In Alexander’s wake I visited the Temple of Artemis, one of the seven ancient wonders of the world. Coincidentally it was burned down by a madman the night that Alexander was born. Nowadays the temple stands forlorn and melancholy. Just one column rises full above the swampy ground. It’s hard at first to see in the sparse ruins one of the greatest buildings ever built, but the sheer length of it offers the first easy clue. Since so many buildings in antiquity were frequently damaged then rebuilt, or in a state of construction for centuries, I find it quite refreshing to see a celebrated temple left plain and unreconstructed. Alexander offered to defray all the costs that had been incurred in the rebuilding of the temple on the proviso that they would dedicate it in his name, but the citizens of Ephesus politely declined his attempt at PR and propaganda ‘because it did not befit one god to do honour to another’. Not far south, however, he found a far more willing recipient for his largesse. The town of Priene, always a poor cousin to Ephesus, was only too glad to take his cash and allow him to dedicate their new temple to Athena.

Today Priene stands like a veritable time capsule to the Hellenistic period following Alexander. Designed on a rigid Hippodamian grid square pattern, named after the architect from nearby Miletus, the stepped streets march up the steep hillside almost oblivious of the geography, to Athena’s temple. Standing here, looking out on a breathtaking panorama high above the vast alluvial plain of the Maeander River, the passage of time is instantly obvious. 2,300 years ago, all the land below was sea. Islands which were once witness to great naval battles are now mere bumps in a seemingly endless flat. Yet strolling around Priene, almost always empty of tourists, it’s almost possible to hear the marching feet of Macedonian soldiers amongst the sound of cicadas.

Heading further south, Alexander reached Halicarnassus, the glistening capital of the Hecatomnid dynasty, built on a lavish scale by Mausolus, whose tomb, the ‘Mausoleum’, was ranked as one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. It was also a key naval base occupied by the Persians, who manned the city’s 6.5kms of fortifications. These giant walls, bristling with towers, were a technological masterpiece and only a few decades old. They still snake their way over the hillsides above Bodrum. One can get a real sense of their majesty at the Myndos gate on the west, which stands well preserved and resolute not far from a newly built supermarket.