Alexander the Great

Two days ago, Johan Norberg, Sweden’s most prominent libertarian intellectual, announced on his blog that his wife has given birth to a boy. The new parents have named him Alexander ”because he is great”. I congratulated the father in an email.

Now, this got me to remember a superb book about Alexander the Great I read about ten years ago. It’s written in Latin by the Roman historian Quintus Curtius Rufus, but is available in an English translation published in paperback by Penguin. I recommend anyone interested in Alexander to read it. Parts of original manuscript has been lost, but what’s left of it is well worth reading anyway.

From the synopsis on online bookstore Amazon.co.uk:

Alexander the Great (356-323 BC), who led the Macedonian army to victory in Egypt, Syria, Persia and India, was perhaps the most successful conqueror the world has ever seen. Yet although no other individual has attracted so much speculation across the centuries, Alexander himself remains an enigma. Curtius’ History offers a great deal of information unobtainable from other sources of the time. A compelling narrative of a turbulent era, the work recounts events on a heroic scale, detailing court intrigue, stirring speeches and brutal battles—among them, those of Macedonia’s great war with Persia, which was to culminate in Alexander’s final triumph over King Darius and the defeat of an ancient and mighty empire. It also provides by far the most plausible and haunting portrait of Alexander we possess: a brilliantly realised image of a man ruined by constant good fortune in his youth.

So here it is, my gift to the new father—a great read in the few precious hours of baby silence.