30 Fascinating Alexander The Great Facts

Here are 30 fascinating Alexander The Great facts.

1-5 Facts About Alexander The Great

1. Alexander the Great once asked Diogenes, a homeless Greek Philosopher who lived in a barrel, if there was something he could do for him. Diogenes replied, “yes, get out my sun”. Alexander left saying, “If I wasn’t Alexander, I’d like to be Diogenes.” – Source

2. Alexander the Great expressed in his last will and testament the desire to see “transplant of populations from Asia to Europe and in the opposite direction from Europe to Asia, in order to bring the largest continent to common unity and to friendship by means of intermarriage and family ties.” – Source

3. Alexander the Great believed that shaving looked tidier and could avoid “dangerous beard-grabbing in combat”, so he strongly promoted shaving during his reign in the 4th century BCE. – Source

4. Alexander the Great never attempted to attack the city-state of Sparta, while he conquered the known world. – Source

5. Alexander the Great after defeating the Persians, started dressing like them and took two Persian wives. – Source

6-10 Alexander The Great Facts

6. During his Indian campaign, Alexander the Great found a tribe that hadn’t discovered fire yet. – Source

7. Phillip II of Macedon sent a representative to Sparta threatening: “If I win this war, you will be slaves forever.” The Spartan’s replied: “If.” Both Phillip and his son Alexander the Great avoided Sparta entirely. – Source

8. The story of Dhul-Qarnayn in the Quran is accepted as a reference to Alexander the Great by most scholars. – Source

9. Alexander the Great loved his horse Bucephalus so much that he gave him a state funeral when he died and named a city after him. – Source

10. Alexander the Great once asked the Greek philosopher Diogenes why was he sifting through the garbage, Diogenes responded, “I am looking for the bones of your father but I cannot distinguish them from the bones of his slaves.” – Source

11-15 Facts About Alexander The Great

11. War Elephants kept Alexander the Great from expanding further east into present-day India because he saw that the kings of the Nanda Empire and Gangaridai could deploy between 3,000 and 6,000 war elephants if need be. – Source

12. According to a researcher, ancients such as Alexander the Great were buried in honey. After about a hundred years, candied corpses were supposedly dug up and eaten as medicine. – Source

13. Alexander the Great founded 70 cities, naming at least 20 after himself. – Source

14. Alexander the Great had heterochromia iridum. One of his eyes was blue and the other was brown. – Source

15. Alexander the Great visited the Oracle at Delphi wishing to hear a prophecy about him conquering the world. The oracle refused to comment and asked him to come later. Alexander then dragged the priestess by the hair out of the chamber until she screamed: “You are invincible, my son!” – Source

16-20 Alexander The Great Facts

16. Alexander the Great was simultaneously the King of Macedonia, Pharaoh of Egypt, King of Persia, and King of Asia. – Source

17. During his lifetime, Alexander the Great was seen as a drunken tyrant by many. – Source

18. Alexander the Great’s father had 3000 POWs executed by “ritual drowning.”  – Source

19. The place in Afghanistan named Kandahar loosely translates to “Alexander” as in Alexander the Great. Kandahar was one of the cities named Alexandria established during Alexander’s victories. – Source

20. The troops of Alexander the Great were provided with Liquorice rations because of its thirst quenching properties. – Source

21-25 Alexander The Great Facts

21. Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Napoleon Bonaparte, and Benito Mussolini all suffered from Ailurophobia, the fear of cats. – Source

22. Alexander the Great when died had the most expensive funeral of all time. The entire funeral amounted to the US $600, 000,000 in today’s currency. – Source

23. Alexander the Great’s descendants in Afghanistan/Pakistan founded Greek-speaking Buddhist kingdoms from the 4th century BC onwards. This resulted into many long-lasting Greek influences on Buddhist art, including the “toga,” and stylization of curly hair. – Source

24. Alexander the Great was an epileptic which was considered as a ‘sacred disease’ because of the belief that one was either touched by the gods or possessed by evil spirits. – Source

25. When the island city of Tyre defied Alexander the Great, he built a kilometer-long causeway out to the city to attack it, connecting the island permanently to the Asian continent. – Source

26-30 Alexander The Great Facts

26. Socrates taught Plato, Plato taught Aristotle, then Aristotle taught Alexander the Great. – Source

27. Alexander the Great never lost a battle in his 15 years of conquest. – Source

28. After the death of Alexander the Great, the architect Dinocrates proposed to have the entirety of Mount Athos carved in the general’s likeness. – Source

29. King Philip, the father of Alexander the Great, once saved a man from slavery for pointing out that Philip’s junk was showing. – Source

30. In 326 BCE Alexander the Great met a 14-year-old named Chandragupta Maurya. By age 20, Chandragupta had succeeded in forging his own empire across northern India, and would eventually unify nearly the entire subcontinent. – Source