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Historical person
357 BCE–324 BCE
Alexander the Great became king of Macedon in 336 BC and, within little more than a decade, conquered the Achaemenid Persian Empire, campaigned through Egypt and Central Asia, and reached the Punjab. He founded or refounded numerous cities, spread Greek political and cultural influence, and attempted to bind Macedonian and Persian elites into a single imperial system. His sudden death at Babylon in 323 BC left no settled adult successor and triggered decades of warfare among his generals.
Alexander has inspired a large body of historical fiction. Mary Renault’s trilogy—Fire from Heaven, The Persian Boy and Funeral Games—traces his youth, conquests and contested legacy, while Steven Pressfield’s The Virtues of War presents the campaigns through Alexander’s own retrospective voice. Novelists repeatedly return to his charisma, military brilliance, violence, relationships and increasing claims to divine or universal kingship.
In non-fiction, Alexander the Great is discussed in Mary Beard’s Confronting the Classics, Diodorus Siculus’s The Library, Books 16-20, Quintus Curtius Rufus’s The History of Alexander, Plutarch’s The Age of Alexander, and Arrian’s The Campaigns of Alexander. In Mary Beard’s Confronting the Classics, its subjects range from Greek drama, Roman humour and the palace at Knossos to Alexander the Great, Cleopatra, Nero, Boudica and the lives of enslaved people.
Historical context
Series
The Alexander the Great duology is a mythic heroic-fantasy sequence centred on Parmenion, a brilliant outsider whose military gifts draw him into the rise of Macedon. Gemmell uses recognisable names and settings as the framework for a supernatural struggle involving prophecy, reincarnation and forces that seek to shape…
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The Alexander trilogy follows Alexander from childhood at the Macedonian court through the conquest of the Achaemenid Empire and into the violent struggle that followed his death. Fire from Heaven concentrates on his formation under Philip II, Olympias and Aristotle; The Persian Boy narrates the later campaigns through…
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Alexander’s Legacy follows the violent struggle for power after the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BCE. The sequence is not about Alexander’s conquests themselves but about the generals, royal women, heirs and soldiers left to divide an empire too large for any single successor to control.…
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The Tyrant series is set around the Black Sea during the conquests of Alexander the Great and the wars among his successors. It begins with the Athenian soldier Kineas and the Scythian leader Srayanka, then continues through their children Satyrus and Melitta as Macedonian generals compete to divide…
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The Alexander Trilogy follows Alexander of Macedon from his childhood at Philip II's court to the creation of an empire stretching from Greece and Egypt to Central Asia and India. The first volume traces the family, education and political violence that form the young prince; the later books…
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The Alexander the Great Mysteries follow Telamon, a physician and boyhood companion of Alexander, during the opening campaign against the Achaemenid Persian Empire in 334 BCE. Alexander’s army has crossed from Macedonia into Asia, but assassinations, infiltrators and rivalries within the command threaten the expedition before and between…
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Epic Historical Adventure is Colin Falconer's publisher-defined collection of stand-alone historical thrillers rather than a continuous narrative sequence. The novels range from Alexander the Great, Cleopatra and the Mongol Empire to the Ottoman court, the conquest of Mexico, colonial India, shipwreck and twentieth-century Palestine. Most volumes can be…
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The Vespasian series follows Titus Flavius Vespasianus from obscure young nobleman and soldier to the imperial contender who will found the Flavian dynasty. The novels use Vespasian’s career to move through the Julio-Claudian court, frontier warfare, Britain, Armenia, North Africa, Judaea and the civil-war crisis of AD 69.…
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Standalone books
Non Fiction
Biographies, histories and other non-fiction are listed separately from the historical novels above.
