In the Middle Ages, the life story of Alexander the Great was a well-traveled tale. Known in numerous versions, many of them derived from the ancient Greek Alexander Romance, it was told and re-told ...throughout Europe, India, the Middle East, and Central Asia. The essays collected in Alexander the Great in the Middle Ages examine these remarkable legends not merely as stories of conquest and discovery, but also as representations of otherness, migration, translation, cosmopolitanism, and diaspora. Alongside studies of the Alexander legend in medieval and early modern Latin, English, French, German, and Persian, Alexander the Great in the Middle Ages breaks new ground by examining rarer topics such as Hebrew Alexander romances, Coptic and Arabic Alexander materials, and early modern Malay versions of the Alexander legend. Brought together in this wide-ranging collection, these essays testify to the enduring fascination and transcultural adaptability of medieval stories about the extraordinary Macedonian leader.
Drawing on decades of research on Alexander literature from all over the world, this book is bound to become a medievalist's best companion. It studies Alexander romances from the East and the West ...in literary form and content.
Until recently, popular biographers and most scholars viewed Alexander the Great as a genius with a plan, a romantic figure pursuing his vision of a united world. His dream was at times characterized ...as a benevolent interest in the brotherhood of man, sometimes as a brute interest in the exercise of power. Green, a Cambridge-trained classicist who is also a novelist, portrays Alexander as both a complex personality and a single-minded general, a man capable of such diverse expediencies as patricide or the massacre of civilians. Green describes his Alexander as "not only the most brilliant (and ambitious) field commander in history, but also supremely indifferent to all those administrative excellences and idealistic yearnings foisted upon him by later generations, especially those who found the conqueror, tout court, a little hard upon their liberal sensibilities." This biography begins not with one of the universally known incidents of Alexander's life, but with an account of his father, Philip of Macedonia, whose many-territoried empire was the first on the continent of Europe to have an effectively centralized government and military. What Philip and Macedonia had to offer, Alexander made his own, but Philip and Macedonia also made Alexander form an important context for understanding Alexander himself. Yet his origins and training do not fully explain the man. After he was named hegemon of the Hellenic League, many philosophers came to congratulate Alexander, but one was conspicuous by his absence: Diogenes the Cynic, an ascetic who lived in a clay tub. Piqued and curious, Alexander himself visited the philosopher, who, when asked if there was anything Alexander could do for him, made the famous reply, "Don't stand between me and the sun." Alexander's courtiers jeered, but Alexander silenced them: "If I were not Alexander, I would be Diogenes." This remark was as unexpected in Alexander as it would be in a modern leader. For the general reader, the book, redolent with gritty details and fully aware of Alexander's darker side, offers a gripping tale of Alexander's career. Full backnotes, fourteen maps, and chronological and genealogical tables serve readers with more specialized interests.
Scholars have long recognized the relevance to Christianity of the many stories surrounding the life of Alexander the Great, who claimed to be the son of Zeus. But until now, no comprehensive effort ...has been made to connect the mythic life and career of Alexander to the stories about Jesus and to the earliest theology of the nascent Christian churches. Ory Amitay delves into a wide range of primary texts in Greek, Latin, and Hebrew to trace Alexander as a mythological figure, from his relationship to his ancestor and rival, Herakles, to the idea of his divinity as the son of a god. In compelling detail, Amitay illuminates both Alexander’s links to Herakles and to two important and enduring ideas: that of divine sonship and that of reconciliation among peoples.
A lo largo del siglo XVIII, los Borbones invirtieron numerosos esfuerzos en consolidar su concepción, particularmente esplendorosa, del rey y de la monarquía para dejar atrás el decrépito legado de ...los últimos Austrias. Con ese propósito, la nueva Casa Real Española fijaría su atención en la Antigüedad grecorromana y en uno de los máximos representantes de ésta, Alejandro Magno, prototipo regio con el que los Borbones se sentían muy identificados. En este artículo analizaremos cómo se explotaría esta identificación por medio del teatro, del que siempre se había servido el poder político como herramienta propagandística.
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The "Vows of the Peacock" was composed in 1312 in France. One of the extant manuscripts stands out for its beautiful miniatures and scurrilous marginalia (PML, MS G24). It includes a catalogue and ...concordance of all Peacock manuscripts.
Alexander's heirs Anson, Edward M
2014., 2014, 2014-07-01, 2014-04-24
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Alexander’s Heirs offers a narrative account of the approximately forty years following the death of Alexander the Great, during which his generals vied for control of his vast empire, and through ...their conflicts and politics ultimately created the Hellenistic Age. -Offers an account of the power struggles between Alexander’s rival generals in the forty year period following his death -Discusses how Alexander’s vast empire ultimately became the Hellenistic World -Makes full use of primary and secondary sources -Accessible to a broad audience of students, university scholars, and the educated general reader -Explores important scholarly debates on the Diadochi
Macedonian chryselephantine couches - exquisitely carved and gleaming with gold, glass, and ivory - offer a particularly illuminating case study of the material ramifications of Alexander the Great’s ...conquests for Hellenistic art. Well-documented in archaeological remains and written texts, the couches also offer a concrete lens through which to analyze the transfer of cultural knowledge about feasting: an ephemeral activity as significant for Hellenistic kings as for their Persian predecessors. This article examines the couches’ archaeological contexts, the aristocratic tombs in which they were found and the elaborate palaces and elite houses in which they were likely first used. It then analyzes the couches themselves as delicate luxury objects that nonetheless, in their iconography, style, and even their material, highlighted the violence of Macedonian imperialism. And finally, it considers the ephemeral practices through which the couches were activated for their patrons, that is, the feasts and funerals at which the Macedonian aristocracy both emulated and reacted against Persian precedents. This re-evaluation of Macedonian chryselephantine couches illuminates global interconnections during the formative period of Hellenistic art.
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