The world’s first superhero

In 321 BC, a very strange procession set out from Babylon. Alexander the Great was on the move. He had died two years earlier, in 323 BC, at the age of 32. Over the course of a few brief years, this astonishing soldier and statesman had transformed the ancient world. He marched his army from Macedon through Asia Minor to Egypt. He defeated the Great King of Persia, Darius III, in two enormous battles. The cities of the Persian empire – Babylon, Susa and Persepolis – fell before him. By his mid-20s, he had more wealth and power than any European in history. But it was not enough.

Alexander marched his army further and further east, across the heart of Asia and the mountains of Afghanistan, into battle with elephants and into lands where even the gods of Greece had never set foot.

He was never defeated in battle, but after many long years of campaigning, his soldiers laid down their arms on the banks of an Indian river, and would march no further. Alexander reluctantly led his army back to Babylon, where he died under mysterious circumstances (though some thought he had been poisoned).

So ended one of the most extraordinary lives in ancient history. But, in many respects, the story was only just beginning,