Beginning of Essay
Alexander the Great, a patient and often devious man; had never struck without careful planning. The youthful, headstrong Alexander liked to settle problems by immediate action. Making decisions with great speed, he took extraordinary risks; his success was achie ....

Middle of Essay
.... treachery; . The city was destroyed and its people sold into slavery or killed. All of the city_s buildings were destroyed except for temples and the house of Pindar the poet. Pindar was long dead, but Alexander wanted to prove that even a Macedonian conqueror could be a Hellene. The savage lesson of Thebes brought results, the Athenian assembly quickly congratulated Alexander, and the Greek states, with Sparta as the continuing exception, remained Macedonian allies. Alexander now took on a project that Philip had planned but never carried out: an invasion of Persia. He decision to do this was purely a political one. For a century Persia had i ....