Lecture 36: Even before his death, Alexander was hailed an extraordinary military genius, and all generals since, at least in the Western tradition, have measured himself against Alexander. Kings Demetrius Poliocretes and Pyrrhus of Epirus each stro…
Lecture 36: Even before his death, Alexander was hailed an extraordinary military genius, and all generals since, at least in the Western tradition, have measured himself against Alexander. Kings Demetrius Poliocretes and Pyrrhus of Epirus each strove to be the new Alexander in the wars of the Diadochoi. All the great commanders since the Renaissance have followed suit, and only Napoleon has claim to parity with the Macedonian conqueror.
To this day the name Alexander the Great is invoked in popular media to mark extraordinary genius in any field. Yet, the Romans, the institutional heirs of the Macedonian conqueror, had the greatest difficulty in coming to terms with the legacy of Alexander the Great. Successive generals of the Roman Republic—Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus, Gaius Marius, Pompey the Great, and Julius Caesar—postured as a Roman Alexander. Roman emperors whether the crazed Caligula or the sober Trajan, made the same comparison. Rome was a society and civilization built on the collective achievements of her citizens and public institutions rather than on individual genius. Roman writers rightly stressed that, for all his military genius, Alexander would have never had the impact without the organizing genius of Rome. For Rome used the institutions and cultural koine of the Hellenistic order forged by Alexander for the foundations for a Mediterranean Empire. Rome possessed the political, legal, and military arts to built upon Alexander’s legacy in ways unimaginable by the Macedonian king. Archaeology has increasing documented that so many of the cultural achievements of the Hellenistic world came to fruition under imperial Rome. The Romans themselves had to admit that their conceit of being Alexander’s institutional heirs carried with it an admission of the unique genius of Alexander the Great.
Suggested Reading:
Bosworth and Baynham, Alexander the Great in Fact and Fiction.
Bieber, Alexander the Great in Greek and Roman Art.
Cary, The Medieval Alexander.
Dahmen, The Legend of Alexander the Great on Greek and Roman Coins.
Fuller, The Generalship of Alexander the Great.
Hammond, The Genius of Alexander the Great.
Smith, Hellenistic Royal Portraits.
Stewart, Faces of Power.
Wilcken, Alexander the Great.
