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What did Alexander the Great ACTUALLY look like?

Accurate History

150,652 views

CHAPTERS
0:00 The Alexander everyone pictures
0:47 Why every surviving account is centuries late
4:11 Where the blonde hair actually comes from
5:52 The heterochromia is from a novel, not a history
7:43 The only image made in his lifetime
9:44 The Alexander Mosaic, and what his veterans could check
10:39 Skin colour: where it gets genuinely murky
15:09 What the ancient DNA of his world says
16:43 How the Greeks themselves talked about skin
19:01 Why the modern Alexander is blonde
20:47 The verdict on skin colour
22:08 His face — the one portrait he authorised
23:17 "But wasn't he short?"
28:43 Assembling the man
29:10 Alexander of Macedon

PRIMARY SOURCES USED
Arrian, Anabasis of Alexander — preface, 2.12, 7.28
Plutarch, Life of Alexander — 4, 21, 46
Pseudo-Aristotle, Physiognomonica
Xenophon, Hellenica and Agesilaus
Aelian, Varia Historia
Quintilian, Institutio Oratoria 10.1
Cicero, Brutus 11
Curtius Rufus, Histories 3.12
Diodorus Siculus, Library 17.37
The Alexander Romance (Pseudo-Callisthenes)

Ancient genetics: Lazaridis et al. 2017 (Minoans and Mycenaeans), Clemente et al. 2021 (Bronze Age Aegean), and the 2025 ancient-pigmentation survey of 348 European genomes.

Every image is public domain or CC0. Full credits roll at the end of the film.

#AlexanderTheGreat #AncientHistory #AncientGreece

20 Comments

@mlewvoice8400 3 weeks ago

Historians were constantly making historical figures lighter.

@Stinkybutta1234 1 month ago

Trust me on this, I know from
Experience and annoyance, everyone you know will bring up the fact you have heterochromia. Everyone.

I don’t think I have met someone in the last 40 years that didn’t at some point ask me “do you know your eyes are two different colors ?”

If he had heterochromia his friends would have brought it up.

@ike3094 1 month ago

Interesting. I have dark hair, but working outside all day long in sunshine, my hair turns "summer blond". That may explain Alexander's blond hair, if he had the same tendency.

@johnstjohn4705 1 month ago

Thank you for your fascinating video about one of the most fascinating characters in all of history.

@LRayart 1 month ago

They forgot one very important piece of art; the hunting mosaic from Pella, which depicts Alexander and a companion, either Craterus or Hephaestion hunting a lion together. Both young men have reddish blonde hair and the Alexander figure has light eyes. It was made either in his lifetime or soon after. Also, as the narrator suggests, the Macedonians were highlanders from the North, so what happens? people from Northern climes tend to be lighter complected and lighter haired, Also, his mother was from Epirus, another highland kingdom. As he traveled his hair probably grew lighter still, bleached from the sun. Just a thought.

@lillybart-s9i 1 month ago

Great content==well researched historical video. I have to admit, though, that I enjoyed the recreation here and I especially liked the final scenes imagining Alexander in modern day NYC. The Recreated Alexander looks like he is chilling in NYC--taking selfies, walking in the crowded streets and drinking a cappuccino with new friends at the end. Those images are fun and are kind of like a fantasy time travel movie. Excellent content.

@kimtran2010 1 month ago

More handsome that you can't imagine. He is not short for that time, average height.

@Mack11721 1 month ago

Thank you for presenting a fair and balanced reporting of this historical figure.

@Ben55583 3 weeks ago (edited)

A very well argued podcast based on the available sources and what could be reasonably expected statistically and logically. The image at the end is a very good reflection of how Alexander most likely looked like. Thanks as well for mentioning all the sources. This is the first time I have watched an Accurate History podcast. I am impressed and have subscribed.

@leesahangel5814 1 month ago (edited)

In The Alexander Mosaic, the Battle of Issus, from Pompeii from around 100 BC, he has brown hair and eyes and an aquiline nose. He looks Greek/ Macedonian, from the area he was born. To me, that was always a true depiction of Alexander. I never heard that he was blonde.

@simonhiggins2319 1 month ago

I’m just gonna go ahead and assume he looked Greek… thankyou.

@syw3151 2 weeks ago

This was a very fair examination of the available data. It seems most rational to assume that he appeared like most Greek people basically a Mediterranean olive skin, dark hair, dark eyes.

@spkfeat 1 month ago

Amazing video! Cheers

@seanreynolds516 1 month ago (edited)

Thanks for your thoughtful video. Recall reading in my younger days about later generations inventing details for new audiences : Alexander the Great born of a divinely impregnated virgin ; Napoleon crossing the mountains on a white stallion - recall the painting- but he crossed on a donkey ; Christopher Columbus fearful of sailing off the end of a flat earth - a round earth was old news.
The religiously inclined have heard the famous Jesus story, of men intending to stone an adulteress " let he who is without sin cast the first stone." Absent from the earliest manuscipts. The love of embellishment will not end.

@akramkarim3780 2 weeks ago

Mediterranean skin is known for its ability to change easily; it can shift from fair to bronze after just a few days of intense sun exposure. Alexander’s complexion was likely fair-Mediterranean by nature but tended to bronze with prolonged exposure to the sun. As for his hair, it was most likely dark brown. The color of his eyes is uncertain, though they were probably light brown—typical for the majority of the Greek population—since the possession of rare eye colors, such as blue, would have been noted in contemporary sources

@Black_Dragon_Tea 2 weeks ago

I am giggling a bit seeing people desperately wanting him to be blond

@kyklosdomikiatebe6142 4 weeks ago

Even if there is no source that describes him, we can rely on the characteristics of his race. And here we must explain that the Greeks in general, and the Northerners in particular, had a reputation for being blond. Besides, "Hellene" means blond. What kind of blond? Not what Americans and Northern Europeans consider blond. The blond Greeks had light brown hair, light brown eyes, and a slightly lighter skin tone. Compared to the Persians, he was obviously... blond. In certain (isolated) regions of Greece, these characteristics still exist. My father had them, although I am dark-haired with white skin.

@dawnguerriere6603 2 weeks ago

He was Greek-Mediterranean-so he had dark hair and eyes and olive skin- not hard to guess. Just like with Romans portrayed as looking British -it’s really simple-he was Greek

@TadWall-y5l 1 month ago

Life spent on campaigns, always out in the sun. Skin color is dark. Amazing

@josemauriciosaldanhaalvare1507 1 month ago

Excellent video—a wonderful, focused documentary. It explores the sources and scrutinizes every shred of verification. The ending is apocalyptic: Alexander in New York!!!