book report - The Genius of Alexander the Great by Hammond

after reading about Ghengis Khan and Thermopylae where the Greek Spartans faced the Persian army and held them in check despite being outnumbered for several days and reading about the battles afterwards between Athens and Sparta I had to read about Alexander the Great, King of Macedonia and King of Asia. The biography by NGL Hammond, The Genius of Alexander the Great seemed to do the job. Obviously, from the title, we can guess that Hammond is a fan of AtG. He is as much a fan of AtG as Weatherford was of Ghengis. In the same way, this author made me wish AtG was my king. If your city surrendered to him, he didn't kill you. If your city resisted, he'd kill all the men and sell all the women and children into slavery, as the Greeks typically did. But that was only if he wanted to make an example in a new region. One abused city convinced the other cities to surrender. He had no tolerance for traitorous Greeks, even if their treachery was decades old. One city had caved in to the Persians and had committed some blasphemy by how they treated their temples. Persia had relocated them to Afghanistan. When Alexander found them, he killed them all. When he first crossed the Hellespont and defeated a Persian army, he had all the Greek mercenaries in the army killed in cold blood, all but 2,000 of the 20,000 who opposed him. I learned he was serious about his religion. He offered many sacrifices to the gods along the way, new and old. He didn't want to leave any neglected. He didn't try to change the norm for a region. He just wanted them to acknowledge him as king of Asia and send him tribute or supplies or soldiers. He stopped at the Indus River because it turned out not to be the end of the world as Aristotle predicted and his homeboys were homesick. He was injured frequently in battle. Arrows, missiles, swords, all took a toll on his body, but it was in Babylon where he met his end. Just before he launched his invasion into Arabia, he died of malaria. One mosquito can get past the body guards and armor of one of the most successful generals in history and do what no army or treachery could do. Truly our lives are but a breath.