Nothing is known of his life, except the statement in Plutarch that he declined to visit the court of Alexander the Great.
Having rivalled the exploits of Caesar, he now longed to follow in the steps of Alexander the Great.
The next event we hear of in the history of the city is its conquest by Alexander the Great (331 B.C.), and later by Ptolemy Lagi and Demetrius Poliorcetes.
There is little doubt that Josephus refers to the same events; but there is considerable confusion in his history of the Persian age, and when he places the schism and the foundation of the new Temple in the time of Alexander the Great (after the obscure disasters of the reign of Artaxerxes III.), it is usually supposed that he is a century too late.
The governors appointed by Alexander were, in the west of the empire, exclusively Macedonians; in the east, members of the Old Persian nobility were still among the satraps at Alexander's death, Atropates in Media, Phrataphernes in Parthia and Hyrcania, 1 For the events which brought this empire into being see Alexander The Great.