This chapter addresses how the Crusades spurred a renewed appropriation of Alexander in historiography, literature, images and cartography in late medieval Europe. Alexander’s legend was particularly relevant because it reflected the era’s geopolitical and epistemological complexity. The chapter focuses first on the ancient Alexander legend’s adaptation in Crusade-era texts including Crusade chronicles, epics, antique romances and encyclopedias. These works compare Alexander to Crusaders, present Alexander as a precursor of the Crusaders who fights Asian tyranny, interpolate Alexander into the stories of Crusaders through ekphrasis, and frequently cite the legend of Alexander’s enclosure of Gog and Magog. The chapter’s second part focuses on how manuscripts present Alexander as a proto-Crusader even if texts do not overtly describe him as such. Particular attention is paid to compilations that join Alexander and holy warriors (Judas Maccabeus, Godfrey of Bouillon), and to images that Christianise Alexander or demonise his foes. The final section examines the influence of Alexander’s legend on the apocalyptic geography of late medieval maps, which often depict Gog and Magog and other elements (toponyms, sites, monstrous peoples) of the Alexander tradition.

This chapter surveys the main treatments of Alexander in Jewish literature (in Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic), from the Hellenistic period to the Hebrew Alexander Romances and the medieval biblical and Talmudic commentators. Themes discussed include the prophecy of Daniel regarding Alexander and Makedonian rule, the king’s visit to Jerusalem, the analogies drawn between his character and role and those of Cyrus and Antiochos IV, and the value attached to his name and personality by the Jewish community in Alexandria. The Romances tell of Alexander’s adventures with gymnosophists, Amazons, and his wise judgement given to the king of Katzia. Though a hero and sage in Jewish tradition, his aspirations to divinity make him an imperfect role model for the rabbinic scholars.

Within contemporary Western gay communities, Alexander the Great is often championed as a hero and an inspirational figure – the ultimate high-status homosexual. This chapter explores the various ways in which he has been visualised within the gay community and its wider – more closeted – community. The chapter explores his literary image in the novels of Mary Renault, in stage musicals and pornography and in mainstream Hollywood cinema. The darker, anti-gay, reading of Alexander is also explored in the context of right-wing nationalism and the military.

Alexander the Great attained universal fame for having explored the entire world in his days. Indeed, in world literature his portrayal as the crown of kingship surpassed all boundaries of transmission and exchange. In the Arabic and Islamic world a multifaceted image unfolded in an array of texts, staging Alexander as an exemplary prince, a devoted leader, explorer of terra incognita and seeker of wisdom. On the basis of lesser-known and still unclosed sources written in Arabic this chapter will shed light on the development and formative stages of this rich and marvellous Oriental Alexander tradition.

Librettists and composers began to create operas based on Greco-Roman myths in 1598, but operas based on ancient history did not appear until 1643, and Alexander operas not until 1651, when Sbarra’s Alessandro vincitor di se stesso and Cicognini’s Gli amori di Alessandro Magno, e di Rossane were produced. Source materials are problematic for identifying every received title accurately, but clearly the corpus of Alexander operas is large. Pagan divinities appeared in the earliest Alexander operas, particularly in prologues, but this was operatic convention, not because of Alexander’s divinity. Thereafter, Venetian operatic plot formulas often shaped Alexander’s characterisation, as did aristocratic patronage. But because the Alexander historians described so many types of episodes displaying a range of characterisations from magnanimous to vindictive, roles for the operatic Alexander varied widely, as did texts for individual productions. Metastasio’s Alessandro nell’Indie was the most frequently produced Alexander opera, enduring for nearly a century. But after the Napoleonic era production dwindled considerably.

This chapter endeavours to highlight some characteristics of the Persian tradition concerning the heroic aspect of Alexander the Great. Firstly, it states that the royal Alexander was modelled on Kay Khosrow/Cyrus the Great, fitting him within a heroic structure which emphasised an ideal kingship. As a conqueror who became a ‘legitimate Persian king’, Alexander embodies values the Iranians had already brought into their own ideologies of kingship. Therefore, other monarchs during Iranian history tried to link themselves to Alexander, legitimising the transfer of political power and the use of the past in the construction of their image. Secondly, this chapter studies some thematic elements of Alexander’s adventures which were transferred to the other heroes, especially those of the Sistāni cycle of epic. It claims that the influence of the Alexander Romance on this genre goes further than the versions dedicated to Alexander’s adventures, making him as an exemplum, a model of a hero-king.

This chapter explores the double-voiced presentation of Alexander the Great in the Libro de Alexandre, and its relationship to the poem’s structure and composition. The chapter provides an overview of the Spanish poem and its praise of Alexander, in terms which reflect its Christianised and medieval perspective, before assessing the nature and logic of the criticism of Alexander that sits alongside such praise. Emphasis is placed on the role of prophecy and providence within the poem, which both legitimise Alexander’s successes in a Christian framework and lay the groundwork for the more hostile picture that follows; and on the nature of Alexander’s moral failing in view of the poem’s acknowledged ambivalence in giving apparent primacy to greed and pride. Following a hint in Gautier de Châtillon’s Alexandreis, these sins may be seen as consequences of another moral flaw: an underlying lack of mesura, which underpins the Libro’s innovative didactic focus and whose relationship to the legitimising factor of providence facilitates the double-voiced presentation of Alexander that distinguishes his appearance in medieval Spanish garb.

Sir William Alexander’s tragedies on classical themes include two relating to Alexander the Great: one is about the latter’s defeat of Darius III and the other follows the fortunes of the successors after Alexander’s death. (It begins with a long speech by Alexander’s ghost). This chapter aims to combat the prevailing critical contempt for these plays by demonstrating the high level of scholarship that went into their composition and the thematic unity to the Alexandraean Tragedie conferred by the series of chorus meditations on Fortune and mutability. Sir William’s educational background and classical reading are explored, as well as his connections with the stage, and his work is compared with earlier Elizabethan plays on classical themes, including the comparable play by Samuel Daniel, Philotas.

After the rediscovery of the historical Alexander at the beginning of the early modern period debate on the great conqueror has been determined both by the respective circumstances of the time and the world view of the discussants. In Germany, for a long time, the same – opposing, moralising and character-related – views of Alexander were repeatedly essayed: Alexander, the bringer of civilisation, adventurer and world opener on one hand, Alexander, the destroyer and mass murderer on the other. Johann Gustav Droysen’s book of 1833, which ascribed to the Macedonian king the (world-historical) mission to prepare the way for the Christian Gospel (and for Islam) through the fusion of Orient and Occident (under Greek aegis), took a prominent position. Despite the general recognition of Alexander’s military exploits, it was his alleged unifying and cosmopolitan measures and the abandonment of the so-called völkisches Prinzip which met with opposition, not least during the National Socialist era. Modern preference for stricter source criticism and detailed research still do not prevent sketches of (constructed) images of Alexander’s personality, ambivalences in the evaluation of the king and his instrumentalisation as a projection figure.

The Byzantines had direct access to much ancient material about Alexander, and so their view of him, compared to that of other cultures, tended to be more grounded in history. Yet they also continued to develop the Romance tradition in new directions and combined it with parallel Christian interpretations that tied the Conqueror to prophesies made in the book of Daniel and apocalyptic scenarios involving Gog and Magog. These different elements combined in various permutations when the Byzantine historians turned to Alexander in their surveys of world history. Alexander was also invoked in rhetoric that praised the Byzantine emperors, often to show that they had surpassed him, but he was not a meaningful model of kingship for them as he imparted no lessons about how to actualy rule a kingdom.

The iconography of Alexander the Great (356–323 BC) in ancient art evolved as his legend grew and he came to symbolise different things to diverse social groups through the centuries. None of his lifetime portraits has survived but we have literary records and Roman copies. In the Hellenistic period (323–30 BC) his image provided a source of legitimacy for his Successors, who placed his portrait on their coins, erected his posthumous statues in their kingdoms and generally sought to imitate him. These coin portraits and several Hellenistic statues have come down to us, enabling us to assess his image through the filter of later interpretations.

The introduction briefly surveys Alexander’s historical career before going on to describe the development of his legend in the various Greek and Latin versions of the Alexander Romance, which continued to be rewritten (as the Historia de Proeliis) to the end of the Middle Ages. It also provides the context for the contributions surveying the Jewish, Persian, Arabic, Spanish, Slavic, French and German receptions of Alexander in literature, as well as his impact as a political role model in the Crusades, Muslim expansion and the world-dominating ambitions of early modern Europe. It concludes with a glance at the contested figure of Alexander and his homeland of Macedonia, in the present-day Balkans.

Alexander played an important role in medieval Islamic philosophy and Persian literature, serving as a vehicle for discussions of the ‘ideal king’ in Mirror for Princes literature. This chapter explores the background to one particular work, Amir Khusraw’s Mirror of Alexander (1299), in which the king consults the philosopher Plato for advice on rulership before embarking on his submarine voyage to explore the nature of the universe. Plato’s characterisation as a mystical sage is contrasted in medieval Islam with the wisdom of Aristotle, Alexander’s teacher. In Amir Khusraw as in Nizami, Alexander is as much a philosopher as a king.

During the Middle Ages, the iconography of Alexander the Great could be found in religious as well as lay environments. The diversity of illustrated media (mosaics and capitals as well as tapestries and manuscripts) in which his likeness was represented reflects the variety of appraisals assigned to him as a historical figure, from condemnation to admiration. The analysis of various manuscripts and artefacts illustrated with images of the Alexander saga show that the same story, written and illustrated in different contexts, allowed different and nuanced interpretations: historical, political, encyclopaedic, courteous etc. The figure of Alexander the Great was particularly used by medieval rulers to base their political claims and aspirations through an intentional remastering of classical sources and associated iconography.

It is greatly tempting to speak of a specifically ‘Trajanic’ moment in Alexander reception, as this is the only moment in Greek literature in which an ‘idealised Greek’ Alexander appears. This chapter concentrates on his unusual figuration as a philosopher by Dio Chrysostom and Plutarch, which is both decisively Hellenocentric and at the same time motivated by Trajan’s own profile as a philhellene who admired Alexander as a military hero. The uniqueness of this image is suggested by contrast with other near-contemporary texts that are decidedly philosophical – those of Musonius Rufus, Epictetus, Pseudo-Diogenes and Maximus of Tyre – but that either ignore Alexander or see him as a philosophical anti-type. Idealising Alexander required opportunity, which I suggest came quickly in the form of Trajan, was seized upon by a couple of experimentalists, and disappeared just as quickly, at least within secular literature.

At Christmas 1833 a History of Alexander the Great (Geschichte des Alexanders des Groẞen) appeared in Berlin, consisting of almost 600 densely printed pages and accompanied by about 650 learned notes. The author, Johan Gustav Droysen, was an exceptionally gifted young scholar aged twenty-five. Two years previously he had defended his thesis on Lagid Egypt, and had been the pupil, at the University of Berlin, of distinguished teachers, in the areas of Altertumswissenschaft (August Boeckh), historical geography (Carl Ritter) and philosophy of history (Georg Wilhelm Hegel). This Alexander was followed in 1836 and 1843 by two other volumes devoted to what we today call the Hellenistic world (Hellenismus). Although in the meantime Droysen had turned his attention to the modern and contemporary history of Prussia, these three volumes were reissued in 1877 as a Geschichte des Hellenismus.