Alexander of Lyncestis

Alexander of Lyncestis was a Macedonian nobleman from the ruling family of Lyncestis and a contemporary of Alexander the Great. Two of his brothers were executed after the assassination of Philip II in 336 BC, but Alexander was initially spared and received military commands. He was later arrested after correspondence linked him to Persian attempts to assassinate the king, remained imprisoned for several years and was executed in 330 BC after the conspiracy of Philotas.

In historical fiction about Alexander the Great, Alexander of Lyncestis usually appears as part of the atmosphere of suspicion that followed Philip II’s murder and accompanied the Asian campaign. Mary Renault’s Alexander novels, especially Fire from Heaven and The Persian Boy, explore the rivalries and conspiracies surrounding the Macedonian court, although minor figures may be compressed or interpreted differently from the surviving sources. His story offers novelists a useful example of uncertain guilt and dangerous dynastic connections.

In Harry Sidebottom’s The Shadow King, Alexander of Lyncestis survives the murder of Philip II and the execution of his brothers because the new king, Alexander the Great, spares him.

In non-fiction, Alexander of Lyncestis is discussed in Diodorus Siculus’s The Library, Books 16-20 and Quintus Curtius Rufus’s The History of Alexander. Diodorus Siculus’s The Library, Books 16-20 approaches the subject through military command and battlefield decision-making, court politics and dynastic power, and empire, conquest and resistance.