Most of what we ‘know’ about Alexander the Great (356-323 BC) comes from the pages of much later historians, writing 300 years or more after these events. But these Roman-era writers drew on the accounts of earlier authors who were contemporary with Alexander, some of whom took part in the momentous events they described. David Grant examines the fragments of these earlier eyewitness testimonies which are preserved as undercurrents in the later works. He traces their influence and monopoly of the ‘truth’ and spotlights their manipulation of events to reveal how the Wars of the Successors shaped the agendas of these writers. It becomes clear that Alexander’s courtiers were no-less ambitious than than their king and wanted to showcase their role in the epic conquest of the Persian Empire to enhance their credibility and legitimacy in their own quests for power. In particular, Grant reveals why reports of the dying king’s last wishes conflict, and he explains why testimony relegated to ‘romance’ may house credible grains of truth. The author also skillfully explains how manuscripts became further corrupted in their journey from the ancient world to the modern day. In summary, this work by a recognized expert on the period highlights why legacy of Alexander is built on very shaky foundations.

A re-assessment of Alexander the Great's death, exposing a conspiracy by Alexander's generals after his death to undermine his empire. Alexander the Great conquered the largest empire the world had ever seen while still in his twenties but fell fatally ill in Babylon before reaching 33 years old. His wife Roxanne was still pregnant with what would be his only legitimate son, so there was no clear-cut heir. The surviving accounts of his dying days differ on crucial detail, with the most popular version claiming Alexander uttered ‘to the strongest’ when asked to nominate a successor on his deathbed. Decades of ‘civil war’ ensued as Alexander’s hard-won empire was torn asunder by generals in the bloody ‘funeral games’ his alleged final words heralded in. The fighting for supremacy inevitably led to the extermination of his bloodline. But was Alexander really so short-sighted and irresponsible? Finally, after 2,340 years, the mystery is unravelled. In a forensic first, David Grant presents a compelling case for what he terms the ‘greatest succession cover up of all time’. Alexander’s lost Last Will and Testament is given new credibility and Grant deciphers events that led to its erasure from history by the generals who wanted to carve up the empire for themselves.

In the first authoritative biography of Alexander the Great written for a general audience in a generation, classicist and historian Philip Freeman tells the remarkable life of the great conqueror. The celebrated Macedonian king has been one of the most enduring figures in history. He was a general of such skill and renown that for two thousand years other great leaders studied his strategy and tactics, from Hannibal to Napoleon, with countless more in between. He flashed across the sky of history like a comet, glowing brightly and burning out quickly: crowned at age nineteen, dead by thirty-two. He established the greatest empire of the ancient world; Greek coins and statues are found as far east as Afghanistan. Our interest in him has never faded. Alexander was born into the royal family of Macedonia, the kingdom that would soon rule over Greece. Tutored as a boy by Aristotle, Alexander had an inquisitive mind that would serve him well when he faced formidable obstacles during his military campaigns. Shortly after taking command of the army, he launched an invasion of the Persian empire, and continued his conquests as far south as the deserts of Egypt and as far east as the mountains of present-day Pakistan and the plains of India. Alexander spent nearly all his adult life away from his homeland, and he and his men helped spread the Greek language throughout western Asia, where it would become the lingua franca of the ancient world. Within a short time after Alexander’s death in Baghdad, his empire began to fracture. Best known among his successors are the Ptolemies of Egypt, whose empire lasted until Cleopatra. In his lively and authoritative biography of Alexander, classical scholar and historian Philip Freeman describes Alexander’s astonishing achievements and provides insight into the mercurial character of the great conqueror. Alexander could be petty and magnanimous, cruel and merciful, impulsive and farsighted. Above all, he was ferociously, intensely competitive and could not tolerate losing—which he rarely did. As Freeman explains, without Alexander, the influence of Greece on the ancient world would surely not have been as great as it was, even if his motivation was not to spread Greek culture for beneficial purposes but instead to unify his empire. Only a handful of people have influenced history as Alexander did, which is why he continues to fascinate us.

What can we learn from the stunning rise and mysterious death of the ancient world’s greatest conqueror? An acclaimed biographer reconstructs the life of Alexander the Great in this magisterial revisionist portrait. “[An] infectious sense of narrative momentum . . . Its energy is unflagging, including the verve with which it tackles that teased final mystery about the specific cause of Alexander’s death.”—The Christian Science Monitor More than two millennia have passed since Alexander the Great built an empire that stretched to every corner of the ancient world, from the backwater kingdom of Macedonia to the Hellenic world, Persia, and ultimately to India—all before his untimely death at age thirty-three. Alexander believed that his empire would stop only when he reached the Pacific Ocean. But stories of both real and legendary events from his life have kept him evergreen in our imaginations with a legacy that has meant something different to every era: in the Middle Ages he became an exemplar of knightly chivalry, he was a star of Renaissance paintings, and by the early twentieth century he’d even come to resemble an English gentleman. But who was he in his own time? In Alexander the Great, Anthony Everitt judges Alexander’s life against the criteria of his own age and considers all his contradictions. We meet the Macedonian prince who was naturally inquisitive and fascinated by science and exploration, as well as the man who enjoyed the arts and used Homer’s great epic the Iliad as a bible. As his empire grew, Alexander exhibited respect for the traditions of his new subjects and careful judgment in administering rule over his vast territory. But his career also had a dark side. An inveterate conqueror who in his short life built the largest empire up to that point in history, Alexander glorified war and was known to commit acts of remarkable cruelty. As debate continues about the meaning of his life, Alexander's death remains a mystery. Did he die of natural causes—felled by a fever—or did his marshals, angered by his tyrannical behavior, kill him? An explanation of his death can lie only in what we know of his life, and Everitt ventures to solve that puzzle, offering an ending to Alexander’s story that has eluded so many for so long.

The ultimate historical adventure novel: the life of Alexander the Great in a single, epic volume. To many he was a god. To others he was a monster. The truth is even more extraordinary. As a boy, Alexander dreamed of matching the heroic feats of Achilles. At eighteen he led the Macedonian cavalry to a stunning victory against the Greeks. By twenty-five he had crushed the Persians in three monumental battles and was the master of the greatest empire the world had ever seen. Men began to call him a god. But behind the legend was another, more complex story. Narrated by his boyhood friend Ptolemy, this is the story of Alexander as you have never heard it before: raw, intimate, thrilling - a story of extraordinary daring and unimaginable endurance; of wanton destruction and murderous intrigue - the epic tragedy of a man who aimed to be more than human.

A New York Times–bestselling trilogy about the ancient Greek kingdom of Macedon and its leader from an author hailed by Hilary Mantel as “a shining light.” Fire from Heaven is a gripping account of the formative years of Alexander’s life. The story tells of his complex relationship with his parents; of his two great bonds—to his horse, Oxhead, and to his dearest friend and eventual lover, Hephaistion—and of the army he commands when he is barely an adult. Coming of age during the battles for southern Greece, Alexander the Great first takes someone’s life at age twelve and swiftly eliminates his rivals as soon as he comes to power, emerging in this novel as a captivating and complex figure. The iconic Persian Boy centers on the Macedon king as seen through the eyes of his lover and most faithful attendant, the eunuch Bagoas. When Bagoas is very young, his father is murdered and he is sold as a slave to King Darius of Persia. Then, when Alexander conquers the land, he is given Bagoas as a gift, and the boy is besotted. This passion comes at a time when much is at stake—Alexander has two wives, conflicts are ablaze, and plots on his life abound. The result is a riveting account of a great conqueror’s years of triumph and, ultimately, heartbreak. In Funeral Games, a bloody struggle for power rages after the death ofAlexander, leaving an empire that extends from the Adriatic Sea to the Indus River. The power players include Ptolemy, two father-son teams, and a cadre of influential women—not least of whom is Eurydike, whose plan is to marry Alexander’s disabled brother, Arridaios. Brimming with outsize personalities, brazen plots, and a sweeping sense of history, Funeral Games brings to vivid life the world of Alexander the Great, and the seismic tumult in the wake of his death. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Mary Renault including rare images of the author. “Mary Renault is a shining light to both historical novelists and their readers. She does not pretend the past is like the present, or that the people of ancient Greece were just like us. She shows us their strangeness; discerning, sure-footed, challenging our values, piquing our curiosity, she leads us through an alien landscape that moves and delights us.” —Hilary Mantel

I have always been a soldier. I have known no other life. So begins Alexander’s extraordinary confession on the eve of his greatest crisis of leadership. By turns heroic and calculating, compassionate and utterly merciless, Alexander recounts with a warrior’s unflinching eye for detail the blood, the terror, and the tactics of his greatest battlefield victories. Whether surviving his father’s brutal assassination, presiding over a massacre, or weeping at the death of a beloved comrade-in-arms, Alexander never denies the hard realities of the code by which he lives: the virtues of war. But as much as he was feared by his enemies, he was loved and revered by his friends, his generals, and the men who followed him into battle. Often outnumbered, never outfought, Alexander conquered every enemy the world stood against him–but the one he never saw coming. . . . BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Steven Pressfield's The Profession.