Alexander the Great: The Unique History of Quintus Curtius

by Elizabeth Baynham

He was a pupil of Aristotle and conqueror of much of the known world. This handsome commander, leading his army from the lofty perch of the wild steed Bucephalas, looked out with his one dark and one blue eye upon the world he ruled by divine ambition.

The reign and personality of Alexander the Great---one of the most romantic and powerful kings in history---have remained a source of fascination from antiquity to the present. But because the ancient information surrounding the conqueror is rich, contradictory, and complex, every historian of this near-mythical ruler-whether ancient or modern-invariably creates his or her own Alexander.

The unique work of one such ancient historian, Quintus Curtius, is the subject of Elizabeth Baynham's book. She mines Curtius' study of power for his contemporary perspective, historical methodology, and his portrait of the famous king and presents us with a brilliant, multifaceted study of this unique account regarding one of the most fascinating rulers in history.

Genres: History, Nonfiction

256 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 1999

Reviews

[Gary Reger]

This book is a translation with introduction of Quintus Curtius' History of Alexander the Great. Curtius' work has provoked lots of debate, grounded in the unfortunate fact that the beginning has been lost; as a result, we have nothing on which to pin its date or set the author in his social and even chronological context. Curtius often offers more detail about a given event than the standard ancient account of Alexander's career by Arrian. If, as some believe, Curtius' work dates to the first century CE, then it would be prior to Arrian. Whether Arrian used Curtius is unclear; Arrian mentions by name some of his sources -- mostly companions of Alexander who wrote books, all now lost, after his death -- but never Curtius. Anyone working on Alexander's career needs to read Curtius carefully and compare his account with not only Arrian's, but also Diodoros of Sicily's -- whose book on Alexander in his universal history is the earliest surviving narrative. Baynham's done readers without, or with limited Latin (or patience) a service by rendering Curtius into English.

[Cara Best · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't know why Mary Renault calls him silly. He has recently been accepted by more and more historians.