Alexander the Great: A New History

[Alexias]

Alexander the Great: A New History edited by Waldemar Heckel and Lawrence A. Tritle

This book was originally intended as a quasi-response to Oliver Stone's 2004 film 'Alexander' but it wasn't published until 2009. It is a broad introduction to the study of Alexander, but it is not a book for beginners. You need to know Alexander's history reasonably well well before reading this book. For example, there is an enjoyable essay by Heckel on Alexander's relationship with his army, but then he drops in Demetrius the Bodyguard when discussing the Philotas affair. Demetrius rarely gets mentioned when the Philotas business is discussed and it would have been interesting to have some thoughts on this but it is left kind of hanging.

Some of the essays are more introductory than others, for example Elizabeth Carney's essay on 'Alexander and his terrible mother' is fairly self-evident, by Pierre Briant's essay on The Empire of Darius III is rather too specialised. Daniel Ogden's essay on Alexander's sex life makes the strongest and most explicit case I've seen for Hephaestion being Alexander's eronomos, and Diana Spencer gives an interesting essay on the use of Alexander's reputation for the Roman Emperors, and makes the point that some of the emperors' preoccupation with conquering the Parthian empire may have been to do with emulating Alexander.

Overall worth reading this book.

[marcus]

I second that - definitely worth a read! (Then again, I'll read pretty much everything written by, or edited by Heckel. It's a shame he's now retired, as his output is likely to fall off completely, now, or at least be severely curtailed!