Alexander the Great
Alexander III of Macedon (356–323 BCE) became king of Macedonia in 336 BCE at the age of twenty and, across twelve years of campaigning, overthrew the Achaemenid Persian Empire, carried Macedonian arms to Egypt and the Indus, and laid the foundations of the Hellenistic world of territorial kingdoms. The ancient accounts — Arrian, Plutarch, Diodorus, and Curtius Rufus — were written centuries after his death and blend documented campaign history with legend, so this profile separates what the primary texts and modern reference sources attest from the stories that grew up around him.