• As a legend, Alexander the Great had real staying power. At 20, he began to lead armies and changed his world completely. Cutting a wide swath across Europe, he swept through the Middle East, across Asia, and deep into India’s midsection.
• A thinker, a reader, a brilliant strategist, a farsighted leader, he did more than conquer by force. He made it desirable to speak Greek, to copy Greek ideas and ways of life, to marry Greeks. Centuries before the
Romans ever dreamed of it, Alexander captivated the eastern half of the Mediterranean world  by transplanting Greek culture everywhere. He founded over a dozen cities, all immodestly named Alexandria—many still in existence today.
• Once Alex died in Babylon, his companions in conquest fought for decades, finally divvying up their leader’s vast geography into four pieces. They weren’t evil or incompetent–just smaller men.
But the mystique of Alex lived on. Even in death, he was different, his body miraculously remaining uncorrupted. Embalmed in honey, swathed in layers of gold like an ancient pharoah, Alexander the Great became a world wonder, a holy object of veneration.
• Some, jealous of his post-mortem power, came to purloin his magic. Emperor Caligula visited Alexander and stole his cuirass, the chest armor worn by the man who’d led his troops everywhere.
• Emperors, philosophers, Roman senators, tyrants hoping to keep a grip—they all came to his place of eternal rest to pay homage to the young man who’d raced through the world and set it afire in such a new way.

wearing a seashell crown and Alex’s stolen breastplate,the delusional Caligula “defeated” the god Neptune

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