis, and Gaza as examples of atrocities, and argue that Alexander preferred to fight rather than negotiate. Only in modern times were historians able to penetrate beyond the limitations of traditional Chinese historiography. Partially in response to the ubiquity of positive portrayals of Alexander, an alternate character is sometimes presented which emphasizes some of Alexander's negative aspects. Most were designed to tarnish the First Emperor's image. One unresolved topic involves whether Alexander was actually attempting to better the world by his conquests, or whether his purpose was primarily to rule the world.

Almost all of these have been discredited by modern sinologists as hearsay and legend. Modern Alexandrists continue to debate these same issues, among others, in modern times. There are also many varying tales of Heaven's anger against the First Emperor, such as the story of a stone fallen from the sky engraved with words denouncing the emperor and prophesying the collapse of his empire after his death. The murder of his friend Clitus, which Alexander deeply and immediately regretted, is often pointed to, as is his execution of Philotas and his general Parmenion for failure to pass along details of a plot against him, though this last may have been prudence rather than paranoia. For instance, the accusation that he had 460 scholars executed by having them buried with only their heads above ground, and then decapitated is at the very least unlikely to be completely true and it is probable that the incident was fabricated to create a legend of Confucian martyrdom. Most refer to a growing instability and megalomania in the years following Gaugamela, but it has been suggested that this simply reflects the Greek stereotype of a Medizing king. Because of this systematic Confucian bias on the part of Han scholars, many of the stories recorded about Qin Shi Huang are of doubtful historical value and many were probably invented to emphasize his negative traits. Ancient sources are generally written with an agenda of either glorifying or denigrating the man, making it difficult to evaluate his actual character.

He explained the ultimate weakness of Qin as a result of its ruler's ruthless pursuit of power, the precise factor which had made it so powerful; for as Confucius had taught, the strength of a government ultimately is based on the support of the people and virtuous conduct of the ruler. To Zoroastrians, on the other hand, he is remembered as the destroyer of their first great empire and as the leveller of Persepolis. Jia Yi's essay, admired as a masterpiece of rhetoric and reasoning, was copied into two great Han histories and has had a far-reaching influence on Chinese political thought as a classic illustration of Confucian theory. Alexander is remembered as a legendary hero in Europe and much of both Southwest Asia and Central Asia, where he is known as Iskander or Iskandar Zulkarnain. The famous Han poet and statesman Jia Yi concluded his essay The Faults of Qin with what was to become the standard Confucian judgment of the reasons for Qin's collapse. Much about Alexander's personality and aims remains enigmatic. They eventually compiled the list of the Ten Crimes of Qin to highlight his tyrannical actions. Such views tend to be anachronistic, however, and the sources allow a variety of interpretations.

Later, Confucian historians condemned the emperor who had burned the classics and buried Confucian scholars alive. Modern opinion on Alexander has run the gamut from the idea that he believed he was on a divinely-inspired mission to unite the human race, to the view that he was the ancient world's equivalent of Napoleon I of France or Adolf Hitler, a megalomaniac bent on world domination. Ideological prejudices against the Legalist State of Qin were established as early as 266 BC, when Confucian philosopher Xun Zi compared it to barbarian tribes and wrote "Qin has the heart of a tiger or a wolf … [and is] avaricious, perverse, eager for profit, and without sincerity". . In traditional Chinese historiography, the First Emperor was almost always portrayed as a brutal tyrant, superstitious (a result of his interest in immortality and assassination paranoia) and sometimes even as a mediocre ruler. To date there is no evidence to support these claims. In this way his work was carried on through the centuries and became a lasting feature of Chinese society. Myths of Alexander's wife having murdered Alexander have been widely discussed and debated by historians.

The next Chinese dynasty, the Han Dynasty, rejected Legalism (in favor of Confucianism) and moderated the laws, but kept Qin Shi Huang's basic political and economic reforms intact. Alexander's conquests also had long term cultural effects, with the flourishing of Hellenistic civilization throughout the Middle-East and Central Asia, and the development of Greco-Buddhist art in the Indian subcontinent. This was a time of extreme civil unrest, and everything the emperor had worked for had crumbled away, for a short period. In the East, they had been dramatically reduced by the expansion of the Parthian Empire and the secession of the Greco-Bactrian kingdom. It was during Qin Er Shi's "rule" that powerful families came to war, with the strongest of them rising to power and bringing order back to the land, thus starting the next dynasty of emperors. By the 1st century BC though, most of the Hellenistic territories in the West had been absorbed by the Roman Republic. The imperial palace and state archives were burned, and the Qin Dynasty came to an end. By 270 BC, Hellenistic states consolidated, with:.

Revolts quickly erupted, and within four years of Qin Shi Huang's death, his son was dead. Control over Indian territory was short-lived, ending when Seleucus I was defeated by Chandragupta Maurya, the first Mauryan emperor. Qin Er Shi was not nearly as capable as his father was. Antigonus I ruled for a while in Asia Minor and Syria, but was soon defeated by the other four generals. Qin Shi Huang was buried in his mausoleum, with the famous Terracotta Army, near modern day Xi'an (Shaanxi province), but his burial chamber has yet to be opened. Alexander's empire was divided at first into four major portions: Cassander ruled in Greece, Lysimachus in Thrace, Seleucus I Nicator ("the winner") in Mesopotamia and Iran, and Ptolemy I in the Levant and Egypt. Huhai became the Second Emperor (Er Shi Huangdi), known by historians as Qin Er Shi. Ultimately, the conflict was settled after the Battle of Ipsus in Phrygia in 301 BC.

They forced his first son Fusu to commit suicide, stripped the command of troops from Meng Tian — a loyal supporter of Fusu — and killed Meng's family too. After Alexander's death his empire was divided among his officers, first mostly with the pretense of preserving a united kingdom, later with the explicit formation of rival monarchies and territorial states. After his death, Li Si and the chief eunuch Zhao Gao persuaded his second son Huhai to forge the Emperor's will. Main article: Diadochi
. Qin Shi Huang did not like to talk about death and he never really wrote a will. The sarcophagus depicts Alexander and his companions hunting and in battle with the Persians. Eventually, after about two months, Li Si and the imperial court were back in Xianyang, where the news of the death of the emperor was announced. The so-called "Alexander Sarcophagus," discovered near Sidon and now in the Istanbul Archaeological Museum, is now generally thought to be that of Abdylonymus, whom Hephaestion appointed as the king of Sidon by Alexander's order.

The idea behind this was to prevent people from noticing the foul smell emanating from the wagon of the emperor, where his body was starting to decompose severely. Its current whereabouts are unknown. Li Si also ordered that two carts containing fish be carried immediately before and after the wagon of the emperor. According to Aelian (Varia Historia 12.64), Ptolemy stole the body and brought it to Alexandria, where it was on display until Late Antiquity. The secretive nature of the emperor while alive allowed this stratagem to work, and it did not raise doubts among courtiers. According to legend, Alexander was preserved in a clay vessel full of honey (which acts as a preservative) and interred in a glass coffin. Most of the imperial entourage accompanying the emperor was left uninformed of the emperor's death, and each day Li Si entered the wagon where the emperor was supposed to be traveling, pretending to discuss affairs of state. No contemporary source can be fully trusted because of the incredible level of self-serving recording, and as a result what truly happened to Alexander the Great may never be known.

Li Si decided to hide the death of the emperor, and return to Xianyang. Before long, accusations of foul play were being thrown about by his generals at one another, making it incredibly hard for a modern historian to sort out the propaganda and the half-truths from the actual events. It would take two months for the government to reach the capital, and it would not be possible to stop the uprising. Alexander's death has been surrounded by as much controversy as many of the events of his life. Prime minister Li Si, who accompanied him, was extremely worried that the news of his death could trigger a general uprising in the empire, given the brutal policies of the government, and the resentment of the population forced to work on Herculean projects such as the great wall in the north of China or the mausoleum of the emperor. He answered famously, "The strongest." Before dying, his final words were "I foresee a great funeral contest over me." Alexander's 'funeral games', where his marshals fought it out over control of his empire, lasted for nearly forty years. His death occurred in the beginning of September 210 BC at the palace in Shaqiu prefecture, about two months away by road from the capital Xianyang. On his death bed, his marshals asked him who he bequethed his kingdom to - as Alexander had only one heir, it was a question of vital importance.

Ironically, this potion was meant to make Qin Shi Huang immortal. What is certain is that Alexander died of a high fever in early June of 323 B.C. Reportedly he died of drinking a potion, which was made by his court scientists and doctors, containing too much mercury. Alexander's death has been reinterpreted many times over the centuries, and each generation offers a new take on it. The emperor died while on a tour to Eastern China, searching for the legendary Islands of the Immortals (off the coast of Eastern China) and for the secret of eternal life. Neither story is conclusive. Very little survives today of the great wall built by the First Emperor. These theories often cite the fact that Alexander's health had fallen to dangerously low levels after years of overdrinking and suffering several appalling wounds (including one in India that nearly claimed his life), and that it was only a matter of time before one sickness or another finally killed him.

It was built much more north than the current Great Wall which was built only during the Ming Dynasty, when China had at least twice more inhabitants than in the days of the First Emperor, and when more than a century was devoted to building the wall (as opposed to a mere ten years during the rule of the First Emperor). Various other theories have been advanced stating that the king may have died from other illnesses, as well, including the West Nile virus. This wall, for whose construction hundreds of thousands of men were mobilized, and an unknown number died, is the precursor version of the current Great Wall of China. However, many other scholars maintain that Alexander was not poisoned, but died of natural causes, malaria being the most popular. These tribes (the Xiongnu) were subdued, but the campaign was essentially inconclusive, and to prevent the Xiongnu from encroaching on the northern frontier any longer, the emperor ordered the construction of an immense defensive wall, linking several walls already existing since the time of the Warring States. All had powerful motivations for seeing Alexander gone, and all were none the worse for it after his death. Qin Shi Huang continued military expansion during his reign, annexing regions to the south (what is now Guangdong province was penetrated by Chinese armies for the first time) and fighting nomadic tribes to the north and northwest. The original story stated that Aristotle, who'd recently seen his nephew executed by Alexander for treason, mixed the poison, that Cassander, son of Antipater, viceroy of Greece, brought it to Alexander in Babylon in a mule's hoof, and that Alexander's royal cupbearer, a son-in-law of Antipater, administered it.

Edicts written in the new script were carved on the walls of sacred mountains around China, such as the famous carved edicts of Mount Taishan, to let Heaven know of the unification of Earth under an emperor, and also to propagate the new script among people. Alexander, coming to Babylon, had at long last disaffected enough of his senior officers that they formed a coalition against him and murdered both him and Hephaestion within a space of only a few months, intending on ending his increasingly unpopular policies of orientalism and ending any further military adventures. A new script was developed by Li Si, called the small seal script, based on the script in use in the State of Qin, and this new script was made mandatory, thus doing away with all the regional scripts and local Chinese characters that existed in the various Chinese states. The poisoning theory derives from the traditional story universally held in antiquity. Perhaps most importantly, the Chinese script was unified. Various theories have been proposed for the cause of his death which include poisoning by the sons of Antipater, murder by his wife Roxana [1], and sickness due to a relapse of malaria he had contracted in 336 BC. Qin Shi Huang and Li Si unified China economically by standardizing weights and measures, the currency, the length of the axles of carts (so every cart could run smoothly in the ruts of the new roads), the legal system, and so on. He was only 33 years old.

The emperor also developed an extensive network of roads and canals connecting the provinces to accelerate trade between them and to accelerate military marches to revolting provinces. On the afternoon of June 10-11, 323 BC, Alexander died of a mysterious illness in the palace of Nebuchadrezzar II of Babylon. Qin Shi Huang ordered all the members of the former royal houses of the conquered states to move to Xianyang (咸陽), the capital of Qin, in modern day Shaanxi province, so they would be kept under tight surveillance for rebellious activities. Several hundred allied horse rounded out the cavalry, but were inferior to the rest. In the State of Qin, feudalism had been abolished in the 4th century BC, and the realm had been divided into commanderies with governors dismissed at will by the ruler. Of light cavalry, the prodomoi (runners) secured the wings of the army during battle and went on reconnaissance missions. This administrative system was only an extension to the whole empire of the system already in place in the State of Qin before the Chinese unification. The organization of the Thessalian cavalry was similar to the Companion Cavalry, but they had a shorter spear and fought in a looser formation.

An inspector (監  jiàn) was also in post in each commandery, in charge of informing the central government about the local implementation of central policies, reporting on the governors' exercise of power, and possibly resolving conflicts between the two governors. The riders did not carry shields. The civilian governor was also reassigned to a different commandery every few years to prevent him from building up a base of power. The horses were partially clad in armor as well. The civilian governor was superior to the military governor, a constant in Chinese history. They were equipped with a 12-14 foot lance, the xyston, and heavy body armor. Thus each commandery was run by a civilian governor (守  shǒu) assisted by a military governor (尉  wèi). The Companion cavalry (hetairoi, friends) was divided into eight squadrons called ile, 200 strong, except the Royal Squadron of 300.

Civilian and military powers were also separated to avoid that too much power falls in the hands of a single civil servant. The heavy cavalry included the "Companion cavalry," raised from the Macedonian nobility, and the Thessalian cavalry. Power in the commanderies was in the hands of governors dismissed at will by the central government. The best peltasts were the Agrianians from Thrace. They instead divided the empire into thirty-six commanderies (郡). Peltasts are considered to be light infantry, although they had a helmet and a small shield and were heavier then the psiloi. To avoid the anarchy of the Warring States Period, Qin Shi Huang and his prime minister Li Si completely abolished feudalism. Alexander also had light infantry units composed of peltasts, psiloi and others.

Then in that same year, at the age of 38, the king of Qin proclaimed himself First Emperor (see chapter above). They carried a shorter spear, a dora, which was six or seven feet long and a large aspis. He continued the tradition of tenaciously attacking and defeating the feudal states (dodging a celebrated assassination attempt by Jing Ke while doing so) and finally took control of the whole of China in 221 BC by defeating the last independent Chinese state, the State of Qi. In addition to the units mentioned above, the army included some 6,000 Greek allied and mercenary hoplites, also arranged in phalanxes. Zheng ascended the throne in 247 BC at the age of 12 and a half, and was king under a regent until 238 BC when at the age of 21 and a half he staged a palace coup and assumed full power. Sometimes hypaspists are mentioned in the front line of the battle just between the phalanx and the heavy cavalry and seem to have acted as an extension of the phalanx fighting as heavy infantry while keeping a link between the heavily clad phalangites and the companion cavalry, but they also accompanied Alexander on flanking marches and were capable of fighting on rough terrain like light troops so it seems they could perform dual functions. However, the story is dubious since the Confucians would have found it much easier to denounce a ruler whose birth was illegitimate. Their armament is unknown; it is difficult to get a clear picture from ancient sources.

This tale arose because Zheng's mother had originally been a concubine of Lü Buwei before he gave her to his good friend Zichu shortly before Zheng's birth. One of the battalions was named the Agema and served as the King's bodyguards. According to a widespread story, Zheng was not the actual son of Zichu, but the son of the powerful chancellor Lü Buwei. Another important unit were the hypaspists (shield bearers), arranged into three battalions (lochoi) of 1,000 men each. Zichu is known posthumously as King Zhuangxiang of Qin. Modern historians believe most of the phalangites did not wear heavy body armor at the time of Alexander. Zichu later returned to Qin after many adventures and with the help of a rich merchant called Lü Buwei, and he managed to ascend the throne of Qin, Lü Buwei becoming chancellor (prime minister) of Qin. It is unclear whether the phalanx used body armor, but heavy body armor is mentioned in Arrian (1.28.7) and other ancient sources.

He was the son of Zichu, a prince of the royal house of Qin who served as a hostage in the State of Zhao under an agreement between the states of Qin and Zhao. Many modern historians claim the phalanx used a smaller shield, called a pelta, the shield used by peltasts. Zheng was born in Handan (邯鄲), the capital of the enemy State of Zhao. Arrian mentions large shields (the aspis) but this is disputed; it is difficult to wield both a large pike and a large shield at the same time. It was governed by Legalist philosophy and focused earnestly on military matters. For protection the soldier wore a Phrygian-style helmet and a shield. The competition was extremely fierce and by 260 BC there were only a handful of states left (the others having been conquered and annexed), but Zheng's state, Qin, was the most powerful. Each soldier had a long pike called a sarissa, which was up to 18 feet long, and a short sword.

This period of Chinese history is referred to as the Warring States Period. The main infantry corps was the phalanx, composed of six regiments (taxies) numbering about 2000 phalangites each. At the time of the young Zheng's birth, China was divided into warring feudal states. About one third of the army was composed of his Greek allies from the Hellenic League.
. It was composed of light and heavy troops and some engineers, medical and staff units. Westerners sometimes write "Qin Shi Huangdi", which is improper given Chinese naming conventions; it is more conventional to write "Qin Shi Huang" or "First Emperor". The army of Alexander was, for the most part, that of his father Philip.

This name Qin Shi Huang (i.e., "First Emperor of the Qin Dynasty") is the name that appears in the Records of the Grand Historian written by Sima Qian, and is the name most favored today inside China when referring to the First Emperor. This idea, however, subsists upon a misunderstanding of "dress," used in the sense of "attire." In fact, it was Athena who was the cross-dresser, wearing armor when Greek women and other goddesses did not. It seems likely that huangdi was shortened to obtain a three-character name, which matches the three-character name of Chinese people (it is extremely rare for Chinese people to have a name made of four or more characters). It has been proposed that Alexander was also a "cross-dresser," on the grounds that he was known to wear the "silvery dress" of Athena, which he received from priests at Troy. The word huangdi (emperor) in his name was also shortened to huang, so that he became known as Qin Shi Huang. See History of Homosexuality for more information. The habit started to have his name preceded by Qin (秦), which does not refer to the State of Qin anymore, but to the Qin Dynasty, a dynasty now replaced by the Han Dynasty. If Alexander's love life was transgressive it was not for his love of beautiful youths but for his involvement with a man his own age, in a time when the standard model of male love was pederastic.

Qin Shi Huang could no longer be called "First Emperor", as this would imply that he was the "First Emperor of the Empire of Han". Such debates, however, are considered anachronistic by scholars of the period, who point out that the concept of homosexuality did not exist in Greco-Roman antiquity: sexual attraction between males was seen as a normal and universal part of human nature since it was believed that men were attracted to beauty, an attribute of the young, regardless of gender. Eventually, in 202 BC the Han Dynasty managed to reunify the whole of China, which now became officially known as the State of Han (漢國), which can also be translated as the Empire of Han. Others argue that the same can be said about all our information regarding Alexander. However, soon after the emperor's death, his regime collapsed, and China was beset by a civil war. They argue that historical accounts describing Alexander's relations with Hephaestion and Bagoas as sexual were written centuries after the fact, and thus it can never be established what the 'real' relationship between Alexander and his male companions were. Contemporaries called the emperor "First Emperor", dropping the "of the State of Qin", which was obvious without saying. People of various national, ethnic and cultural origins regard him as a national hero.

The name China (中華 or 中國) was never used officially for the country China until 1912 when the Republic of China (中華民國) was founded. The suggestion that Alexander was homosexual or bisexual remains highly controversial and excites passions in some quarters in Greece, the Republic of Macedonia, and diasporas thereof. The official name of the newly united China was still "State of Qin", Qin having absorbed all the other states. Besides Bagoas, Curtius mentions yet another lover of Alexander, Euxenippos, "whose youthful grace filled him with enthusiasm." (VII.9.19). Qin Shi Huang had now become the First Emperor of the State of Qin. (This Bagoas should not be confused with Bagoas the former Persian Vizier, nor the Bagoas son of Pharnuches who became one of Alexander's trierarchs.) Whatever Alexander's relationship with Bagoas, it was no impediment to relations with his queen: six months after Alexander's death Roxana gave birth to his son and heir Alexander IV. He abolished posthumous names, by which former kings were known after their death, judging them inappropriate and contrary to filial piety, and decided that future generations would refer to him as the First Emperor (Shi Huangdi), his successor would be referred to as the Second Emperor (Er Shi Huangdi, literally "second generation emperor"), the successor of his successor as the Third Emperor (San Shi Huangdi, literally "third generation emperor"), and so on, for ten thousand generations, as the Imperial house was supposed to rule China for ten thousand generations ("ten thousand" is equivalent to "forever" in Chinese, and it also means "good fortune"). Bagoas must have endeared himself to them by his courage and fortitude during that harrowing episode.

Qin Shi Huang adopted the name First Emperor (Shi Huangdi, literally "commencing emperor"). At this point in time, the troops present were all survivors of the crossing of the desert. This word huangdi was rendered in most Western languages as "emperor", a word with also a long history going back to ancient Rome, and which Europeans deemed superior to the word "king". "Bagoas [...] sat down close by him, which so pleased the Macedonians, that they made loud acclamations for him to kiss Bagoas, and never stopped clapping their hands and shouting till Alexander put his arms round him and kissed him." (Plutarch, The Lives). Thus, by joining these two words, which no one had ever done before, Qin Shi Huang created a title on par with his feat of uniting the seemingly endless Chinese realm, in fact uniting the world (ancient Chinese, like ancient Romans, believed their empire encompassed the whole world, a concept referred to as all under heaven). Their relationship seems to have been well known among the troops, as Plutarch recounts an episode (also mentioned by Athenaios and Dicaearchus) during some festivities on the way back from India, in which his men clamor for him to openly kiss the young man. The word di also referred to the Supreme God in Heaven, creator of the world. The word is not used even for Hephaestion.

The word huang also meant "big", "great". Bagoas is the only one who is actually named as the eromenos — the beloved — of Alexander. These Three Huang and Five Di were considered perfect rulers, of immense powers, and very long lives. Bagoas, a eunuch exceptional in beauty and in the very flower of boyhood, with whom Darius was intimate and with whom Alexander would later be intimate," (VI.5.23). Wishing to show that he was no more a simple king like the kings of old during the Warring States Period, he created a new title, huangdi (皇帝), combining the word huang (皇) which was used to call the legendary Three Huang (Three August Ones) who ruled at the dawn of Chinese history, and the word di (帝) which was used to call the legendary Five Di (Five Sovereigns) who ruled immediately after the Three Huang. Curtius maintains that Alexander also took as a lover ".. After conquering the last independent Chinese state in 221 BC, Qin Shi Huang was now the king of a state of Qin ruling over the whole of China, which was unprecedented. This would be in keeping with the ancient omnivorous approach to sexuality.

(posthumous name) of Qin", but this never happened. He fathered at least two children, Heracles born in 327 BC by his mistress Barsine, the daughter of satrap Artabazus of Phrygia, and Alexander IV of Macedon by Roxana in 323 BC. Had he received a posthumous name after his death like his father, he would have been known by historians as "King NN. Later in life, Alexander married several princesses of former Persian territories: Roxana of Bactria; Statira, daughter of Darius III; and Parysatis, daughter of Ochus. As a king, he was referred to as "King of Qin" only. But you won't be able to, for you are ruled by Hephaestion's thighs." And Curtius reports that "He scorned [feminine] sensual pleasures to such an extent that his mother was anxious lest he be unable to beget offspring." To whet his appetite for the fairer sex, King Philip and Olympias brought in a high-priced Thessalian courtesan named Callixena. The given name was never used except by close relatives, therefore it is also incorrect to refer to the young Qin Shi Huang as "Prince Zheng", or as "King Zheng of Qin". Letter 24 of those ascribed to Diogenes of Sinope, thought to be written in either the 1st century or the 2nd century, and probably reflecting the gossip of Alexander's day, exhorts him: "If you want to be beautiful and good (kalos k'agathos), throw away the rag you have on your head and come to us.

In Chinese antiquity, people never joined family name and given name together as is customary today, so it is anachronistic to refer to Qin Shi Huang as "Ying Zheng". Many discussed his ambiguous sexuality. Qin Shi Huang was born in the Chinese month zheng (正), the first month of the year in the Chinese calendar (in the 3rd century BC the Chinese year started before the Winter solstice, and not after as it does today), and so he received the name Zheng (政), both characters being used interchangeably in ancient China. As Aelian in his Varia Historia (12.7) claims, "He thus intimated that he was the object of Alexander's love, as Patroclus was of Achilles.". . There the two friends made sacrifices at the shrines of the two heroes Achilles and Patroclus, Alexander honouring Achilles, and Hephaestion, Patroclus. For all the tyranny of his autocratic rule, Qin Shi Huang is still regarded today as some sort of a colossal founding father in Chinese history whose unification of China has endured for more than two millennia (with interruptions). Hephaestion makes his appearance in the histories at the point when Alexander reaches Troy.

Having unified China, he and his prime minister Li Si passed a series of major reforms aimed at cementing the unification, and they undertook some Herculean construction projects, most notably the precursor version of the current Great Wall of China. They had most likely been best friends since childhood, for Hephaestion too received his education at the court of Alexander's father. Qin Shi Huang (秦始皇) (November or December 260 BC-September 10, 210 BC), personal name Zheng, was king of the Chinese State of Qin from 247 BC to 221 BC, and then the first emperor of a unified China from 221 BC to 210 BC, ruling under the name First Emperor. Alexander's greatest emotional attachment is generally considered to have been to his companion, cavalry commander (chiliarchos) and most probably lover, Hephaestion. Many historians argue if this was the cause of his death. While invading the ancient city of Mali along the shore of India he received a nearly fatal wound from an arrow in his chest.

On his return to Babylon, he fell ill and died. He conducted a campaign of extermination against the Cosseans to assuage his grief. Alexander was distraught. After traveling to Ecbatana to retrieve the bulk of the Persian treasure, his closest friend and probable lover Hephaestion died of an illness.

It is not certain that Alexander adopted the Persian royal title of shahanshah ("great king" or "king of kings"), but most historians think that he did. His attempts to merge Persian culture with his Greek soldiers also included training a regiment of Persian boys in the ways of Macedonians. In an attempt to craft a lasting harmony between his Macedonian and Persian subjects, he held a mass marriage of his senior officers to Persian and other noblewomen at Opis, but few of those marriages seem to have lasted much beyond a year. Alexander executed the ringleaders of the mutiny, but forgave the rank and file.

As a gesture of thanks, he paid off the debts of his soldiers, and announced that he would send those who were over-aged and the disabled veterans back to Macedonia under Craterus, but his troops misunderstood his intention and mutinied at the town of Opis, refusing to be sent away and bitterly criticizing his adoption of Persian customs and dress and the introduction of Persian officers and soldiers into Macedonian units. Discovering that many of his satraps and military governors had misbehaved in his absence, Alexander executed a number of them as examples on his way to Susa. He sent much of his army to Carmania (modern southern Iran) with his general Craterus, and commissioned a fleet to explore the Persian Gulf shore under his admiral Nearchus, while he led the rest of his forces back to Persia by the southern route through the Gedrosia (present day Makran in southern Pakistan). Alexander was forced to turn south, conquering his way down the Indus to the Ocean.

Alexander, after the meeting with his officer, Coenus, was convinced that it was better to return. Exhausted and frightened by the prospect of facing another giant Indian army at the Ganges, his army mutinied at the Hyphasis (modern Beas), refusing to march further east. East of Porus' kingdom, near the Ganges River, was the powerful kingdom of Magadha. Alexander continued on to conquer all the headwaters of the Indus River.

After victory, Alexander made an alliance with Porus and appointed him as satrap of his own kingdom. Alexander fought an epic battle against Porus, a ruler of a region in the Punjab in the Battle of Hydaspes (326 BC). Alexander took Aornos by storm (see Siege of Aornos). Many people had fled to a high fortress called Aornos.

King Omphis, ruler of Taxila, surrendered the city to Alexander. With the death of Spitamenes and his marriage to Roxana (Roshanak in Bactrian) to cement his relations with his new Central Asian satrapies, in 326 BC Alexander was finally free to turn his attention to India. However, the evidence is strong that Callisthenes, the teacher of the pages, must have been the one who persuaded them to assassinate the king. Later in the Central Asian campaign, a second plot against his life, this one by his own pages, was revealed, and his official historian, Callisthenes of Olynthus (who had fallen out of favor with the king by leading the opposition to his attempt to introduce proskynesis), was implicated on what most historians regard as trumped-up charges.

In a drunken quarrel at Macaranda Samarkand, he also killed the man who had saved his life at the Granicus, Clitus the Black. Although Philotas was convicted by the assembled Macedonian army, most historians consider this one of the king's greatest crimes, along with his order to assassinate his senior general Parmenion, Philotas' father. Here, too, a plot against his life was revealed, and his Companion and friend Philotas was executed for treason for failing to bring the plot to his attention. This cost him much in the sympathies of many of his Greek countrymen.

During this time, Alexander adopted some elements of Persian dress and customs at his court, notably the custom of proskynesis, a symbolic kissing of the hand that Persians paid to their social superiors, but a practice of which the Greeks disapproved; the Greeks regarded the gesture as the preserve of deities, and believed that Alexander meant to deify himself by requiring it. In the process he captured and refounded Herat and Samarkand, and he founded a series of new cities, all called Alexandria, including one near modern Kandahar in Afghanistan, and Alexandria Eschate ("The Furthest") bordering today's Chinese Turkestan. His three-year campaign against Bessus and his successor Spitamenes took him through Media, Parthia, Aria, Drangiana, Arachosia, Bactria, and Scythia. With the death of Darius, Alexander declared the war of vengeance at an end, and released his Greek and other allies from service in the League campaign (although he allowed those that wished to re-enlist as mercenaries in his imperial army).

Bessus then declared himself Darius' successor as Artaxerxes V and retreated into Central Asia to launch a guerrilla campaign against Alexander. He then set off in pursuit of Darius, who was kidnapped, and then murdered by followers of Bessus, his Bactrian satrap and kinsman. Alexander allowed the League forces to loot Persepolis, and he set fire to the royal palace of Xerxes, allegedly in revenge for the burning of the Athenian Acropolis during the Second Persian War. Sending the bulk of his army to Persepolis, the Persian capital, by the Royal Road, Alexander stormed and captured the Persian Gates (in the modern Zagros Mountains), then sprinted for Persepolis before its treasury could be looted.

From Babylon, Alexander went to Susa, one of the Achaemenid capitals, and captured its treasury. While Darius fled over the mountains to Ecbatana (modern Hamadan), Alexander marched to Babylon. Darius was forced to flee the field after his charioteer was killed, and Alexander chased him as far as Arbela. Leaving Egypt, Alexander marched eastward into Assyria (now Iraq) and defeated Darius and a third Persian army at the Battle of Gaugamela.

He founded Alexandria in Egypt, which would become the prosperous capital of the Ptolemaic dynasty after his death. In 332 BC-331 BC Alexander was welcomed as a liberator in Egypt and was pronounced the son of Zeus by Egyptian priests of the god Ammon at the Oracle of the god at the Siwa Oasis in the Libyan desert. Alexander passed near but probably did not visit Jerusalem. Proceeding down the Mediterranean coast, he took Tyre and Gaza after famous sieges (see Siege of Tyre).

She disowned him and adopted Alexander as her son instead. Sisygambis, the queen mother, never forgave Darius for abandoning her. Darius fled this battle in such a panic for his life that he left behind his wife, his children, his mother, and much of his personal treasure. Alexander's army crossed the Cilician Gates and met and defeated the main Persian army under the command of Darius III at the Battle of Issus in 333 BC.

It is difficult, perhaps impossible, to decide which story is correct. Another version claims that he did not use the sword, but actually figured out how to undo the knot. At the ancient Phrygian capital of Gordium, Alexander "undid" the tangled Gordian knot, a feat said to await the future "king of Asia." According to the most vivid story, Alexander proclaimed that it did not matter how the knot was undone, and hacked it apart with his sword. At Termessus Alexander humbled but did not storm the Pisidian city.

From Pamphylia onward the coast held no major ports, so Alexander moved inland. From Halicarnassus, Alexander proceeded into mountainous Lycia and the Pamphylian plain, asserting control over all coastal cities and denying them to his enemy. Alexander left Caria in the hands of Ada, the sister of Mausolus, whom Orontobates had deposed. At Halicarnassus, Alexander successfully waged the first of many sieges, eventually forcing his opponents, the mercenary captain Memnon of Rhodes and the Persian satrap of Caria, Orontobates, to withdraw by sea.

After an initial victory against Persian forces at the Battle of Granicus, Alexander accepted the surrender of the Persian provincial capital and treasury of Sardis and proceeded down the Ionian coast. Alexander's army crossed the Hellespont with about 40,000 Greek soldiers. Alexander immediately ordered the execution of all of his potential rivals and marched south with his armies in a campaign to solidify control of Greece and confront the Persian Empire. Greek cities like Athens and Thebes, which had pledged allegiance to Philip, were not quick to pledge the same allegiance to a 20-year-old boy.

After Philip's death, the army proclaimed Alexander, then aged 20, as the new king of Macedon. Plutarch mentions an irate letter from Alexander to Darius, where Alexander blames Darius and Bagoas, his grand vizier, for his father's murder, stating that it was Darius who had been bragging to the rest of the Greek cities of how he managed to assassinate Philip. However, in recent years Alexander's involvement has been questioned and there is some reason to believe that it may have been instigated by Darius III, the recently crowned King of Persia. Philip's murder was once thought to have been planned with the knowledge and involvement of Alexander or Olympias.

The assassin was supposedly a former lover of the king, the disgruntled young nobleman (Pausanias), who held a grudge against Philip because the king had ignored a complaint he had expressed. In 336 BC, Philip was assassinated at the wedding of his daughter Cleopatra to King Alexander of Epirus. The cavalry wing led by Alexander annihilated the Sacred Band of Thebes, an elite corps previously regarded as invincible. Alexander also assisted his father at the decisive battle of Chaeronea in this year.

In 338 BC, Philip created The League of Corinth. In 339 BC Philip divorced Alexander's mother, leading to a quarrel between Alexander and his father which threw into question Alexander's succession to the Macedonian throne. When Philip led an attack on Byzantium in 340 BC, Alexander, aged 16, was left in command of Macedonia. According to Plutarch (Alexander 2.1), his father descended from Heracles through Caranus and his mother descended from Aeacus through Neoptolemus and Achilles.

After his visit to the Oracle of Ammon at Siwah, according to all five of the extant historians (Arrian, Curtius, Diodorus, Justin, and Plutarch), rumors spread that the Oracle had revealed Alexander's father was Zeus, rather than Philip. Aristotle was Alexander's tutor; he gave Alexander a thorough training in rhetoric and literature and stimulated his interest in science, medicine, and philosophy. Alarmed by this, he consulted the seer Aristander of Telmessus, who determined that his wife was pregnant and that the child would have the character of a lion. In Philip's dream, he sealed her womb with the seal of the lion.

Olympias dreamed of a loud burst of thunder and of lightning striking her womb. Plutarch (Alexander 2.2-3) relates that both Philip and Olympias dreamt of their son's future birth. According to Plutarch (Alexander 3.1,3), Olympias was impregnated not by Philip, who was afraid of her and her affinity for sleeping in the company of snakes, but by Zeus. Alexander was the son of King Philip II of Macedon and of Epirote princess Olympias.

. Already during his lifetime, and especially after his death, his exploits inspired a literary tradition in which he appears as a towering legendary hero in the tradition of Achilles. Alexander himself lived on in the history and myth of both Greek and non-Greek peoples. His conquests ushered in centuries of Greco-Macedonian settlement and rule over non-Greek areas, a period known as the Hellenistic Age.

After twelve years of constant military campaigning, Alexander died, probably of malaria, typhoid or possibly a viral encephalitis. This was extremely unusual for the ancient world. Alexander integrated non-Greeks into his army and administration, leading some scholars to credit him with a “policy of fusion.” He encouraged marriage between Greeks and non-Greeks, and practiced it himself. Following the unification of the multiple city states of Ancient Greece under the rule of his father, Philip II of Macedon, (a labor Alexander had to repeat - twice - because the southern Greeks rebelled after Philip's death), Alexander conquered the Persian Empire, including Anatolia, Syria, Phoenicia, Gaza, Egypt, Bactria and Mesopotamia, and extended the boundaries of his own empire as far as the Punjab.

In north-east India and modern day Pakistan he is known as Sikander-e-Azam (Alexander the Great) and many male children are named Sikander after him. He is also known in Eastern traditions as Dhul-Qarnayn (the two-horned one), because an image on coins minted during his rule seemed to depict him with the two ram's horns of the Egyptian god Ammon (it is believed by some that the Dhul-Qarnayn mentioned in the Qur'an, the holy book of Islam, is Alexander the Great). Alexander is known in some Eastern traditions such as Middle Persian literature as Alexander the Cursed due to his burning of the Persian capital and national library. Alexander III (late July, 356 BC–June 10, 323 BC), commonly known in the West as Alexander the Great or Alexander of Macedon, in Greek Μέγας Ἀλέξανδρος (Megas Alexandros), King of Macedon (336 BC-323 BC), was one of the most successful military commanders of the ancient world.

An epic science fiction animated retelling of the story called Reign: The Conquerer by Peter Chung of Aeon Flux fame debuted on the Cartoon Network's Adult Swim block variety show in 2003. Steven Pressfield's 2004 book The Virtues of War is told from the first-person perspective of Alexander. A further trilogy of novels about Alexander was written in Italian by Valerio Massimo Manfredi and subsequently published in an English translation, entitled The Son of the Dream, The Sands of Ammon and The Ends Of The Earth. A 1965 Hindi movie 'Sikandar-E-Azam' directed by Kedar Kapoor starring Dara Singh as Alexandar depicts Alexandar's Indian conquest with Porus.

In addition to the fiction, Renault also wrote a non-fiction biography, The Nature of Alexander. Alexander also appears briefly in Renault's novel The Mask of Apollo. From 1969 to 1981, Mary Renault wrote a historical fiction trilogy, speculating on the life of Alexander: Fire from Heaven (about his early life), The Persian Boy (about his conquest of Persia, his expedition to India, and his death, seen from the viewpoint of a Persian eunuch), and Funeral Games (about the events following his death). Brazilian musician Caetano Veloso's 1998 album Livro includes an epic song about Alexander called "Alexandre.".

The song describes Alexander's life, but contains one inaccuracy: in the song it is stated that Alexander's army would not follow him into India. The British heavy metal band Iron Maiden had a song entitled "Alexander the Great" on their album Somewhere in Time (1986). Numerous television series about Alexander have been created. [2].

Baz Luhrmann had been planning to make a very different film about Alexander, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, but the release of Stone's film eventually persuaded him to abandon the project. Oliver Stone's film Alexander, starring Colin Farrell, was released on November 24, 2004. Bond's 2000 album Born includes a song titled Alexander the Great. A 1941 Hindi Movie 'Sikandar' directed by Sohrab Modi depicts Alexander the Great's Indian conquest.

A 1956 movie starring Richard Burton titled Alexander the Great was produced by MGM. Kandahar (Alexandropolis), Afghanistan. Iskenderun (Alexandretta), Turkey. Alexandria Eschate, "The furthest", Tajikistan.

Alexandria on the Indus (Alexandria Bucephalous), Pakistan. Alexandria of the Arachosians, Afghanistan. Alexandria on the Oxus, Afghanistan. Alexandria of the Caucasus, Afghanistan.

Alexandria in Ariana, Afghanistan. Alexandria Asiana, Iran. Alexandria, Egypt. The Epitome of the Philippic History of Pompeius Trogus by Junianus Justinus, which contains factual errors and is highly compressed.

The books immediately before and after, on Philip and Alexander's "Successors," throw light on Alexander's reign. Bibliotheca historia (Library of world history), written in Greek by the Sicilian historian Diodorus Siculus, from which Book 17 relates the conquests of Alexander. Life of Alexander (see Parallel Lives) and two orations On the Fortune or the Virtue of Alexander the Great (see Plutarch: Other Works), by the Greek historian and biographer Plutarch of Chaeronea;. Historiae Alexandri Magni, a biography of Alexander in ten books, of which the last eight survive, by the Roman historian Quintus Curtius Rufus;.

Anabasis Alexandri (The Campaigns of Alexander in Greek) by the Greek historian Arrian of Nicomedia;. The Ptolemaic kingdom in Egypt and Cyrenaica. The Seleucid Empire in Asia. The Antigonid Empire, centered on Greece.