Pothos.org - All about Alexander the Great

Peter Green - "Alexander of Macedon" 1970

 "For me, in the last resort, Alexander's true genius was as a field-commander: perhaps, taken all in all, the most incomparable general the world has ever seen. His gift for speed, improvisation, variety of strategy; his cool-headedness in a crisis, his ability to extract himself from the most impossible situations; his mastery of terrain, his psychological ability to penetrate the enemy's intentions - all these qualities place him at the very head of the Great Captains of history. The myth of the Great Captains is wearing rather thin these days, and admiration for their achievements has waned: this is where we too become the victims of our own age and our own morality. Viewed in political rather than military terms, Alexander's career strikes a grimly familiar note. We have no right to soften it on that account.

 "Philip's son was bred as a king and a warrior. His business, his all-absorbing obsession through a short but crowded life, was war and conquest. It is idle to palliate this central truth, to pretend that he dreamed, in some mysterious fashion, of wading through rivers of blood and violence to achieve the Brotherhood of Man by raping an entire continent. He spent his life, with legendary success, in the pursuit of personal glory, Achillean kleos; and until very recent times this was regarded as a wholly laudable aim. The empire he built collapsed the moment he was gone; he came as a conqueror and the work he wrought was destruction. Yet his legend still lives; the proof of his immortality is the belief he inspired in others. That is why he remained greater than the measurable sum of his works; that is why, in the last restort, he will continue an insoluble enigma, to this and all future generations. His greatness defies a final judgement. He personifies an archetypal element, restless and perennial, in human nature: the myth of the eternal quest for the world's end, memorably summed up by Tennyson in the last line of Ulysses: 'To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.'"

Arrian - "Anabasis of Alexander" 2nd cent. A.D.

 "That Alexander should have committed errors in his conduct from quickness of temper or from wrath, and that he should have been induced to comport himself like the Persian monarchs to an immoderate degree, I do not think remarkable if we fairly consider both his youth and his uninterrupted career of good fortune; likewise that kings have no associates in pleasure who aim at their best interests, but that they will always have associates urging them to do wrong. However, I am certain that Alexander was the only one of the ancient kings who, from nobility of character, repented of the errors which he had committed. ….."

 "Whoever therefore reproaches Alexander as a bad man, let him do so; but let him first not only bring before his mind all his actions deserving reproach, but also gather into one view all his deeds of every kind. Then, indeed, let him reflect who he is himself, and what kind of fortune he has experienced; and then consider who that man was whom he reproaches as bad, and to what a height of human success he attained, becoming without any dispute king of both continents, and reaching every place by his fame; while he himself who reproaches him is of smaller account, spending his labour on petty objects, which, however, he does not succeed in effecting, petty as they are…."

Robin Lane Fox - "Alexander the Great" 1973

 "A romantic must not be romaticized, for he is seldom compassionate, always distant, but in Alexander it is tempting to see the romantic's complex nature for the first time in Greek history. There are the small details, his sudden response to a show of nobility, his respect for women, his appreciation of eastern customs, his extreme fondness for his dog and especially his horse; deliberately his court artists created a romantic style for his portrait and it was perhaps characteristic that from the sack of Thebes the one painting which he took for himself was of a captive woman, painted in the intensely emotional style which only a romantic would have appreciated. He had the romantic's sharpness and cruel indifference to life; he was also a man of passionate ambitions, who saw the intense adventure of the unknown. He did not believe in impossibility; man could do anything, and he nearly proved it. Born in a half-world between Greece and Europe, he lived above all for the ideal of a distant past striving to realize an age which he had been too late to share;
 
 'My friend, if by deserting from the war before us
 You and I would be destined to live for ever, knowing no old age,
 We would do it; I would not fight among the first,
 I would not send you to the battle which brings glory to men.
 But now, as the ministers of death stand by us
 In their thousands, which no man born to die can escape or even evade,
 Let us go.'"

Justin - "The Epitome of the Philippic History of Pompeius Trogus" 2nd cent. A.D."

 "On taking possession of the throne, he gave orders that he should be styled "King of all the earth and of the world;" and he inspired his soldiers with such confidence in him, that, when he was present, they feared the arms of no enemy, though they themselves were unarmed. He, in consequence, never engaged with any enemy whom he did not conquer, besieged no city that he did not take, and invaded no nation that he did not subjugate. He was overcome at last, not by the prowess of any enemy, but by a conspiracy of those whom he trusted, and the treachery of his own subjects."

Ian Worthington - "Alexander the Great: Man and God" 2004

 "At the same time, despite all this negativity and criticism, one cannot help but admire Alexander. Perhaps the real source of his greatness lies not in his military achievements or indeed in anything he did, but in his complexity as a human being. He comprises within himself both the good and the evil that characterise most human beings, but on a scale a hundred times larger than life.

 "There is no consensus of opinion on Alexander. There never can be, and perhaps there ought not to be. Ultimately, does it even really matter? The fascination with him and his longevity through the centuries and in popular folklore shows the impact he had. This impact was not only on his own state in his own time but was also on most of the known world. That is perhaps the true mark of his greatness: the facts that, unlike so many figures in history, he has endured, and that he is as fresh today as when he lived.

 "Alexander the Great or Alexander the Accursed: how do you like your Alexander?"

Quintus Curtius Rufus - "The History of Alexander" 1st cent. A.D.

 "To be sure, it is obvious to anyone who makes a fair assessment of the king that his strengths were attributable to his nature and his weaknesses to fortune or his youth. His natural qualities were as follows: incredible mental energy and an almost excessive tolerance of fatigue; courage exemplary not just in comparison with kings but even with men possessing this virtue and no other; generosity such that he often granted greater gifts than even the gods are asked for; clemency towards the defeated; returning kingdoms to men from whom he had taken them, or giving them as gifts; continous disregard for death, which frightens others out of their minds; a lust for glory and fame reaching a degree which exceeded due proportion but was yet pardonable in view of his youth and great achievements. Then there was his devotion to his parents (he had taken the decision to deify Olympias and he had avenged Philip); then, too, his kindness towards almost all his friends, goodwill towards the men, powers of discernment equalling his magnanimity and an ingenuity barely possible at his age; control over immoderate urges; a sex-life limited to the fulfilment of natural desire; and indulgence in pleasures which were socially sanctioned.

 "The following are attributable to fortune: putting himself on a par with the gods and assuming divine honours; giving credence to oracles which recommended such conduct and reacting with excessive anger to any who refused to worship him; assuming foreign dress and aping the customs of defeated races for whom he had had only contempt before his victory. But as far as his irascibility and fondness for drink were concerned, these had been quickened by youth and could as easily been tempered by increasing age. However, it must be admitted that, much though he owed to his own virtues, he owed more to Fortune, which he alone in the entire world had under his control."

Nicholas Hammond - "The Genius of Alexander the Great" 1997

 "Alexander combined his extraordinary practicality with a visionary, spiritual dimension which stemmed from his religious beliefs. As a member of the Temenid house he had a special affinity with his ancestors Heracles and Zeus, and he inherited the obligation to rule in a manner worthy of them and to benefit mankind. His vision went beyond Macedonia and the Greek Community. When he landed on Asian soil, his declaration, 'I accept Asia from the gods', and his prayer, that the Asians would accept him willingly as their king, were expressions of a mystical belief that the gods had set him a special task and would enable him to fulfil it. This spiritual dimension in his personality created in him the supreme confidence and the strength of will which overrode the resistance of the Macedonians to his concept of the Kingdom of Asia, and which convinced the Asians of the sincerity of his claim to treat them as equals and partners in the establishment of peace and prosperity. The power of his personality was all-pervading. It engaged the loyalty of Persian commanders and Indian rulers after defeat in battle and the loyalty of Asian troops at all levels in his service. It inspired The Alexander Romance in which Asian peoples adopted Alexander as their own king and incorporated his exploits into their own folk-lore. We owe to Plutarch, drawing probably on the words of Aristobulus, an insight into this spiritual dimension in Alexander.

 "'Believing that he had come from the gods to be a governor and reconciler of the universe, and using force of arms against those whom he did not bring together by the light of reason, he harnessed all resources to one and the same end, mixing as it were in a loving-cup the lives, manners, marriages and customs of men. He ordered them all to regard the inhabited earth (oikoumene) as their fatherland and his armed forces as their stronghold and defence.'"

Plutarch - "Life of Alexander" 2nd cent. A.D.

 "In Alexander'a case it was this same warmth of temperament which made him fond of drinking, and also prone to outbursts of choleric rage.

 "Even while still a boy, he gave plenty of evidence of his powers of self-control. In spite of his vehement and impulsive nature, he showed little interest in the pleasures of the senses and indulged in them only with great moderation. "

A. B. Bosworth - "Conquest and Empire - The Reign of Alexander the Great" 1988

 "Alexander had become a stock figure of popular literature, an example to be quoted endlessly for praise or blame. That unfortunately is his abiding fate. His achievements in his lifetime were soon forgotten and the world shaped by his conquests had few tangible memorials of him. What remained was and is a folie de grandeur.¹ Every aspiring general at some stage must ask himself 'Alexander potuit, ego non potero?'2 The human cost is all too often forgotten, but it should be set on record. Millions might justifiably lament the glamour and mystique with which Alexander's campaign endued the dirty business of imperial annexation. Non utile mundo / editus exemplum, terras tot posse sub uno / esse viro³ - Lucan's epigram may be exaggerated and one-sided, but with reference to Alexander's posthumous reputation it is only too true."

 ¹ Delusions of grandeur

 ² Alexander could, but can I?

 ³ It is not useful to the world / to set an example, that so many lands can be under one man