\section{Alexander's Longing}

\lettrine[lraise=0.1]{A}{lexander} the Great (356--323 BCE) 
is one of the most extraordinary examples of ``longing'' in all of human history. Always longing for more. Indeed, there's a famous story of him weeping at the Hyphasis River in India in 326 BCE because his troops refused to go further. He wept because there were worlds he would never conquer.

Alexander's conquest transformed Western Civilization. 
Across his empire he established Greek as a ``universal second language'' 
and the ``Alexander'' coinage as the universal currency. 
With trade barriers of differing languages and currencies removed, 
an explosion of trade and prosperity ensued.

He also founded the city of Alexandria on the Egyptian coast, 
a great melting pot of Greek, Egyptian, Mesopotamian, 
and even Oriental cultures (due to thriving trade with the far East). 
This resulted in an eruption of human advancement that included Euclid 
and his geometry (c.300 BCE), Eratosthenes (276--194 BCE) who measured the 
\textit{circumference} of our \textit{spherical} Earth with astonishing 
accuracy, a water clock invented by Ctesibius (c.270 BCE) whose accuracy 
wouldn't be surpassed for nearly two thousand years, 
to arguably the first recorded woman mathematician: Hypatia (360--415 CE) 
centuries later.

And the Library of Alexandria was the greatest library the world had ever seen. The story is told that a requirement for ships to dock at Alexandria was to bring a book for the library.

But none of this would have come to be if Alexander had stayed home. If he had been content to be king of Macedon only. 

Something compelled him to reach for \textit{more}{\ldots}\footnote{Of course Alexander had his dark side --- the violence of his campaigns was real and sometimes extreme. Yet he could also be remarkably magnanimous with defeated enemies. In the historiography that has come down to us, it's not always easy to separate what is historically true from myth. It's his mythic and archetypal aspect that concerns us here.}
