Historia del líder macedonio publicada en 1963 por Ladybird. El texto completo de la historia puedes encontrarlo en www.rinconcete.com

ALEXANDER THE GREAT

Alexander of Macedon was born in the year 356 B.C., more than two thousand years ago. He is known as Alexander the Great because he was one of the greatest soldiers the world has known, as well as a wise and just ruler of men.
When he was a boy his father, King Philip of Macedon, summoned the famous Greek philosopher Aristotle to be his tutor, and it was his teaching which influenced Alexander all his life.
In those days the country we now know as Greece was divided into a number of small kingdoms, and Alexander’s father. King Philip, realised that if these kingdoms were joined together, they would be strong enough to resist the Persians who threatened them from the east. Some of the Greek states agreed with Philip, but others resisted, and in the interests of all, Philip was obliged to send expeditions against them.
On one of these expeditions Alexander, at the age of eighteen, was put in command of the left wing of the army. In a battle which broke the power of Thebes, another Greek state, Alexander distinguished himself by his personal courage and wise leadership.
When Alexander was twenty years old, his father, King Philip, was assassinated. The Greek states, which Philip had combined in the League of Corinth, immediately tried to break away, believing that the young King would be too weak to prevent them. They were wrong. With the support of his father’s general Antipater, Alexander was crowned King of Macedon, and at once set himself to the task of regaining the leadership of the Greek states. He marched south, and the sight of the Macedonian army caused the Greeks to elect him leader of the League of Corinth in place of his father.
Meanwhile the tribes north of Macedonia, in what is now Bulgaria, threatened his northern borders. In a swift campaign Alexander marched as far as the Danube, overcoming the tribe of the Triballi. But the tribesmen had sent their women and children across the river, and those who escaped from the battle now joined them. Helped by other tribes, they defied Alexander from the further bank. Ordering his men to cut down trees and make log rafts, Alexander managed to get more than 5,000 men across the Danube. With these he easily dispersed the remaining tribesmen. A rumour that Alexander had been killed on the Danube caused the Greek states once more to rebel .
Alexander did not hesitate. Gathering his army, he again marched south, learning on the way that the King of Persia was supplying the Greek states with arms and money. In fourteen days he reached the town of Thebes, where the rebellion against him had first broken out. The Greek states, amongst them Athens and Sparta, waited to see what would happen. Alexander had expected Thebes to surrender, but he was prepared to attack the town if it did not. The Thebans refused, and marching out to meet Alexander’s army, were decisively beaten. The Macedonian soldiers entered the town with the fugitives. Alexander was usually merciful to those whom he had conquered, and would have spared the town and its inhabitants. The other members of the League of Corinth, who were jealous of Thebes, thought differently, and persuaded Alexander to make an example of the rebels. Thebes was completely destroyed, only the temples and the house in which the famous Greek poet Pindar had lived a hundred years before, were spared. Some of the Thebans escaped to Athens, but eight thousand were sold as slaves. Alexander was now undisputed leader of the Greek states, and he decided to carry out his father’s plan: the invasion of Persia.
He had two reasons for doing this. The King of Persia, by name Darius, had helped the Greek states against him, and Alexander knew that Darius was only waiting for an opportunity openly to attack him. The other reason went back a century and a half. In the year 480 B.C., a King of Persia named Xerxes had invaded Macedonia and Greece, and burnt the town of Athens. Ever since then the Greeks had planned revenge, and now Alexander was able to command a great army of Greeks and Macedonians.
With 35,000 men, armed with javelins, bows, and spears fourteen feet long, he crossed the Dardeneles with flags flying from the masts of his gaily painted ships.