I Read Books: Alexander The Great

Alexander The Great

 I first read this as a teenager and found it fascinating and also slow going. Coming back to it I now appreciate Lane Fox’s discussions more and take his introductory comments seriously; there is very little contemporary written history of Alexander The Great and what there is was written by people with and agenda and since filtered through other people, also with their agendas. In other words: History.

Things I didn’t know when I first read it include Lane Fox was 27 when this was published, also the gardening correspondent for the Financial Times which explains the occasional gardening-as-the-noblest-art jokes. Something I couldn’t have known, because Oliver Stone had not yet made the film, was that it was this book that lead to Stone making the film Alexander* (for which he hired Lane Fox as a consultant).

But enough about me, and the author, and the film, what about the book? As someone who has spent too much time as a non-historian reading books, articles and fiction about Alexander the Great, and occasionally even played games, I’ll say that this is my go-to book. Other than some more recent archaeology, most of which compliments rather than confounds, this will give you a start on everything you might wish to know about the life, career and sometimes even character of Alexander. And more so, it will even give us the doubts, where we don’t and can’t know.

The importance of Alexander’s siegecraft, the ability of his army to take walled cities considered impenetrable, in a handful of months is noted, but more than that, this ability created a reputation that led strongholds and peoples to surrender rather than stand. On top of this the precariousness of conquest and the ambiguous nature of empire is noted; he conquers great nations who then just get on with things in their own way until something goes wrong and then they rebel and he has to come back and conquer them again. This is just how ancient empires worked, or at least they did until some of his successors started forming centralised states (which still often fell apart under pressure).

Read This: If you’re going to read one book about Alexander the Great then it should be this one and if you’re going to read more, then it should be on your list already
Don’t Read This: Alexander the Who? 

* Not to distract too much but the film works much better as a companion to a book about Alexander the Great, specifically this one, as otherwise it is a bit disjointed and doesn’t really have a throughline. Again: History. My favourite bit of the film is where a line of Foot Companions are presenting their pikes** for battle, lowering them from upright carry to horizontal. The closest group drop them down WHAM, straight across, no wavering (presumably the close up stunt team phalanx). The ones beyond all go down together but wobble a bit. The extras to the rear all sort of go down, some hitting the ground, like they’re new recruits on their first day. Glorious***.

** Sarissas

*** Or not as I can't find it. It might have been in this scene and if so I remembered wrong or they re-edited it.