Only he could tame across deserts where it magically rained for him so that he could chase down his mortal enemy and then leave in his wake a more enlightened world and a gorgeous murderous wife. But of course it's not just Assassin's Creed and Call of Duty that celebrate the idea that ennobled violence can lead to a better world. And that takes us to my opinion of how Alexander really came to be great. Millennia after his death in 1798, Napoleon invaded Egypt not because he particularly needed to invade Egypt, but because he wanted to do what Alexander had done. And long before Napoleon, the Romans really worshipped Alexander, particularly the Roman general Pompey, aka Pompeius Magnus, aka Pompey the Great. Pompey was so obsessed with Alexander that he literally tried to emulate Alexander's boyishly disheveled hairstyle. In short, Alexander is great because others decided he was great because they chose to admire and emulate him.