Peter Jones

International Man of History

Alexander the Great: A Life in Legend

By

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.

Sign Up to our newsletter

Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.

Follow Literary Review on Twitter

  • Last Tweets

    • 'What in other hands could have been a dry, pedantic account of Christianity’s birth and evolution becomes in Holla… ,
    • RT : One of my favourite literary magazines is celebrating 40 years this year. Here is the September edition of… ,
    • 'Now that the Thames is too fast-flowing to freeze, its spirit’s devotees ... have found other climes for their pri… ,
    • 'Bythell glowers past his till at a world in slow free fall.' on the travails of a second-hand book… ,
    • 'It is a scent of animal wrath, of instinctive need, of brutal life which affects the cultured nostrils of our civi… ,
    • 'The day produced countless stories of chance, of people taking one route or another without realising that the dec… ,
    • In this month's 'Silenced Voices', looks at the case of Azimjon Askarov, the journalist and human rights… ,
    Follow Us