3. Alexander Magnus
Famously known as Alexander the Great, he was one of the greatest kings in antiquity and precursor of Hellenization. Alexander III of Macedon, or Megas Alexandros as the Greeks called him, extended the Macedonian Empire of his father from the southern Balkan Peninsula to Egypt (where he established Alexandria) and India in less than 15 years.
Born in 356 BC to Phillip II, King of Macedon, he spent his early years under the tutelage of Aristotle and fighting Persians as a young warrior. After his father’s death in 336 BC, he took the throne and led the almost-unbeatable Macedonian phalanxes across the extensive Persian Empire and close to India. They fought 17 major battles – many of them outnumbered – winning all of them and only losing less than 17% of his army in each battle.
At Issus and Gaugamela against King Darius III, where he had half of the Persians’ forces, Alexander only lost about 7000 men and around 1000 men respectively, while the Persians lost 20,000 men and more than 40,000 men, respectively. After Darius III’s assassination days after Gaugamela, Alexander charged beyond Persepolis toward the Indus River only to be stopped by Indian kingdoms and his own men who were tired and wanted to head home. Alexander the Great died in Babylon on his return in 323 BC, having established the largest empire of its time. The Empire was later divided among 4 of his generals and plagued with civil strives.