Alexander the Great: a Spartan general or an Athenian democr

[maximus]

Hello all,The direct poles of ancient hellenic ideals were, most probably, those of Athens and Sparta.
I was wishing to convey the question whether Alexander the Great was a man who let his ideals and beliefs be the main leader in his life or those of a general who treats his life,much like his fathers, campaign after campaign. Would his thirst for power and glory be sated with the Persian empire or would he have gone West?

[jona]

I think that few ancient Greeks would have recognized these two poles. In their view, there were four types of society: monarchy, oligarchy, democracy (Athens), and mixed constituton (Sparta). Alexander and Philip were monarchs, not democrats or proponents of the mixed constitution.Jona

[ancientlibrary]

Isn't there some sort of category error here? On
the one hand we have Athens/Sparta. On the
other we have idealistic/opportunistic. They don't
seem particularly related to me. Athens was
plenty opportunistic at times (eg., the invasion of
Sicily). And Spartans had ideals, just not ideals
we might like. .In Greece Alexander favored oligarchies; in
Greek Asia he favored democracies. In both
cases he was acting according to his interest,
flipping power relations so the former
underdogs might support him. Clearly
Alexander was not principally motivated by these
ideologies..There's also something odd about the ideology
of monarchy. There were indeed monarchical
ideologies in antiquityGÇösee for example the
fragments of Ecphantus. But are kings
monarchists? I rather think Alexander was not a
fan of monarchy per se, but of being the
monarch!