Zusatztext May be the most accessible introduction in print.... An amazingly solid! balanced! and evocative view of the man. The Washington Post Book World Readable and engrossing.... Immediate! discursive! insightful! and highly engaging. Pittsburgh Tribune-Review Incisive and judicious.... What Cartledge does so well is explain the ancient world of Greeks and Persians. The Sunday Seattle Times/Post-Intelligencer Informationen zum Autor Paul Cartledge , professor of Greek history at the University of Cambridge, is the author of Thermopylae: The Battle That Changed the World, The Spartans, and The Greeks: Crucible of Civilization. Klappentext In time to coincide with the release of the motion picture directed by Oliver Stone comes a biography on the infamous Macedonian king and conqueror. Author Cartledge is academic consultant on the forthcoming Discovery Channel documentary "Becoming Alexander." 1 The Fame of Alexander The world remembers Iskander and his deeds. Macedonia gave him its sceptre. Iskander was the son of Philip. His life was one long dream of glory. Abai, 'Iskander', trans. Richard McKane Inheriting at the age of twenty his father Philip's position as master of the Greek world east of the Adriatic, Alexander had also, by the ripe old age of twenty-six, made himself master of the once mighty Persian Empire. By the time he was thirty he had taken his victorious arms to the limits of the known oikoumenê (inhabited world). Yet, before his thirty-third birthday he was dead. Small surprise, therefore, that he should have become a legend in his own lifetime. That his legend has spread so far and so wide from Iceland to China since his death in 323 bce is due very largely to the so-called Alexander Romance. This fabulous fiction took shape in Egypt, mostly some five or more centuries after Alexander's death. Thanks to this, and for other reasons too, of course, Alexander became in various countries and at various times a hero, a quasi-holy man, a Christian saint, a new Achilles, a philosopher, a scientist, a prophet and a visionary. But in antiquity he was most famous of all as a conqueror. Here is Arrian, writing in the early second century ce under the influence of the Roman emperor Trajan's recent conquests in Parthia (in modern Iran); his Anabasis ('March Up Country') is our best ancient historical source on Alexander: 'For my part I cannot determine with certainty what sort of plans Alexander had in mind, but none was small and petty, and he would not have stopped conquering even if he'd added Europe to Asia and the Britannic Islands to Europe . . .' Arrian was quite properly alert to Alexander's fame. But that comment on his last plans (see Chapter 10) is just the sort of measured and reflective remark that commends him to the modern critical historian and biographer of the world-conqueror. Apart, perhaps, from his casual remark about 'the Britannic Islands' as if they were not part of 'Europe' . . . A millennium and a half later, Shakespeare's Hamlet comments rather irreverently in the graveyard scene on the possible earthly fate of Alexander's corpse: Alexander died, Alexander was buried, Alexander returneth into dust; the dust is earth; of earth we make loam; and why of that loam, whereto he was converted, might they not stop a beer-barrel? This is a chauvinistic English illustration of the fact that Alexander has featured in the national literatures of some eighty countries, stretching from our own Britannic islands to the Malay peninsula by way of Kazakhstan (home of Abai, its national poet). This, in its turn, is another way of saying that Alexander is probably the most famous of the few indivi...

8220;May be the most accessible introduction in print.... An amazingly solid, balanced, and evocative view of the man.”

–The Washington Post Book World

“Readable and engrossing.... Immediate, discursive, insightful, and highly engaging.” –Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

“Incisive and judicious.... What Cartledge does so well is explain the ancient world of Greeks and Persians.”
–The Sunday Seattle Times/Post-Intelligencer

Auteur
PAUL CARTLEDGE, professor of Greek history at the University of Cambridge, is the author of Thermopylae: The Battle That Changed the World, The Spartans, and The Greeks: Crucible of Civilization.

Texte du rabat

In time to coincide with the release of the motion picture directed by Oliver Stone comes a biography on the infamous Macedonian king and conqueror. Author Cartledge is academic consultant on the forthcoming Discovery Channel documentary "Becoming Alexander."

Résumé
The definitive biography of the towering hero of the classical world: a fearless general, the conqueror of the Persians, and the visionary ruler of a vast empire—from one of the world's foremost scholars of ancient Greece. 
 
“An amazingly solid, balanced, and evocative view of the man.” —The Washington Post Book World 
 
Paul Cartledge gives us the most accessible, reliable, and intimate portrait of Alexander III of Macedon, the man himself, brilliantly evoking his remarkable political and military accomplishments, cutting through the myths to show why he was such a great leader. 
 
He explores our endless obsession with Alexander and gives us insight into both his capacity for brutality and his sensitive grasp of international politics. As he brings Alexander vividly to life, Cartledge also captures his enduring impact on world history and culture.

Échantillon de lecture
1
The Fame of Alexander

The world remembers Iskander and his deeds. Macedonia gave him its sceptre. Iskander was the son of Philip. His life was one long dream of glory. —Abai, ‘Iskander’, trans. Richard McKane

Inheriting at the age of twenty his father Philip’s position as master of the Greek world east of the Adriatic, Alexander had also, by the ripe old age of twenty-six, made himself master of the once mighty Persian Empire. By the time he was thirty he had taken his victorious arms to the limits of the known oikoumenê (inhabited world). Yet, before his thirty-third birthday he was dead. Small surprise, therefore, that he should have become a legend in his own lifetime. That his legend has spread so far and so wide – from Iceland to China – since his death in 323 bce is due very largely to the so-called Alexander Romance. This fabulous fiction took shape in Egypt, mostly some five or more centuries after Alexander’s death.

Thanks to this, and for other reasons too, of course, Alexander became in various countries and at various times a hero, a quasi-holy man, a Christian saint, a new Achilles, a philosopher, a scientist, a prophet and a visionary. But in antiquity he was most famous of all as a conqueror. Here is Arrian, writing in the early second century ce under the influence of the Roman emperor Trajan’s recent conquests in Parthia (in modern Iran); his Anabasis (‘March Up Country’) is our best ancient historical source on Alexander: ‘For my part I cannot determine with certainty what sort of plans Alexander had in mind, but none was small and petty, and he would not have stopped conquering even if he’d added Europe to Asia and the Britannic Islands to Europe . . .’ Arrian was quite properly alert to Alexander’s fame. But that comment on his last plans (see Chapter 10) is just the sort of measured and reflective remark that commends him to the modern critical historian and biographer of the world-conqueror. Apart, perhaps, from his casual remark about ‘the Britannic Islands’ – as if they were not part of ‘Europe’ . . .

A millennium and a half later, Shakespeare&…