On the same day Alexander III of Macedonia was born in 356 BCE, the famous temple of Artemis at Ephesus was destroyed by fire. The soothsayers wailed that somewhere in the world a torch had been lit that would consume all Asia. The portent proved true. Alexander swept into Asia like a devouring blaze whose intensity none could endure. As he surveyed the fortress city of Tyre, a high island of rock severed from the mainland by a deep, windswept channel, perhaps even he wondered if here the flame would be quenched.
In the early spring of 334 BCE, Alexander marched to the Hellespont, the narrow strip of water dividing Europe from Asia. The strait was not only the most practical crossing place, it also held symbolic significance as the very passage taken by the Persian king Xerxes when he invaded Greece nearly 150 years before. The subsequent battles at Thermopylae (480 BCE), Salamis (480 BCE), and Plataea (479 BCE) were enshrined in Greek memory as imperishable monuments to the defense of freedom against despotism. Alexander sought such associations to support the claim that his conquest was a panhellenic crusade to avenge wrongs done to the Greeks by the Persians rather than a quest for personal gain or glory.
Yet Alexander’s status as an advocate of Greek freedom was problematic. He had commanded the left wing of the Macedonian army at the Battle of Chaeronea (338 BCE) that destroyed the independence of the Greek city states. His father, Philip II, had united all the Greeks except the Spartans into a single federation called the League of Corinth. with himself as Hegemon. To place the final seal upon this unity, he put before the Federal Council his greatest project—a
