{"product_id":"alexander-isbn-9780812972719","title":"Alexander","description":"For nearly two and a half millennia, Alexander the Great has loomed over history as a legend–and an enigma. Wounded repeatedly but always triumphant in battle, he conquered most of the known world, only to die mysteriously at the age of thirty-two. In his day he was revered as a god; in our day he has been reviled as a mass murderer, a tyrant as brutal as Stalin or Hitler. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWho was the man behind the mask of power? Why did Alexander embark on an unprecedented program of global domination? What accounted for his astonishing success on the battlefield? In this luminous new biography, the esteemed classical scholar and historian Guy MacLean Rogers sifts through thousands of years of history and myth to uncover the truth about this complex, ambiguous genius.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAscending to the throne of Macedonia after the assassination of his father, King Philip II, Alexander discovered while barely out of his teens that he had an extraordinary talent and a boundless appetite for military conquest. A virtuoso of violence, he was gifted with an uncanny ability to visualize how a battle would unfold, coupled with devastating decisiveness in the field. Granicus, Issos, Gaugamela, Hydaspes–as the victories mounted, Alexander’s passion for conquest expanded from cities to countries to continents. When Persia, the greatest empire of his day, fell before him, he marched at once on India, intending to add it to his holdings.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs Rogers shows, Alexander’s military prowess only heightened his exuberant sexuality. Though his taste for multiple partners, both male and female, was tolerated, Alexander’s relatively enlightened treatment of women was nothing short of revolutionary. He outlawed rape, he placed intelligent women in positions of authority, and he chose his wives from among the peoples he conquered. Indeed, as Rogers argues, Alexander’s fascination with Persian culture, customs, and sexual practices may have led to his downfall, perhaps even to his death.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAlexander emerges as a charismatic and surprisingly modern figure–neither a messiah nor a genocidal butcher but one of the most imaginative and daring military tacticians of all time. Balanced and authoritative, this brilliant portrait brings Alexander to life as a man, without diminishing the power of the legend.Advance praise for \u003ci\u003eAlexander\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“This thorough and deeply researched book is very welcome. Guy Rogers gives us, too, the astonishing and highly important relevance, to our whole history, including recent times, of this almost incredible career. Read it and think!”\u003cbr\u003e–ROBERT CONQUEST\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Rogers’s \u003ci\u003eAlexander\u003c\/i\u003e is a learned and judicious essay about a man who became a myth in his lifetime and remains partly mythical today in spite of the best efforts of generations of scholars to interpret and reinterpret surviving ancient texts about him. Certainty on many points will never be possible; but reading what Rogers has to say about how Alexander changed the world around him and how his deeds still echo among us is a delightful exercise. Alexander modeled himself on Homer’s heroes and actually joined their company, as no one else ever managed to do.”\u003cbr\u003e–WILLIAM H. MCNEILL, professor emeritus in history, University of Chicago, and author of \u003ci\u003eThe Rise of the West\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Guy Rogers has written a lively account of the amazing career of Alexander the Great. He greatly admires the Macedonian conqueror and his achievements, but his judgments are more balanced and marked by common sense than many modern treatments.”\u003cbr\u003e–DONALD KAGAN, Sterling Professor of History and Classics, Yale University, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Peloponnesian War\u003c\/i\u003e and other books.\u003cb\u003eGUY MACLEAN ROGERS\u003c\/b\u003e holds a Ph.D. in classics from Princeton University. He has received numerous grants and fellowships, including ones from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Philosophical Society, and All Souls College Oxford. His first book, \u003ci\u003eThe Sacred Identity of Ephesos: Foundation Myths of a Roman City,\u003c\/i\u003e won the Routledge Ancient History Prize. Chairman of the Department of History of Wellesley College from 1997-2001, he grew up and still lives in Litchfield County, Connecticut.Chapter 1\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Blood of Heroes\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePredictive Precocity\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen Ludwig van Beethoven was eleven years old, he composed some  piano pieces too difficult to play with his small hands. His music  teacher was said to have remarked, \"Why, you can't play that,  Ludwig.\" To which the boy replied, \"I will when I am bigger.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHistory is full of the notable quotes and feats of precocious  geniuses. The common thread of such stories is that they foreshadow  the great deeds to come. Of course young Beethoven knew that someday  he would be able to play the most difficult works for piano; after  all, he was Beethoven!\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMany such stories were told about Alexander the Great. Most can be  found in the first ten chapters of Plutarch's biography. Plutarch  relays them to suggest Alexander's future invincibility; his vehement  nature (barely controlled by his self-discipline); his  self-possession; his confidence; and his wit. The adult Alexander was  famous for all of these. It would be a mistake, however, to forget  some salient facts about his background and upbringing as we read  through Plutarch's delightful litany of youthful triumphs.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAlexander was a prince, with the blood of some of Greece's greatest  heroes (real and mythical) flowing through his veins from both sides  of his family tree. Moreover, this young prince did not grow up among  \"barbarians,\" as some ancient writers have intimated, but at a  wealthy, sophisticated royal court filled with great painters,  writers, diplomats, and soldiers. He also received the finest  education possible. Unless we keep these facts in mind we can never  understand how Alexander, the Macedonian prince, eventually became  the king of Asia and a god.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Blood of Heroes\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAlexander's mother, Olympias, was a princess of the royal house of  Molossia in Epirus (northwestern Greece). Molossos, after whom the  royal house was named, was supposedly the son of Andromache and  Neoptolemus. It was Neoptolemus who had slain King Priam at the altar  of Zeus Herkeios (\"of the Household\") during the sack of Troy. He  also happened to be the son of Achilles. On his mother's side,  Alexander was thus a blood descendant of the flawed hero of the Iliad  and his savage son. To Alexander, the significance of his descent  from the heroes of Greece's epic past was not a matter of passive  identification with ancient history; the past was alive, and  Alexander was part of a living epic cycle.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAlexander's father, Philip II of Macedon, had fallen in love with  Olympias when both were initiated into the mysteries of the Kabeiri  (earth gods) on the island of Samothrace. Later on, Olympias was  known to be devoted to ectastic Dionysian cults. During their  ceremonies she entered into states of possession, and to the festival  processions in honor of the god she introduced large, hand-tamed  snakes that terrified the male spectators.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eStrong-willed, intelligent, and ruthlessly committed to Alexander's  interests as she saw them, Olympias apparently never read the chapter  in the textbook of Greek culture that forbade women to meddle in  politics. She also passed along to Alexander her unshakable belief in  his special connection to the gods and his unique destiny. Alexander  may have been the only man in Macedon who was not afraid of his  formidable, some have said terrible, mother.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOlympias probably married Philip in 357. We are told that before  Alexander's birth she dreamed that she had heard a crash of thunder  and that her womb had been struck by a thunderbolt. There followed a  blinding flash of light. A great sheet of flame blazed up from it,  spreading far and wide before it disappeared.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePhilip, too, had a prophetic dream. He saw himself sealing up his  wife's womb; on the seal was engraved the figure of a lion.  Interpreting this dream, Aristander of Telmessus, who later served as  Alexander's seer during his campaigns, declared that Olympias must be  pregnant, since men did not seal up what was empty, and that she  would bear a son whose nature would be bold and lion-like.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThat bold and lion-like son probably was born on July 20, 356, the  very day when the great Temple of Artemis at Ephesos, one of the  seven wonders of the ancient world, burned to the ground. Hegesias of  Magnesia claimed that the conflagration was no wonder: Artemis was  away from her shrine attending the birth of Alexander.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePhilip received the news of his son's birth just after he had  captured the important city of Potidaea. In fact, three happy  messages were brought to Philip that day: that his one and only  general, Parmenio, had defeated the Illyrians in a great battle; that  his racehorse had been victorious at the Olympic games; and that  Alexander had been born. Philip's soothsayers predicted that a son  whose birth coincided with three victories would be invincible.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe soothsayers were right; but of course, they also knew that the  blood of some nearly invincible heroes flowed through the infant's  veins. Olympias did nothing to discourage Alexander's belief in his  descent from heroes and divinities. When she sent Alexander off to  lead his great expedition, we are told that she disclosed to him the  secret of his conception and exhorted him to show himself worthy of  his divine parentage. (Unfortunately, Alexander never revealed what  his mother had told him.)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEven as a young boy, according to Plutarch, Alexander revealed his  ambitious nature. He was a fine runner, and when friends asked him  whether he would be willing to compete at Olympia, he replied that he  would--\"if I have kings to run against me.\" He also astonished some  visiting Persian ambassadors by questioning them about the distances  they had traveled, the nature of the journey into the interior of  Persia, the king's character and experience in war, and the nation's  military strength. His close interrogation of these ambassadors was  later seen as particularly significant.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIndeed, even before he reached puberty, Alexander had already planned  his career. Whenever he heard that his father had captured some  famous city or won an overwhelming victory, he was annoyed and  complained to his friends, \"Boys, my father will forestall me in  everything. There will be nothing great or spectacular for you and me  to show the world.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Taming of Bucephalas\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAlexander's precocity and ambition are perhaps best illustrated by  the delightful story of the horse named Bucephalas--\"Oxhead,\" for the  shape of the mark on his forehead. The big black horse had been  brought to Philip by Philoneicus the Thessalian, who had offered to  sell him for the huge sum of thirteen talents. When Philip and his  friends went down to watch Bucephalas being put through his paces,  however, they found him quite wild and unmanageable. He allowed no  one to mount him; nor would the horse endure the shouts of Philip's  grooms. He reared up against anyone who approached him. Angry at  having been offered a vicious, unbroken animal, Philip ordered  Bucephalas to be led away.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAlexander intervened with a wager: if he could not mount and ride  Bucephalas, he would pay his purchase price. Philip's friends laughed  at the bet. But Alexander had noticed what no one else had seen: that  Bucephalas was spooked by his own shadow. Alexander therefore turned  Bucephalas toward the sun, so that his shadow would fall behind him;  then, running alongside and stroking him gently, Alexander sprang  lightly onto his back. When he saw that Bucephalas had been freed of  his fears and wanted to show his speed, Alexander gave him his head  and urged him forward at a gallop. As Philip and his friends held  their collective breath, Alexander reached the end of his gallop,  turned under full control, and rode back in triumph. Philip's friends  broke into applause. Philip himself, we are told, wept for joy, and  said, \"My boy, you must find a kingdom big enough for your ambitions.  Macedonia is too small for you.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePhilip was right, of course. But the real significance of this event  was not what it revealed of Alexander's ambition; what really set the  young prince apart were his keen powers of observation and his  ability to draw the correct inferences from what he saw. As a young  man, Alexander applied those powers to combat; he was able to observe  and then act upon data--features of topography, for instance--whose  implications no one else could understand as clearly or as quickly.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAn Education Fit for a Prince\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn charge of the nurses, pedagogues, and teachers expected to educate  the tamer of Bucephalas was a certain Leonidas, a relative of  Olympias, known as a strict disciplinarian. Alexander's pedagogue (or  minder, usually a slave) was an Acarnanian named Lysimachus, who  pleased his charge by calling Philip \"Peleus,\" nicknaming Alexander  \"Achilles,\" and styling himself \"Phoenix,\" the name of Achilles' old  tutor.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOnce when Alexander was making sacrifice to the gods and was  preparing to throw incense on the altar fire with both hands,  Leonidas stopped him: only when Alexander had conquered the  spice-bearing regions could he be so lavish with his incense. Later,  after he had conquered those regions, Alexander sent Leonidas 500  talents' worth of frankincense and 100 talents' worth of myrrh,  explaining that he had sent this abundance so that Leonidas might  stop dealing parsimoniously with the gods.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis ending has always appealed to those who have endured a strict  teacher. We should attend, however, to the anecdote's opening scene,  which provides the real insight into the character of Alexander. Even  before he needed their favor to conquer the world, Alexander was  extraordinarily pious and generous to the gods.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen Alexander was fourteen years old, Philip brought the great  philosopher Aristotle to Pella as Alexander's tutor. In what was  probably a consecrated precinct of the Nymphs near the beautiful  grove of Mieza, Aristotle tutored the young prince in ethics,  politics, and eristics (formal disputation).\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAristotle also annotated a copy of Homer's Iliad for Alexander. He  took it with him on his campaigns to the East; it was one of the very  few material possessions he ever seems to have cherished. During his  campaigns he slept with it under his pillow, along with a dagger.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe influence of the Iliad upon Alexander cannot be overestimated. To  begin with, it supplied a model of a war of revenge against Asia. And  Alexander seems to have been deeply moved by the heroic example of  his kinsman Achilles: when he visited the site of Troy in the spring  of 334, he honored Achilles and the other Greek heroes buried there  with sacrifices, and proclaimed Achilles happy in life, since he had,  while he was alive, a faithful friend, and after death, a great  herald of his fame.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt was Achilles' acceptance of the inevitability of his own death,  however, that most inspired Alexander. According to Homer, both  Thetis (Achilles' mother) and Achilles knew that once he had avenged  Patroklos by killing Hektor, his own death would be near. But in  avenging his friend he would win the only kind of immortality  available to mortals: excellent glory.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAlexander too seems to have been willing to accept death, at a time  of the gods' choosing, in exchange for the everlasting glory that  came from achieving great deeds of arms. That acceptance explains  best the pattern of Alexander's actions throughout his life. Like  Achilles, to gain all, Alexander was willing to risk all. In combat,  that was his great advantage over those who wanted to live  longer--and therefore were destined to live shorter and less glorious  lives.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHomer may have given Alexander some ideas about how to fight as well;  Alexander reportedly regarded the Iliad as \"a handbook of warfare.\"  Since there are no completely convincing examples in the epics of the  massed hoplite warfare typical of Macedonian practice during the  fourth century, we can only assume that what Alexander meant by his  remark was that, like Achilles, he should fight glorious duels with  his enemies out in front of his supporters. This is exactly what he  did. And we know that Alexander justified some of his more  controversial actions, such as marrying \"barbarian\" women, with  references to the Iliad.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs for Aristotle himself, what influence he had on Alexander's  thinking otherwise is debatable. According to some sources, he  advised Alexander to treat the conquered peoples of his empire like  plants or animals. There is really no good reason to doubt this  story; the general sense of the advice is completely consistent with  known Aristotelian theories about the natural and desirable  submission of slaves to masters, and of the conquered to their  conquerors. Fortunately for the conquered peoples of Asia, Alexander  ignored his teacher's counsel, preferring to treat at least some of  them as human beings.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e From between the lines of Plutarch's predictive account of  Alexander's early years, then, a picture of the young prince comes  into focus: a competitive and ambitious young man, pushed and pulled  between equally strong-minded parents, blessed with keen  intelligence, pious in a traditional fashion, sensitive and well  educated, but with an independent streak, and, most important, fired  by a passionate engagement with Greece's heroic past. Much of that  past had been defined by violent encounters with Greece's powerful  neighbor to the east, Persia.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eChapter 2\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAhuramazda's Plan\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eImpiety for Impiety\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe tribes of northern Greece had surrendered in 480 b.c.e. without a  fight. The Thebans and the Boeotians had offered earth and water--the  ancient tokens of submission. The Spartan king Leonidas and 300 of  his city's bravest lay dead in the pass at Thermopylae. Now, as the  enormous host of the Persian king Xerxes neared Athens, the Athenians  abandoned their city.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOnly a few temple stewards and poor old men remained on the  Acropolis, huddled together in the temple of Athena Polias. They had  barricaded the gates to the Acropolis with some planks and timbers,  trusting in the oracle from Delphi, which had promised that \"the  wooden wall would not be taken.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut some Persians discovered a way up the steep cliffs of the  Acropolis by the shrine of Kekrops' daughter Aglauros. They flung  open the gates to their fellow soldiers. All those who had taken  refuge inside the sanctuary were slaughtered. The Persians looted  Athena's temple and then burned the entire Acropolis to the ground.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBy the will of the wise god Ahuramazda, Xerxes had punished the  Athenians for giving aid to the Ionian rebels almost twenty years  before. Truth had triumphed over falsehood. The world had been put  back in order.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Athenians and their Greek allies saw the destruction of the  temples rather differently. The Persians had committed perhaps the  gravest impiety in history. Such sacrilege required revenge; and the  Greeks swore a solemn oath to the gods not to rebuild the  sanctuaries, but to leave them as a reminder to coming generations of  the impiety of the \"barbarians.\" True to their oath, the Athenians  did not begin to rebuild the temple of Athena until 447, by which  point they had been fighting Persia for nearly half a century. Even  then, many considered that the Persians still had not paid for what  they had done. Almost exactly 150 years after Xerxes destroyed the  temples on the Athenian Acropolis, a young Macedonian king burned  down the palaces of Ahuramazda's divinely selected rulers, returning  impiety for impiety. His name was Alexander.[quote] --The Globe and Mail","brand":"Random House Trade Paperbacks","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46304375537893,"sku":"NP9780812972719","price":24.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780812972719.jpg?v=1767721207","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/alexander-isbn-9780812972719","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}