This is the story of Alexander caught in the process of transformation into the stuff of myth and legend. Indeed, the lineaments of the narrative have all the elements of the life of a World Savior, like the Gospels or the Pali canon texts of the Buddha's life: he is born, for instance, as part of a modified Virgin Birth, in which the last Egyptian pharaoh, Nectanebo, contrives to sleep with Alexander's mother while Philip is away on campaign. Nectanebo convinces Olympias that he is a god, and one, moreover, capable of transforming into a serpent, so that the traditional imagery of the classic Virgin Birth by the descent of a bird from above--i.e. Leda and the Swan; Mary and the angel Gabriel--is reversed to an insemination by a serpentine divinity from below. By the time the narrative closes, moreover, we are told that Alexander was born in the month of January and died in April, the same two points of the year which are of significance for the Christ myth. Here, Alexander, like Christ before him, is being deified.
Alexander's journeys in this narrative have a cosmological significance that puts the story squarely in the tradition of other such cosmological narratives as the Irish Voyage of Brendan, or the Estonian Kalevipoeg, or indeed, even the Gilgamesh Epic. We witness Alexander pushing into strange lands populated by monsters and demons, men with the heads of dogs and women vampires. We see him descend in a prototypal submarine to the depths of the sea, and ascend on the wings of eagles into the heavens, where he is approached by an angelic being who tells him to turn back. We journey with him to India, where he discourses with Hindu sages, and follow him on to the Nubian kingdom of Meroe, where he encounters Queen Candace and nearly succumbs to her manipulations. There is even a scene involving Amazons who volunteer to become part of his army.
It is all very exhilaratingly told, and best of all, it is short. The comparison with the Gilgamesh Epic, it is worth noting, seems appropriate in certain respects, although the two stories are exactly opposed in both sense and significance, for whereas the whole point of the Alexander Romance is to show him constructing a gigantic world megalopolis--founding one Alexandria after the next as he goes along--the point of the Gilgamesh Epic had concerned its hero's disillusionment with life under urban conditions followed by a desire, then, to leave the city behind in quest of a cosmic religious experience.
This book is absolutely necessary if you want to understand the ancient imagination and the origin of ideas of the Son of God. Alexander was the archetype for this as the son of Zeus/Ammon. He was also a descendant of Hercules and his exploits reflect the type of things Hercules did--righting wrongs, champion of the underdog, and always winning the good fight. People loved Alexander because he started the notion that people weren't divided as Greek vs. Barbarian, but as either good or evil. The notion that all peoples could be united in the brotherhood of man was also generated by his leadership and example.
Richard Stoneman does a fantastic job of bringing all the Alexander legends together in the true Alexander Romance--which was generated within a century of his death but was recreated and elaborated even through the Dark and Middle Ages.
Interesting review, though it does not make the book sound "useful" to those seeking to know more of the history. We know already that the "mythic Alexander" has had many incarnations. This "romance" may say that Alex the G was born in January, died in April. But the actual figure was born, I understand, in July and died in June. The pairing of this then with the birth and death dates of Christ--whose month of birth is not known but whose date of death was most likely April 3 of 33 A.D. (depending on how you figure it)--seems pointless, unless you assume that both accounts--the Greek Romance and the biblical gospels--are full-blown fables. Many would agree with that label for the Romances, but many who do not believe Jesus of Nazareth to be any more than a man from long ago at least grant something to the Gospels beyond mythology
Alexander's journeys in this narrative have a cosmological significance that puts the story squarely in the tradition of other such cosmological narratives as the Irish Voyage of Brendan, or the Estonian Kalevipoeg, or indeed, even the Gilgamesh Epic. We witness Alexander pushing into strange lands populated by monsters and demons, men with the heads of dogs and women vampires. We see him descend in a prototypal submarine to the depths of the sea, and ascend on the wings of eagles into the heavens, where he is approached by an angelic being who tells him to turn back. We journey with him to India, where he discourses with Hindu sages, and follow him on to the Nubian kingdom of Meroe, where he encounters Queen Candace and nearly succumbs to her manipulations. There is even a scene involving Amazons who volunteer to become part of his army.
It is all very exhilaratingly told, and best of all, it is short. The comparison with the Gilgamesh Epic, it is worth noting, seems appropriate in certain respects, although the two stories are exactly opposed in both sense and significance, for whereas the whole point of the Alexander Romance is to show him constructing a gigantic world megalopolis--founding one Alexandria after the next as he goes along--the point of the Gilgamesh Epic had concerned its hero's disillusionment with life under urban conditions followed by a desire, then, to leave the city behind in quest of a cosmic religious experience.
This book is absolutely necessary if you want to understand the ancient imagination and the origin of ideas of the Son of God. Alexander was the archetype for this as the son of Zeus/Ammon. He was also a descendant of Hercules and his exploits reflect the type of things Hercules did--righting wrongs, champion of the underdog, and always winning the good fight. People loved Alexander because he started the notion that people weren't divided as Greek vs. Barbarian, but as either good or evil. The notion that all peoples could be united in the brotherhood of man was also generated by his leadership and example.
Richard Stoneman does a fantastic job of bringing all the Alexander legends together in the true Alexander Romance--which was generated within a century of his death but was recreated and elaborated even through the Dark and Middle Ages.
Interesting review, though it does not make the book sound "useful" to those seeking to know more of the history. We know already that the "mythic Alexander" has had many incarnations. This "romance" may say that Alex the G was born in January, died in April. But the actual figure was born, I understand, in July and died in June. The pairing of this then with the birth and death dates of Christ--whose month of birth is not known but whose date of death was most likely April 3 of 33 A.D. (depending on how you figure it)--seems pointless, unless you assume that both accounts--the Greek Romance and the biblical gospels--are full-blown fables. Many would agree with that label for the Romances, but many who do not believe Jesus of Nazareth to be any more than a man from long ago at least grant something to the Gospels beyond mythology