Understanding Alexander the Great
This story begins with an end.
The beginning of 4th Century BCE was the conclusion of the Golden Age of Greece, begrudgingly exiting a zenith (500 BCE — 400 BCE) when the world witnessed an unprecedented advancement in philosophy, arts, science, mathematics, governance and architecture. For context, some notable characters that emerged from this multi-disciplinary hodgepodge of intellectualism include: Pythagoras, Herodotus, Socrates, Leonidas (legendary King of Sparta), Euclid, Hippocrates, Plato, Aristotle, Pericles.
Unfortunately, this classical era was short lived. What followed was a period that one could justifiably label as a second Greek Dark Ages. To the extent that Greece could have been deemed a single polity at the time, it was comparable to Caesar’s Rome — a period of constant infighting resulting in sociopolitical instability and empty coffers.
Right after the two greatest personalities in Greek history — Sparta and Athens, staged a legendary defence against the almighty Persians, proving that freedom trumps oppression, they embarked on an almost deliberate path of self-destruction. They turned towards each other, locked in the infamous Thucydides Trap…
