Alexander the Great

Alexander the Great appears in the treatise less as a biographical subject than as a decisive historical example. His conquest of Asia demonstrates that the durability of a new principality depends not only on the conqueror’s ability, but also on the institutions and loyalties of the state he acquires. Because the kingdom of Darius was centralized under one sovereign, Alexander could defeat its ruler, remove the ruling line, and secure the country against popular rebellion. His career also supplies an ideal toward which prudent rulers should aim: the great conqueror becomes both a model of political achievement and an object of deliberate imitation.

Conquest of Asia and the Succession Crisis

Alexander the Great conquered Asia within a few years and died before he had fully entered into possession of his acquisition. Ordinarily, the death of a conqueror might be expected to release the forces of revolt in a newly acquired state. In Alexander’s case, however, the whole country did not rise against his successors. The difficulties that followed came from the successors’ own ambition and mutual jealousy rather than from a general rebellion by the conquered population.

This outcome is important because it separates the problem of conquering a state from the problem of holding it. Alexander’s achievement was not simply the defeat of a foreign army. He overcame the political center of an extensive kingdom and left behind a structure that could continue to be controlled after his death. The question posed by his example is therefore institutional as much as military: what kind of kingdom can be seized by force and then retained when the original conqueror disappears?

Why Darius’s Kingdom Could Be Held

The kingdom of Darius resembled a state governed by a sole Prince. In such a system, the other prominent figures are servants who exercise authority through the ruler’s favor and serve as ministers or governors rather than as independent lords. The people recognize the Prince as the only sovereign; obedience to subordinate officials is obedience to instruments of his power, not an expression of personal affection for those officials.

The treatise contrasts this arrangement with the government of France. The Turkish empire, used as the contemporary comparison for a centralized monarchy, was divided into districts whose governors could be shifted and changed at the ruler’s pleasure. France, by contrast, was surrounded by nobles of ancient descent, each loved by subjects of his own and each possessing a rank that the King could not safely disregard. A centralized kingdom is harder to invade because an attacker cannot easily enlist a native nobility, but once its ruler and armies have been decisively defeated, it is easier to hold. A kingdom of hereditary barons is easier to enter through the discontent of one lord and harder to retain because the surviving lords can repeatedly organize resistance.

Alexander therefore had to defeat Darius completely and strip him of his dominions. Once that defeat had been achieved and Darius had died, no rival authority of comparable standing remained among the people. The ruling family was the principal source of danger, and after its removal the conquered population had no other hereditary lords with sufficient credit to restore the old order. Alexander’s successors could consequently have enjoyed the kingdom without disturbance had they remained united. The only disorders that arose in the kingdom were those that their own ambition and jealousy created.

A Contrast with Other Conquests

Alexander’s success is set against the difficulties experienced by Pyrrhus and other conquerors. The difference, the treatise insists, did not necessarily lie in the greater or lesser merit of the conquerors themselves. It arose from the different political character of the states they attempted to preserve. Alexander encountered a centralized kingdom, while other conquerors faced territories divided among numerous local princes, each capable of reviving resistance through inherited authority and established popular attachments.

The same distinction explains the repeated risings of Spain, Gaul, and Greece against the Romans. Those provinces contained many small principalities, and the memory of their former rulers remained politically active. Rome could not regard its possession as secure while that memory endured. Only after the authority and long continuance of Roman rule had worn it away did the inhabitants come to recognize no lords other than the Romans. Once the old lines had disappeared from political memory, the provinces could be drawn into the struggles of Roman factions according to the influence each faction had acquired there.

The comparison gives Alexander’s conquest a precise significance. His empire was not secure merely because he was victorious, nor merely because he possessed extraordinary personal ability. It was secure because the state he conquered lacked a network of independent hereditary powers capable of turning defeat into continuing political resistance. The example thus supports a broader rule: the form of government in the conquered country can matter as much as the strength or excellence of the conqueror.

Alexander as a Model of Princely Merit

Alexander also belongs to the treatise’s gallery of exemplary founders and conquerors. In discussing wholly new principalities, the author advises the wise man to follow the paths taken by great figures and imitate those who have excelled most. The model is an archer who aims above the intended mark because the arrow, though it cannot reach the height of the aim, will thereby descend upon the target. Perfect imitation may be impossible, but aiming at exceptional examples can still bring a ruler closer to their qualities.

Alexander is named among the figures whose actions a Prince should study. Alongside Alexander the Great stand Moses, Cyrus the Great, Romulus, and Theseus, all treated as founders or rulers whose merit enabled them to establish political orders. Their opportunities were supplied by Fortune, but Fortune alone did not create their achievements. They required the ability to recognize an opening, shape circumstances, and impose institutions upon the opportunity presented to them.

The later discussion of princely education makes Alexander’s exemplary function still more explicit. A Prince should read histories, observe how great men conducted wars, and examine the causes of their victories and defeats. Alexander the Great is recalled as one who sought to resemble Achilles, just as Julius Caesar sought to resemble Alexander the Great and Scipio Africanus sought to resemble Cyrus the Great. Imitation here is not ornamental admiration. It is a form of political training through which a ruler converts the memory of earlier greatness into preparation for future danger.

Limits of the Example

Alexander’s case does not erase the dangers that attend a newly acquired state. His death exposes the continuing vulnerability of conquest when succession is accompanied by rivalry. The country itself did not revolt, but the men who inherited Alexander’s power endangered its unity through ambition and mutual jealousy. The example therefore distinguishes two kinds of instability: resistance arising from the conquered population and conflict generated by those who possess the conquering power.

Nor does the narrative portray Alexander as a universal solution to the problem of rule. The same conquest could have produced a different result in a kingdom resembling France, where hereditary nobles possessed their own subjects and could become the heads of new movements. The durability of Alexander’s acquisition rested on the relation between his personal victory and Darius’s centralized political order. His lasting significance lies precisely in that conjunction. He exemplifies merit and military achievement, but his success also reveals that conquest becomes secure only when the conqueror understands the loyalties, institutions, and memories embedded in the state he has taken.