Just how good of a fighter/warrior was Alexander the Great?

by stevie_janowskii

Says it all in the title. Not discussing his generalship, or leadership ability, I'm solely referencing his actual skill as a fighter.

oudysseos

I'm not sure on what basis you think that this question can be answered? We have no primary sources on Alexander, only secondary writers from long after the fact (Arrian wrote some 400 years after Alexander died), and even if we did have, say, Ptolemy's book, I seriously doubt that it would have dealt with this topic in any but the most superficial fashion.

So how can we possibly know his prowess as a sword fighter or whatever? The anecdotes that come down to us, like his killing of Cleitus, or his arrow wound sustained during the Mallian campaign, are so encrusted with semi-legend that all we can conclude from them is that he was an active soldier-general (in itself not at all unique), often involved in hand-to-hand combat, and badly wounded several times (also not unique). Whether or not he was a better fencer than Julius Caesar or Genghis Khan is not a question that can be seriously entertained.