Do you think Alexander honestly felt like he was avenging Persian wrongs? Or was that just propaganda to mask his goal of conquest?
I do think that Alexander honestly felt that he was avenging Persian wrongs because one of his main goals was to defeat them because they attacked Greece and had destroyed them at an earlier time. But I also think that he wanted to attack them to gain power. When he first attacked the Persians, he was greatly outnumbered but he had a better strategy. He broke through the Persian lines and they ran away. This was a great defeat for Alexander, but to him, it wasn't enough. Alexander decided to then attack in Iran, the center of Persian life. So at first, it really shows that Alexander wanted to defeat the Persians because of their immense attack on the Greeks previously. They had starved them, brought the plague, and completely destroyed their military and naval forces. Alexander wanting to get revenge on the Persians attacked them and won, but when he wanted to attack again, this is where I think that Alexander was attacking now because he wanted power for himself. Persia was a huge empire, and if he could defeat them and gain all of that power, he would just be another step bigger. The second attack is what shows that it seems to me to be propaganda to mask his goal of conquest. I could also look at it in a way that the second attack by Alexander was putting an emphasis on the first attack so the Persians wouldn't want to try to fight Alexander. So maybe in the end, Alexander's second attack was a smart decision.
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