Alexander’s achievements must be viewed in the historical milieu of his reign, especially with respect to the well-developed anti-Persian sentiments prevalent at the time. Panhellenism, the unification of the Greeks, was a widespread and popular idea among Athenian intellectuals, and both Philip and Alexander each gained support for an invasion of Asia Minor from the Greeks by appealing to this cultural ideal. Alexander’s official, contemporary biographers would have either consciously or unconsciously cast the events of his campaign in a panhellenic light. Thus the Macedonian and Greek forces are described in terms similar to those used for the brave Greeks during the invasions of 490 and 480BC, despite the fact that now the Greeks were the aggressors and that the army was led by a non-Greek: Alexander of Macedonia.
