Alexander the Great – Class 4

Alexander was one of the greatest king of the world. He was popularly known as Alexander the Great.

Alexander came from a place called Macedonia, a region of Greece. Throughout his life he fought many wars and conquered many countries.

Alexander's Childhood

Alexander was born to Philip II, the king of Macedonia and his queen Olympias. When  he was a young prince, he learnt fighting, horse riding and hunting. King Philip wanted the prince to have the best teachers. He appointed a famous Greek thinker, Aristotle, to teach Alexander. 

He was taught reading, writing, mathematics, music and poetry.

Alexander was 20 years old when his father died. After his father's death, he became the king of Macedonia.

Empire of Alexander

In ancient times, Greece was made up of a number of city-states like Athens, Sparta and Thebes. These city-states has its own government. These Greek city-states were often at war with each other.

Alexander was a great conqueror. He quickly brought all of Greece under his control. Soon after he set out to conquer the Persian Empire.

An empire is a group of countries under one ruler.

The Persian Empire included areas of Persia (current day Iran) and large parts of Asia and Egypt. Alexander conquered this empire and then marched towards India.

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He headed towards India because he had heard that India is a very rich country and thus, decided to conquer it.

He landed in Punjab part of India but faced stiff resistance from King Porus who was the ruler of small kingdom in Punjab.

Alexander and Porus fought a long, hard battle on the banks of the river Jhelum. Porus and his army fought bravely but they lost the battle.

After the battle with Porus, the soldiers of Alexander were tired and wanted to go home. Though Alexander did not wanted to go back but he had to give in to the wishes of his soldiers.

But Alexander could not reached his home. On the way back, he fall ill and died at the young age of 32. By this time, he had built one of the largest empires in history stretching from Greece to India.

Contribution of the Greeks to the World

With the spread of Alexander's empire, the Greek culture, art, ideas and way of life also spread with it. Greeks were the first to start the system of government called democracy.

In a democracy, the people choose their representatives to run the government.

The democratic system of government is now followed in many countries.

The Greeks believed in gods and goddesses and built many beautiful temples for them. Parthenon, a temple to Goddess Athena at Athens is one of them.

To honour Zeus, the king of gods, the Greeks started the Olympics Games more than 2,700 years ago. Olympic Games are still held after every 4 years.

Ancient Greeks also had great scholars which includes great thinkers like Aristotle, Plato and Socrates, the historian Herodotus and the doctor Hippocrates.

They also had great poet Homer who wrote two epics - the Iliad and the Odyssey.

Another contribution of Greek was Theatre. The Greeks built special types of building called amphitheatre where they staged their plays which was watched by viewers from galleries.