Most historical accounts of Alexander's exploits are fairly accurate, but give little personal insight. However, one account has been saved in New Athens' Library, and was donated by an anonymous former member of Camp Half-Blood.
The following is a transcript of an audio file, recorded during a conversation between Alexander and a new camper who was asking if he was really "Alexander the Great". It remains here with Alexander's permission, which he gave freely, stating that he had nothing to hide anymore.
“Great.”
I was supposedly great, once.
Born of Zeus, which was kept an utmost secret. Legacy of Ares – many would say I took after him, rather than my father - and long ago in my lineage, Aphrodite. King. Warrior. Undefeated conqueror, warmonger.
Genocidal. Sadistic. Alcoholic. Abusive. Feared.
A monster, celebrated as the greatest warrior to ever live.
I was born of a woman named Olympias – her very name given to honor the gods. Little wonder that she caught Zeus’ eye. Her husband, Philip II, pretended I was his – he hated it to the day he died.
And die he did, and I took control.
Nothing could stop me. Not the embrace of any man, not my love Hephaestion, not my wife many years later, not even the face of my infant son. I was insatiable, driven by madness, I swept the earth, taking everything that I saw. I never lost. Every man and monster fell to my blade, and my armies and I decimated any who dared oppose me.
I know not how I perished. Poison? Allergies? Perhaps the gods themselves decided I was too dangerous to live, that one day I might have fought them too. Indeed, perhaps I would have, had I continued to fight. But my life was snuffed out, and the underworld awaited, with all its punishments.
I deserved every piece of pain they gave me; I see that now. Every man I ever killed dismembered and crippled me, I saw every battle I fought end with my empire burned to ash. Everyone I loved screaming out in pain, every manner of torture imaginable. My mind broke, but in the end… I slowly knit back together. I gave penance. I saw my mistakes, and sought to make amends, even if it meant pain everlasting.
I became a better man, or at least I tried.
One day, after an eternity, Hades himself watched my suffering. He saw me accept it without complaint.
He waved his hand, and for the first time in millennia, it abated.
“What would you do, to change your legacy?”
I answered the only answer worth giving.
“Anything.”
And I was remade. The gods, no, the Fates had decided that I would have one more role to play in the mortal world.
Now in an enchanted body of Iron and Bronze, made stronger and sharper, a metal shell, I protect demigods that cannot protect themselves. I teach them, I raise them, I give all the aid I am able. For if I do not, perhaps one of them will be led astray like I was. No one deserves that life, nor the pain the victims of those conquests suffered.
I will change the future, for myself and them. Perhaps the world at large will always remember as a conqueror. But I hope that to some heroes, I will be remembered differently…
As a teacher. A servant. A protector.
As a good man.