Three Historians Of Alexander The Great

Our knowledge of Alexander the Great is derived from the widely varying accounts of five authors who wrote three and more centuries after his death. The value of each account can be determined in detail only by discovering the source from which it drew, section by section, whether from a contemporary document, a memoir by a companion of Alexander, a hostile critique or a romanticizing narrative. In this book the three earliest accounts are studied in depth, and it becomes apparent that each author used more than one source, and that only occasionally did any two of them or all three use the same source for an incident or a series of incidents. This book will be of value to ancient historians and of interest also to those studying Alexander the Great.

Plutarch and Arrian have contributed more than any other ancient authors to our picture of Alexander the Great, but since they wrote four or more centuries after his death the value of what they said depends upon the sources of information on which they themselves drew. In this 1993 book the attempt is made to define and to evaluate those sources in a detailed study, analysing the historians' works section by section and comparing them with other accounts of the same episodes. This volume completes Professor Hammond's study of the five Alexander-historians begun with Three Historians of Alexander the Great (Cambridge University Press, 1983) and lays a basis for work in this area.

This revised biography includes new material and extensive reference to literary sources. Professor Hammond's other works include "The History of Macedonia" and "Studies in Greek History". He also collaborated on "The Oxford Classical Dictionary" and "The Cambridge Ancient History."

Alexander the Great: A New History combines traditional scholarship with contemporary research to offer an innovative treatment of one of history's most famous figures. Written by leading experts in the field Looks at a wide range of diverse topics including Alexander's religious views, his entourage during his campaign East, his sexuality, the influence of his legacy, and his representations in art and cinema Discusses Alexander's influence, from his impact on his contemporaries to his portrayals in recent Hollywood films A highly informed and enjoyable resource for students and interested general readers

This volume tries to tackle the most serious problem facing modern Alexander the Great studies: that of inadequate sources. Its principal interest is in surviving ancient continuous accounts (Diodorus, Curtius Rufus, Plutarch, Arrian, and Justin), which are at least three hundred years younger than Alexander and in many ways one-sided in their Greek bias, often promoting the view of Alexander within the narrow bounds of a Western conqueror. The papers in this volume deconstruct these accounts and search for sources used by their authors, principally in narrative of eye-witnesses and other authors of the first generation after Alexander, including his court historian Callisthenes and his companions Onesicritus, Aristobulus, and Ptolemy. They search for fragments of ancient literary works known from papyri and for shadowy accounts created on the Persian side like the "mercenaries' source". Some papers look into propaganda patterns of the age of Alexander and their connections with cliches of Egyptian literature. Some investigate a parallel tradition on the last will of Alexander, enshrined in I Maccabees, and best known from the Alexander Romance. Finally, papers in this volume examine post-classical rendition of Alexander: Jewish from the Talmud to Josippon and Byzantine, composed of separate textual traditions of various ancient authors, with Plutarch taking pride of place.

Although written over four hundred years after Alexander's death, Arrian's account of the man and his achievements is the most reliable we have. Arrian's own experience as a military commander gave him unique insights into the life of the world's greatest conqueror. He tells of Alexander's violent suppression of the Theban rebellion, his defeat of Persia and campaigns through Egypt and Babylon - establishing new cities and destroying others in his path. While Alexander emerges as a charismatic leader, Arrian succeeds brilliantly in creating an objective portrait of a man of boundless ambition, who was exposed to the temptations of power.