Alexander the Great

When asked to name other great military leaders, Julius Caesar reportedly said that Alexander was the only great one. Legend holds that Caesar was so overcome by envy and admiration of Alexander’s military prowess that he wept at the sight of his statue. Undefeated in battle, Alexander conquered lands from Greece, Egypt and Iraq to Iran, Afghanistan and India—all before his death at the age of thirty-two. He is regarded as one of the greatest military leaders of all time.

In the enthralling new narrative biography, Alexander the Great, Philip Freeman reveals how this relentless and driven man was able to win against all odds and shape the world in which we still live today. A professor of classics and the author of St. Patrick of Ireland and Julius Caesar, Freeman set out to write a biography that is “first and foremost a story.” He succeeds in making Alexander accessible as never before. Alexander emerges as a fully fleshed-out figure, and the descriptions of his conquests and battles make for riveting reading.

The son of Olympias and King Philip II, Alexander III was born in Pella in Macedonia in 356 B.C. He studied the classics under Aristotle and was a naturally gifted equestrian. His horsemanship skills would later serve him well in his travels and battles. As a teenager, he led a unit of the army to victory over Athens and Thebes at the Battle of Chaeronea. He assumed the throne after his father was assassinated in 336 B.C. Over twelve years of campaigns, Alexander proved himself to be a fearless, unbeatable and brilliant commander. Not only did he unite Greece, he also built an empire that spanned from the Adriatic Sea to India. Alexander, contends Freeman, conquered so much of the ancient world simply because he could.

Views of Alexander have varied over the centuries, with the leader being alternately deified and demonized. The Victorians saw him as a mirror image—an enlightened purveyor of civilization to the world through a superior culture and backed by a powerful military. “Today many modern scholars prefer to see Alexander as little more than a ‘drunken juvenile thug.’ This view is much too simplistic,” Freeman argues. “He was a man of his own violent times, no better or worse than Caesar or Hannibal. He killed tens of thousands of civilians in his campaign and spread terror in his wake, but so did every other general in the ancient world. If Alexander were alive today, he would undoubtedly be condemned as a war criminal—but he did not live in our age.”

Regardless of how Alexander’s tactics are viewed, his military brilliance is undeniable. This compelling biography offers new insights into the man and the Macedonian world that shaped him.