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.
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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
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