Hi there. You're listening to the Hellenistic Age podcast. Episode 5, The King is dead. Long live the king.

The character of Alexander the Great is as intriguing as he is complicated.

Alexander is an incredibly polarizing character, heavily contrasted by the various cultures he left his mark upon.

Chivalrous and noble, yet hedonistic and a despot, reserved and philosophic, yet prone to anger and passion.

It is difficult to definitively pin down the man, largely because we tend to look at his history

through the filters of our times.

Generals, kings, and men of all nations have attempted to imitate an idealized version of him,

from Roman emperors to 19th century German authors, who thought of him as a state builder

and bringer of Western culture to a decadent oriental race.

Alexander has been reviled in the Persian and Indian traditions, viewing him as a barbarian

who viciously destroyed the prosperous Achaemen Empire and subjected the peoples to Hellenistic

overlordship. The tendency to name him the Great is something that many popular figures

and historians tend to

scoff at, assuming that the conquest of nations and the slaughtering of tens of thousands

could hardly constitute a figure of virtue. Regardless of whatever moral character he may have,

it is no doubt impossible to say that Alexander is not one of the most important and influential

figures in all of human history.

But the historiography from Alexander is almost entirely based upon sources written by authors

born long after Alexander's death.

The original sources written from the period have all effectively been lost over the

march of time.

Thankfully, we managed to have a collection of sources who use these original works,

...