" Alexander was, therefore, “the Great,” the greatest man who had ever lived. If Plato was the measure of all subsequent philosophy and Phidias of all attempts to carve a man in marble, Alexander was the measure of man himself. We may think such a value system outmoded or remote, but it was not so long ago that Napolean enchanted Europe in his quest to be the modern Alexander, nor were such values unknown to the generals and kommandants of the twentieth century, and God knows they continue to infect the brains of all those who take up weapons of destruction in what they believe to be a noble cause. Indeed, down the whole course of history, the invincible warrior with raised sword has been the archetypal hero of the human race. "

― Thomas Cahill , Desire of the Everlasting Hills: The World Before and After Jesus