Web Biographies

Narrative biographies | Assessments | Other Alexander projects

Narrative biographies

Livius.org: Jona Lendering's excellent 18-part Alexander biography and associated resources. Lendering combines academic credentials with the internet history buff's energy and drive to communicate. Although the bio text is excellent, the highlight is surely Lendering's small gallaxy of related pages and the web of hyperlinks tying them together. Other highlights include a detailed timeline, picture gallery and what he calls topography , pages on Alexander's route, some augmented by personal photos.

Pothos.org Thomas Wallop William-Powlett's comprehensive Alexander universe. Check out the white-hot forum area.

"Mighty Macdeonian: Alexander the Great" by Richard Covington, Smithsonian Magazine (November 2004). [abstract]. This is a well-written and entertaining five-page introduction to the history and historical issues.

Well-organized, accurate biography by Dr. Ellis L. Knox's (Boise State University). Includes nifty pronunciation links like "Epaminondas" but few images.

Same text, linear presentation at ORB.

The Creation of Macedonian Power by Thomas Martin from Perseus. The straight dope, with links to Perseus' images and sources (mostly Diodorus). The section on Alexander starts here.

Alexander Changes the World, a narrative, from Antiquity Online (Frank E. Smitha). Detailed and entertaining.

Marguerite Wolf's biography. This is a lengthy and intelligent examination of Alexander and some modern perspectives on him, evidently written for a college-level course. That said, I think she's consistently wrong where it counts, for example in recapitulating the long-discarded notion that Arrian is the gold-standard, Plutarch the silver, and other sources near worthless.

Alexander the Great: The Path to Deification by Dr. Evangellos Tzahos, a biographic article from Military Review, the official magazine of the Greek Army. Focuses on military aspects. Some erroneous information, e.g. the "royal newspapers."

"Alexander The Great: The Ultimate Conqueror" by Bernie Alexander, AskMen.com (UK). Middling popular bio, ending on movie.

"King of Macedon" by Jim Kapsalis and Tom Papadopoulos. Mixed content includes a detailed timeline and Greek map of ancient and modern Macedonia. Includes the cheezy National Geographic images.

Who was Alexander the Great? from the official Republic of Macedonia history section. Bias mostly confined to a section on Alexander's "Macedonian" language. Also includes a nice timeline.

Editorial Note: In full or in part, this text appears all over the web; at present I'm leaning toward this being the source. Please let me know if you know the answer.

The Journey of Alexander from "Hellas:Net" by Martijn Moerbeek. See also Macedon and Hellas and King of Asia

Art-heavy web biography emphasizing his appearance and character. Authored by Barry Stone, who has very many pages touching on topics in art and history. I can't abide pages that play music at me!

Alexander and Persia by Joseph Berrigan ("jojo" from Ancient Vines). Multi-part biography with many images found.

1st Muse Alexander by John Popovic. The site contains a lot of decent narrative and some rare images. Nevertheless, it need a good shove into the 21st century.

Royalty.nu with nice set of links to Amazon.com.

The Rise and Fall of Alexander the Great by Tom Syvertson. Somewhat vague, emphasizing character and legacy over history.

Medium-length bio of Alexander by Enrique Mallen.

Lengthy pro-Macedonian biography from "Macedonia for the Macedonians" by Bill Nicholov. Lots of images. And here's a mirror. Other mirrors live and die all the time.

Web Archive: Competent biography with Alexander-was-gay bent (Chris Barber, QX web magazine).

Faisal Khalid's Biography, Hamdard University, Islamabad, Pakistan. Much of the text is identical to that found in the "Alexander the Great History Project," and a big chunk of it is just a cut-and-paste from Plutarch. [ semi-mirror ]

Alexandros Macedon and Macedonia Lengthy and sarcastic commentary on Alexander's exploits by Dr. Napoleon Savescu, president of the Romanian Medical Society of New York. The other (five) chapters are collected here (at the bottom). The English is occasionally off and seems to come from the Romanian originals. If you read Romanian try here. (I tried to email him about it, but his email tags are broken.)

Alexander of Macedon Temple by Oleg Petrov, connected to the "Maitreya Sangha Society." The Society also includes such luminaries as "Emperor Akbar, King Solomon, Alexander the Great and Helena Blavatsky." They also venerate Apollonius of Tyana !

Alexander the Great: From History to Eternity, graphic and title stolen from FirstMuse.

Triple biography of Alexander, Philip and Demosthenes from Ancient Wisdom and Folly by Sanderson Beck, a quirky web-author.

Four-part biography from Hellenism.net. They're still perpetuating the Siwah myth.

Assessments

"'Great' mystery: Who was Alexander, and why does he intrigue us?" by Jessica Yadegaran, Contra Costa Times. A run-down on what makes Alexander "great" and controversial, drawn from interviews with Ian Worthingtion "Were he alive today, Alexander III of Macedonia would probably be a bad-boy drunk with an equally bad dye job. Most likely, he'd also be gay." Also here.

"What Made Alexander So Great? The real mystery of his life isn't his bisexuality" by Christopher Hitchens, Slate (Nov. 29, 2004). Strewn with the blithe smart-sounding ignorance that characterizes the self-assured public intellectual. [1]

Other Alexander projects

"Alexander's New Look" by Betsy Carpenter, US News and World Report (Nov. 22, 2004 issue). Decent article on Alexander and modern reappraisals, with a good deal on the cross-cultural dimensions of Alexander's rule and his successors, drawing quotes from David Potter, Jona Lendering and others.

Alexander on Archaeology. Archaeology Magazine's gateway to Alexander the Great. Includes reviews of the History Channel's documentary, the best Alexander books and more. I've sprinkled these in the appropriate categories here.

BBC: "Alexander the Great: Hunting for a New Past" by Paul Cartledge. Cartledge is always interesting and authoritative, but the topics dealt with here—Macedonian hunting, the Alexander Sarcophagus, the Romance—don't add up to a cohesive picture, even of Alexander's image. Cartledge includes a good short bibliography and a very brief timeline.

Livius.org: Alexander the Great: "topography." Jona Lendering's multi-page review of Alexander's route, part of his Alexander the Great biography.

Alexander the Great Top Ten. Good idea for a site (although I'm partial to my own Top 5% ). That said, some selections, particularly the books, are strange, and it needs link-cleaning. It certainly could be a good resource for one-stop shoppers.