Alexander the Great

1 Oct, 2015 930 History of the Ancient World

Alexander the Great is one of the most celebrated military commanders in history. Born into the Macedonian royal family in 356 BC, he gained control of Greece and went on to conquer the Persian Empire, defeating its powerful king, Darius III. At its peak, Alexander’s empire covered modern Turkey, Syria, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and part of India. As a result, Greek culture and language was spread into regions it had not penetrated before, and he is also remembered for founding a number of cities. Over the last 2,000 years, the legend of Alexander has grown and he has influenced numerous generals and politicians.

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Guests

  • Paul Cartledge 21 episodes
    Emeritus Professor of Greek Culture and AG Leventis Senior Research Fellow at Clare College, University of Cambridge
  • Diana Spencer 2 episodes
    Professor of Classics at the University of Birmingham
  • Rachel Mairs No other episodes
    Lecturer in Classics at the University of Reading

Reading list

  • Paul Cartledge at the University of Cambridge
  • Rachel Mairs at the University of Reading
  • Diana Spencer at the University of Birmingham
  • Plutarch: Life of Alexander
  • Alexander: How Great? by Mary Beard
  • Perspective and Poetics in Curtius' Gorgeous East by Diana Spencer
  • Alexander the Great - Wikipedia
  • The Campaigns of Alexander
    Arrian (ed. Betty Radice) (Penguin Classics, 1971) Google Books →
  • Philip II and Alexander the Great: Father and Son, Lives and Afterlives
    Elizabeth Carney and Daniel Ogden (eds.) (Oxford University Press, 2010) Google Books →
  • Alexander the Great: the Truth behind the Myth
    Paul Cartledge (Pan Macmillan, 2013) Google Books →
  • Responses to Oliver Stone's Alexander: Film, History and Cultural Studies
    Paul Cartledge & Fiona Rose Greenland (eds.) (University of Wisconsin Press, 2010) Google Books →
  • The Legend of Alexander the Great on Greek and Roman Coins
    K. Dahmen (Routledge, 2007) Google Books →
  • The Cambridge Companion to the Roman Historians
    Andrew Feldherr (ed.) (Cambridge University Press, 2009) Google Books →
  • The Search for Alexander
    Robin Lane Fox (Little Brown and Company, 1980) Google Books →
  • The Making of Alexander: The Official Guide to the Epic Film Alexander
    Robin Lane Fox (R & L, 2004) Google Books →
  • Alexander the Great: A New History
    Waldemar Heckel and Lawrence Tritle (eds.) (Wiley-Blackwell, 2009) Google Books →
  • The Hellenistic Far East: Archaeology, Language and Identity in Greek Central Asia
    Rachel Mairs (University of California Press, 2014) Google Books →
  • The Age of Alexander
    Plutarch (trans. Timothy Duff and Ian Scott-Kilvert) (Penguin Classics, 2012) Google Books →
  • The Roman Alexander: Reading a Cultural Myth
    Diana Spencer (Liverpool University Press, 2002) Google Books →
  • The Alexander Trilogy
    Mary Renault (Penguin Books, 1984) Google Books →
  • The Landmark Arrian: The Campaigns of Alexander the Great
    James Romm (ed.) (Anchor Books, 2012)
  • The History of Alexander
    Quintus Curtius Rufus (ed. Waldemar Heckel) (Penguin Classics, 1984) Google Books →
  • Faces of Power: Alexander's Image and Hellenistic Politics
    Andrew Stewart (University of California Press, 1994) Google Books →
  • Alexander the Great: A Life in Legend
    Richard Stoneman (Yale University Press, 2010) Google Books →
  • The Alexander Romance in Persia and the East
    Richard Stoneman, Kyle Erickson, and Ian Netton (eds.) (Barkhuis, 2012) Google Books →
  • Alexander the Great: A Reader
    Ian Worthington (ed.) (Routledge, 2011) Google Books →
  • A Companion to Alexander Literature in the Middle Ages
    Z. David Zuwiyya (ed.) (Brill, 2011) Google Books →

Related episodes

Programme ID: b06d9bkx

Episode page: bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06d9bkx

Auto-category: 938.07 (Alexander the Great)

Hello (First sentence from this episode) Hello. Alexander III of Macedon, better known as Alexander the Great, is one of the most famous figures from the ancient world.