Brave, bold and perhaps bisexual, he was ruling by 16 and conquered all around him by the time he died, aged 33. Now Hollywood has brought him back to life - twice - writes Róisín Ingle
He lived fast, died young and, if those mosaics are anything to go by, left a great-looking corpse. The parallels between Alexander the Great and your typical movie star are too tempting to resist as Hollywood prepares to give us not one but two epic biopics of the all-conquering emperor.
For starters Alexander believed from an early age that he was already a god, after his mother, the ultimate pushy showbiz parent, convinced him his father was not King Philip II but Apollo. A precocious child star, by the age of six he had the confidence to receive VIP guests at the Macedonian court when his father was away. By the time he died, at 33, having conquered an impressive chunk of the world along the way, he was already a fully fledged legend.
Never averse to a juicy bit of self-propaganda, Alexander would have been tickled that two giants in the film industry are battling to be first with the ultimate biopic of the greatest warrior the world has known. Two Hollywood actors at the height of their powers, Titanic star Leonardo DiCaprio and Dubliner Colin Farrell, are preparing to bulk up to portray him.
Leo - Alexander was a Leo himself, trivia fans - is expected to star with Nicole Kidman in the version by the Australian director Baz Luhrmann, and he is well cast given that his character was thought to be fair skinned and a hit with both sexes. Farrell - also known to have his share of admirers - has already revealed that he has been delving into the history books in order to get under the military tactician's skin in Oliver Stone's version.
By now Farrell will have unearthed an array of facts about the leader who onlookers were convinced from the beginning was destined for great things. Born in July 356 BC, he was educated by Aristotle, from whom he learned philosophy, ethics, politics and healing. The first part of the Alexander legend can be traced to when he was a boy of 10. His father was brought a wild horse, and Alexander insisted he could tame it. His father laughed at him, but the boy is said to have whispered in its ear, eventually riding off with a horse that had seemed unbreakable. He named it Bucephalus and rode it on his Asian warpath, founding an Indian city in its name when it died.
Alexander's horse-whispering ways were only one aspect of his greatness. By the age of 16 he was trusted enough to rule in his father's absence and on one occasion put down a revolt in the north of the country. When his father was assassinated - Alexander had been estranged from him since the king divorced his mother, Olympias, to marry another woman - the power transferred to the young warrior.
His first task was to gain control of Greece, which he did with alacrity, plundering the city of Thebes as an example to the rest of the country. Turning his sights to Persia, the area his father had been set to invade before his death, Alexander set about forming an army culled from both Macedonia and Greece.
Arguably his greatest strength was military strategy, and over the next decade he led his troops through Persia, eventually defeating the fearsome King Darius III after bloody battles during which Alexander's troops were usually outnumbered by tens of thousands. Along the way he sliced his sword through the fabled Gordian knot - King Gordius had prophesied that whoever untied it would rule Asia - and won the loyalty of his army by always being in the centre of a battle and being a generous boss.
As territories fell across Asia he was hailed a god in Egypt, where he founded a city, Alexandria, in his name and later became enamoured of Persian dress and customs, causing suspicion among his more conservative generals. He reached India before his army refused to go any further. Alexander then headed to Iran and, with 80 of his closest men, married a local aristocrat.
Some academics have said Alexander was in search of a "universal brotherhood", with races united under him. He did not hold with Aristotle's view that the Greeks were a master race; he believed foreign nations should be embraced and respected - after he had taken them over and subdued them, of course. It is thought he had Arabia and Russia in his sights when he died from what is believed to have been a malarial fever.
His succession was never established - on his deathbed he said only that the largest empire the western world had ever seen should be left to the strongest - and so his empire was split among his generals after his death. Historians say that, although his empire didn't last long, his greatest legacy was the dissemination of Greek culture.
Alexander's colourful personal life has been a subject of as much fascination as his military conquests - particularly his habit of declaring himself of divine birth in order to increase his status as living legend. Theories abound about his sexuality, with some maintaining that he had an Oedipus complex and therefore cultivated relationships with men rather than women. Although he was married he was extremely close to his best male friend, Hephaestion; this relationship is cited by those who believe Alexander was bisexual if not gay.
The version of his life that Colin Farrell is starring in will focus on this still controversial issue. "Alexander the Great was bisexual," the Dubliner has said. "Back then there was no phrase for that. It was just the way society existed. It was just sexuality and about making love to men and women. It was only later on you had to pick one side of the fence. It's amazing."
Baz Luhrmann has described his legendary subject as the "original rock star" and a "freak of nature" (the seal was put on Alexander's rock-star legacy when the heavy-metal group Iron Maiden wrote a song in his honour for Somewhere In Time, their 1986 album). And although Luhrmann also claims there is no competition between the two films, which are due to begin shooting next year, the war to decide which Alexander is the greatest - at the box office and on Oscar night - is likely to be bloody.
Oliver Stone has concluded that Alexander in fact died not of malarial fever - apparently after following a boat trip through reeds full of malaria-carrying mosquitoes with one of his notorious drinking sessions - but was poisoned by his generals, who felt threatened by his increasing megalomania.
"I was intrigued to discover that his famous father, Philip II, had been assassinated under mysterious circumstances," Stone has said. "Alexander, not far from his side that day, was immediately suspected. The assassin himself was quickly slain, and the murder remains an enigma. In Alexander's death we have again strong evidence of a conspiracy of family clans. Did he die of fever or from poisoned wine? I choose to believe the latter."
Let battle commence.
TheAlexanderFile
Who is he?
Alexander the Great
Why is he in the news?
Two Hollywood movies are being made about the great warrior's life. One stars Leonardo DiCaprio, the other Colin Farrell
Most appealing characteristic
Treated his troops well and was often first to go over enemy lines
Least appealing characteristic
Prone to drunken rages and god fantasies
Most likely to say
Where to next?
Least likely to say
I surrender