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…
REVIEW BY MARC DeSANTIS Alexander the Great of Macedonia is one of the best-known figures of ancient history. Comparatively large amounts of written material concerning his short but extraordinarily eventful life have survived from ancient times. This is a boon…
REVIEW BY SARAH GRIFFITHS Students of Egyptian history have been denied books on the Ptolemaic rulers as, according to Guy de la Bédoyère, ‘some Egyptologists visibly wince when pressed by publishers to include a section on Ptolemies’. This has been…
REVIEW BY MARC DESANTIS Alexander of Macedonia is known as the Western world’s greatest conqueror. Not for nothing has he been given, since antiquity, the appellation ‘the Great’. In just 11 years, he drove his army of superb cavalry and…
REVIEW BY SG This is the first of three planned books on the last of Egypt’s dynasties, written not by an Egyptologist, but by a specialist in Classical and Hellenistic Greek history. This initial volume, covering the reigns of the…
Review by Matthew Symonds When we think of Alexander the Great, it is his exploits as an adult that spring to mind. He is the audacious leader who landed an army in Asia at the age of 21 in a…
REVIEW by MARC DeSANTIS The death of Alexander the Great in Babylon in 323 BC left the empire he had conquered without blood heirs ready to take up the heavy burden of governance. Thus, in the days following his passing,…
He is one of the most famous figures in human history, the subject of countless legends, and a commander regularly claimed as the greatest of all time. But who was Alexander the Great really? We know that he was born…
Which Persian king did Alexander defeat at the Battle of Gaugamela?
Alexander the Great’s ambitions of conquest took him far from his Macedonian home and into Asia and Babylon, where he died. Ursula Sims-Williams investigates the mythical legacy of Alexander in the East, where different traditions cast him variously as an accursed figure, a philosopher-king, and even a prophet.
From Ahmose I to Horemheb, the depiction of kings in Egypt’s 18th Dynasty was a tale of tradition and innovation. Even as the image of the chariot-riding warrior pharaoh became entrenched, there were more radical changes to come with the Amarna style of Akhenaten, as Guy de la Bédoyère explains.
A new exhibition at the British Library explores the 2,000-year history of storytelling and myth-making surrounding Alexander the Great.
Alexander the Great: the making of a myth is at the British Library in London until 19 February 2023.
He inherited the kingdom of Macedonia (in modern-day Greece) at the age of 20. By the time of his death, just 13 years later, he had created an empire that covered two million square miles – stretching across three continents, from the Danube and the Nile to the Himalayas – and all without losing a battle.
Graham Goodlad surveys the remarkable career of ancient history’s most successful warlord.
Neil Faulkner analyses one of history’s greatest tactical triumphs.
The most exciting discovery was that of an intricately sculpted and well-preserved alabaster bust of Alexander the Great.
The story of Alexander the Great, the dashing young prince who conquered vast swathes of the world before his mysterious death at the age of just 32, is a familiar one. It has fascinated historians for over two millennia, but…
In the mid 4th century BC, Greece experienced a seismic convulsion whose shockwaves would be felt as far away as India, when an energetic young commander took the throne of Macedon, led his army to a string of victories, and…
Sparta is famous for its warrior tradition, Athens for its intellectual and artistic achievement. But what of Thebes? As ancient historian Paul Cartledge explains, Thebes too had a most distinctive image.
Neil Faulkner analyses Scipio’s greatest victory.
On the plain of Pasargadae, Cyrus the Great founded a spectacular garden palace. Nothing like it had ever been seen in the region before, raising questions about where the idea came from, how the garden was maintained, and even where the inhabitants lived. Recently, an Iranian-French team under Rémy Boucharlat went in search of the answers, as Andrew Selkirk reveals.
How did Alexander the Great tame rebellious provinces? According to the ancient sources, he established a chain of fortresses to keep the peace after insurrection in Uzbekistan. In 2003, one of these posts was finally found, allowing Leonid M Sverchkov and Nikolaus G O Boroffka to follow in the footsteps of the celebrated Macedonian king.
Brian English analyses the battle that broke the military power of Ancient Greece.
In his second article, Paul Rahe analyses Sparta’s response to the mortal challenge posed by the Persian invasions of the early 5th century BC.
The search continues for Military Times’ greatest leader of all time. This month Alexander the Great and George Washington are under the microscope.