Alexander the Great: A Life in Legend. By RICHARD STONEMAN. New Haven and 
London: Yale University Press, 2008. Pp. 336. Cloth, $35.00. ISBN 
978–0–300–11203–0.

Order this text for $35.00 from Amazon.com using this link and 
benefit CAMWS and the Classical Journal:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect-home/classjourn-20

Previously published CJ Online reviews are at 
http://classicaljournal.org/reviews.php


A CJ Online Exclusive: 2008.08.02

Accounts of Alexander the Great abound from antiquity to the present day in 
nearly all parts of the inhabited world. Achieving near heroic status while 
alive, he enjoyed an afterlife as spectacular as the Greek gods and heroes 
he emulated. In his brief life (356–323 BC) he effected great historical 
change in the Mediterranean and Near East. Over the next two millennia his 
legend stretched even farther across different cultures and religious 
traditions and distant lands.

The British historian and documentary filmmaker Michael Wood has probably 
done the most in recent years to popularize Alexander. In his bestseller In 
the Footsteps of Alexander the Great (1997), which accompanies the TV 
series of the same title, Wood follows the route of Alexander from Greece 
to India, linking ancient and contemporary history. The result is that 
history, well told, can be alive and compelling.

Stoneman, one of the world’s experts on the Alexander myths, introduces 
us first to the historical Alexander and then to the Alexander of legend 
who has come to represent the heroic ideal in many different cultures of 
the world. In twelve chapters the author traces the young Macedonian’s 
influence in ancient literature and folklore and in later literatures of 
east and west.

Chapter 1, “Nativity (Egyptian Origins—356 BC),” sets the tone for 
the rest of the book. According to Plutarch, Alexander 2.3–6 and the 
Alexander Romance I.4 and 6, Olympias and Philip II had extraordinary 
visions before Alexander’s birth, suggesting that he had been fathered by 
a serpent which marked the birth of a hero. In the Alexander Romance the 
magician Nectanebo II (Nekht-hor-heb), the last Pharaoh of Egypt (360–343 
BC), used his astrological arts to ensure the correct moment of birth of a 
world-conqueror. The chapter, like the whole book, has fine illustrations 
documenting Alexander’s birth and early life.

Chapter 2, “Golden Vines, Golden Bowls and Temples of Fire (Persian 
Versions),” follows Alexander’s conquest and kingship of Persia 
(334–330 BC). Alexander’s entry into the Persian legendary record of 
the kings established him as a major figure of Persian literature. The 
10th-century AD Persian poet Firdausi’s Shahnameh (Book of Kings) is the 
first to develop the story of Alexander and is a key element in its 
transmission to central Asia and beyond. The legend of Alexander (Iskandar) 
was expanded by later Persian writers, the most famous of whom is Nizami 
(1140–1203). The Byzantine historian Theophylact Simocatta (c. 580–641) 
is the earliest source to describe activities of Alexander in China during 
the Mongol dynasty of the 560s. The 15th-century Persian poet Jami 
considered Iskandar not only a conqueror and sage but a prophet of God. 
Alexander was thoroughly Islamicized as a result of cross-fertilization 
from the Arabic tradition.

Chapter 3, “Cities of Alexander (Jews and Arabs Adopt a Hero),” 
presents varying accounts of Alexander’s visits to Jerusalem, including 
one by Josephus which Stoneman considers fiction, noting a complete lack of 
evidence that Alexander ever converted to Judaism. There is even less 
evidence to attribute to Alexander the building of the Pharos, the famed 
lighthouse at Alexandria, and other marvels.

Chapter 4, “The Marvels of India (329–326 BC),” suggests that 
Alexander also had a scientific purpose for going to India—an enterprise 
prompted by his teacher Aristotle—for which expedition he brought along a 
considerable research staff. For the Greeks, India was a land of wonders 
and enchantment, and Alexander’s exploits there became the basis of the 
wonder tales of later ages. His fascination with India is further explored 
in Chapter 5, “How Much Land Does a Man Need (Alexander’s Encounter 
with the Brahmans—326 BC).”

With Chapter 6, “From the Heights of the Air to the Depths of the Sea 
(Alexander as Inventor and Sage),” the Alexander of history meets the 
Alexander of legend. This second Alexander is clever, a master of disguise 
and, like Odysseus, has an answer for every adversary, every impasse. The 
Alexander Romance is the basis of his legendary escapades, as when (II.14) 
he goes in disguise as his own messenger to the Persian court, and gets 
away with it until he is recognized by a Persian who had been one of the 
ambassadors to Pella years before. The stories of his exploration of the 
Ocean in a glass diving bell and his construction of a flying machine 
typify the Alexander who surpasses human knowledge and capability by way of 
his ingenuity. That he was a pupil of Aristotle made him a suitable vehicle 
for all types of wisdom and cleverness. Alexander as sage is further 
manifested in Arabic and Persian literature.

In Chapter 7, “Amazons, Mermaids and Wilting Maidens,” Stoneman looks 
at Alexander’s connection with women, real and imagined. To begin, the 
Alexander of the Romance has no erotic element: little attention paid to 
Roxane; Barsine is not mentioned; and neither is his affair with the eunuch 
Bagoas. But his relationship with his mother is a central feature of the 
Romance. A major missed opportunity in the Romance is the meeting with the 
Amazons, with whom Alexander communicates only collectively through 
letters. There are also Semiramis and her descendant Candace of Assyria, 
and aquatic women, the so-called mermaids of Greek myth and legend.

Chapters 8 through 12 focus on Alexander’s flirtation with immortality, 
his life-long search for something more: all knowledge, all wisdom, 
universal rule. His visit to the Oracle of Ammon at Siwa in 332 begins his 
transformation from a mortal to an eastern ruler requiring worship as a god 
even from his fellow Greeks. In all of the Arabic romances the key to the 
narrative is the search for the Water of Life and Immortality to transform 
Alexander into a hero of Islam and prophet of God. Like the Jason of 
Apollonius’ Argonautica, the Alexander of the Romance is not only a 
warrior and strategist against human enemies but a fighter of monsters, a 
dragon-slayer. In the Romance Alexander faces his greatest challenge, the 
Unclean Nations, which is the main vehicle for the insertion of him into 
the sacred history of the Christian world. According to historical accounts 
and the Romance, Alexander died in Babylon and was buried in Memphis in 
321, and then moved to Alexandria in 320. Even after the establishment of 
Christianity, the figure of Alexander endured in the west.

If at the close of the Middle Ages the Alexander of Romance and legend was 
being displaced by a colder-eyed view of the Alexander of history, 
Alexander has remained a living figure in Greek lore. His name has magic 
properties and he appears in folklore all over Greece. His is certainly a 
name to conjure with in politics as a liberator among Greeks. Stoneman ends 
his fascinating account by saying “It is paideia (‘culture’) that 
makes a Greek, and Alexander’s legacy to the world, despite the brutality 
of his historical career, is paideia.”

Stoneman’s meticulous scholarship and evocative storytelling provides us 
with an Alexander whose history and legend have universal appeal.

PAUL PROPERZIO 
Boston Latin Academy


You may remove yourself from the CJ-Online list-serv by sending an email 
to: [log in to unmask] Leave the subject line blank, and in the first 
line of the message write: UNSUBSCRIBE