v31_0042 - MACEDONIA - REGNO DI MACEDONIA - ALESSANDRO III IL GRANDE Unité de bronze, (MB, Æ 17)

MACEDONIA - MACEDONIAN KINGDOM - ALEXANDER III THE GREAT

(336-323 BC)

Coinage in the name and Alexander III the Great type

Alexander III the Great is the son of Philip II of Macedon and Olympias. He was born in 356 BC, when Philip's horses were triumphing at the Olympic Games. On the death of his father, who was assassinated in 336 BC, he became king of Macedonia at the age of twenty. He immediately crushes the Thebans and razes the city which had revolted. In 334 BC, he went to Asia and, after the victory of Granicus, set out to conquer the Achaemenid Empire, which would take him to Persepolis, then to the gates of India. Back in Babylon, in 325, he married Roxane who gave him a son. Two years later, he died without having completed his work, aged thirty-three..