Son of Olympias, princess of Epire, and Philippe II, king de Macédoine, Alexandre III the Large one receives a princely education and has as a Aristote tutor. Teenager, it gives all the measurement of his military talent by assuming, into 340, regency of the kingdom Macedonian and while illustrating himself in the war against Thébains (battles of Chéronée into 338). King de Macédoine at twenty years, it consolidates the borders of the kingdom, pushes to the Danube, subjects Thraces and neutralizes Illyriens. In Greece, it imposes its law on the cities of Athens and of Thèbes and, in 335, with its profit the league of Corinth reforms.  

Progression in Persian territories
Then begin for Alexandre a long adventure which, in a little more than one decade, will carry out it on the edges of Indus and Oxus. Taking again the project formed by his father of a “war of reprisals” against Persians, it crosses Hellespont and unloads in Troade with 30 ' 000 infantrymen and 5 ' 000 riders. Fast successes enable him to release the Greek cities and to triumph over the soldiers of the Large King of Persians, Darius (battles of Granique, June 334). From the city of Gordion - where it slices the legendary Gordian knot, gesture which promises to him the possession of the empire of Asia -, Alexandre progresses inside the Persian territories. In autumn 333, it occupies the coastal towns of Syria and Phénicie.  

“Release” of Egypt
The catch of Gaza opens the way of Egypt to him, where it penetrates in December 332. The country of the Pharaons accommodates it as a liberator; in return, Alexandre multiplies the political gestures: sacrifices with the Apis god, pilgrimage with the sanctuary of Amon, in Siouah, where the priests confer to him the title of “son of Amon”. In January 331, it founds its first colonial city, Alexandria, which will become during centuries a brilliance centers Hellenism. From Egypt, Alexandre gains then Mésopotamie, where he triumphs definitively over Darius in the plain of Gaugamèles (October 331).  

The king of Asia
After the catches of Babylon, Suse, Persépolis, Pasargades and Ecbatane, it is devoted king d' Asie and heir to Achéménides. The “pacification” of the Central Asia, which requires nearly three years (329-327), extends to Hyrcanie, Arie, Arachosie, Bactriane, Sogdiane and carries Alexandre to the “terminals of Bacchus”, septentrional limits of the oikoumenê (Greek term which indicated the whole of the inhabited grounds, and, in this precise case, the Caucasus). Along his road, the conqueror creates many Alexandrias from which some bear the names of Harat today, Kandahar, Samarkand.  

In 327, the adventure continues beyond the master keys of the Kouch Hindu. Descending in the plain, Alexandre crosses Indus into 326 and, at the end of a battle against the army of Indian king Paurava, occupies the area of Pendjab, where it creates the Greek colonies of Nicée and Bucéphalie. The return, in July 326, are done along the valley of Indus. Arrived at Pattala into 325, the army is divided into three fractions: the admiral Néarque returns by sea through the Persian Gulf; Crater brings back a second part of the troops by the master keys of Bolan; Alexandre borrows the deserts of Carmanie and Gédrosie.  
 

Fusion between winners and defeated
Alexandre breaks with the Hellenic ideal which recommends the distinction between Greeks and Barbarians by trying a policy of fusion between its new subjects and the old ones. He copies monarchy achéménide, obtains a court and, on the great indignation of the Greeks, imposes the ceremonial of prostration (“proskynèse”). Conversely, it makes educate with Greek nearly 30 ' 000 Persian children. To manage his disparate territories, Alexandre calls upon the Greeks, Persians and the natives, with however preponderance of the first in the military fields and financial. The administrative unit remains the satrapie achéménide, except in the east, where great military commands are created. The financial system is unified by the adoption of an imperial currency, the drachma of standard attic, which replaces the dariques ones, heavier.

The economic policy
The economic policy appears bolder. It is done essentially in the course of conquest: in each conquered area, Alexandre takes care to count the richnesses and to explore the sea routes, river and terrestrial. Thus, in Egypt, in 331, it organizes a scientific expedition charged to study the rising of the Nile; in India, it makes explore the delta of Indus, study the flora, fauna, the basement and even draw up charts; in Babylonia, with its return, it builds a large port. Its untimely death, in June 323, put a term at its projects of conquest of the coasts of the Arabo-Persique gulf and of Arabia. Alexandrias, these outposts of the Hellenism, also take part of this will to exploit countries whose richness is above all founded on the importance of the natural resources.

The myth of Alexandre

The history of Alexandre is also that of a myth born in Antiquity and maintained by the Eastern and Western historiographers.  

Ancient historiography  
Greece
They are initially Onésicrite and Callisthène, companions of the conqueror during the forwarding of Asia which, in two panegyrics, pose the first stakes of the legend. A little later Clitarque of Alexandria, Greek historian of IVe front century J. - C., writes a History of Alexandre who, truffée of fables, holds more of the novel than of the biography. It was the first of a series of works which little by little will underlie, in the Eastern world then Western, all the myth alexandrine. Contrary to Greeks of the East who glorified Alexandre, Sparte, Thèbes and Athens denied any merit with the “young man of Peeled”. He reproaching the death of Callisthène which was of their school, the Peripatetics undertook in its opposition a heinous campaign, then, deliberately, were unaware of it. The comic authors treated it of drunkard and scoffed it. The stoical ones made in the same way, insistent on its leaning for the lust and the money. But Plutarque de Chéronée will attenuate the long unpopularity of the Macedonian, and Arrien (IIe S. apr. J. - C.), in its Anabase, will rehabilitate it.  

Egypt
It is to its first historians, but also Ptolémées, to Greek kings of Egypt, which returns the most significant part in the formation of the myth. The latter, to consolidate their dynasty and to reinforce their power, use with wish of the image of a Alexandre Egyptian, hero and divine at the same time. The first among them, Sôtêr, former lieutenant d' Alexandre and probably the silent partner of the book of Clitarque, striking of the currencies bearing the effigy of Macedonian (instead of that of Héraclès) and institutes of Alexandreia (plays). Its successors will affirm the divine character of the Macedonian by an assimilation with gods such as Zeus, Poséidon, Héphaïstos, Hermes, Mithra, Dionysos, or with heroes like Héraclès and Dioscures.  

Rome
From Alexandria, admiration for the conqueror gains Rome gradually. In full second Punic War, Plaute sees the perfect model of the hero there. Later, under the Empire, Convenient striking currency with its effigy and Caracalla are inspired some to work out a “Constitution antonine” which sets up of equality Orientaux and Western.  

“New” history of Alexandre
But the East, and more particularly Alexandria, intend to remain Masters of the legend. Towards 222, a History of Alexandre the Large one, wrongfully allotted to Callisthène and probably composed by alexandrines authors, imposes a new vision of the character and his epopee.  

Chronological changes
This novel, translated into Latin into 338-340 by Julius Valerius Polemius, transfigures for more than ten centuries the already denatured image of the Macedonian. Alexandre, one in the work of this pseudo-Callisthène writes, was born from the union of Olympias with Nectanebo, last Pharaon d' Egypte which, to flee the army of Persia Artaxerxès III, will take refuge in Pella, capital of Macedonia.  

Geographical changes
Moreover, beside this fallacious chronology, the pseudoone introduced a new geography of the conquests alexandrines. Those would have started in Rome and not in the East. This way, Egypt, then conquered by the Romans, took a moral revenge on its conquerors. Anxious to affirm the universality of the company alexandrine, the pseudoone walks its hero through the limits of the oikoumenê, decorating each one of its displacements of a marvellous adventure. Thus, in the East (in India), Alexandre meets the wise Brahmans and discusses with them the life and death, the royalty and the power. In North (in the Caucasus), he faces Gog and Magog, forces of the evil which he manages to contain behind an iron wall. In the West, it goes to the Fortunées islands where it plunges in the abyssals zone. All these voyages and these accounts are taken again and embellished in the posterior versions of this first “novel” of Alexandre.  

Recoveries  
The Jews In the East, while the myth is anchored in popular mentalities and grows rich by new fables, the Jews, in a claiming step, attach to their turn the hero Macedonian. The pseudoone their already opened the way, telling a meeting between the Macedonian and the large priest of Jerusalem. Talmud - rabbinical work of literature -, taking again this tradition, makes of Alexandre a Semitic hero, defender and propagator of the religion of single God.  

The Christians Making their own reading of pseudo-Callisthène, the Christians of the East find there in their turn matter with interpretation. The Syriac Jacques de Sarudj, in a metric homily gone back to 514, insists particularly on the voyage to the country of the shades and the construction of the wall intended to contain the attacks of Gog and Magog. These two “divine” missions are in its eyes the mark of the predestination of Alexandre. This Syriac version of pseudo-Callisthène is followed of different, Aramaic, Coptic, Georgian, Ethiopian, Indian and even discomfort. All amplify with wish the exploits of a Alexandre superman and in extreme cases of the divine one.

Moslems
In VIIe century, it was with the turn of Islam to approach the epopee alexandrine. The sourate of the cave mentions Dul-Qarnaïn, known as “Bicornu” - nickname which would come from the representation of Alexandre with the horns of Amon on the Hellenistic currencies - like Gog and Magog, qualified by the Bible of enemies of God. To Xe century, Moslem historians, such as Tabari and Masudi, extend the conquests of Alexandre in China and Tibet; the second also quotes a tradition making of Dul-Qarnaïn the descendant of an Yemeni conqueror. At the same time, the Firdousi Iranian, by national pride, makes of Alexandre a natural son of Darius. Two centuries later, Nizami restores the true filiation of “Iskandar” (Iranian name of the Macedonian), but place Iran in the center of the adventures alexandrines.  

Alexandre in the medieval Occident
During this time, in Occident, the history of Alexandre knows a new topicality. As of Xe century, a churchman, the Leon archpriest, writes an attractive account of the epopee alexandrine. Its History of the battles is used as starting point with other compositions, the such Song of Alexandre of the German priest Lamprecht (around 1130). By oecumenism or conviction, these Christian versions of Occident also see they in Alexandre the executor of a divine will. In parallel, with the release of the crusades, feudality seizes epopee, to which it gives an at the same time mystical and temporal character. Thus, in Alexandreis of Gautier of Lille (XIIe century), the Macedonian seems the prototype of the courteous knight.

But in France of XIIe century, the most popular work is the Novel of Alexandre of the Lambert trouveres the Wrong and Alexandre of Paris (or of Bernay); this poem is composed in worms of twelve syllables, which one will consequently call of the “alexandrines” in the art of French versification. Later, the royalty - particularly under Louis XIV - privileged the image of a Alexandre conquering and invincible.