Table of Contents
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Alexander the Great
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Clovis the First
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Belisarius
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Charles Martel
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Pepin the Short
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Charlemagne
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Olaf Tryggvesson
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William the Conqueror
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Godfrey de Bouillon
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Saladin
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Edward I of England
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Edward III of England
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Edward the Black Prince
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Bertrand du Guesclin
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Henry V of England
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John Huniades
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Warwick the Kingmaker
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Hernando Cortez
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Francisco Pizarro
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Gaspard de Coligni
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Henry IV of France
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Sir Francis Drake
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Sir Walter Raleigh
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Miles Standish
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Albrecht von Wallenstein
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Gustavus Adolphus
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Marshal Turenne
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Charles XII of Sweden
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John, Duke of Marlborough
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Prince Eugene of Savoy
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General James Wolfe
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Frederick the Great
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Lord Robert Clive
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Francois Kellerman
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Michel Nev
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Napoleon Bonaparte
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Arthur, Duke of Wellington
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Lord Horation Nelson
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Israel Putnam
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Anthony Wayne
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Francis Marion
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John Paul Jones
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Tecumseh
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James Lawrence
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Stephen Decatur
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Oliver Hazard Perry
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Sam Houston
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Winfield Scott
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Ulysses Simpson Grant
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William Tecumseh Sherman
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Philip Henry Sheridan
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Robert Edmund Lee
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Letter from Lee to his Son
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Thomas Jonathan Jackson
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David Glascoe Farragut
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David Dixon Porter
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Giuseppe Garibaldi
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Count Von Moltke
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George Dewey
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ALEXANDER THE GREAT
(356-323 B.C.)
[10]
LEXANDER THE GREAT, Son of Philip of Macedon and
Olympias, daughter of Neoptolemus of Epirus, was born
at Pella, 356 B.C. His mind was formed chiefly by
Aristotle, who instructed him in every branch of human
learning, especially in the art of government.
Alexander was sixteen years of age when his father
marched against Byzantium, and left the government in
his hands during his absence. Two years afterward, he
displayed singular courage at the battle of Charonea
(338 B.C.), where he overthrew the Sacred Band of the
Thebans. "My son," said Philip, as he embraced him
after the conflict, "seek for thyself another kingdom,
for that which I leave is too small for thee." The
father and son quarrelled, however, when the former
divorced Olympias. Alexander took part with his mother,
and fled to Epirus, to escape his father's vengeance;
but receiving his pardon soon afterward, he returned,
and accompanied him in an expedition against the
Triballi, when he saved his life on the field. Philip,
being appointed generalissimo of the Greeks, was
preparing for a war with Persia, when he was
assassinated (336 B.C.), and Alexander, not yet twenty
years of age, ascended the throne.
After punishing his father's murderers, he marched on
Corinth, and in a general assembly of the Greeks he
caused himself to be appointed to the command of the
forces against Persia. On his return to Macedon, he
found the Illyrians and Triballi up in arms, whereupon
he forced his way through Thrace, and was everywhere
victorious. But now the Thebans had been induced, by a
report of his death, to take up arms, and the
Athenians, stimulated by the eloquence of Demosthenes,
were preparing to join them. To prevent this coalition,
Alexander rapidly marched against Thebes, which,
refusing to surrender, was conquered and razed to the
ground. Six thousand of the inhabitants were slain, and
30,000 sold into slavery; the house and descendants of
the poet Pindar alone being spared. This severity
struck terror into all Greece. The Athenians were
treated with more leniency.
Alexander, having appointed Antipater his deputy in
Europe, now prepared
[11] to prosecute the war with Persia. He crossed the
Hellespont in the spring of 334 B.C., with 30,000 foot
and 5,000 horse, attacked the Persian satraps at the
River Granicus, and gained a complete victory,
overthrowing the son-in-law of their king Darius with
his own lance. As a result of the battle, most of the
cities of Asia Minor at once opened their gates to the
conqueror.
Alexander restored democracy in all the Greek cities;
and as he passed through Gordium, cut the Gordian-knot,
which none should loose but the ruler of Asia. During a
dangerous illness at Tarsus, brought on by bathing in
the Cydnus, he received a letter insinuating that
Philip, his physician, had been bribed by Darius toy
poison him. Alexander handed the letter to Philip, and
at the same time swallowed the draught which the latter
had prepared. As soon as he recovered, he advanced
toward the defiles of Cilicia, in which Darius had
stationed himself with an army of 600,000 men.
He arrived in November, 333 B.C., in the neighborhood
of Issus, where, on the narrow plain between the
mountains and the sea, the unwieldy masses of the
Persians were thrown into confusion by the charge of
the Macedonians, and fled in terror. On the left wing,
30,000 Greek mercenaries held out longer, but they,
too, were at length compelled to yield. All the
treasures as well as the family of Darius fell into the
hands of the conqueror, who treated them with the
greatest magnanimity. Overtures for peace, made by
Darius on the basis of surrendering to Alexander all
Asia west of the Euphrates, were rejected.
Alexander now turned toward Syria and Phœnicia. He
occupied Damascus, where he found princely treasures,
and secured to himself all the cities along the shores
of the Mediterranean. Tyre, confident in its strong
position, resisted him, but was conquered and
destroyed, after seven months of incredible exertion
(332 B.C.). Thence he marched victoriously through
Palestine, where all the cities submitted to him except
Gaza; it shared the same fate as Tyre. Egypt, weary of
the Persian yoke, welcomed him as a deliverer; and in
order to strengthen his dominion here, he restored all
the old customs and religious institutions of the
country, and founded Alexandria in the beginning of 331
B.C. Thence he marched through the Libyan Desert, in
order to consult the oracle of Ammon, whose priest
saluted him as a son of Zeus; and he returned with the
conviction that he was indeed a god.
He then again set out to meet Darius; in October, 331
B.C., a great battle was fought on the plain stretching
eastward to Arbela. Notwithstanding the immense
superiority of his adversary, who had collected a new
army of more than a million men, Alexander was not for
a moment doubtful of victory. Heading the cavalry
himself, he rushed on the Persians, and put them to
flight; then hastened to the assistance of his left
wing, which, in the meanwhile, had been sorely pressed.
He was anxious to make Darius a prisoner, but Darius
escaped on horseback, leaving his baggage and all his
treasures a prey to the conqueror. Babylon and Susa,
the treasure-houses of the East, opened their gates to
Alexander, who next marched toward Persepolis, the
capital of Persia, which he entered in triumph.
[12] The marvellous successes of Alexander now began to
dazzle his judgment and to inflame his passions. He
became a slave to debauchery, and his caprices were as
cruel as they were ungrateful. In a fit of drunkenness,
and at the instigation of Thais, an Athenian
courtesan, he set fire to Persepolis, the wonder of the
world, and reduced it to a heap of ashes then, ashamed
of the deed, he set out with his cavalry in pursuit of
Darius. Learning that Bessus, the Bactrian satrap, held
him a prisoner, he hastened his march, in the hope of
saving him, but he found him mortally wounded (330
B.C.). He mourned over his fallen enemy, and caused him
to be buried with all the customary honors, while he
hunted down Bessus, who himself aspired to the throne,
chasing him over the Oxus to Sogdiana (Bokhara).
Having discovered a conspiracy in which the son of
Parmenio was implicated, he put both father and son to
death, though Parmenio himself was innocent of any
knowledge of the affair. This cruel injustice excited
universal displeasure. In 329 he penetrated to the
farthest known limits of Northern Asia, and overthrew
the Scythians on the banks of the Jaxartes. In the
following year he subdued the whole of Sogdiana, and
married Roxana, whom he had taken prisoner. She was the
daughter of Oxyartes, one of the enemy's captains, and
was said to be the fairest of all the virgins of Asia.
The murder of his foster-brother, Clitus, in a drunken
brawl, was followed, in 327 B.C., by the discovery of a
fresh conspiracy, in which Callisthenes, a nephew of
Aristotle, was falsely implicated. For challenging
Alexander's divinity, he was cruelly tortured and
hanged.
In 327 B.C., proceeding to the conquest of India,
hitherto known only by name, Alexander crossed the
Indus near to the modern Attock, and pursued his way
under the guidance of a native prince to the Hydaspes
(Jhelum). He there was opposed by Porus, another native
prince, whom he overthrew after a bloody contest, and
there he lost his charger Bucephalus; thence he marched
as lord of the country, through the Punjab,
establishing Greek colonies. He then wished to advance
to the Ganges, but the general murmuring of his troops
obliged him, at the Hyphasis (modern Sutlej), to
commence his retreat. On regaining the Hydaspes, he
built a fleet, and sent one division of his army in it
down the river, while the other followed along the
banks, fighting its way through successive Indian
armies. At length, having reached the ocean, he ordered
Nearchus, the commander of the fleet, to sail thence to
the Persian Gulf, while he himself struck inland with
one division of his army, in order to return home
through Gedrosia (Beluchistan). During this march his
forces suffered fearfully from want of food and water.
Of all the troops which had set out with Alexander,
little more than a fourth part arrived with him in
Persia (325 B.C.).
At Susa he married Stateira, the daughter of Darius,
and he bestowed presents on those Macedonians (some ten
thousand in number) who had married Persian women, his
design being to unite the two nations. He also
distributed liberal rewards among his soldiers. Soon
afterward he was deprived, by death, of his favorite
Hephestion. His grief was unbounded, and he interred
the dead man with kingly honors. As he was returning
from Ecbatana to Babylon, it is
[13] said that the Magi foretold that the latter city would
prove fatal to him; but he despised their warnings. On
the way, he was met by ambassadors from all parts of
the world—Libya, Italy, Carthage, Greece, the
Scythians, Celts, and Iberians.
At Babylon he was busy with gigantic plans for the
future, both of conquest and civilization, when he was
suddenly taken ill after a banquet, and died eleven
days later, 323 B.C., in the thirty-second year of his
age, and the thirteenth of his reign. His body was
deposited in a golden coffin at Alexandria, by
Ptolemaus, and divine honors were paid to him, not
only in Egypt, but in other countries. He had
appointed no heir to his immense dominions; but to the
question of his friends, "Who should inherit them?" he
replied, "The most worthy." After many disturbances,
his generals recognized as Kings the weak-minded
Aridæus—a son of Philip by Philinna,
the dancer—and
Alexander's posthumous son by Roxana, Alexander Ægus,
while they shared the provinces among themselves,
assuming the title of satraps. Perdiccas, to whom
Alexander had, on his death-bed, delivered his ring,
became guardian of the kings during their minority.
The empire of Alexander soon broke up, and his
dominions were divided among his generals.
ALEXANDER DISCOVERING THE BODY OF DARIUS.
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Alexander was more than a conqueror. He diffused the
language and civilization of Greece wherever victory
led him, and planted Greek kingdoms in Asia, which
continued to exist for some centuries. At the very time
of his death, he was engaged in devising plans for the
drainage of the unhealthy marshes around Babylon, and a
better irrigation of the extensive plains. It is even
supposed that the fever which he caught there, rather
than his famous drinking-bout, was the real cause of
his death. To Alexander, the ancient world owed a vast
increase of its knowledge in geography, natural
history, etc. He taught Europeans the road to India,
and gave them the first glimpses of that magnificence
and splendor which has dazzled and captivated their
imagination for more than two thousand years. See
Freeman's "Historical Essays " (2d series, 1873), and
Mahaffy's "Alexander's Empire" (1887).
The wonderful element in the campaigns of Alexander,
and his tragical death at the height of his power,
threw a rare romantic interest around his figure. It is
ever the fate of a great name to be enshrined in fable,
and Alexander soon became the hero of romantic story,
scarcely more wonderful than the actual, but growing
from age to age with the mythopœic spirit which can
work as freely in fact as fiction. The earliest form of
the story which we know is the great romance connected
with the name of Callisthenes, which, under the
influence of the living popular tradition, arose in
Egypt about 200 A.D., and was carried through Latin
translations to the West, through Armenian and Syriac
versions to the East. It became widely popular during
the middle ages, and was worked into poetic form by
many writers in French and German. Alberich of Besançon
wrote in Middle High German an epic on the subject in
the first half of the twelfth century, which was the
basis of the German "Pfaffe" Lamprecht's
"Alexanderbuch," also of the twelfth century. The
French poets Lambert li Court and Alexandre de Bernay
composed, between 1180 and 1190, a romance
[14] of Alexander, the twelve-syllable metre of which gave
rise to the name Alexandrines. The German poem
of Rudolf of Ems was based on the Latin epic of Walter
of Châtillon, about 1200, which became henceforward the
prevailing form of the story. In contrast with it is
the thirteenth century Old English epic of Alexander
(in vol. i. of Weber's "Metrical Romances," 1810),
based on the Callisthenes version. The story appears
also in the East, worked up in conjunction with myths
of other nationalities, especially the Persian. It
appears in Firdusi, and among later writers, in Nizami.
From the Persians both the substance of the story and
its form in poetical treatment have extended to Turks
and other Mohammedans, who have interpreted Alexander
as the Dsulkarnein ('two horned') of the Koran,
and to the Hindus, which last had preserved no
independent traditions of Alexander.
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