Life of Alexander the Great Is One Term Paper

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life of Alexander the Great is one of the most well documented lives of the time and within all of that documentation there is a sense that Alexander was either a tyrant or a saint like human. It is clear that the mystery of his existence is challenged by the propriety of the ancient writings and the individual author's ideal of the hero, whom they wished to portray. In Alexander's time and in many times to follow it was the ideal to be feared, with zeal by the enemy and loved with zeal by the ally.

Then Alexander, eager to show his father his prowess, and second to none in excess of zeal, and also with many good men at his side, first succeeded in breaking the solid front of the enemy line and, striking down many, he fought those opposite him into the ground. (Diodorus, 16.85.5-86)

The value of Michael Wood's documentary film, "In the Footsteps of Alexander the Great," lies in the extensive manner in which Wood discusses the differences between the right and wrong of Alexander's time vs. our own.

Additionally the modern reader and even the modern man has a great deal of opinion regarding war, cruelty and any number of other seemingly senseless occurrences that are repeated to the farthest degree within most fable like histories of great men. The challenge is then to interpret, as a modern reader the reality of the life of someone who possesses the ideal characteristics of a hero of Alexander's time.

Reading the Works of Arrian, Curtius, Diodorus, and Plutarch, regardless of the modern language interpretations still leaves the reader with his or her own impressions of right and wrong.

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It is therefore difficult to address the man Alexander as a whole. The author's all tell the story as historians, yet in a very different tradition of history. The historic fable, the genre of its time does two things, it retells the story as it has been retold before, either through other older epic poetry histories or through legend mixed with the narrators own idea of right and wrong for their time.

Plutarch, probably the most prolific re-teller of Alexander's life seems to express a clear assessment of Alexanader as a man of great honor and civility expressing repeatedly the gifts given to his captured enemies and the kindnesses showed to their widows and daughters. In Plutarch's treatise on Alexander's fortune and virtue Plutarch sums up the ideal philosopher as he compares Alexander to some of the greatest one by one and then reiterates his point-of-view on Alexander's kindness and graciousness.

But if you consider the effects of Alexander's instruction, you will see that he educated the Hyrcanians to contract marriages, taught the Arachosians to till the soil, and….....

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