Alexander Essay Hints

Writing an introduction

An introduction needs to overview the key ideas of the essay. You should try to answer all the questions in a general fashion within one paragraph

The Question:

At the end of 333 BC, Alexander defeated the Persian king, Darius III, on the field of battle at Issus, in the south of modern Turkey.

Discuss: • the events leading up to the battle of Issus • the tactics used by each of the commanders in this battle • the reasons for Alexander’s victory.

How costly was defeat in this battle for Darius?

Various introductions:

In this essay I will discuss the reasons why Darius III lost the battle of Issue. It was a costly defeat for Darius.

On a sunny day in 333 BC on a coastal plain somewhere in Persia a great battle was fought. Alexander the Great destroyed and humiliated the rabble of a Persian army despite having massive odds against him.

The battle of Issus in 333 BC was a significant point in Alexander’s campaigns in the Persian Empire. It was here that for the first time, he defeated the Great King, Darius III in open battle. A key reason for the defeat lay in the events that led to the battle being fought on a narrow coastal plain. This meant that Darius was unable to use his superior numbers to gain any sort of tactical advantage. But it was also Alexander’s ability to seize on these advantages that led to such a decisive defeat. It could be argued that Darius and his people never fully recovered from the psychological blow inflicted by at the battle of Issus.

Writing in detail rather than in general (Achieved vs Merit)

The involvement of Olympias and/or Alexander in the murder of Philip

Achieved level paragraph

Olympias was suspected of being involved because she was on very bad terms with Philip at this time. The king had recently taken a new wife, a Macedonian of noble birth called Cleopatra. Olympias was furious about this marriage, because if the new queen produced a son he might be a future rival to her own son, Alexander, especially since Alexander himself was not of pure Macedonian blood – Olympias was from Epirus.

Merit level

Olympias was suspected of involvement in the murder of her husband because she was at the time in exile in Epirus. She had been displaced as queen by a young Macedonian noblewoman whom the king was said to love. Philip had taken many wives (and lovers), but Cleopatra was more threatening to Olympias because she could produce an heir of pure Macedonian birth. Such a son might succeed his father instead of her own son, Alexander. At the wedding of Cleopatra to Philip, the new queen’s uncle, a powerful general called Attalus, had even prayed that this might be the case. This prayer had outraged Alexander and following a brawl, he and his mother had fled the kingdom. At the time of her daughter’s wedding, Olympias was still in exile and obviously very bitter about the way Philip had treated her. If she had hoped that her own brother, Alexander of Epirus, might help take revenge, the fact that Philip was now giving his daughter away in marriage to him must have increased her anger.

Excellence would also need to integrate primary source evidence:

Plutarch records that Olympias was held “chiefly responsible” for the assassination of Philip, since she is supposed to have “encouraged the young man’s resentment and spurred him on.”

Other examples of using primary source evidence:

ü Arrian, who has little positive to say about the Persian king’s leadership, explains that Darius was “easily led” by flattering courtiers into abandoning the plains of Sochi for a battle site that “presented Alexander… with an easy victory” – the narrow defile at the river Pinarus that did not allow for open cavalry movement.

ü On one famous occasion, the philosopher Callisthenes refused to perform the ritual of proskynesis. As a result, Alexander did not give him the customary kiss in response. Plutarch writes that Callisthenes departed, loudly announcing that he went “the poorer by a kiss.” Soon after, he was implicated in the Pages’ Conspiracy. Alexander is said to have either had him hanged or carried around in chains in a cage (where he died “fat and infected with lice”).

ü Arrian writes of Alexander’s pothos, that the king was “seized by a passionate desire” to visit the temple of Ammon, because the oracle there was considered “infallible”.