![]() I followed him through Babylon, up through Kabul to Samarkhand then down the Indus, where he met the first elephants of war. Heading south, he entered Egypt through Memphis, where they proclaimed him son of Amon, judge of the dead, whose name means "hidden one." Under rule from Alexandria, the classic culture of the great Pharaohs was restored. Perhaps because of the challenge it represented: the ancient world's greatest puzzle was there, a knot that couldn't be untied. I followed the path of Alexander's war machine along the black sea coast, imagining his armies taking port after port, blood on ancient bronze. I wanted to have something to say should we meet in the hall of legends. I wanted to match his accomplishment, bringing an age of illumination to a benighted world. Next, I departed for Northern Turkey, to retrace my hero's steps. to demonstrate the possibility of achieving anything starting from nothing. perhaps unnecessarily, though who can judge such things? Yet how he nearly approached his vision of a united world! I was determined to measure my success against his. Ruling without barbarism! At Alexandria, he instituted the ancient world's greatest seat of learning. He died, thirty-three, ruling most of the civilized world. A young army commander, he'd swept along the coasts of Turkey and Phoenicia, subduing Egypt before turning his armies towards Persia. The only human being with whom I felt any kinship died three hundred years before the birth of Christ. Faced with difficult choices, I knew nobody whose advice might prove useful. ![]() Do you understand? My intellect set me apart. My inheritance offered life long idle luxury, and yet, needing nothing, I burned with the paradoxical urge to do everything. By seventeen, my parents were both dead, and I faced a different decision. Perhaps I decided to be intelligent rather than otherwise? Perhaps we all make such decisions, though that seems a callous doctrine. What caused such precociousness? My parents were intellectually unremarkable, possessing no obvious genetic advantages. Entering school, I was already exceptionally bright, my perfect scores on early test papers arousing such suspicion that I carefully achieved only average grades thereafter.
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