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Every new book about Alexander the Great needs to have its own unique selling point if it is to fight its way successfully into public consciousness. In the case of Edmund Richardson’s Alexander: god, king, man that USP is the introduction into the narrative of a host of non-Greek (and non-Latin) documents. These range from inscriptions on stone in Egyptian hieroglyphics and Old Persian, to clay tablets in Akkadian cuneiform, to business accounts written in Aramaic on leather, and texts in Sanskrit, Farsi, and several other languages. Some of these documents, in particular the Babylonian astronomical diaries, have been deployed by modern scholars of Alexander over the last few decades, while others have received considerably less attention. Richardson also describes a number of computer simulations that have apparently revealed the location of the Rock of Aornos, and the behaviour of Alexander’s troops whenled through the Gedrosian Desert; some further information about these would have been appreciated.
While the texts are interesting in their own right, many of them contribute relatively little to Richardson’s interpretation. Rather, they are there to provide enrichment to his narrative. In some cases, their relationship to Alexander is somewhat tangential – several are dated many centuries before or after his lifetime. For example, the account of the founding of Alexandria in Egypt, based solidly on the Roman imperial-period Alexander histories (Diodorus, Quintus Curtius, Plutarch, Arrian, Justin), leads to a description of the Library there, illustrated with a quotation from a tablet from the library of the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal, who had died 300 years before Alexander came to Egypt. Richardson omits from his discussion, too, the much-debated ‘Satrap stele’ of 311 BC, which refers to the site where Alexandria was supposed to have been founded, but mentions no city, leading some scholars to speculate that Alexandria was founded not by Alexander in 331 BC, but by Ptolemy over 20 years later.
This leads to my main complaint about the book. Richardson has built his narrative by bringing together stories of Alexander told by the Roman imperial-period historians, but the earliest of the surviving accounts of Alexander’s career was written at least 250 years after the king’s death, and all of the surviving accounts are written by authors with their own agendas. Additionally, stories about Alexander were popular with moralising writers who would think nothing of ‘improving’ an anecdote to make their point better; then these moral tales would find their way back into the fuller narratives. Richardson is not alone among modern scholars in viewing these moralising representations as a way to understand Alexander’s character. As a result, his Alexander is driven by insecurity, fear, anger, delusion, and countless other negative emotions. The popular cliché is cited: ‘Being an administrator, not a conqueror, was beyond Alexander’. A closer examination of the non-Greek documents, which show how well Alexander was able to fit into the various roles he had to adopt to rule his sprawling empire, might have resulted in a more original discussion. However, for those who are looking for another telling of the life of Alexander, this could be a refreshing option.
REVIEW BY HUGH BOWDEN
Alexander: god, king, man
Edmund Richardson
Bloomsbury, £25
ISBN 978-1526658173
