Alexander III. In 336 B.C.E., at the age of twenty, the Macedonian king Alexander III, or Alexander the Great, inherited the resources and wealth of the Macedonian state left to him by his father, Philip II. The problems began almost immediately. Alexander was forced to execute several pretenders to his throne, subdue the Thracians and Illyrians (old enemies of the Macedonians), and quell a Greek revolt before he could travel with his army into Asia Minor to begin his conquest of Persia (in 334). By 331 he had defeated the Persian king Darius in two important battles and crossed into Egypt. The priests there crowned him Pharaoh, and he founded the city of Alexandria (later a center of learning and Greek culture). He invaded Mesopotamia next, where he defeated Darius yet again, pushed across the mountains into Persia proper, and seized...