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Essay on Alexander the Great
Alexander the Great inherited his father's relatively small Greek based kingdom and turned it into a world power that dominated and expanded the established empires of Egypt and Persia by age 33. Born in 356BC, the young Alexander's childhood was chaotic.Alexander grew up with what would nowadays be classified as an Edipus complex. That it was a relatively mild one reflects great credit on Philip. Proud of his son, who already as a small boy was showing marvelous promise, he bent all his great intelligence to the planning of his education; and, most remarkably for Philip was not accustomed to being crossed by anyone near him, except Olympias finding Alexander, amid all his brilliance, strong-willed and difficult, he never, at least deliberately, suppressed and overrode him, but always, except in rare moments of impatience, tried to persuade him by an appeal to reason.
Alexander's education as a small boy was under the general direction of Leonidas, "a man of severe character," says Plutarch, "and a kinsman of Olympias." Leonidas also seems to have been a man of some breadth of mind, since, for all his royal connections; he did not shun the title of tutor or "pedagogue"; which, implying a kind of male nursemaid was a very humble title in the Greek social hierarchy. Under him there were masters to teach reading, writing, arithmetic, geometry, music, riding, archery, javelin-throwing and all the branches of athletics. Nearest of all to Alexander's affections, and performing under Leonidas the nursemaid functions usually assigned to the "pedagogue," was a certain Lysimachos, from western Greece.
He was no one in particular; but he won Alexander's heart by entering into a great "let's pretend" game, calling Alexander, Achilles, and Philip, Pêleus, and Lysimachos himself, Phoinix, after the "old knight" whom Peleus sent to Troy to look after the young.......
