Social Upheaval in the Army of Alexander the Great

Lee Brice, Western Illinois University

We tend to think of Alexander the Great of Macedon as the conqueror who united Greece and the Persian empire. Our sources report he was a gifted genius of command who overcame every obstacle. Alexander was the leader, but it was his military that did the conquering in his name. Despite the military successes he enjoyed, the kings occasionally had disciplinary trouble with his soldiers, including several significant outbreaks of military unrest by large numbers of soldiers. Some scholars have suggested these incidents result from perceived changes in Alexander’s personality and leadership, but such an explanation is unnecessary. In this talk, Dr. Brice will review the incidents of indiscipline in the Macedonian army and discuss their causes. The reality is that armies are human organizations with all the strengths and weaknesses of any social group. Such upheaval as Alexander encountered was a predictable outcome of the kinds of fighting in which he was engaged and the societies from which the soldiers came.