Alexander the Great Becomes King of Macedon

The event

At just twenty years old, Alexander inherited his father Philip's throne, army, and unfinished ambitions. He moved quickly to secure Macedon and Greece, crushing the rebellious city of Thebes to make an example of any resistance, before turning his attention to the campaign against Persia that his father had planned.

Centuries earlier, the prophet Daniel had described a vision of a male goat coming from the west 'across the face of the whole earth, without touching the ground,' with a single great horn between its eyes, striking down the two-horned ram representing Media and Persia in furious, unstoppable conquest. The angel interpreting the vision states the meaning plainly: 'the shaggy goat is the king of Greece' (Daniel 8:5-8, 21). Written generations before Alexander's birth, this prophecy's precision stands as one of Scripture's most striking testimonies to God's sovereign foreknowledge over the rise and fall of nations.

In 334 BC, Alexander crossed the Hellespont into Asia Minor with a smaller but far better-trained army than Persia's, beginning a campaign that would, within a single decade, bring down the entire Persian world.