Author Description

Alexander the Great was one of the most pivotal and significant personages of the ancient Greco-Roman world. Alexander conquered much of the Persian Empire and his reign impacted upon peoples and cultures from the Mediterranean Sea to the Indus River, and influenced what we know today as the Hellenistic Age. He also features as a legendary figure in both Persian religious Zoroastrian literature and the Islamic Koran. The reasons for the enduring interest in Alexander from ancient times until our own are not hard to find: his youth, his military genius, his ambitions, his vision, his ruthlessness, his extraordinary generosity, his charismatic flamboyance and ostentation. There is a vast bibliography of modern scholarly literature on the Macedonian conqueror yet there is no volume which has a specialist focus on the use of 'propaganda' in the era of Alexander. Propaganda - regardless of whether it was expressed in literature, coinage or iconography - was as integral to the Hellenistic courts as it was to Imperial Rome. This book brings together eleven essays from leading international scholars on Alexander, all of which focus on themes or issues relating to the use of propaganda at Alexander's court, as well as the courts of his Successors.