While Philip II is leading a campaign to take over Olynthus, he is informed that his spouse Olympias has borne him a son who, she claims, is "a god born of a god." Philip is angry because he suspects that Olympias has committed adultery and that she was not impregnated by a god. However, General Parmenio advises the king to let Alexander grow up and succeed him.
While growing up, Alexander receives instruction in history, mathematics, logic and other subjects from Aristotle in Mieza. Alexander is eager to rule and tells his tutor that like Achilles he would rather have a "short life with glory" than a "long life of obscurity." Philip then decides to send Alexander to the Macedonian capital, Pella, as a regent to rule the city while Philip is away fighting wars. This is done to prevent Olympias from spreading rumors about her husband's death. Alexander uses this opportunity to rule in his own right — he becomes a pawn of neither his mother nor his father. Alexander later joins Philip and they go on campaigns of conquest together against cities such as Athens in the Battle of Chaeronea in 338 BC. After the battle is won, Alexander demands that no Greek city-state ever bear arms against Pella and that they supply men, arms, and ships for the war against Persia.
Philip divorces Olympias, accusing her of "unfaithfulness", and marries Attalus's niece Eurydice, thereby making her the new queen. This move creates a chasm between Alexander and his father, not only because Alexander's mother has been repudiated but also because his succession hangs in the balance since some men in Philip's court see him as a bastard.
After Philip and his court mock Pausanias, a loyal friend of Alexander, for his great devotion to Alexander, Pausanias, with implied encouragement from Olympias, assassinates Philip, whereupon Alexander kills Pausanias then and there. Eurydice commits suicide, or her murder by Olympias is made to look like suicide; and Olympias has Eurydice's son by Philip, Caranus, thrown into a fire. At this juncture, Alexander claims the loyalty of all Macedonians and assumes the titles of his father. He tells the Macedonians that the Treaty of Corinth still stands. Memnon is exiled for not pledging his loyalty to Alexander.
Alexander embarks on his mission to conquer the whole of Asia. Memnon, who is now in Darius III's court, advises him to retreat strategically and attack Alexander when his supplies run out. However, the lords of Persia underestimate the "boy" Alexander and resolve to fight him at the river Granicus.
After the victory at the Granicus, Alexander goes to Phrygia and solves the challenge of the knot tied by King Gordias by cutting it with his sword.
Before the battle in Babylon, Alexander states that the lunar eclipse which some of his men thought was a bad omen means that "the Persian moon will be eclipsed by the Macedonian Sun" with which Aristander the seer agrees. After being defeated, Darius III flees to the Caspian Gates to build a new army, but his dispirited commanders kill him. In his will, Darius tells Alexander, "Take my daughter, Roxane, for your wife...that our worlds may become as one." Alexander then orders Persian lords who had committed regicide to be impaled upon stakes for their betrayal of their king.
At a drunken revelry in Babylon, Alexander declares, "I am the son of God" (Zeus) and "the world is my domain....We will march to the end of the world." In Athens, news reaches that Alexander is in India and is conquering there, whereupon Aeschines proclaims, "He has outdone the gods."
Alexander takes his status to heart, his arrogance and paranoia increasing to unstable proportions, but the bold young leader's conquests come to an end after he kills his close friend, Cleitus, with his spear following a drunken argument. Grief-stricken and humbled, Alexander returns to Babylon from India, losing many of his men in the process. He marries Roxane at Susa, but falls ill soon after, and asks that his corpse be thrown into the Euphrates to disappear, so that people will think his body went back to the gods. When asked upon his deathbed to whom he will leave his empire, Alexander whispers, "To the strongest."
The sets were designed by André Andrejew and the costumes were designed by David Ffolkes.[6] 11,000 costumes were made for the film and one battle sequence had 6,500 spears, 4,000 shields, 430 horses, and 42 chariots.[13][8] Burton's costumes cost $87,500.[14] 5,000 extras were used for the film and 1,000 cavalry horses were loaned from the Spanish military.[15] The film's soundtrack was done in Rome.[16]
Prince Peter of Greece and Denmark served as a historical adviser for the film.[3][17] The film has multiple historical inaccuracies. Its usage of sigma in its opening titles produces Alsxander the Grsat and the location names on maps in the film are in Latin. Alexander's armor is inspired by later Roman armor.[18] Alexander is also portrayed as exclusively heterosexual.[19] Memnon was depicted as an Athenian rather than as a Rhodian and Roxane was depicted as the daughter of Darius rather than Oxyartes.[20] Historian Robin Lane Fox, who worked on Oliver Stone's Alexander, was critical of the film.[21]
Release
David Ballard, who was seven feet and seven inches tall, was dressed as Alexander to advertise the film.[22] United Artists spent $1 million to advertise the film, with $251,000 being spent on magazine and newspaper advertisements. Thirteen pages were taken out in Life to advertise the film and a comic book adaption was published.[23][24][25][26]
United Artists sought a box office of $20 million and $7 million was required to break even.[23][24]Alexander the Great replaced Carousel as the highest-grossing movie in theaters for one week in April 1956, before falling to second place behind Carousel the next week.[27] The film earned $2.5 million by the end of 1956, making it the 32nd highest-grossing film of that year.[28]
On the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of "0%" derived from 9 reviews, with an average rating of 3.7/10.[30]
A. H. Weiler of The New York Times wrote that despite the film's length "its moments of boredom are rare," and that the battle scenes "make a colorful and thunderous show." He added, "As Alexander, Richard Burton contributes a serious and impassioned portrayal of a man inspired by but still repelled by his father."[31] William Brogdon of Variety wrote that the film had some "long, dull stretches" but "Rossen reaches screen-filling heights with his battle-assemblages, jamming the 2.55-1 anamorphic ratio to its very edges with scene after scene of mass warfare."[32] In his write-up of the Los Angeles premiere, Edwin Schallert stated: "The initial audience had a chance to view some very powerful individual portrayals by Burton, March and others and to witness some overwhelmingly big and spectacular battle and crowd scenes. However, as a piece of storytelling, historical or otherwise, mainly revolving around the title character as a great conqueror for Greece, the film seemed to run off in a dozen and one different directions at practically every stage."[33]
Richard L. Coe of The Washington Post wrote that the film "is, for a movie, so remarkably faithful to historical fact that it is more the pity that, as a movie, it is so boring ... Such is the power of detailed pictures that repetition of battle scenes, leave-takings, orations and intrigue simply becomes dizzyingly meaningless."[34]Harrison's Reports wrote, "Beautifully photographed in CinemaScope and Technicolor, it is without a doubt one of the most opulently mounted pictures ever produced, a magnificent eye-filling epic with a scope and splendor that is alone worth the price of admission to see."[35]John McCarten of The New Yorker wrote that "while the picture has plenty of interesting pageantry, it doesn't offer quite enough drama to hold one's attention for its full length—a matter of two and a half hours. Far too much of that time is spent in detailing the Macedonian's unhappy youth."[36]The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote, "Conviction is considerably dissipated here by Rossen's refusal, in spite of obviously serious intentions, to present character in terms much more convincing than those of comic strip history ... The battle sequences are well composed, but the generally pedestrian style and approach of the production ultimately reduce Alexander the Great to a well-intentioned historical jamboree, protracted and intermittently quite enjoyable."[37]
Hartley Ramsay, writing in the National Board of Reviews, criticized Burton's performance as "petulant and passionless" and its runtime, but stated that the film was "interesting and worth seeing".[38] The review by The Guardian criticized its unfocused and broad story stating that had Rossen "been less ambitious he might have made a memorable work" and that "the result is a great, unwieldy blunderbuss of a film".[39]Alan Brien stated that "Like The Conqueror and Helen of Troy it is an epic that suffers from elephantiasis".[40] The Chicago Tribune's review, written under the pseudonym Mae Tinee, praised the film as "frequently remarkably effective" and that it was "a massive, meaty film, with both the advantages and the handicaps of any efforts to portray ancient history".[41]
R.H. Gardner, writing in The Baltimore Sun, criticized the film as "frequently slow-moving, difficult to follow and cluttered with confusing details", but that it was "perhaps as close to being great as any film-historical since the Olivier production of Shakespeare's Henry V". He stated that Rossen's writing of Alexander "slows down and confuses the action on the one hand, but, on the other, lifts the film from the ranks of the average unimaginative, overblown historical to a position of some distinction". He also praised the costumes, sets, and battle sequences.[20]
Alexander III of Macedon, most commonly known as Alexander the Great, was a king of the ancient Greek kingdom of Macedon. He succeeded his father Philip II to the throne in 336 BC at the age of 20 and spent most of his ruling years conducting a lengthy military campaign throughout Western Asia, Central Asia, parts of South Asia, and Egypt. By the age of 30, he had created one of the largest empires in history, stretching from Greece to northwestern India. He was undefeated in battle and is widely considered to be one of history's greatest and most successful military commanders.
Year 334 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Caudinus and Calvinus. The denomination 334 BC for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.
This article concerns the period 339 BC – 330 BC.
Philip II of Macedon was the king (basileus) of the ancient kingdom of Macedonia from 359 BC until his death in 336 BC. He was a member of the Argead dynasty, founders of the ancient kingdom, and the father of Alexander the Great.
Year 336 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Crassus and Duillius. The denomination 336 BC for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.
Olympias was an Epirote (Albanian) princess of the Molossians, the eldest daughter of king Neoptolemus I of Epirus, the sister of Alexander I of Epirus, the fourth wife of Philip II, the king of Macedonia and the mother of Alexander the Great. She was extremely influential in Alexander's life and was recognized as de facto leader of Macedon during Alexander's conquests. According to the 1st century AD biographer, Plutarch, she was a devout member of the orgiastic snake-worshiping cult of Dionysus, and he suggests that she slept with snakes in her bed.
Philip III Arrhidaeus was king of the ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia from 323 until his execution in 317 BC. He was a son of King Philip II of Macedon by Philinna of Larissa, and thus an elder half-brother of Alexander the Great. Named Arrhidaeus at birth, he assumed the name Philip when he ascended to the throne.
Alexander IV, sometimes erroneously called Aegus in modern times, was the son of Alexander the Great and Princess Roxana of Bactria.
Antipater was a Macedonian general and statesman under the successive kingships of Philip II of Macedon and his son, Alexander the Great. In the wake of the collapse of the Argead house, his son Cassander would eventually come to rule Macedonia as a king in his own right.
The Battle of the Granicus in May 334 BC was the first of three major battles fought between Alexander the Great of Macedon and the Persian Achaemenid Empire. The battle took place on the road from Abydus to Dascylium, at the crossing of the Granicus in the Troad region, which is now called the Biga River in Turkey. In the battle Alexander defeated the field army of the Persian satraps of Asia Minor, which defended the river crossing. After this battle, the Persians were forced on the defensive in the cities that remained under their control in the region.
Memnon of Rhodes was a prominent Rhodian Greek commander in the service of the Achaemenid Empire. Related to the Persian aristocracy by the marriage of his sister to the satrap Artabazus II, together with his brother Mentor he served the Persian king for most of his life, and played an important role during the invasion of Alexander the Great and the decades before that.
Parmenion, son of Philotas, was a Macedonian general in the service of Philip II of Macedon and Alexander the Great. A nobleman, Parmenion rose to become Philip's chief military lieutenant and Alexander's strategos. He was assassinated after his son Philotas was convicted on a charge of treason. His siblings Asander and Agathon would also become prominent members of Alexander's Macedonia.
Eurydice was an Ancient Macedonian queen and wife of king Amyntas III of Macedon.
Artabazos II was a Persian general and satrap of Hellespontine Phrygia. He was the son of the Persian satrap of Hellespontine Phrygia Pharnabazus II, and younger kinsman of Ariobarzanes of Phrygia who revolted against Artaxerxes III around 356 BC. His first wife was an unnamed Greek woman from Rhodes, sister of the two mercenaries Mentor of Rhodes and Memnon of Rhodes. Towards the end of his life, he became satrap of Bactria for Alexander the Great.
Eurydice, born Cleopatra was a mid-4th century BC Macedonian noblewoman, niece of Attalus, and last of the seven wives of Philip II of Macedon, but the first Macedonian one.
The historical and literary tradition describes several of Alexander's relations, some of which are the subject of question among modern historians.
Audata was an Illyrian princess and the first attested wife of Philip II of Macedon.
Pharnabazus III was a Persian satrap who fought against Alexander the Great. His father was Artabazos II, and his mother a Greek from Rhodes.
Sirras or Sirrhas was the son-in-law of the king of Lynkestis, Arrhabaeus, having married his daughter Irra. He participated in an Illyrian-Lynkestian coalition's defeat of the attempted invasion of Lynkestis by the Macedonian king Archelaus. He may have been a Lynkestian prince-regent or an Illyrian chieftain, part of the Illyrian force in a previous and also successful Illyrian-Lynkestian coalition against Sparta and Macedon during the Peloponnesian War.
The Sands of Ammon is the second part of Valerio Massimo Manfredi's Alexander trilogy, following on from Child of a Dream. Continuing the epic story of Alexander the Great, The Sands of Ammon narrates of the Macedonian king's quest to conquer Asia. He and his men storm and conquer Persian towns and harbours; even the legendary town of Halicarnassus is defeated. Alexander's army marches on to the snow-covered Anatolia, where it records yet another few victories. Despite defeating the king Darius III, the city of Tyre and the Towers of Gaza prove to be formidable enemies, although they ultimately have to surrender to Alexander. The Macedonian army then heads south towards the mysterious and epic land of Egypt; and it's here, in the sands of the endless Libyan Desert, that the Oracle of Ammon lies. And what the divine Oracle will reveal to Alexander will change his life forever.
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