Alexander the Great

These entries have been taken from my enormous site, Alexander the Great on the Web, a collection of some 1,000 links and 200 images of Alexander. The following is a select list of the best sites on Alexander.

Web Biographies

Pothos.com. Thomas Wallop William-Powlett's comprehensive Alexander universe. Now has both "active" and "passive" areas; the active area has multiple editors. For many it has become the Alexander site. Check out the white-hot forum (discussion) area.

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

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

Britannica 11th Edition on Alexander. Article by Bevan. Excellent, if somewhat dated, scholarly overview of his life. The Classical entries from the 11th edition (1910) could be turned into a decent classical encyclopedia. This article is courtesy the Xenophon Group, an site devoted to military history, particularly Russian and Ukranian. The also have the Britannica 11th edition's Peloponnesian War and Xenophon.

The Major Published Biographies

Amazon. Richard Stoneman, Alexander the Great. From the ranking it looks like Amazon hasn't sold a single copy. That's a shame, as I very much enjoyed Stoneman's brief introduction to Alexander studies--it is something less than a biography, at least not one of the fat ones we've come to expect. Stoneman handles brevity well, and I was surprised how much he has managed to fit into 98 pages without ever seeming rushed. I think it would be particularly suitable for two types of readers: (1) Students in undergraduate courses on Greek history who need something rigorous but can't be expected to make it through Green or Fox. (2) Readers who've already read one of the more "novelistic" biographies and want something that recapitulates the basics and outlines the controversies in a fair-minded and scholarly fashion.

Amazon. Alexander of Macedon 356-323 B. C. : A Historical Biography by Peter Green. The 20+ Amazon reviews are almost all raves (e.g. "What a fantastic book! Peter Green makes the history of Alexander the Great sing!") UC California press blurb.

Amazon. Alexander the Great by Robin Lane Fox.

Articles and Papers

"Alexander The Great and the Poplar (anti-hero)" by Diana Spencer, on Alexander's image through time.

Individual Topics

The Tomb of Alexander the Great by Harry E. Tzalas. Multiple pages with text, images, footnotes. A first-rate job.

Hephaistion - Philalexandros. Jeanne Reames-Zimmerman's deep exploration of Alexander's companion. Includes a good examination of " Was he really Alexander's Lover....? " Reames-Zimmerman, also known for the Beyond Renault and Cast that Film! pages, is that rare academic who handles with equal fluency scholarship, popularization and (mirabile dictu) HTML design.

The Search for Alexander's Tomb by Elizabeth Kosmetatou. (Associated with site above.) Gorgeous initial graphic. Good text. [ text verson ]

The Army of Alexander the Great (Sander van Dorst)

History of Phoenicia, with a detailed, scholarly account of Alexander and Phoenicia, especially the siege of Tyre.

The battle of Chaeronea from "Hellas:Net" by Martijn Moerbeek, a gorgeous and deeply and impressively hypertextual site. Also, The battle of Granicus, The battle of Issus, The battle of Gaugamela.

"A Mysterious Death," The New England Journal of Medicine (v. 338 n. 24) by Borza and Drs. Oldach and Benitez. Now requires paid subscription.

Letters in reply to "A Mysterious Death" by Dr. S.D. Moulopoulos and others, with a reply to the replies by the authors getting at the source-critical problems.

Sources

Plutarch, Life of Alexander , translated by John Dryden (Internet Classics Archive)

Fake "Letter of Alexander to Aristotle." Posted on the Republic of Macedonia website, it's actually from a short story. The letter and its deconstruction by the Internet History Sourcebook is one of the funniest things on the web.

Other Academic

"The Age of Alexander." Lots of good stuff (eg. "Supplementary Sources," dozens of translations to supplement Roisman) from Prof. William M. Murray, University of South Florida.

James Davidson's Alexander page. Includes excellent guides to Sources , Was Persia Ripe for the Picking? , and Greeks and Macedonians. Here and there Davidson uses (and indeed improves upon) my site.

Art, Ancient and Modern,

Web Archive The impact of Alexander the Great's coinage in E Arabia. Gorgeous and highly-informative site from the exhibit "Presveis" (paid for by EU, appearing at the Athens Numismatic Museum and The British Museum). Explore it. For example International Coinages in Antiquity.

"Adopt a Ruler of Questionable Moral Probity" with Warhol's Alexander. Also appears on her poetry. Check out her odd but oddly-appealing site. She has so many strange awards, that I'm giving her the Top 5% award.

Literature and Music,

Beyond Renault: Alexander the Great in Fiction, by Jeanne Reames-Zimmerman. Comprehensive, multilingual list with reviews. Reames-Zimmerman reviews are well written and frequently hilarious. I particularly enjoyed her review of David Gemmell's Lion of Macedon and Dark Prince , wretched Alexander fantasies.

The Greek World of Mary Renault by Ed Stephan. An excellent resource for Renault's Greek novels, a trilogy of which concerned Alexander and his companions. For an introduction check out his The Persian Boy page with a synopsis, list of characters, images, etc.

Movies, Television, Video,

Amazon. In the Footsteps of Alexander the Great. Michael Wood's travel adventure.

"Alexander's Epic March" (review of Wood's documentary) by E. Borza in Archaeology v. 51 n. 3 May/June 1998.

"With stunning images of parts of the world rarely seen by Western eyes, Wood conveys a sense of the extraordinary distances and dramatic campaigns in the difficult country through which Alexander led his army. No book or film has ever before so persuasively conveyed this message."

Cast that Film! Jeanne Reames-Zimmerman collects cast picks for an Alexander the Great movie. Funny and well-designed page.

PBS's "In the Footsteps of Alexander" site, an impressive, graphical site.

Excerpt from "In the Footsteps" Book (Salon magazine).

Religious Pages,

Alexander a "A 'National' precursor of Christ" by former Minister Nicolas Martis, April 1997. Christian nationalism, a revolting idea.

Nationalists,

Web Archive "Tajikistan President Glorifies Alexander The Great" Very interesting article on the use of Alexander by Tajik President Rahmonov (Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty).

Discussion Groups,

Pothos.com has an excellent "forum" area. Have a question? Go here. Indeed, I'm not sure why I bother listing anything else. Someone like Jeanne Reames-Zimmerman or Tre will invariable answer your question elegantly and promptly.

Miscellaneous,

Where is Alexander the Great buried? Illinois of course! (also see here)

Other Books

Waldemar Heckel's gigantic bibliography with links to all the articles on the web (c. 900 items, sorted by author)

Amazon. Alexander and the East : The Tragedy of Triumph by A. B. Bosworth. Bosworth tells "the underside of victory."

Pdf (Acrobat Reader) file of the introduction. Beautiful format allows easy reading of Greek.

Review by John Atkinson, Scholia 7.

"Bosworth's originality here is in comparing surviving accounts of Alexander's campaigns with Cortes' account of the reconquest of Mexico, plus Francisco Lopez de Gomara's edited version of Cortes' account, and the independent account by one of Cortes' junior followers, Bernal Diaz del Castillo.[5] The exercise illustrates how the perspective can alter the record, and how literary allusion can colour the narrative."

"Bosworth's Alexander: A Review Discussion" by Victor Parker, University of Canterbury (Paper given at the 1997 NZACT Conference)