Peter Jones
International Man of History
Alexander the Great: A Life in Legend
By Richard Stoneman
Yale University Press 314pp £20 order from our bookshop
Ancient Greeks regarded Macedonians as a collection of oiks. But the Macedonian Alexander the Great was a passionate Graecophile. Indeed, his father Philip II had (apparently) made Aristotle his tutor.
So when Philip, having conquered the Greek mainland, was assassinated in 336 BC, Alexander decided to prove what a good Greek he was. Between 490 and 479 BC the Persians had attacked Greece, but been repelled. Alexander announced his intention of taking revenge against them. In 334 BC, with Philip’s superbly trained army at his back, he set out on an epic trail which was to bring him revenge, glory, riches, empire – and immortality. For though Alexander never made it back to Greece (he died in Babylon in 323 BC), he left such an indelible mark that word of him and his exploits spread far and wide.
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