Alexander the Great: His Life and His Mysterious Death

by Anthony Everitt

Are we to take the rhetoric of revenge seriously? It incorporated a large quantum of propaganda, which veiled true motives such as greed, ambition, and a growing sense of Persian weakness.

Greeks were a religious people and there is little reason to suppose that the priests at Delphi were regularly guilty of conscious deceit or fakery.

Why not, sex abuse is rampant in Catholic church

MACEDONIA DID NOT HAVE robust institutions that could cope with sudden vacuums of power.

“You can say what you like, but if I were not Alexander, I should have liked to be Diogenes.”

Greek word pothos. This means a desire or yearning for what one does not have.

Aristocrats traveled around the Mediterranean and developed a network of equals on whose hospitality they could depend. These relationships had a basis in affection, but from a practical point of view they functioned as alternatives to the institutions of modern life—banks, travel agencies, passports, legal services, hotels.

This was unwise. Alexander had been given a fright, but had not taken fright.

SOME WOLVES WERE TRYING to surprise a flock of sheep. Unable to reach the peaceable animals because of the dogs that were guarding them, they decided to use a trick to get what they wanted. They sent some delegates to ask the sheep to give up their dogs. It was the dogs, they said, who created the bad blood between them. If only the sheep would get rid of them, peace would reign between sheep and wolves. The sheep did not foresee what was going to happen and gave up the dogs. The wolves could now follow their instincts: they made supper of the unguarded sheep.

This was an almost suicidal act of bravery, but its highly trained members were expendable.

This sentence make no sense.

He exempted their parents and children from land taxes and all other forms of personal state service and property levies.

His men trusted him for his lunatic courage; he would himself do anything he asked of them, and more.

More likely, Alexander did not know what his precise intentions were. He was following his star.

As the adage has it, no one rises so high as he who knows not where he is going.

he should have been careful what he wished for, lest it came true.

He said, perhaps recalling military planning conversations with his previous master: “I would accept those terms if I were Alexander.” “So would I, by Zeus, if I were Parmenion,” came the crushing rejoinder.

Sematawytefnakht

Instantly identifiable, he was not only a human flag or standard to be followed and protected at all costs, but also a key enemy target.

this is a terrible sentence

panicked and fled. Many were killed. Ariobarzanes himself escaped into the hills with forty cavalrymen and five thousand foot.

terrible sentences like this takeme out of he book and makes this read like an AMateurs work

The most important personage who came to light was Oxyathres, a younger brother of Darius, to whom Oxyathres had been devoted.

confusing setences

Bessus’s moment came too late, for the Fates had already cut the empire’s thread with their shears.

unnecessary sentences

When an army wins a victory over the enemy, No one gives credit to the men who sweat and fight; The general reaps the glory. Yet he, after all, Wields only one sword.

“Alexander wants to be a god? Very well, let’s call him a god!”

It looks very much as if the king died of an insect bite.