Alexander the Great takes power | World History | Khan Academy

Going to talk about one of the most famous conquerors in all of human history, and that is Alexander the Great. But before talking about all of the things that he conquered, let's think about how he got started out, and in particular, how he's able to consolidate control over the empire that his father begins.

In the last video, we saw that exiting the Pelian War, the Greeks were weak. Sparta and its allies, the Peipian League, had won, but the Greeks were ripe for being conquered. They end up being conquered by Philip II, King of Macedonia, and he rules from Pella. Shortly after he becomes king, his first son, Alexander, is born. Alexander is the son that Philip has with Olympius. Olympius is the daughter of the king of Mosia, which makes her Melosian and not Macedonian, which is going to be somewhat important later on when Philip II dies.

The early part of Alexander's life is quite good, and he seems to be in favor with his father, Philip II. After all, Alexander seems like a decent heir to the throne. Early in his life, he gets from his father what is arguably the best tutor for sure of the time—probably the best tutor in human history—in Aristotle.

The way that his father convinces him to tutor Alexander when Alexander is 13, and he tutors him from when Alexander is about 13 to about 16, is Philip destroys Aristotle's village of Stagira as he conquers Greece. Aristotle says, "Okay, sure, I'll tutor your son, but in exchange for that, why don't you rebuild my hometown and free all of the people who had been enslaved after the town was conquered?" So, Philip agrees.

Alexander gets a great tutor. There's also the stories of how Alexander carried favor with his father by taming the famous horse Bucephalus, whom Alexander will eventually ride into Asia as he conquers the Persian Empire and beyond. Philip is very proud of his young son being able to conquer this seemingly untameable horse.

As Philip conquers Greece, Alexander is alongside him, leading troops, showing him to be a capable military general and a capable leader. So, all seems to be working out well for Alexander until Philip takes what ends up being his seventh and last wife. Until then, Olympius was his favored wife, and Olympius is a bit of a character, at least from the point of historians.

You should take all of this with a grain of salt because many of these histories and stories were written hundreds of years later, and so it's not clear how much was a true account versus how much was made up. But beyond Olympius not being Macedonian, she is from Mosia. She is also, according to Plutarch, part of the cult of Dionysus, and she worships snakes, and potentially even sleeps with snakes, which is really off-putting to a lot of the Macedonians.

So when King Philip, around 337 or 338 BCE, finds a Macedonian to marry, her name is Cleopatra—not the famous Cleopatra from history we'll talk about in a few hundred years. You see here Philip II; he takes his seventh wife. I don't list them all here; I only list Olympius, who he marries in 357 BCE, and then they have Alexander, born Alexander III shortly thereafter. The next year, they also have another daughter, Cleopatra.

Once again, not the Cleopatra when people refer to it in history. But then around 337 or 338 BCE, he takes his seventh wife, and this seventh wife is also named Cleopatra. She is Macedonian. Philip renames her Eurydice after his mother. You can imagine this is already a little bit threatening because, well, what if this Cleopatra has a son? And she eventually does have a son, and now that son would be pure Macedonian as opposed to Alexander, who is only half Macedonian.

This becomes quite pointed at the wedding of Philip and Cleopatra, the Macedonian Cleopatra, in 337 or 338 BCE when we have this account. Once again, take all of this with a grain of salt; this is an account by Plutarch that was written 400 years later. But Plutarch writes:

"At the wedding of Cleopatra, this is Cleopatra Eurydice, the young one whom Philip fell in love with and married. She, being much too young for him, her uncle Adalus, and you see him on our little family tree here, this is Cleopatra's uncle Adalus, a Macedonian. Her uncle Adalus, in his drink, desired the Macedonians would implore the gods to give them a lawful successor to the kingdom by his knees."

Let me underline that: give them a lawful successor to the kingdom. You might be saying, "Wait, I thought Alexander was a lawful successor?" And Alexander is probably thinking the same thing. This so irritated Alexander that, throwing one of the cups at Adalus's head, he said, "You villain, what am I then? A bastard?"

Then Philip, Alexander's dad, taking Adalus's part, didn’t take his son's side; he took the side of his in-laws, rose up, and would have run his son through. But by good fortune for them both, either his over-hasty rage or the wine he had drunk made his foot slip so that he fell down on the floor, at which Alexander reproachfully insulted him over him.

"See there," said he, "the man who makes preparations to pass out of Europe into Asia, overturned in passing from one seat to another." So, if this account by Plutarch is even vaguely true, it shows this real tension that is forming between Alexander and his father.

Of course, it's being goaded on—or likely to be goaded on—by his mother Olympius, who was the primary wife for a little bit but now she's being pushed aside in favor of this Macedonian Cleopatra. She actually goes into voluntary exile. Alexander follows her, and so things are quite tense.

They really come to a boiling point or I guess everything gets released a year or two later when Olympius's other child Cleopatra, the other Cleopatra—not Cleopatra Eurydice, not the famous Cleopatra from history—she gets married to Olympius's brother. So she's marrying her uncle, and many strange things happen like this in the ancient world.

This is 336 BCE, and this is the famous wedding where Philip II is assassinated by his bodyguard, who was likely Philip II's former lover. But once Philip II gets assassinated, you could imagine that many people are wanting to have a go at the throne, in particular Alexander, aided by his mother Olympius.

So immediately, there starts to be a consolidation of power. The first way to consolidate power is to kill off all of the folks who might threaten you. Many historians give credit mainly to Olympius; some say Alexander was involved more or less, but they go on a killing spree.

Eurydice is killed, and Kinus is killed—these are the children of Cleopatra Eurydice. At the time of this, we're talking 336-335 BCE; these would have been toddlers. They would have been two, at most three years old, and they are being killed.

There are some accounts that Cleopatra is killed or she is forced to hang herself. There's some accounts that some combination of them are burned alive. Alexander goes after Adalus, the famous uncle who insulted him at the wedding party only a few years ago. He kills his cousin Ammius, who might have had a claim to the throne, other princes.

This is a bloody, bloody period. So even though sometimes people will glorify some of these rulers like Alexander the Great, they unified all these people, and they pushed culture throughout the world, or however you want to talk about it, they usually come to power in very brutal ways, and their conquering is also very brutal.

No, you really shouldn't romanticize, "Oh, let's conquer other people." War is ugly, and when there's multiple factions coming to a throne, that is also ugly.

So, we are shortly after Philip II's death. Alexander, with the help of his mother, is able to consolidate power within his family, really secure his place as the king of the Macedonian or the Macedonian Empire. The next thing is to secure his hold on the empire militarily. Immediately, you start having rebellions to the north and west of Macedon.

In particular, the Illyrians, which is in modern-day Albania, start to revolt. Alexander goes and makes a point of sieging the city Pelion; this is a very strategic location. But while he's there with his military forces, you can imagine the other city-states of Greece, in particular Athens and Thebes, say, "Hey, now is our chance! The king King Philip is dead; Alexander's out fighting with the Illyrians; let's rise up and regain our independence!"

Many of them thought that Alexander might have already died in a previous military campaign. So you can imagine they were very surprised after Alexander took control through a siege at Pelion and is able to come down surprisingly quickly. He really makes his soldiers march hundreds of kilometers in a matter of weeks to come down and put down the rebellion.

From his point of view at Thebes, the Thebans refuse to stop rebelling. So in retaliation, Alexander the Great completely destroys Thebes, this famous city of antiquity. Only a few decades before this time, it was the leading city-state in all of Greece. He destroys Thebes and enslaves its people, but that's what allows him to essentially scare the rest of the city-states of Greece to come in line.

He hasn't conquered Sparta, or his empire hasn't conquered Sparta—that'll happen soon—but it really consolidates his power. Now we're talking 335 BCE, and he's ready to think about doing what his father was planning and going off and trying to conquer Asia.