Alexander the Great was antiquity\'s greatest commander

[Paralus]

What makes Philip II a great commander? We hardly know any particulars of any of his military feats.

You answer, in part, your own question:

Alexander inherited the throne at the age of 20 after his father was assassinated, and had grown up as the heir to the most powerful king in Greece. I doubt that many would be anything but arrogant, headstrong and belligerent in such a case!

Diodorus – gutting (sorry, summarising) contemporary sources – summarises his own summary (16.1.3-6):

For Philip was king over the Macedonians for twenty-four years, and having started from the most insignificant beginnings built up his kingdom to be the greatest of the dominions in Europe, and having taken over Macedonia when she was a slave to the Illyrians, made her mistress of many powerful tribes and states. And it was by his own valour that he took over the supremacy of all Hellas with the consent of the states, which voluntarily subordinated themselves to his authority. Having subdued in war the men who had been plundering the shrine at Delphi and having brought aid to the oracle, he won a seat in the Amphictyonic Council, and because of his reverence for the gods received as his prize in the contest, after the defeat of the Phocians, the votes which had been theirs. Then when he had conquered in war Illyrians, Paeonians, Thracians, Scythians, and all the peoples in the vicinity of these, he planned to overthrow the Persian kingdom, and, after transporting his armaments into Asia, was in the act of liberating the Greek cities; but, cut short by Fate in mid-career, he left armies so numerous and powerful that his son Alexander had no need to apply for allies in his attempt to overthrow the Persian supremacy. And these deeds he accomplished, not by the favour of Fortune, but by his own valour. For King Philip excelled in shrewdness in the art of war, courage, and brilliance of personality.

It is well to remember that Bardyllis had just annihilated Perdiccas’ army and that Philip had “inherited” what remained of a kingdom beset by the same Illyrian king, the Paeonians, the Chalcidian League, Thracians pushing a pretender and an Athens dreaming of empire past with her own pretender. For all of these parties the “Macedonian kingdom” had been the plaything of politics for a generation or more.

By the time of Philip’s death not only had the kingdom been rebuilt, it was the acknowledged military powerhouse of Europe. Not bad considering what Philip was left with.

As for Alexander’s “genius”, if the story of his charging from the field of battle at Gaugamela whilst his centre left and left faced defeat is not simply that – a heroising story – then he displayed gross incompetency. For the record I believe this “pursuit” was a “charge” toward the centre after the initial breakthrough ala Issus.

The man was a “drunk” – likely not greatly worse than other Macedonians – as Aristobulus’ constant apologia suggests. His strategic vision was limited, largely, to the next unconquered people over the horizon and, at his death, Thrace was in revolt if not independent, great areas of Cappadoccia remained unconquered and the Greek states were seething over the “exiles decree”. He had just finished what has been somewhat dramatically referred to as a “reign of terror” removing and executing many a governor of his “well governed” empire. Yet Alexander would sail on to subdue the Arabs, this instability at his back, because “he thought himself quite worthy to be considered by the Arabs as a third god”

His men may have “loved” him but, as Paullus Scipio notes, they loved the rewards more. His men, after the demobilisation of the Greeks, are more and more in need of cajoling, coercion and bribery to induce them to follow him. Diodorus records (17.94.1-5) the loved commander being reduced to outright bribery of the soldiers’ wives in order to win their support in convincing their husbands to agree to yet more conquest. It is instructive that “the Macedonians did not accept it”.

Commeth the conquests; commeth the myth.