Alexander the Great
Darius' palace at Persepolis
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When Alexander finished conquering Persia, he burned Darius' great palace at Persepolis: only ruins are left today. Then he marched further east with his army up into the mountains of Bactria (modern Afghanistan). Even this was still land that had been inside the old Persian Empire, and so Alexander was determined that he would conquer it too.
Alexander's war in Afghanistan
Bactria was hard to conquer, because small groups of Bactrian soldiers could hide in the mountains and Alexander had to fight them little by little. But Alexander gradually made alliances with the local kings. He married a Bactrian princess, Roxane, to help seal the deal, and he settled a lot of his Greek and Macedonian soldiers in new cities in Bactria to watch out for rebellions there.
Then Alexander moved south, across the Kyber Pass into what is now Pakistan. Here he fought North Indian kings and queens Cleophis and Porus and others, and his armies met elephants for the first time. Still he was within the boundaries of the old Persian Empire - but now he had finally finished conquering it all. Should he go on even further east, across the Indus River?
More about Alexander
To find out more about Hellenistic Greece, check out these books from Amazon.com or from your local library:
Oxford First Ancient History, by Roy Burrell and Peter Connolly (1997). Lively interviews and pictures make the ancient Mediterranean come to life. For middle schoolers.
Alexander the Great, by Samuel Willard Crompton (2003). For teenagers.
Alexander the Great, by Robin Lane Fox (reprinted 1994). Lane Fox is a good writer.
The Hellenistic World and the Coming of Rome, by Erich S. Gruen (1984).
The Greek World After Alexander, 323-30 BC, by Graham Shipley (2000). Takes a more positive view of the Hellenistic period than Gruen, but it's not as entertaining to read.
