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80 free Alexander the Great trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Alexander the Great trivia quiz follows the Macedonian king from a palace at Pella to a deathbed in Babylon at 32: the tutor, the horse, the murdered father, the pan-Hellenic invasion of Persia, the sieges of Tyre and Gaza, the oracle at Siwa, the burning of Persepolis, the mutiny in India and the forty years of war his death unleashed. The easy questions cover the famous outline: his father, his tutor, his horse, the knot and the city he founded in Egypt. The harder half is for readers of Arrian and Plutarch: the price of Bucephalas, the boarding school at Mieza, the spear thrown into Asian soil, the ransom Darius offered, the courtesan blamed for Persepolis, the officer killed in a drunken quarrel, the general who talked the army into turning back, the desert march home, the honey-filled sarcophagus, the emperor who broke the mummy's nose, and the sailors' fable that still asks whether King Alexander is alive. Every answer was checked against Alexander the Great's encyclopaedia entry before publishing. If you enjoy this, try our Ancient Greece, Cleopatra and Roman Empire quizzes next.
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Q 01In which city, capital of Macedon, was Alexander born in 356 BC?
Pella
Legend says the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus burned down the same day because the goddess was away attending the birth.
Q 02Who was Alexander's father?
Philip II
He had seven or eight wives; Alexander's mother was his principal wife largely because she had produced the heir.
Q 03Who was Alexander's mother, a princess of Epirus?
Olympias
Plutarch says she dreamed her womb was struck by a thunderbolt on the eve of her wedding, and she always insisted Alexander was a son of Zeus.
Q 04Which philosopher tutored Alexander from the age of 13 until he was 16?
Aristotle
He gave his pupil an annotated copy of the Iliad, which Alexander carried on campaign.
Q 05In return for the tutoring, Alexander's father agreed to rebuild the tutor's razed hometown, which was?
Stageira
He also promised to repopulate it by buying back and freeing citizens who had been enslaved.
Q 06Alexander's schooling with the philosopher took place at the Temple of the Nymphs in which town?
Mieza
It functioned like a boarding school for the sons of Macedonian nobles, the future Companions.
Q 07What was the name of Alexander's horse, which he tamed at the age of ten?
Bucephalas
The horse carried him as far as India, and he founded a city named after it when it died.
Q 08What does the name of Alexander's famous horse mean?
Ox-head
Plutarch says the horse died of old age at 30, on the campaign in India.
Q 09How much did the Thessalian trader ask for the horse that the young Alexander tamed?
13 talents
His father, overjoyed, told him Macedon was too small for his ambitions and bought it for him.
Q 10Alexander tamed the horse after noticing it was afraid of what?
Its own shadow
He turned it towards the sun so it could no longer see the shadow.
Q 11At the Battle of Chaeronea in 338 BC, the 18-year-old Alexander commanded which part of the line?
The left wing
He was the first to break the Theban lines while his father feigned retreat on the other flank.
Q 12How old was Alexander when he became king in 336 BC?
20
He was proclaimed king on the spot by the nobles and army after his father's assassination.
Q 13Alexander's father was assassinated at a wedding by which captain of his bodyguard?
Pausanias
The killer tripped over a vine while fleeing and was cut down by his pursuers.
Which Greek city did Alexander raze to the ground in 335 BC after it rebelled?
Q 21At which battle in 333 BC did Alexander defeat Darius III in person for the first time?
Issus
Darius fled and abandoned his wife, two daughters, mother and a fabulous treasure.
Q 22After Issus, Darius offered what ransom for his captured family?
10,000 talents
Alexander replied that as king of Asia he alone decided territorial divisions.
Q 23Which Phoenician city did Alexander capture in 332 BC after a long and difficult siege?
Tyre
Men of military age were massacred and the women and children sold into slavery.
During the siege of Gaza, Alexander received a serious wound to which part of his body?
Thebes
Its destruction so cowed Athens that Greece stayed quiet for the whole Asian campaign.
Q 15When Alexander asked Diogenes the Cynic what he could do for him, what did the philosopher request?
That he step out of his sunlight
Alexander was delighted and said that were he not Alexander he would like to be Diogenes.
Q 16Roughly how many soldiers did Alexander lead across the Hellespont in 334 BC?
48,100
They were backed by 6,100 cavalry and 120 ships crewed by 38,000 men.
Q 17On landing in Asia, what did Alexander throw into the soil to claim the continent from the gods?
A spear
The gesture advertised an appetite for battle that contrasted with his father's preference for diplomacy.
Q 18What was Alexander's first battle against the Persians in Asia, fought in 334 BC?
Granicus
He used perhaps 13,000 infantry and 5,000 cavalry against a Persian force of about 40,000.
Q 19According to the story, how did Alexander 'undo' the Gordian Knot?
He hacked it apart with his sword
He declared it did not matter how the knot was undone; the feat was said to await the future king of Asia.
Q 20The Gordian Knot was kept at Gordium, the ancient capital of which kingdom?
Phrygia
Alexander was marching inland from the coast, denying the Persian fleet its bases.
Shoulder
His engineers had told him the mound was too high to assault, which only encouraged him.
Q 25At the Siwa Oasis, the oracle pronounced Alexander the son of which god?
Amun
He thereafter often referred to Zeus-Ammon as his true father.
Q 26After his death, coins depicted Alexander adorned with what as a symbol of divinity?
Horns
The Horns of Ammon became one of his most recognisable attributes.
Q 27Alexander was crowned pharaoh in the temple of Ptah in which Egyptian city?
Memphis
The Egyptians seem not to have minded that he was a foreigner absent for virtually his whole reign.
Q 28Which city, later the capital of Ptolemaic Egypt, did Alexander found during his months in Egypt?
Alexandria
It became the first and greatest of the many cities that bore his name.
Q 29At which 331 BC battle did Alexander decisively defeat Darius for the last time?
Gaugamela
Darius fielded scythed chariots; Alexander answered with a double phalanx that parted and reformed around them.
Q 30Darius III was finally taken prisoner and killed by which of his own satraps?
Bessus
The killer proclaimed himself Artaxerxes V; Alexander gave Darius a royal burial and hunted the usurper down.