Alexander the Great in Fact and FictionA. B. Bosworth, Elizabeth Baynham This book collects together ten contributions by leading experts in the field of Alexander studies which represent the most advanced scholarship in this area. They span the gamut between historical reconstruction and historiographical research, and viewed as a whole represent a wide spectrumof methodology. This first English collection of essays on Alexander includes a comparison of the Spanish conquest of Mexico with the Macedonians in the east which examines the attitudes towards the subject peoples and the justification of conquest, an analysis of the attested conspiracies at the Macedonian and Persian courts, and studies of panhellenic ideology and the concept of kingship. There is a radical new interpretation of the hunting fresco from Tomb II at Vergina, a new date for the pamphlet on Alexander's last days which ends the Alexander romance, and a re-interpretation of the bizarre portents of his death. Three chapters on historiography address the problem of interpreting Alexander's attested behaviour, the indirect source tradition used by Polybius, and the resonances of contemporary politics in the extant histories. |
Contents
A Tale of Two Empires Hernan Cortes and Alexander the Great | 23 |
Conspiracies | 50 |
Alexander the Great and Panhellenism | 96 |
Alexander the Great and the Kingship of Asia | 136 |
Hephaestions Pyre and the Royal Hunt of Alexander | 167 |
Ptolemy and the Will of Alexander | 207 |
A Baleful Birth in Babylon The Significance of the Prodigy in the Liber de MorteAn Investigation of Genre | 242 |
Artifice and Alexander History | 263 |
Polybius and Alexander Historiography | 286 |
Originality and its Limits in the Alexander Sources of the Early Empire | 307 |
327 | |
353 | |
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Common terms and phrases
Achaemenid Achilles Alexander Alexander's death Alexander's reign Andronikos Antigonid Antigonus Antipater argued Aristobulus army Arrhidaeus Arrian Athenian Athens Babylon Badian barbarians battle Berve Billows Bosworth 1980a Callisthenes campaign Cassander Cassander's claims Cleitarchus Cleitus conquest conspiracy context Cortés Craterus Curt Curtius Cyrus Darius Demetrius diadem Díaz Dimnus Diod Diodorus Egypt favour FGrH Gaugamela Greece Greek Heckel Hellenistic Hephaestion Hephaestion's Heracles Hieronymus historians hunt incident interpretation Isocrates Justin King of Asia king's letter Liber de Morte lion Lysimachus Macedonian Maudslay mercenaries Metz Epit narrative Olympias Onesicritus Pagden panhellenic Parmenio Parmenio's advice Perdiccas perhaps Persepolis Persian Empire Persian kingship Philip Philotas Plut Plutarch Plutarch Alex political Polybius Polyperchon propaganda Ps.-Call Ptolemy Ptolemy's pyre reference Rhodians Roman royal Sarcophagus satrap seems Seibert Seleucus sources story Strabo successor suggests Thebes theme throne Timagenes tion Tomb tradition Trogus troops Vergina vulgate Wolohojian 1969 Zeus καὶ