Over the course of his conquests, Alexander founded some twenty cities that bore his name, most of them east of the Tigris. The first, and greatest, was Alexandria in Egypt, which would become one of the leading Mediterranean cities. The cities' locations reflected trade routes as well as defensive positions. At first, the cities must have been inhospitable, little more than defensive garrisons. Following Alexander's death, many Greeks who had settled there tried to return to Greece. However, a century or so after Alexander's death, many of the Alexandrias were thriving, with elaborate public buildings and substantial populations that included both Greek and local peoples.
Founding of cities
Alexander the Great
Alexander the Great | Founding of cities
The first, and greatest, was Alexandria in Egypt Sorry. I cannot find the answer based on the context. Alexandria in Egypt Rome
who was the king of macedonia who built an empire that stretched to india
user
Alexander the Great
assistant
where is the above ancient kingdom located?
user
On the periphery of Archaic and Classical Greece, and later the dominant state of Hellenistic Greece.
assistant
what is the origin of its name?
user
The name Macedonia comes from the ethnonym Μακεδόνες , which itself is derived from the ancient Greek adjective μακεδνός, meaning "tall, slim", also the name of a people related to the Dorians, and possibly descriptive of Ancient Macedonians
assistant
who was the leader here before the above mentioned king?
user
The Argead king, PhilipII
assistant
which language was spoken here?
user
Koine Greek, the "lingua franca" of late Classical and Hellenistic Greece, and the native Macedonian language was either a dialect of Greek  similar to Thessalian Greek and Northwestern Greek, or a language closely related to Greek
assistant
where was the aforementioned great king from?
user
Ancient Greek kingdom of Macedon
assistant
which city did he find?
user
Alexander the Great founded, substantially re-established or renamed several towns and cities. They are (with present-day locations):
List of cities founded by Alexander the Great | Introduction
It is possible that the city was founded by a man in the army of Alexander the Great or Antigonus I Monophthalmus, or a member of the Seleucid Empire, but there is no compelling evidence to show the way here.
Zenodotion | Introduction
Over the course of his conquests, Alexander founded some twenty cities that bore his name, most of them east of the Tigris. The first, and greatest, was Alexandria in Egypt, which would become one of the leading Mediterranean cities. The cities' locations reflected trade routes as well as defensive positions. At first, the cities must have been inhospitable, little more than defensive garrisons. Following Alexander's death, many Greeks who had settled there tried to return to Greece. However, a century or so after Alexander's death, many of the Alexandrias were thriving, with elaborate public buildings and substantial populations that included both Greek and local peoples.
Alexander the Great | Founding of cities
Alexander the Great re-founded the city at a new location beyond the Meles River around 340 BC. Alexander had defeated the Persians in several battles and finally the Emperor Darius III himself at Issus in 333 BC. Old Smyrna on a small hill by the sea was large enough only for a few thousand people. Therefore, the slopes of Mount Pagos (Kadifekale) was chosen for the foundation of the new city, for which Alexander is credited, and this act laid the ground for a resurgence in the city's population.
İzmir | Alexander the Great
Around twenty towns or outposts were founded by Alexander the Great. Some of the main cities are: The Italian city of Alessandria is not named for Alexander the Great but for Pope Alexander III. However, the Medieval choice of this name was likely influenced by the example of the above cities.
Cultural depictions of Alexander the Great | Cities
The quests of Alexander had a number of consequences for the Greek city-states. It greatly widened the horizons of the Greeks, making the endless conflicts between the cities which had marked the 5th and 4th centuries BC seem petty and unimportant. It led to a steady emigration, particularly of the young and ambitious, to the new Greek empires in the east. Many Greeks migrated to Alexandria, Antioch and the many other new Hellenistic cities founded in Alexander's wake, as far away as what are now Afghanistan and Pakistan, where the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom and the Indo-Greek Kingdom survived until the end of the 1st century BC.
Hellenistic Greece | Macedon
Alexander and his Seleucid successors founded many Greek cities all over their dominions.
Ptolemaic Kingdom | Demographics
Alexandria Prophthasia () also known as Alexandria in Drangiana was one of the seventy-plus cities founded or renamed by Alexander the Great. The town was founded during an intermediate stop between Herat, the location of another of Alexander's fortresses, and Kandahar. It is mentioned by Strabo, Pliny the Elder, Ammianus Marcellinus, Isidore of Charax, Stephanus of Byzantium and Pseudo-Plutarch. Alexander the Great, arrived in Drangiana in November 330 BC on his way to Kandahar, and found a well-organized province of the Achaemenid empire. He appointed a new satrap, Arsames, and renamed the capital city as Prophthasia, ("Anticipation"), because Alexander had here discovered a conspiracy against his life, organized by his companion Philotas.
Alexandria Prophthasia | Introduction
Alexander III of Macedon (, ; 20/21 July 356 BC – 10/11 June 323 BC), commonly known as Alexander the Great (, ), was a king ("basileus") of the ancient Greek kingdom of Macedon and a member of the Argead dynasty. He was born in Pella in 356 BC and succeeded his father Philip II to the throne at the age of 20. He spent most of his ruling years on an unprecedented military campaign through western Asia and northeast Africa, and by the age of thirty, he had created one of the largest empires of the ancient world, stretching from Greece to northwestern India.
Alexander the Great | Introduction
This is a list of cities, towns and fortresses founded or renamed and repopulated by Philip II of Macedon.
List of populated places whose identities come from Philip II of Macedon | Introduction
In 334 BC, Alexander the Great donated funds for the completion of the new temple of Athena Polias in Priene, in modern-day western Turkey. An inscription from the temple, now housed in the British Museum, declares: "King Alexander dedicated [this temple] to Athena Polias." This inscription is one of the few independent archaeological discoveries confirming an episode from Alexander's life. The temple was designed by Pytheos, one of the architects of the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus. Libanius wrote that Alexander founded the temple of Zeus Bottiaios (), in the place where later the city of Antioch was built.
Alexander the Great | Funding of temples
Alexandria Carmania (, "Alexandreia hē en Karmania") was one of the seventy-plus cities founded or renamed by Alexander the Great. The town was founded by Alexander in January 324 BC after his army had reunited with Nearchus and his men who had beached their boats near the mouth of the Minab River.
Alexandria Carmania | Introduction
In 332 BC, Alexander the Great, King of Macedon, invaded Egypt, which at the time was a satrapy of the Achaemenid Empire known as the Thirty-first Dynasty under Emperor Artaxerxes III. He visited Memphis, and traveled to the oracle of Amun at the Siwa Oasis. The oracle declared him to be the son of Amun. Alexander conciliated the Egyptians by the respect he showed for their religion, but he appointed Macedonians to virtually all the senior posts in the country, and founded a new Greek city, Alexandria, to be the new capital. The wealth of Egypt could now be harnessed for Alexander's conquest of the rest of the Achaemenid Empire.
Ptolemaic Kingdom | Background
Alexander populated the city with 7,000 Macedonians, 3,000 mercenaries and thousands of natives (according to Curtius VII.3.23), or some 7,000 natives and 3,000 non-military camp followers and a number of Greek mercenaries (Diodorus, XVII.83.2), in March 329 BC. He had also built forts in what is now Bagram, Afghanistan, at the foot of the Hindu Kush, replacing forts erected in much the same place by Persia's king Cyrus the Great c. 500 BC, Alexandria being in fact a refoundation of an Achaemenid settlement called Kapisa. The deity of the city seems to have been Zeus, as suggested by coins of the Greco-Bactrian king Eucratides.
Alexandria in the Caucasus | Alexander the Great
Alexander the Great had laid-out the foundation of what is now "Old Kandahar" in the 4th century BC and gave it the Ancient Greek name Αλεξάνδρεια Aραχωσίας (). Many empires have long fought over the city due to its strategic location along the trade routes of southern, central and western Asia.
Kandahar | Introduction
The remains of Alexandria in Arachosia are today found in the tell of Old Kandahar citadel in the western portion of the modern city. The citadel tell was excavated by the British "Society for South Asian Studies" through the 1970s and with the from 2008–2009. These excavations indicate that the Islamic walls were based on those from classical times indicating what might be a square (tetragonis) shaped town, but one highly modified by the unusual topography. A triangular shaped portion of the tell adjoining the Greek town is from the Buddhist era. Alexander appears to have founded his town on the site of 6th century BC Persian garrison point.
Alexandria Arachosia | Remains
The body of Alexander the Great was to have reposed at Aegae, where his father Philip II of Macedon fell by the hand of Pausanias of Orestis but it was taken to Memphis through the intrigues of Ptolemy I Soter.
Aegae (Macedonia) | Introduction
A major Mediterranean port of Egypt, in ancient times and still today, Alexandria was founded in 331 BC by Alexander the Great. According to Plutarch, the Alexandrians believed that Alexander the Great's motivation to build the city was his wish to "found a large and populous Greek city that should bear his name." Located west of the Nile's westernmost mouth, the city was immune to the silt deposits that persistently choked harbors along the river. Alexandria became the capital of the Hellenized Egypt of King Ptolemy I (reigned 323–283 BC). Under the wealthy Ptolemaic Dynasty, the city soon surpassed Athens as the cultural center of the Hellenic world.
Ptolemaic Kingdom | Alexandria
The first of many Alexandrias in the Far East of the Macedonian Empire, Alexandria in Ariana was a city in what is now Afghanistan, one of the twenty-plus cities founded or renamed by Alexander the Great. The third largest Afghan city, Herat, is the city's modern name. In 330 BC, the Greek armies of Alexander moved the capital of the satrapy of Aria from Artacoana to the new site. In doing this, he expanded an existing Persian fortress. The location of this town is difficult to determine due to the sparsity of ancient sources. However:
Alexandria Ariana | Introduction
When Alexander the Great died on June 10, 323 BCE, he left behind a huge empire which comprised many essentially independent territories. Alexander's empire stretched from his homeland of Macedon itself, along with the Greek city-states that his father had subdued, to Bactria and parts of India in the east. It included parts of the present day Balkans, Anatolia, the Levant, Egypt, Babylonia, and most of the former Achaemenid Empire, except for some lands the Achaemenids formerly held in Central Asia.
Diadochi | Hegemon
A history of the Charax can be distilled primarily from ancient texts and numismatic sources, as the city has never been properly excavated. The city was established by Alexander the Great in 324 BC, replacing a small Persian settlement, Durine. This was one of Alexander's last cities before his death in 323 BC. Here he established a quarter (dēmē) of the port called Pella, named after Alexander’s own town of birth, where he settled Macedonian veterans. The city passed to the Seleucid Empire after Alexander's death, until it was destroyed at some point by flooding. The city was rebuilt c.
Charax Spasinu | History
Alexander appointed a new satrap, Arsames, and renamed the capital; it became known as Prophthasia, 'Anticipation', because Alexander had here discovered a conspiracy against his life, said to be organized by his companion Philotas. After the death of Alexander, his empire fell apart and his generals divided the countries he had conquered. Drangiana fell to Seleucus I Nicator, the founder of the Seleucid empire. For more than a century, the Seleucids remained in control of the region. There is some evidence that it was in Drangiana that the adherents of the religion founded by Zarathustra came together to re-establish their faith and sacred text, the Avesta.
Farah Citadel | History
As a result, they spread quickly, first to the Balkans and continental Greece, and eventually throughout the Western world of the time; stashes of "philippeioi" have been uncovered in Italy, Constantinople, Southern Russia, Cyprus, Syria, and Egypt. The vast majority of these were actually struck by Philip's successor, Alexander the Great. The "philippeioi" issued by Alexander after Philip's death continued to use that name officially, though they were often called "alexanders" by Alexander's supporters.
Philippeioi | Introduction
Nicaea or Nikaia () was a city in what is now the Punjab, one of the two cities founded by Alexander the Great on opposite sides of the Hydaspes river. The second city founded by Alexander on the Hydaspes was Bucephala. It was at Nicaea or Bucephalia, which appears to have been on the opposite bank, that Alexander (according to Strabo) built the fleet which Nearchus subsequently commanded, the country in the immediate neighbourhood having abundance of wood fit for shipbuilding. Following the Battle of the Hydaspes, Alexander founded two cities. One of the sites of the battle he named Alexandria "Niceae" meaning "Victory".
Nicaea, Punjab | Introduction
Alexander the Great is said to have camped on the site of Antioch and dedicated an altar to Zeus Bottiaeus; it lay in the northwest of the future city. This account is found only in the writings of Libanius, a fourth-century orator from Antioch, and may be legend intended to enhance Antioch's status. But the story is not unlikely in itself. After Alexander's death in 323 BC, his generals, the Diadochi, divided up the territory he had conquered. After the Battle of Ipsus in 301 BC, Seleucus I Nicator won the territory of Syria, and he proceeded to found four "sister cities" in northwestern Syria, one of which was Antioch, a city named in honor of his father Antiochus; according to the "Suda", it might be named after his son Antiochus.
Antioch | Foundation by Seleucus I
The town was founded by Alexander in autumn of 325 BC after his army had separated from Nearchus and the boats near the mouth of the Indus River. The sources agree that a town was built among the Oreitians, that the fortification was left to Hephaestion and Leonnatus be built in the autumn of 325 BC and that it was located near Rhambacia, the largest town of the Oreitai. The core of colonists were retired Arachosian horsemen. Alexander probably intended the new town to be an emporium controlling the local and Indian spice trade through the passes to Kandahar. The area certainly had exotic resources for trade.
Alexandria in Orietai | Introduction
Re-established as an urban centre under the early Seleucids, its ancient name must still have been known, for its new, Greek name was a close synonym, Pella - the birthplace of Alexander the Great in Macedon. As yet no public buildings from the Hellenistic period have been identified, although well-appointed private houses attest to their integration into the wider norms of urban living, such as wall-paintings and statuary. Several of these houses suffered what appears to be the same fiery destruction in the Late Hellenistic period. This has been attributed to a massive destruction by the Hasmonean king, Alexander Jannaeus, about 83 or 82 BCE (Josephus, "The Jewish War" 14.4.8; "Antiquities" 14.4.4).
Pella, Jordan | Hellenistic period
Cities played a crucial role in the establishment of political power over an area, and ancient leaders such as Alexander the Great founded and created them with zeal.
City | History
According to legend the god Dionysus founded the city of Nysa and he named the mountain near the city, Meron (Μηρὸν) (i.e. thigh), because he grew in the thigh of Zeus. When Alexander arrived at the city, together with his Companion cavalry went to the mountain and they made ivy garlands and crowned themselves with them, as they were, singing hymns in honor of Dionysus. Alexander also offered sacrifices to Dionysus, and feasted in company with his companions. Alexander the Great ordered the Philip (son of Machatas) to built the Alexandria on the Indus. Pliny the Elder wrote that Nearchus founded the town of Arbis during his voyage to India.
Ancient Greece–Ancient India relations | Cities and places
Just east of Alexandria (where Abu Qir Bay is now), there was in ancient times marshland and several islands. As early as the 7th century BC, there existed important port cities of Canopus and Heracleion. The latter was recently rediscovered under water. Alexandria was founded by Alexander the Great in April 331 BC as ("Alexandreia"). Passing through Egypt, Alexander wanted to build a large Greek city on Egypt's coast that would bear his name. He chose the site of Alexandria, envisioning the building of a causeway to the nearby island of Pharos that would generate two great natural harbours. Alexandria was intended to supersede the older Greek colony of Naucratis as a Hellenistic centre in Egypt, and to be the link between Greece and the rich Nile valley.
Alexandria | Ancient era
Khujand may have been the site of Cyropolis () which was established when king Cyrus the Great founded the city during his last expedition against the Saka tribe of Massagetae shortly before his death. Alexander the Great later built his furthest Greek settlement near Cyropolis in 329 BCE and named it Alexandria Eschate (Greek: Ἀλεξάνδρεια Ἐσχάτη) or "Alexandria The Furthest". The city would form a bastion for the Greek settlers against the nomadic Scythian tribes who lived north of the Syr Darya River. According to the Roman writer Curtius, "Alexandria Ultima" (Alexandria the Furthest) retained its Hellenistic culture as late as 30 BCE.
Khujand | Antiquity
Alexandria was founded by Alexander the Great in 331 BC (the exact date is disputed) as ("Aleksándreia"). Alexander's chief architect for the project was Dinocrates. Ancient accounts are extremely numerous and varied, and much influenced by subsequent developments. One of the more sober descriptions, given by the historian Arrian, tells how Alexander undertook to lay out the city's general plan, but lacking chalk or other means, resorted to sketching it out with grain. A number of more fanciful foundation myths are found in the Alexander Romance and were picked up by medieval historians. A few months after the foundation, Alexander left Egypt for the East and never returned to his city.
History of Alexandria | Foundation
Alexander the Great (356 BC – 323 BC) was an ancient king of Macedon. Alexander the Great may also refer to:
Alexander the Great (disambiguation) | Introduction
670, &c. Paris, 1683.
Alexander of Hierapolis (Syria) | Introduction
Alexander viewed Bessus as a usurper and set out to defeat him. This campaign, initially against Bessus, turned into a grand tour of central Asia. Alexander founded a series of new cities, all called Alexandria, including modern Kandahar in Afghanistan, and Alexandria Eschate ("The Furthest") in modern Tajikistan. The campaign took Alexander through Media, Parthia, Aria (West Afghanistan), Drangiana, Arachosia (South and Central Afghanistan), Bactria (North and Central Afghanistan), and Scythia. In 329 BC, Spitamenes, who held an undefined position in the satrapy of Sogdiana, betrayed Bessus to Ptolemy, one of Alexander's trusted companions, and Bessus was executed. However, when, at some point later, Alexander was on the Jaxartes dealing with an incursion by a horse nomad army, Spitamenes raised Sogdiana in revolt.
Alexander the Great | Fall of the Empire and the East
When the Persians attacked Assos, King Hermias was caught and put to death. Aristotle fled to Macedonia, which was ruled by his friend King Philip II of Macedon. There, he tutored Philip's son, Alexander the Great. There is a modern statue of Aristotle at the town entrance. The Acts of the Apostles refers to visits by Luke the Evangelist and Paul the Apostle to Assos ()
Assos | Introduction
The Greek Hippodamus of Miletus (c. 407 BC) has been dubbed the "Father of City Planning" for his design of Miletus; the Hippodamian, or grid plan, was the basis for subsequent Greek and Roman cities. In the 4th century BC, Alexander the Great commissioned Dinocrates of Rhodes to lay out his new city of Alexandria, the grandest example of idealized urban planning of the ancient Mediterranean world, where the city's regularity was facilitated by its level site near a mouth of the Nile.
History of the city | Mediterranean
Alexander's legacy extended beyond his military conquests. His campaigns greatly increased contacts and trade between East and West, and vast areas to the east were significantly exposed to Greek civilization and influence. Some of the cities he founded became major cultural centers, many surviving into the 21st century. His chroniclers recorded valuable information about the areas through which he marched, while the Greeks themselves got a sense of belonging to a world beyond the Mediterranean.
Alexander the Great | Legacy
Thus he built a city there, which he named "Aigai" (), present day Vergina, a site of substantial archaeological activity, as numerous important findings have been unearthed.
Caranus of Macedon | Myth
The museum houses two permanent presentations, one describes Netherlands–Russia relations and the other details the history of the Amstelhof building. Temporary exhibitions usually are scheduled for six-months. Alexander the Great (356 BC – 323 BC, king from 336 BC) appeals to the imagination more than any ruler of the ancient age. Beginning in his youth he inspired those around him. During his campaigns in the East, Alexander searched for the origins of Dionysus, whom the ancient Greeks believed came from the exotic East, possibly India. He followed in the footsteps of Dionysus to reach countries such as Bactria, Egypt, India, Mongolia, Persia and Syria.
Hermitage Amsterdam | Exhibitions
Alexander the Great conceived the idea of restoring the Greek city in a scheme that was, according to Strabo, actually carried out under Antigonus (316–301 BC) and Lysimachus (301 BC—281 BC), who enlarged and fortified the city. The ruined acropolis of the ancient city, the "crown of Smyrna", had been on a steep peak about high, which overhangs the northeast extremity of the gulf. Modern İzmir was constructed atop the later Hellenistic city, partly on the slopes of a rounded hill the Greeks called "Pagos" near the southeast end of the gulf, and partly on the low ground between the hill and the sea.
Smyrna | Hellenistic period
According to Pausanias and the contemporary Parian Chronicle records for the years 321–320 BC, Ptolemy initially buried Alexander in Memphis. In the late 4th or early 3rd century BC, during the early Ptolemaic dynasty, Alexander's body was transferred from Memphis to Alexandria, where it was reburied. The so-called Alexander Sarcophagus, unrelated to Alexander's body and once thought to be the sarcophagus of Abdalonymus, is now believed to be that of Mazaeus, a Persian governor of Babylon.
Tomb of Alexander the Great | Introduction
İskenderun preserves the name, but probably not the exact site, of Alexandria ad Issum. The settlement was founded by Alexander the Great in 333 BC to supersede Myriandus as the key to the Syrian Gates, about 37 km (23 miles) south of the scene of his victory at the Battle of Issus. Alexander camped in the highlands of İskenderun, around "Esentepe", and then ordered the city to be established and named "Alexandria". İskenderun is one of many cities founded on Alexander's orders, including Alexandria, Egypt. A memorial, a monument and a bronze statue for the victory raised at the city, and Herodian writes that they were there even at his time.
İskenderun | Antiquity
When the king, on his retreat from Greece, had reached Cenaeum in Euboea, Alexander died and was buried there, in 191.
Alexander of Acarnania | Introduction
Also based on the ancient historical sources he came to the conclusion that the breastplate, the shield, the helmet and the sword found in tomb II, belong to the armor of Alexander the Great. In 1995, Greek archaeologist Liana Souvaltzi announced that she identified one alleged tomb in Siwah with that of Alexander. The claim was put in doubt by the then general secretary of the Greek Ministry of Culture, George Thomas, who said that it was unclear whether or not the excavated structure is even a tomb. Thomas and members of his team said that the style of the excavated object was not, as Souvaltzi contended, Macedonian, and that the fragments of tablets they were shown did not support any of the translations provided by Souvaltzi as proof of her finding.
Tomb of Alexander the Great | Present location
Alexandropolis in the Thracian region of Maedians, was the first town founded in 340 BCE by Alexander the Great, after defeating a local Thracian tribe, as a regent () of Macedon. Its name was chosen by analogy with Philippopolis, the town of Thrace founded by Alexander's father, Philip II. He expelled the locals and settled a mixed population. That the location of Alexandropolis is unknown suggests that a Thracian raid may have caused its disappearance from history (See Zopyrion). Tarn claims Alexandropolis was a military colony rather than a polis.
Alexandropolis Maedica | Introduction
T. A. B. Spratt visited the site for two days in 1842 to copy inscriptions and drew a plan. He could not find any remains which indicated the name of the city, but he suspected that it was Marmara or Apollonia. Diodorus Siculus writes that Alexander the Great conquered a "great rock fortress" inhabited by the Marmares when he passed the frontier of Lycia. Spratt refers to the fortress with the name "Marmora", others use "Marmara". Apollonia was a Thracian colony in Lycia, which might explain why Thracians guided the second division of Alexander the Great's army through this remote part of Lycia.
Kitanaura | Archaeological investigations
The story contains at least one potential historical error: It apparently claims that Alexander the Great intended Alexandria to be the capital of his empire. Actually, he built it to be the capital of Egypt but not of the entire empire. Babylon was the capital of Alexander's empire, even though Alexandria became the capital of the diadochic Ptolemaic Kingdom under Alexander's immediate successor Ptolemy I Soter. The exact quote found in "Guardians of the Lost Library", "The city was founded by Alexander the Great in the fourth century B. C. to be the capital of his empire!" is a bit ambiguous, meaning either that it was Alexander's direct personal intention or that it was about to happen independently of whatever Alexander had intended.
Guardians of the Lost Library | Historical accuracy
Bessus fled north to Sogdia where he too was betrayed and was handed over to Alexander by his courtiers, Spitamenes and Datames. In July 329 BC, as Alexander founded the city of Alexandria Eschate on the northern border of Sogdia, Spitamenes led a revolt and besieged the Sogdian capital of Maracanda. A Scythian incursion into Sogdia prevented Alexander from responding personally, however, once he had defeated the Scythians in the Battle of Jaxartes, he marched south to relieve Maracanda causing Spitamenes to move south and attack Balkh in the winter of 329 BC. In the spring of 328 BC, Alexander sent his general Craterus to fortify Margiana, where he established a garrison in Merv and re-founded the city as "Alexandria in Margiana".
Margiana | Achaemenid period
Alexandria in Arachosia () was a city in ancient times that is now called Kandahar in Afghanistan. It was one of more than seventy cities founded or renamed by Alexander the Great. Arachosia is the Greek name of an ancient province of the Achaemenid, Seleucid and Parthian empires. The province of "Arachosia" was centred around the Argandab valley in Kandahar. It did not reach the Hindu Kush, but it apparently extended east as far as the Indus river, although its exact extents are not yet clear.
Alexandria Arachosia | Introduction
Alexander the Great's horse, Bucephalus, was originally from Pharsalos. The surrounding mountainous regions, however, were less suitable for agriculture and relied more heavily on pastoralism.
Ancient Thessaly | Geography
Alexander promptly founded a city, Bucephala, in honour of his horse. It lay on the west bank of the Hydaspes river (modern-day Jhelum in Pakistan). The modern-day town of Jalalpur Sharif, outside Jhelum, is said to be where Bucephalus is buried.
Bucephalus | Alexander and Bucephalus
At age 16, Alexander's education under Aristotle ended. Philip waged war against Byzantion, leaving Alexander in charge as regent and heir apparent. During Philip's absence, the Thracian Maedi revolted against Macedonia. Alexander responded quickly, driving them from their territory. He colonized it with Greeks, and founded a city named Alexandropolis. Upon Philip's return, he dispatched Alexander with a small force to subdue revolts in southern Thrace. Campaigning against the Greek city of Perinthus, Alexander is reported to have saved his father's life. Meanwhile, the city of Amphissa began to work lands that were sacred to Apollo near Delphi, a sacrilege that gave Philip the opportunity to further intervene in Greek affairs.
Alexander the Great | Regency and ascent of Macedon
Perseis () was a city of ancient Macedon founded by Philip V of Macedon around 168 BCE and named for his son, Perseus. The city's exact location has not be confirmed, but Livy tells us that it was near Stobi. The editors of the "Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World" suggest a site near Črnobuki in North Macedonia.
Perseis (Paeonia) | Introduction
Alexander the Great founded of the city of Alexandria in April 331 BC on the site of the small fishing village of Rhacotis as the marine base for his fleet. The city was built on a narrow limestone ridge opposite to Pharos Island where the Pharos lighthouse would later stand. Forces under Alexander's command cleared the sand and silt deposits which made the port unnavigable, and Alexander's engineer Dinocrates linked the port of Alexandria and the island of Pharos with a bridge 1200 meters long and 200 meters wide, creating two harbour basins for commercial and military shipping. The northeast basin (currently the Eastern harbour) was designed for military vessels and the southwest basin (currently the main port of Alexandria) was for commercial use.
Heptastadion | History
As with most other cities founded by Alexander, a group of retired and/or wounded veterans from his army was settled there. Because Alexandria Eschate was surrounded by Sogdian tribes, and was about north of the nearest Greek settlement, at Alexandria on the Oxus in Bactria, the Greeks built a wall around the city which, according to the ancient authors, was completed in about 20 days. It experienced numerous conflicts with the local population. From 250 BC, the city likely had greater contact with Bactria, after the Greco-Bactrian king Euthydemus I extended his control into Sogdiana.
Alexandria Eschate | History
Macedon fell to Cassander, son of Alexander's leading general Antipater, who after several years of warfare made himself master of most of the rest of Greece. He founded a new Macedonian capital at Thessaloniki and was generally a constructive ruler.
Hellenistic Greece | Macedon
3" is that Alexander was killed late in the summer of 309 BC, shortly after his alleged half-brother Heracles. However, Green thinks that Heracles was killed after Alexander IV's assassination. One of the royal tombs discovered by the archaeologist Manolis Andronikos in the so-called "Great Tumulus" in Vergina in 1977/8 is believed to belong to Alexander IV.
Alexander IV of Macedon | Death
The city was founded around 315 BC by the King Cassander of Macedon, on or near the site of the ancient town of Therma and 26 other local villages. He named it after his wife Thessalonike, a half-sister of Alexander the Great and princess of Macedonia as daughter of Philip II. Under the kingdom of Macedonia the city retained its own autonomy and parliament and evolved to become the most important city in Macedonia. After the fall of the Kingdom of Macedonia in 168 BC, in 148 BC Thessalonica was made the capital of the Roman province of Macedonia. Thessalonica became a free city of the Roman Republic under Mark Antony in 41 BC.
Thessaloniki | From classical antiquity to the Roman Empire
He went out of his way and spared no expense to obtain the best engineers, mathematicians and philosophers. It is only because of his pro-active efforts and those of his librarians that so many ancient writings have survived. Later, Curtius could have found his primary sources nowhere else. The library was subsequently lost, but it had done its work in disseminating Greek scholarship throughout the Graeco-Roman world.
Histories of Alexander the Great | Alexander’s historical archives section
Some granite monuments with an angular summit were discerned there, but the entrance was then walled up and the stone worker was asked not to disclose the incident. (The image on a Roman lamp in the National Museum of Poznań and others at the British Museum and the Hermitage Museum are interpreted by some scholars as showing Alexandria with the Soma Mausoleum pictured as a building with a pyramidal roof.) In 1888 Heinrich Schliemann attempted to locate Alexander's tomb within the Nabi Daniel Mosque, but he was denied permission to excavate. In 1993, Triantafyllos Papazois developed the theory that it is not Philip II of Macedon who is buried in the royal tomb II at Vergina, Greece, but it is Alexander the Great together with his wife Roxanne, while his son Alexander IV is buried in tomb III.
Tomb of Alexander the Great | Present location
In 336 BC, Philip sent Parmenion with an army of 10,000 men, as vanguard of a force to free the Greeks living on the western coast of Anatolia from Persian rule. The people of Eresus on the island Lesbos erected an altar to Zeus Philippios. Alexander himself was the model for the image of Apollo on coins issued by his father. When Alexander went to Egypt, he was given the title "pharaoh", which included the epithet "Son of Ra", declaring him to be the son of the sun. A story told that one night King Philip had found a huge snake in the bed next to his sleeping wife.
Alexander the Great in legend | Deified Alexander
These are places named for, and sometimes founded by, Alexander the Great, arranged roughly west to east:
Alexandria (disambiguation) | West and Central Asia
A Royal Decree of Alexander the Great, as an arbitration on a land dispute between the city of Philippi and local Thracians (presumably of the Edonian tribes), was discovered in a Byzantine basilica at Filippoi (1936) and published in 1984. The inscription, in two columns, bears the names of Leonnatus and Philotas, (possibly the companions), who act as arbitrators who would redraw the boundaries. The units of measurement mentioned, are plethra and stadia.
Decree of Philippi | Introduction
According to some ancient writers, Caranus, the legendary founder of the Argead Dynasty (whose most famous member was Alexander the Great), established the city of Edessa and made it the first capital of ancient Macedon, and later Argead rulers moved Macedon's capital to Aegae and eventually Pella. Archaeological remains have been discovered on the site of ancient Edessa, just below the modern city (40°47'48.48"N 22° 3'26.24"E). The walls and many buildings have been unearthed so far. A colonnade with inscription in Greek dates from Roman times. The city achieved certain prominence in the first centuries AD, being located on the Via Egnatia.
Edessa, Greece | History
In 321 BC, on its way back to Macedonia, the funerary cart with Alexander's body was hijacked in Syria by one of Alexander's generals, Ptolemy I Soter. In late 322 or early 321 BC Ptolemy diverted the body to Egypt where it was interred in Memphis, the center of Alexander's government in Egypt. While Ptolemy was in possession of Alexander's body, Perdiccas and Eumenes had Alexander's armor, diadem and royal scepter. According to Plutarch, who visited Alexandria, Python of Catana and Seleucus were sent to a serapeum to ask the oracle whether Alexander's body should be sent to Alexandria and the oracle answered positively.
Tomb of Alexander the Great | Background
Alexandria Asiana was a city in Iran, one of the seventy-plus cities founded or renamed by Alexander the Great.
Alexandria Asiana | Introduction
Alexander of Hierapolis (; "fl." 253 AD) was a bishop of Hierapolis in Phrygia (modern Pamukkale, Turkey). Alexander was the author of a book entitled "On the new things introduced by Christ into the world" (), which is no longer extant.
Alexander of Hierapolis (Phrygia) | Introduction
Recent radiocarbon dating of seashell fragments and lead contamination show human activity at the location during the period of the Old Kingdom (27th-21st centuries BC) and again in the period 1000-800 BC, followed by the absence of activity thereafter. From ancient sources it is known there existed a trading post at this location during the time of Rameses the Great for trade with Crete, but it had long been lost by the time of Alexander's arrival. A small Egyptian fishing village named Rhakotis (Egyptian: "rꜥ-qdy.t", 'That which is built up') existed since the 13th century BC in the vicinity and eventually grew into the Egyptian quarter of the city.
Alexandria | Ancient era
Whilst in Carmania, Alexander established the city of Alexandria Carmania in early 324 BC where he settled his veterans, and also erected a pillar on the coastline. Alexander also consolidated his empire during his stay in Carmania as he summoned a number of governors and generals accused of conspiring and misbehaving and executed them, such as Cleander, accused of extortion, in 324 BC.
Carmania (region) | Pre-Hellenistic Period
And since that time we have stationed that great army there, and have supported it up to the present time, thereby giving you the privilege of inhabiting the land unplundered as far as concerns the barbarians on that side, and of holding your own possessions with complete freedom from trouble. But as if this were not sufficient for you, you have also made a great city, Daras, as a stronghold against the Persians, although this was explicitly forbidden in the treaty which Anatolius arranged with the Persians; and as a result of this it is necessary for the Persian state to be afflicted with the difficulties and the expense of two armies, the one in order that the Massagetae (Huns) may not be able fearlessly to plunder the land of both of us, and the other in order that we may check your inroads.
Alexander (comes) | Envoy to the Sassanids (530)
Referencing Hecataeus of Miletus, Stephanus of Byzantium distinguishes a Doric Amphanai, this seems to be based on a mistake; probably this Thessalian city was founded by Dorians is meant, and therefore Hekataios thus labelled it as a "Doric city" rather than a "city in Doris".
Amphanae | Introduction
Finds in the nearby Karain Cave indicate occupation during the Paleolithic era as far back as , and archeological evidence shows a port existed at Syedra, south of the modern city, during the Bronze Age around . A Phoenician language tablet found in the district dates to , and the city is specifically mentioned in the 4th-century BC Greek geography manuscript, the periplus of Pseudo-Scylax. The castle rock was likely inhabited under the Hittites and the Achaemenid Empire, and was first fortified in the Hellenistic period following the area's conquest by Alexander the Great. Alexander's successors left the area to one of the competing Macedonian generals, Ptolemy I Soter, after Alexander's death in .
Alanya | History
A few months after the foundation, Alexander left Egypt and never returned to the city during his life. After Alexander's departure, his viceroy Cleomenes continued the expansion. The architect Dinocrates of Rhodes designed the city, using a Hippodamian grid plan. Following Alexander's death in 323 BC, his general Ptolemy Lagides took possession of Egypt and brought Alexander's body to Egypt with him. Ptolemy at first ruled from the old Egyptian capital of Memphis. In 322/321 BC he had Cleomenes executed. Finally, in 305 BC, Ptolemy declared himself Pharaoh as Ptolemy I Soter ("Savior") and moved his capital to Alexandria.
Alexandria | Ancient era
Following in the tradition of Hippodamus about a century later, Alexander commissioned the architect Dinocrates to lay out his new city of Alexandria, the grandest example of idealised urban planning of the ancient Hellenistic world, where the city's regularity was facilitated by its level site near a mouth of the Nile.
History of urban planning | Greco-Roman empires
The site of that city is still undetermined. Any attempt to find the ancient battle site is doomed, because the landscape has changed considerably. A reference to Nicaea may appear in the Mūlasarvāstivāda Vinaya, a Buddhist text of the early centuries CE. This text refers to two cities called Ādirājya ("Place of the First Kingship") and Bhadrāśva ("Place of the Good Horse") located on the Vitastā (i.e., Hydaspes) River along the road from Gandhāra to Mathurā. The Buddhists attributed these two cities to the mythical king Mahāsammata, but some modern scholars propose to identify them as the two cities founded by Alexander the Great, Nicaea and Bucephala.
Nicaea, Punjab | Introduction
The second Greek city founded after the conquest of Egypt was Ptolemais, up the Nile, where there was a native village called Psoï, in the nome called after the ancient Egyptian city of Thinis. If Alexandria perpetuated the name and cult of the great Alexander, Ptolemais was to perpetuate the name and cult of the founder of the Ptolemaic time. Framed in by the barren hills of the Nile Valley and the Egyptian sky, here a Greek city arose, with its public buildings and temples and theatre, no doubt exhibiting the regular architectural forms associated with Greek culture, with a citizen-body Greek in blood, and the institutions of a Greek city.
Ptolemaic Kingdom | Ptolemais
The mythical founder of the city is Bellerophon. What is known of Termessos' history commences principally at the time that Alexander the Great surrounded the city in 333 BC; he likened the city to an eagle's nest and in one of few cases, failed to conquer it. Arrian, one of the ancient historians who dealt with this event and recorded the strategic importance of Termessos, notes that even a small force could easily defend it due to the insurmountable natural barriers surrounding the city. The location of the city at the mountain pass from the Phrygian hinterland to the plains of Pamphylia is described by Arrian, Annals 1,26,6.
Termessos | History
Alexander advanced on Egypt in later 332 BC, where he was regarded as a liberator. He was pronounced son of the deity Amun at the Oracle of Siwa Oasis in the Libyan desert. Henceforth, Alexander often referred to Zeus-Ammon as his true father, and after his death, currency depicted him adorned with the Horns of Ammon as a symbol of his divinity. During his stay in Egypt, he founded Alexandria-by-Egypt, which would become the prosperous capital of the Ptolemaic Kingdom after his death.
Alexander the Great | Egypt
Alexander the Great had a somewhat better fortune, conquering Sagalassos on his way to Persia, though the city of Termessos defied him. After Alexander died, the region became part of territories of Antigonus Monophthalmus, and possibly Lysimachus of Thrace, after which Seleucus I Nicator, founder of the Seleucid Dynasty of Syria, took control of Pisidia. Under the Seleucids, Greek colonies were founded at strategically important places and the local people Hellenised. Even so, the Hellenistic kings were never in complete control, in part because Anatolia was contested between the Seleucids, the Attalids of Pergamon, and the Galatians, invading Celts from Europe.
Pisidia | Hellenistic period
The Nabataeans dug cisterns that were covered and marked by signs known only to themselves. Diodorus wrote about how they were "exceptionally fond of freedom" and includes an account about unsuccessful raids that were initiated by Greek general Antigonus I in 312 BC. After Alexander the Great's death in 323 BC, his empire split among his generals. During the conflict between Alexander's generals, Antigonus I conquered the Levant, and this brought him to the borders of Edom, just north of Petra. According to Diodorus Siculus, Antigonus sought to add ""the land of the Arabs who are called Nabataeans"" to his existing territories of Syria and Phoenicia.
Nabataean Kingdom | Emergence
It would remain one of the famous sights of the town for many years, until probably destroyed in riots in the 3rd century AD.
Greeks in Egypt | Rule of Alexander the Great (332–323 BC)
Alexander V of Macedon (Greek: Ἀλέξανδρος Εʹ ὁ Μακεδών; died 294 BC) was the third and youngest son of Cassander and Thessalonica of Macedon, who was a half-sister of Alexander the Great. He ruled as King of Macedon along with his brother Antipater from 297 to 294 BC. When Antipater murdered their mother and ousted him from power, Alexander turned to Pyrrhus and Demetrius I Poliorcetes for help in recovering his throne. To the former he promised, as the price of his alliance, the land on the sea-coast of Macedonia, together with the provinces of Ambracia, Acarnania, and Amphilochia. Demetrius, according to Plutarch, arrived after Pyrrhus had retired, and when matters had been settled between Alexander and Antipater.
Alexander V of Macedon | Introduction
Seleucia Pieria was founded in ca. 300 BC by Seleucus I Nicator, one of the successors of the Macedonian conqueror Alexander the Great and the founder of the Seleucid Empire. The Macedonians called the landscape Pieria, after a district in their homeland that was also between the sea and a mountain range (the Olympus). When Seleucus I was murdered on his way to Macedon in 281 BC, his son, Antiochus I, buried his ashes in a building called "Nikatoreion", situated on Seleucia. The city was of great importance in the struggle between the Seleucids and the Ptolemies; it was captured by Ptolemy Euergetes in 246 BC.
Seleucia Pieria | Seleucid period
Alexander of Megalopolis () was originally a Macedonian, but he received the franchise and was settled at Arcadian Megalopolis about 190 BC. He pretended to be a descendant of Alexander the Great, and accordingly, he called his two sons Philip and Alexander. His daughter Apama was married to Amynander king of Athamanians. Her eldest brother Philip, followed her to her court, and being of vain character, he allowed himself to be tempted with the prospect of gaining possession to the throne of Macedonia.
Alexander of Megalopolis | Introduction
The defeat of the Greek cities by Philip and Alexander also taught the Greeks that their city-states could never again be powers in their own right, and that the hegemony of Macedon and its successor states could not be challenged unless the city states united, or at least federated. The Greeks valued their local independence too much to consider actual unification, but they made several attempts to form federations through which they could hope to reassert their independence. Following Alexander's death a struggle for power broke out among his generals, which resulted in the break-up of his empire and the establishment of a number of new kingdoms.
Hellenistic Greece | Macedon
In 1920, King Alexander I of Greece visited the city, and the local authorities renamed the city Alexandroupoli ("city of Alexander") in his honor, with the approval of the central government.
Alexandroupoli | Name
"'This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it."
List of cities founded by the Romans | Cities founded by the Romans
Anastasiopolis or Anastasioupolis (, "city of Anastasios"), is the name given several ancient cities founded or rebuilt by Roman emperors named Anastasius:
Anastasiopolis | Introduction
Ptolemy IX Lathyros, one of Ptolemy's final successors, replaced Alexander's sarcophagus with a glass one so he could convert the original to coinage. The recent discovery of an enormous tomb in northern Greece, at Amphipolis, dating from the time of Alexander the Great has given rise to speculation that its original intent was to be the burial place of Alexander. This would fit with the intended destination of Alexander's funeral cortege. However, the memorial was found to be dedicated to the dearest friend of Alexander the Great, Hephaestion. Pompey, Julius Caesar and Augustus all visited the tomb in Alexandria, where Augustus, allegedly, accidentally knocked the nose off.
Alexander the Great | After death
The first recorded defensive walls built here was the work of Lysimachos, a "successor" (diadochus) of Alexander the Great, later a king (306 BC) in Thrace and Asia Minor. This construction was associated with Alexander's re-foundation of Smyrna, moving it from Old Smyrna on a mound in the southeastern corner of the inner gulf where only a few thousand people could be accommodated. This move for the location of a new and larger city gained fame in a legend told by Pausanias, according to which Alexander, during a rest after hunting under a plane tree near the sanctuary on the hill of the two Nemeseis worshipped by the Smyrneans, was approached during his sleep by the goddesses who bade him found a city on that very spot, transferring to it the inhabitants of the earlier site.
Kadifekale | Re-foundation of Smyrna on Mount Pagos
There is speculation about the origin of the name ""Kandahar"". It is believed to have started as one of many cities named after the Hellenistic conqueror Alexander the Great throughout his vast (mainly ex-Achaemenid) empire, its present form deriving from the Pashto rendering of Arabic "Iskandariya" = Ancient Alexandria (in Arachosia). A temple to the deified Alexander as well as an inscription in Greek and Aramaic by the emperor Ashoka, who lived a few decades later, have been discovered in the old citadel.
Kandahar Province | Etymology
Throughout Antiquity, the city was relatively unimportant. According to one legend, the city was founded as a colony from Argos, while another holds that it was founded, along with Side and Aspendos, by the seers Mopsos, Calchas and Amphilochus after the Trojan War. The city is first mentioned in c. 500 BC by Pseudo-Scylax ("polis Sylleion"). From 469 BC, the city (as Sillyon) became part of the Athenian-led Delian League. It is mentioned in the Athenian tribute lists in c. 450 BC and again in 425 BC, and then disappears again from the historical record until 333 BC, when Alexander the Great is said to have unsuccessfully besieged it.
Sillyon | Antiquity
Nicopolis was also constituted a free city by Augustus, its founder. Thessalonica after the battle of Philippi, was made a free city in 42 BC, when it had sided with the victors. Athens, a free city with its own laws, appealed to Hadrian to devise new laws which he modelled on those given by Draco and Solon.
Free city (classical antiquity) | Introduction
Although the empire fractured into multiple Hellenic regimes shortly after his death, his conquests left a lasting legacy, not least in the new Greek-speaking cities founded across Persia's western territories, heralding the Hellenistic period. In the partition of Alexander's empire among the Diadochi, Macedonia fell to the Antipatrid dynasty, which was overthrown by the Antigonid dynasty after only a few years.
List of ancient great powers | Macedonia
This region where Alexandria Eschate would be founded was ruled over by Persia starting with Xerxes I, and began to be populated by Greeks starting at that time. When "Greeks" (Greek-related and speaking peoples) in other parts of the Persian empire rebelled or otherwise were troublesome, they would be exiled to the far northeast of the Persian empire, the most distant segment from their homelands. This was not uncommon, because the coastline of what is now Turkey was populated by many Greek-culture and language cities. By the time of the fall of Persia to Alexander the Great, many had been exiled to this region north of India, so Greek villages, language, and culture were therefore all common in that area.
Alexandria Eschate | History
The location of the tomb of Alexander the Great is an enduring mystery. Shortly after Alexander's death in Babylon, the possession of his body became a subject of negotiations between Perdiccas, Ptolemy I Soter, and Seleucus I Nicator. According to Nicholas J. Saunders, while Babylon was the "obvious site" for Alexander's resting place, some favored interring the ruler in the Argead burial at Aegae, modern Vergina. Aegae was one of the two originally proposed resting places, according to Saunders, the other being Siwa Oasis and in 321 BC Perdiccas presumably chose Aegae. The body, however, was hijacked en route by Ptolemy I Soter.
Tomb of Alexander the Great | Introduction
Later Persian writers associate him with philosophy, portraying him at a symposium with figures such as Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, in search of immortality.
Alexander the Great | In ancient and modern culture
The first excavations were done by Anastasios Orlandos in 1932. In the ancient city the temples of Athena and Asclepius, the acropolis, the cemetery wall and some buildings have been found.
Alifeira | History
This city's walls covered a vast area, which included a large area of farm land, and could therefore hold out almost indefinitely against a siege. However, instead of finding the city closed to him, he found that it was open to him. The Persian satrap Mazaeus decided to capitalise on Alexander's famed generosity and let him into the city. It was as a result of this that Mazaeus was appointed satrap of this city and surrounding region, a lucrative post. It was Alexander's practice to, as much as possible, leave the old governors in their positions - a practice he had learned from Cyrus the Great.
Battle of the Uxian Defile | Background