Nobody knows the identity or background of the Roman author Q. Curtius Rufus, or when he wrote his History of Alexander the Great. This text along with Arrian’s Anabasis, Plutarch’s Life of Alexander, Diodorus Siculus Book 17 and Justin’s Epitome of Trogus Books 11–12 and the Metz Epitome is one of the main ancient sources on the reign and campaigns of the Macedonian conqueror. This chapter surveys current thinking on Curtius’ history, including issues like the historian’s probable sources, his literary structure, intertexuality and his characterization of Alexander. In particular the chapter explores the historian’s excursuses – in which he appears to be speaking in propria persona on Alexander’s personality as well as his portrayal of Alexander’s relationships with women, including the Athenian courtesan, Thais ,and the Amazon queen, Thalestris, and especially, the Persian queen, Sisygambis, the mother of Darius III.

As the principal sources of Arrian, Ptolemy and Aristobulus occupy a privileged position in the historiographical tradition on Alexander, although their histories survive only in fragments. Both wrote eyewitness accounts of Alexander’s expedition, and offer valuable insight as to how Alexander spun some of the more controversial aspects to his contemporaries. Ptolemy was a high-ranking officer, and so his history focused on the military events, in which he exaggerated his own contributions in order to portray himself as a worthy successor to Alexander. He also emphasized his close association with Alexander (reconfigured as a Ptolemaic predecessor) in order to legitimate the foundation of his future dynasty in Egypt. Aristobulus’ role on the expedition, on the other hand, appears not to have been a military one. His generally eulogistic treatment of Alexander focuses upon his clemency, although occasionally overt criticisms of his ruthless imperialism and increasing megalomania can be discerned. Because Aristobulus is largely unknown apart from the authorship of his history, it is difficult to ascertain in whose interest he manipulated the figure of Alexander, whose memory had become hotly contested in the turbulent years after his premature death.

The chapter considers the motivation for Alexander the Great’s expedition to India, which took him beyond the limits of the Persian Empire he had set out to conquer. Ambition (pothos) is seen as more probable than either strategic necessity or scientific curiosity. The course of the campaign from November 326 to July 325 BC is outlined, and the reasons for the savagery of the fighting during the journey down the Indus are considered. The chapter also reviews the impact of Alexander’s encounter with the ‘naked philosophers’ of Taxila. One of them, Calanus, travelled with Alexander until his death, and it is suggested that his conversation made an impression on another of Alexander’s companions, the philosopher Pyrrho, who became known as the founder of scepticism. The paper also reviews the legacy of Alexander in India. Foremost is the detailed account of India written by Megasthenes, a former member of Alexander’s army and ambassador from Seleucus to Candragupta. Indo-Greek dynasties persisted in north-west India for two centuries after Alexander’s death, but to narrate this history would go beyond the subject. The chapter looks briefly at the evidence for other Greeks who left records of their residence in India.

Alexander’s treaties and dealings with the Greek poleis mainly followed the path set by his father’s military success and diplomatic skills. The League of Corinth, an alliance between the states of the Common Peace with the aim of revenge against the Persian invasion of 480–79 BC was renewed by Alexander just after he became king. But the destruction of Thebes in 335 BC soon showed the Greeks that Alexander was ruthless in his authority, and it left a deep impression on them, for the only rebellion against Macedon with was the monor one of Agis III of Sparta, who failed to subdue Antipater’s armies. In Asia Minor, Alexander treated the Greek poleis as it suited him, with rewards for friends and punishments and for foes. During the conquest of the Achaemenid Empire, Alexander settled Greek populations in the new spear-won landscapes, spreading the Greek culture as he travelled, surrounded in his court by artists, philosophers and many other Greek intellectuals.

This chapter discusses the crises Alexander faced leading up to his succession to his father, Philip II: his dispute with Attalus at Philip’s wedding to Cleopatra, its causes, significance and aftermath; and the Pixodarus affair. It then turns to the crisis of the succession itself: the circumstances of Philip’s assassination at the hands of Pausanias, Alexander’s movements at the time of it, and the steps by which he secured the throne himself and legitimated himself as Philip’s successor.

This chapter provides an overview of Alexander’s wealth by examining the sources of his income and his expenditure. In connection to the expenditure, the chapter provides an overview of Alexander’s coinage. The chapter suggests that while Alexander’s campaigns brought tremendous wealth to the king, much of his useable wealth was absorbed by the army necessary for the campaigns.

Plutarch devotes two speeches and a biography specifically to Alexander. Current scholarship prioritizes the author over his subject. The erudite Plutarch employs numerous Alexander sources for his own writerly purposes. In the speeches he argues that Alexander’s successes are due to his own efforts rather than gifted by fortune. It is to be doubted that Plutarch had a serious polemical or philosophical point to prove; his epideictic oratory aims at rhetorical display and furnishing evidence from ready knowledge. The Life is similarly moulded by generic requirements. Plutarch provides an episodic birth-to-death account of Alexander, in which he presents himself as a competent interpreter and adviser. He quotes early sources, in particular from a collection of letters by Alexander, to render his depiction more authentic. Focusing on the ‘signs of the soul’, Plutarch is most interested in court politics and personal morals. His Alexander is determined by his physical make-up and greatness of soul on the one hand, and how effectively education and philosophy direct his ambition on the other. His biography is not apologetic; rather he wishes to educate his readership on how personal morality impacts on governance. References to his own context, if at all present, are oblique.

The chapter collects what may be known of Alexander’s life up until the battle of Chaeronea, for which the source of primary importance is Plutarch’s biography. It attempts to sift what may plausibly regarded as historical from embellishments of various kinds (contemporary and subsequent, propagandist, folkloric or mythologyzing). Particular attention is given to: Alexander’s three birth myths; his education at the hands of Lysimachus of Acarnania, Leonidas of Epirus and Aristotle; Aeschines’ vignette of him as nine-year-old boy; the intriguing traditions bearing upon his horse Bucephalas; his regency during the Byzantine campaign, his foundation of Alexandropolis and his dealings with the Persian ambassadors; his role in the battle at Chaeronea.

Women were interwoven into the politics of Alexander’s itinerant court. Alexander’s mother Olympias and his full sister Cleopatra played the most important and enduring roles at court, even though they remained in the Greek peninsula and never saw Alexander again. His half-sisters Cynnane and Thessalonice and his niece Adea-Eurydice (also all resident in the Greek peninsula during Alexander’s reign) only grew to some level of importance after his death. His first wife, the Bactrian Roxane, mother of Alexander IV, played more of a role, though a still limited one, than his two Achaemenid wives. Though he never married the half-Persian Barsine, he fathered a son by her. Men and women worked together, not infrequently for violent ends. Women’s access to information, their participation in information networks covering great distances, their attempts to influence events and decisions, and their ability to exercise patronage to their own ends is striking. The violent deaths of all the female Argeads (by birth or marriage) resemble those of male Argeads and many of the Successors. All these women were, in the end, killed because they somehow constituted a problem, a threat to others, just as the men did.