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Historical person
357 BCE–324 BCE
Alexander the Great was king of Macedon from 336 to 323 BCE and the conqueror of the Achaemenid Persian Empire. The son of Philip II, he inherited a powerful Macedonian army and used it to overturn Persian rule from Asia Minor to Egypt before campaigning through Mesopotamia, Iran and into north-western India.
Alexander’s victories at the Granicus, Issus and Gaugamela destroyed the military position of Darius III and enabled him to claim the Persian kingship. His attempt to combine Macedonian and Persian elites created tensions within his army and court, and his death at Babylon in 323 BCE left no stable adult successor. His generals subsequently divided the empire, beginning the Hellenistic age.
Steven Pressfield’s Alexander follows Alexander from Chaeronea through the conquest of the Persian Empire, the campaigns in Central Asia and India and the destructive return through the Gedrosian Desert. Christian Cameron’s Alexander retells the same career through Ptolemy, allowing a former companion to measure the king’s military brilliance against executions, fractured friendships and an increasing claim to divine status. Quintus Curtius Rufus’s The History of Alexander preserves one of the major ancient narrative traditions for the conquest, while Diodorus Siculus’s The Library, Books 16-20 carries the story from Philip II and Alexander into the wars of his successors. Mary Beard’s Confronting the Classics revisits Alexander as part of a broader examination of how modern readers interpret the ancient world, and Arrian’s The Campaigns of Alexander remains a key ancient narrative for the march from Asia Minor to India.
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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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 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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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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The Shards is a historical fantasy sequence in which divine relics shape the wars and dynastic struggles of the ancient Mediterranean. The prequel The Aegis and the Oasis follows Alexander the Great and Hephaestion in Egypt; the main trilogy begins after Julius Caesar’s assassination and follows the conflict…
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Standalone books
Non Fiction
Biographies, histories and other non-fiction are listed separately from the historical novels above.
