Titans of History

Alexander’s rule united East and West for the first time. Perhaps influenced by his boyhood tutor, Aristotle, Alexander was determined to govern well. He ordered his ministers to “break up the oligarchies everywhere and set up democracies instead.” He forbade his armies to plunder conquered lands, and he founded new cities galore—usually named Alexandria. The greatest of these, at the mouth of the Nile Delta, became for many centuries the intellectual and commercial center of the Mediterranean world. Alexander wanted to create an empire fusing the best of both Greek and Eastern cultures. He recruited Persians into his armies and assigned Persian wives to his generals, sending back to Europe any Macedonians who resisted this enforced equality. He himself married the daughter of the dethroned Persian king.

Alexander was revered as a god in his own lifetime. He was reputedly a descendant of Achilles on his mother’s side, and rumors of Alexander’s supernatural abilities abounded, reinforced by his unnatural speed and apparent personal invincibility in battle. Described by a friend as “the only philosopher whom I have ever seen in arms,” he loved poetry and music. As a boy he declared that if he could only save one possession it would be Homer’s Iliad. He was always alert to symbolism. On first setting foot on the shores of the Persian empire, in Asia Minor, his first act was to make a pilgrimage to Troy to honor his ancestor Achilles. He named Bucephala, a town on the Indus, after his beloved horse Bucephalus, which had died in battle.

Alexander also had a more brutish side: he drunkenly killed one of his officers in a row at a banquet, a crime he deeply regretted. His own death is said to have resulted from too much carousing. “Sex and sleep alone make me conscious that I am mortal,” he reportedly declared. He had several wives and mistresses, but his great love was his boyhood friend Hephaistion.

Alexander could be merciless. On succeeding to the throne after his father’s assassination, he executed all rival claimants, including his infant half-brother. He executed one of his greatest friends for treason, and also the friend’s blameless father, his veteran general, Parmenion: Alexander refused to run the risk of paternal vengeance. He enslaved or crucified all the Tyrians after they resisted his siege of their city and razed Thebes to the ground, a warning to the restless Greek city-states of what they could expect from rebellion. Toward the end of his life he became increasingly despotic.

Alexander’s treatment of his enemies, however, often demonstrated his nobility of spirit. When an Indian king demanded to face him in battle, Alexander fought and defeated him, but rewarded him with the restoration of his kingdom and that of a less fortunate neighbor as well. He treated the wives of Darius, the defeated Persian king, with “the utmost delicacy and respect” and allowed the Jews, Persians and others to worship as they wished.

Alexander changed the face of the world by making Hellenism—the Greek way of life—into the global culture. When asked on his deathbed to whom he would leave his kingdom, Alexander replied: “To the strongest.” After his death, his empire, which had spanned half the world, disintegrated. No one could match him.

QIN SHI HUANGDI

c. 259–210 BC

If you govern the people by punishment, the people will fear. Being fearful, they will not commit villainies.

Lord Shang’s legalism, adopted by Qin Shi Huangdi as the basis for his rule

Qin Shi Huangdi created the first unified Chinese empire, which emerged from the Warring States Period. By 221 BC he had successfully destroyed the last remaining rival kingdoms within China and made himself supreme ruler: the First Emperor. A ruthless statesman and conqueror of manic gifts, haunted by madness, sadism and paranoia, Qin Shi Huangdi’s reign quickly degenerated into a brutal and bloody tyranny. His reputation in China had always been that of a tyrant until Chairman Mao Zedong, another monstrous dictator, associated himself with the First Emperor and promoted him as his glorious precursor.

Born a prince of the royal family of the Kingdom of Qin, Zheng, as the future emperor was named, was raised in honorable captivity. His father, Prince Zichu of Qin, was then serving as a hostage to the enemy state of Zhaou, under a peace agreement between the two kingdoms. Subsequently released, Zichu returned to Qin and assumed the crown, with his son Zheng as his heir.

In 245 BC, Zichu died and the thirteen-year-old Zheng acceded to the throne. For the next seven years he ruled with a regent, until in 238 BC he seized full control in a palace coup. From the beginning, Zheng showed a new ruthlessness: he regularly executed prisoners of war, contrary to the established etiquette of the time.