Alexander the Great

It seems to me that if Alexander somehow had access to this book during his glory days he would be very pleased. He would probably give author Philip Freeman a big box full of gold coins, for Alexander was well known for lavishing gifts on his loyal soldiers and supporters. He would likely grant Freeman high rank as court historian. Freeman's Alexander is a heroic figure, on the scale of Alexander's personal hero, Achilles. Freeman's Alexander is keenly intelligent, capable of quick, decisive action, and brave to the point of recklessness. He was also very knowledgeable. Aristotle was his tutor. Alexander himself had mastered such works as Homer's epic poems, Euripides, and Herodotus. He made it a point to carefully study anything that might help him prevail. He eagerly tapped the minds of the many experts he brought with him. He had a brilliant grasp of human nature. Alexander's soldiers, particularly his fellow Macedonians, adored him and would fight to the death for him. Unlike Achilles, he was not one to sit and pout in his tent as his soldiers died. His soldiers had often seen him lead cavalry charges at massive enemy forces, scale walls in the face of spears and arrows, kill scores of hostile soldiers on the battlefield, and suffer alongside his soldiers from exhaustion, thirst, and extremes of heat and cold. He endured the crossing of mountains, deserts, and raging rivers. He led his armies in an incredible twelve-year campaign that extended his rule from Macedonia and Greece to include the vast Persian empire and regions far beyond. He came to control, after fierce fighting, a substantial portion of India. Freeman describes many epic battles in a highly readable manner. No dry battle tactics here. Freeman has clearly mastered a vast array of sources, but feels no need to throw in arcane bits here and there. The book includes such diverse topics as Alexander's brutally ambitious mother Olympias, his beloved horse Bucephalas, and the death of Cleitus, Alexander's loyal lieutenant who had once saved him in battle. Alexander also emerges as a man who could be quite cruel, sanctioning the slaughter and enslavement of many thousands of men, women, and children associated with those who dared to defy him and made his soldiers suffer. Yet, he could be forgiving and very generous. As he extended his rule over a vast realm, he kept many Persian and other native officials in power, if they submitted to his rule. He also respected local customs and religious beliefs. There is an extensive glossary and an annotated bibliography. In large part, Freeman looked at sources such as Plutarch and Arrian, which have been thoroughly raked over before. But he builds a lively narrative that reads like an exciting adventure. I knew quite well how Alexander's quest for "world" conquest would end, but I remained enthralled to the end.

I have always done my level best to avoid reading much about Alexander the Great. The issues I find with him are a few fold. First, I can’t really grasp military stuff. Battle formations and the like don’t do basically anything for me. The best way to get me to fall asleep at night is by talking in detail about battles. I just fundamentally do not care. And let’s be honest here. That’s basically what Alexander the Great is. A whooooooooooole lot of battles. So yeah, I’ve avoided him for this reason alone. Secondly, I find a lot of these dudes from antiquity have somehow transcended their humanity and the hero-worship kind of makes me really uncomfortable. I understand the desire and need to admire someone and all their strengths because, let’s be honest here, there’s a lot to admire. However, it seems like these people have been romanticized past the point of believability. Somewhere in all this mess since Alexander’s life, he has stopped being human. I can’t even really remember why I decided to read a biography of Alexander the Great, but the desire did fill me up last week and I did my level best to find a biography that was both succinct and well informed, and did away with a whole lot of this hero worship and battle details that so displeases me. I landed on this one by Philip Freeman. And… I really liked it. Alexander the Great is a figure who is larger than life. People throughout history have been praising this guy’s name. He accomplished things that just about anyone since then hasn’t been able to accomplish. People in Rome worshipped this guy. Alexander himself thought he was a direct descendent of Hercules. He seemed impossible to stand against. If you went along with him, he’d treat you well, but woe upon those who stood against him. They did not end well (example, Tyre). In all honesty, I found (which I expecting, knowing myself as well as I do) the parts of the biography that detailed his daily life, and his life before his battles against the Persian Empire to be the most interesting. These are the places where you find the man behind the myth. I’d also really, really love someone to write a biography of his father, Philip (maybe someone has?) because that guy seems really interesting. He truly paved the way for Alexander to become what he has become. Macedon was a country that was beset by strife. Philip, Alexander’s father, was taken as a hostage as a youth as a sort of “fair treatment” bribe by the Greeks. Essentially, you play nice over there in Macedon, and we won’t cut Philip’s head off. Philip, however, was taken as a hostage by one of the best soldier generals in the Greek world at the time, and he basically got the best military training in antiquity due to that. This allowed Philip, when he was released, to seize power (by exiling and/or killing his half-brothers), and then rebuild his army from the ground up, bringing all sorts of novel military inventions into the mix, like 18 foot spears and unique formations that made it almost impossible to stand against the soldiers. He took a broken, crumbling nation, and slowly expanded the borders until he had created an empire. Until even the Greeks feared him. Insert his son and seven wives into this mix, and you’ve got a real nice setup for empire building. There are mysteries, of course. No one knows, for example, if Alexander or his mother had any part in the assassination of Philip, though I personally think it might be one of the least surprising things that have ever happened if, in fact, they did (Philip had divorced Olympias, and claimed Alexander was not his son, so at the point of his death, there was really no love lost here). They had everything to gain by Philip’s death, and not much to lose. That being said, nothing has been proven or could really be concluded one way or the other. The other thing is, of course, Alexander’s death. Now, until this point, I’d always heard he had been assassinated. However, at the end of this book, Freeman talks a bit about Alexander’s death. He had a few spells of falling ill throughout his campaign. He’d also struggled with injuries, the most recent one was a collapsed lung in a battle somewhere in India. He had dodged a whole lot of death, but that right there is enough to weaken anyone’s immune system. Then, add to it the fact that he lived in an army camp, and dysentery and malaria were likely as common as blowing your nose, and you’ve got a nice stew for some illness to creep in and do a whole lot of damage. So, while I did at one point think he was likely assassinated, (and maybe he really was, who knows) I also see now that there were a WHOLE LOT of opportunities for an illness to sweep him away, and it’s kind of amazing he lived as long as he did, considering all the battles and risks. What was, perhaps, the most interesting for me was how cunning Alexander was. He was not really afraid to think outside of the box in any situation, and he seemed to have a grasp on psychology in a way that not many others did. He knew that to mint coins showing his various victories would be a great way to spread word about him around his expanding empire, with very little effort on his part. He was not afraid to deal swiftly and ferociously with those who stood against him, and he seemed to be pretty fair, considering everything. However, the farther out into the world he went, the more he seemed to need constant praise, the more he seemed to drink, the more he believed himself godlike and impenetrable. He seemed outgrow his own humanity. It is unfortunate that he left his empire with no true heir, and a book called Ghost on the Throne is going to be one of my next reads, which talks about what happened after Alexander died and everyone in his empire started fighting for a toehold on what he left behind. He was quite an amazing man, but I didn’t end up admiring him the way I expected to. He was an empire builder. He was cruel and he was merciful. He was a formidable man with a devious, cunning mind and an eye to expand his borders. He was, however, also stunningly, absolutely human and had plenty of flaws. Perhaps what I loved the most about this biography is how well Freeman told Alexander’s story without getting bogged down in battle formations and the like. The battles were presented, the facts given, no military glorification, which was what I’ve been probably most worried about regarding any read of Alexander the Great. Freeman wrote a fantastic biography here. A great starting point and fantastically accessible. Highly recommend.

Philip Freeman's Alexander the Great could have been a dry, plodding account of the life of this ancient general and king, but thanks to Freeman's deft writing, it was instead a page-turner of an adventure story, handled with such skill that you feel you're almost there beside him in those exotic lands. The history is accurate, gleaned from contemporary sources. Freeman goes a step further. When there are conflicting reports from ancient historians, he gives both, then postulates on the most plausible. But you have the opportunity to decide for yourself. Alexander was a complex person, alternately kind to a fault and astoundingly cruel. Freeman delivers a three-dimensional character while explaining the influences that made him who he was. There's plenty of intrigue. Alexander's entourage and sycophants were always jockeying for position and he deliberately exploited that. Thanks to an education by Aristotle, Alexander was a well-rounded man with a better than average appreciation for history and ethics. Sometimes history lessons helped him outsmart superior forces. Ancient warfare was brutal, vicious, but Alexander participated in every battle and suffered serious wounds several times. He loved his soldiers and they loved him. This is a terrific book with brilliant pacing and vivid descriptions. I am not exaggerating when I say it was it was one of the finest histories I've read in ages. I highly recommend it and hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Really interesting biography. Enjoyable to read and learned a lot! I knew very little about Alexander the Great before I read the book but now I feel like I have a good understanding of the big picture of his life.

very interesting and written in an enjoyable narrative manner

Amazing read. Highly recommended a pleasure to read it does read like a novel very enjoyable so can strongly recommend.

Interesting read for history lovers

The author wrote in a way the readers can read it like a novel. I enjoyed the book and learned a lot as well.

紀元前の世界のことなので本書には英雄伝説にありがちな神格化や神話かと思うような非現実的な権威付けのための言い伝えも含まれる。これは洋の東西を問わずどの国の歴史書でもあることで古代史には神話や後世の作り話がつきもの。かいつまんで内容の一部を紹介すると アレキサンダー大王が生まれた時代のマケドニアなど多くの古代国家では、女性は家畜や家財道具と同じく家長の財産と看做され、王家や族長の子女と謂えども周辺国との争乱回避目的の融和策のため政略結婚で貢物として差し出されていた。 アレキサンダーも政略結婚で嫁いだマケドニアの宿敵のエピロス王の娘オリュンピアスから生まれた。 アレキサンダーの家庭教師でもあったかの有名なギリシャの賢人アリストテレスは、同時代のギリシャ人がそうであったように「男は生まれつき女よりも優れている。」また、「ギリシャ民族に比べて能力が劣る(周辺の)未開の民族は奴隷として扱われて然るべし。」という考えの持ち主だった。 その時代のマケドニアは野蛮の民で、ギリシャやペルシャは当時の先進文明国だった。 国家の盛衰は支配者の絶対権力と軍事力に委ねられ、敗者は富を収奪された挙句奴隷として使役されたり売り買いされた謂わば「勝者総取り」の時代だったので、統治者には武勇に優れた戦士であることが何より求められた。 マケドニア王だった父親のピリッポス2世も勇猛果敢な戦士で、当時の文明国だったギリシャを破って同盟を結び次に大国ペルシャを征服すべく準備を進めるが同性愛の臣下に弑逆され、跡目を継いだアレキサンダーがその意志を受け継ぎ、幾多の困難を乗り越えてアジア、アフリカにまたがる一大王国を築き上げる。野蛮の民マケドニアの王が武力で先進文明国を征服するという歴史のアイロニー。 世界制覇とまだ見ぬ国への憧れを抱くアレキサンダーはペルシャ征服後にインドに到達するが、そこは地の果てではなく更に東に国々があることを知り、兵士に進軍を促す檄を飛ばすが誰一人呼応せず８年に及ぶ遠征で心身ともに疲弊し望郷の念に駆られた全兵士が無言で'No!'の意思表示をしたことで東征は幕を下ろす。その後も帰郷せずペルシャ領に留まりアラビア遠征の直前にバビロンで病没します。 馴染みのない国名が次々と出てくるので少し戸惑いますが、読者を飽きさせない文章運びで、我々が良く知る「ゴルディアスの結び目」(Gordian Knot)などのエピソードや「スフィンクス伝説」(オイディプスとの問答)、あるいは真偽不明のAmazon女戦士との邂逅などを織り交ぜながら、勇猛果敢なだけでなく知略に長けた大王の人物像を巧みに描き切っている。 ありきたりな英雄伝ではなく史実を重んじる歴史書なので、英雄視される人物が同時に平和に暮らしていた国や部族の富を奪い無辜の民を殺戮するなどの残虐行為を働く加害者であったことも教えてくれる。