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Cultural depictions of Alexander the Great

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Main towns founded by Alexander

Around seventy towns or outposts are claimed to have been founded by Alexander the Great. Some of the main ones are:

Alexander as City-Planner

By selecting the right angle of the streets, Alexander made the city breathe with the etesian winds , so that as these blow across a great expanse of sea, they cool the air of the town, and so he provided its inhabitants with a moderate climate and good health. Alexander also laid out the walls so that they were at once exceedingly large and marvelously strong.
Diodorus Siculus, Library of History, volume 8.

Literature

  • From 1969 to 1981, Mary Renault wrote a historical fiction trilogy on the life of Alexander: Fire From Heaven (about his early life), The Persian Boy (about his conquest of Persia, his expedition to India, and his death, seen from the viewpoint of Bagoas, a Persian eunuch and Alexander's eromenos), and Funeral Games (about the events following his death). Alexander also appears briefly in Renault's novel The Mask of Apollo, and is alluded to directly in The Last of the Wine and indirectly in The Praise Singer. In addition to the fiction, Renault also wrote a non-fiction biography, The Nature of Alexander.
  • French writer Roger Peyrefitte wrote a trilogy about Alexander the great which is regarded as a masterpiece of erudition : La Jeunesse d'Alexandre (1977), Les Conquêtes d'Alexandre (1979) and Alexandre le Grand (1981).
  • A further trilogy of novels about Alexander was written in Italian by Valerio Massimo Manfredi and subsequently published in an English translation, entitled Child of a Dream, The Sands of Ammon and The Ends of the Earth.
  • David Gemmel's Dark Prince features Alexander as the chosen vessel for a world-destroying demon king. ISBN 0-345-37910-1.
  • Steven Pressfield's 2004 book The Virtues of War is told from the first-person perspective of Alexander. Pressfield's novel The Afghan Campaign is told from the point of view of a soldier in Alexander's army. Alexander makes several brief appearances in the novel.
  • Rudyard Kipling's story "The Man Who Would Be King" (1888) provides some glimpses of Alexander's legacy. Made into a movie of the same title in 1975, starring Sean Connery and Michael Caine.
  • In Alan Moore's Watchmen, one of the main characters, Ozymandias, goes into detail about how he followed in Alexander the Great's footsteps in order to achieve enlightenment.

Television

File:Rogue shield.jpg
The Smallville version of the Cuirass of Alexander the Great, as seen in the first season episode, "Rogue"

Film

Music

Date Title Artist/Group Notes Lyrics
1986 "Alexander the Great" Iron Maiden From the heavy metal album Somewhere in Time. The song describes Alexander's life, but contains one inaccuracy: In the song it is stated that Alexander's army would not follow him into India.
1998 "Alexandre" Caetano Veloso Brazilian epic song about Alexander the great from the album Livro.
2000 "Alexander the Great" Bond String quartet release on the album Born.

Computer games

Alexander in the expansion pack Rome: Total War Alexander.

References

  1. Alexander the Great: his towns
  2. "Kidman: 'Luhrmann Not Doing Alexander Film'", IMDb.com, November 1, 2004
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