In my thesis I will focus on Alexander the Great, his path to divinity and the legacy of his cult in Alexandria in the ancient world. The Macedonian ruler employed a variety of tactics in his quest to conquer and build the largest empire possible, and it turns out that his divinity played an important role in achieving this goal. The prophecies surrounding his birth and the questions surrounding who his father actually was were compounded by Alexander's own ideas of divine origin. When he annexed Egypt to his country, and began to rule in the manner of Egypt's previous rulers, the pharaohs, he went to the oasis of Siwa in the Sanctuary of Amun for answers about his origins and future. The priest supposedly proclaimed Alexander a deity and, Alexander, satisfied with the answers, continued his conquests and headed towards Persia. When he finally conquered it, he began to pursue a policy of fusing Persian and Greco-Macedonian culture. He wanted to achieve this by means of the rite of proskynesis, which would elevate him to the rank of deity in the eyes of the Greeks and Macedonians, however they did not take kindly to that. Regardless, he thus officially achieved divinity, which was accepted by the Greeks, in 324 BC by issuing a decree of deification, but his divine reign did not last long, as he died the following year. Despite his sudden death, Alexander did not fade into obscurity, since a cult was formed in Alexandria, revered for his status as the city's founder. Alexander's example as a divine ruler was followed by Hellenistic rulers, and later by Roman emperors.
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