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Here's a book you've probably never heard of, much less read, unless you're an ancient history buff like me. We've all heard about this Alexander the Great, right? Conquered the world or something, didn't he? Maybe you've read some brief little synopsis of his career in a history book, memorized a couple of dates, and forgot the whole thing. This is the book that will show you everything you've been missing about one of the greatest achievements of one man in the history of the world (not counting religious figures, of course, and with a sidelong glance at Ghengis Khan, debating a second over his incredible achievements). This book was written by some Roman senator in his spare time as a lesson to others on how to inspire and lead troops and on what happens when you let incredible success go to your head. With a motley army of Greeks and mercenaries, Alexander took on the biggest tyrant of the middle east and won, battle after battle, city after city. Rufus is a great writer, giving you enough details to bring the scenes to life, but never going into long boring passages of strategy or other overtly pedantic information. He abounds in interesting anecdotes that bring the characters to life. He covers interesting history and geographical information. This book, like all the books I recommend, is fun to read, and I regret the loss of the first two or three "Chapters" (actually, referred to as books, since this "book" is actually a series of "books" since they didn't divide books into chapters back then) to time. This book will amaze anyone that it was written so incredibly long ago. You get a sense of being so much closer to the action by reading Rufus instead of some history book, because the context in which everything is explained is so much closer to the events as they happened that there is more immediacy to the feeling you get than the feeling you get from a modern history book. But it is Alexander himself who makes this book the amazing thing it is. He was incredible! The combination of sheer luck, military genius, bravery, and presumption that drove him on, from city to city, conquering everyone in his path, was amazing. It got to the point where cities would simply hear he was coming and surrender without a fight, which happened at the luckiest possible times, when his army was down to practically nothing. Everybody loves a superhero, an amazing, lucky winner who always comes out on top, a fighter who never knows when he's licked, and that was Alexander the Great in a nutshell. But Rufus goes beyond the myth and exposes the man as well. The more successful he got, the more corrupted by drink and sex he became, and Rufus dishes all the dirt on his sexual preferences, another plus you get from reading a book written by a Roman instead of a history book written by some professor afraid of corrupting the morals of youngsters with all the sordid details. Alexander was a little crazy, by anyone's standards, also. He never wanted to stop conquering. He kept going further and further eastwards, into lands no one even knew existed, until he got deep into India. His troops begged him to go back home much of the way, but part of the invincibility of his army was the desperation of men fighting for their lives an unimaginable distance from their home. Make sure, if you read this book, that you get one with good maps of the regions he conquered. I read the Penguin Classics version, which had great maps and footnotes. I went to the trouble of making it easy to buy for you: |
