What can we learn from the stunning rise and mysterious death of the ancient world s greatest
conqueror? An acclaimed biographer reconstructs the life of Alexander the Great in this
magisterial revisionist portrait. [An] infectious sense of narrative momentum . . . Its energy
is unflagging including the verve with which it tackles that teased final mystery about the
specific cause of Alexander s death. The Christian Science Monitor More than two millennia have
passed since Alexander the Great built an empire that stretched to every corner of the ancient
world from the backwater kingdom of Macedonia to the Hellenic world Persia and ultimately to
India all before his untimely death at age thirty-three. Alexander believed that his empire
would stop only when he reached the Pacific Ocean. But stories of both real and legendary
events from his life have kept him evergreen in our imaginations with a legacy that has meant
something different to every era: in the Middle Ages he became an exemplar of knightly chivalry
he was a star of Renaissance paintings and by the early twentieth century he d even come to
resemble an English gentleman. But who was he in his own time? In Alexander the Great Anthony
Everitt judges Alexander s life against the criteria of his own age and considers all his
contradictions. We meet the Macedonian prince who was naturally inquisitive and fascinated by
science and exploration as well as the man who enjoyed the arts and used Homer s great epic
the Iliad as a bible. As his empire grew Alexander exhibited respect for the traditions of his
new subjects and careful judgment in administering rule over his vast territory. But his career
also had a dark side. An inveterate conqueror who in his short life built the largest empire up
to that point in history Alexander glorified war and was known to commit acts of remarkable
cruelty. As debate continues about the meaning of his life Alexander's death remains a
mystery. Did he die of natural causes felled by a fever or did his marshals angered by his
tyrannical behavior kill him? An explanation of his death can lie only in what we know of his
life and Everitt ventures to solve that puzzle offering an ending to Alexander s story that
has eluded so many for so long.
