What can we learn from the stunning rise and mysterious death of the
ancient world's greatest conqueror? An acclaimed biographer reconstructs
the life of Alexander the Great in this magisterial revisionist
portrait.
"[An] infectious sense of narrative momentum . . . Its energy is
unflagging, including the verve with which it tackles that teased final
mystery about the specific cause of Alexander's death."--The Christian
Science Monitor
More than two millennia have passed since Alexander the Great built an
empire that stretched to every corner of the ancient world, from the
backwater kingdom of Macedonia to the Hellenic world, Persia, and
ultimately to India--all before his untimely death at age thirty-three.
Alexander believed that his empire would stop only when he reached the
Pacific Ocean. But stories of both real and legendary events from his
life have kept him evergreen in our imaginations with a legacy that has
meant something different to every era: in the Middle Ages he became an
exemplar of knightly chivalry, he was a star of Renaissance paintings,
and by the early twentieth century he'd even come to resemble an English
gentleman. But who was he in his own time?
In Alexander the Great, Anthony Everitt judges Alexander's life
against the criteria of his own age and considers all his
contradictions. We meet the Macedonian prince who was naturally
inquisitive and fascinated by science and exploration, as well as the
man who enjoyed the arts and used Homer's great epic the Iliad as a
bible. As his empire grew, Alexander exhibited respect for the
traditions of his new subjects and careful judgment in administering
rule over his vast territory. But his career also had a dark side. An
inveterate conqueror who in his short life built the largest empire up
to that point in history, Alexander glorified war and was known to
commit acts of remarkable cruelty.
As debate continues about the meaning of his life, Alexander's death
remains a mystery. Did he die of natural causes--felled by a fever--or
did his marshals, angered by his tyrannical behavior, kill him? An
explanation of his death can lie only in what we know of his life, and
Everitt ventures to solve that puzzle, offering an ending to Alexander's
story that has eluded so many for so long.
