Man of war

Alexander the Conqueror: The Epic Story of the

Warrior King

By Laura Foreman

Da Capo, 211 pp., illustrated, $35

Alexander the Great:

The Hunt for a New Past

By Paul Cartledge

Overlook, 368 pp., illustrated, $28.95

Of all the rulers in Western history we call "Great" -- Alfred, Charlemagne, Catherine, Frederick -- Alexander is in a class by himself. He led men into battle at 16 and became king of Macedon at 20. Four years later he was crowned pharaoh of Egypt (which meant he was worshiped as a living god, thus confirming his favorite hunch); the following year he became ruler of the Persian Empire. The Delphic oracle pronounced him "invincible," and so he was, at least in battle. He suffered only one defeat -- when, after eight years, his weary, homesick soldiers mutinied in India. At that point (he was 30), his empire stretched from the Adriatic to India, the Danube to the Sudan, yet he was ravenous for more -- more land to conquer, more glory, more war. Arrian, our best classical source, writes that for Alexander "the sheer pleasure of battle, as other pleasures are to other men, was irresistible."

Although he lived such a public life, Alexander remains an enigma. Over 20 of his contemporaries wrote about him, but nothing survives in the original. The first full biography we have was written five centuries after his death. His world was also radically different from ours, and anyway comparisons are hopeless in his case, as Julius and Augustus Caesar realized to their dismay. He's so extraordinary he almost seems a different species, so the writer's job is always essentially the same: to dispel the accretions of myth and legend that obscure the living man.

Two new books in the quest to discover the real Alexander are now appearing. "Alexander the Conqueror," by Laura Foreman, is a generously illustrated introduction to Alexander's life and times. The book is written in a sprightly, reader-friendly style, and it contains all the choice bits of Alexander lore. It's so good overall, in fact, that its failings are especially annoying. For one thing, the maps are woefully inadequate. When we read that after their second battle Darius offered Alexander "the territories and cities of Asia west of the Halys River," we can't know how magnanimous Darius's offer was because the relevant map doesn't show the Halys River. The maps are so rudimentary they look as if they've been culled from a children's book. Several of the artworks in the book aren't attributed or located; many are so small you'll need a magnifying glass to make sense of them. Too, some illustrations have only a tangential relationship to Alexander, such as a vase painting of boxers (he loathed the sport) and Byzantine ruins in Sparta where Alexander never set foot.

But the illustrations are nonetheless handsome and, with some patience, rewarding. Tip: Since the text includes one- and two-page disquisitions on fascinating and informative subjects like the Macedonian infantry and the oracle at Delphi, I recommend that at the beginning of each chapter you first read those extended footnotes and soak up the illustrations in order to clear your way into the text. For the lay reader, this book is an excellent introduction, giving a lucid understanding of Alexander's accomplishments and of why he has mesmerized the Western imagination down to our own day.

"Alexander the Great" is a more scholarly affair, written by one of the best-known authorities on ancient Greece, Paul Cartledge. His scholarship is impeccable, and he has provided helpful maps and battle plans plus a detailed index and an exemplary annotated bibliography. But beware: This is not a biography. Cartledge explains that "the present book is distantly based on lecture courses I have given at Cambridge during the past twenty-five years, aimed chiefly at undergraduate students." The book is thus arranged thematically, with chapters such as "Alexander and the Macedonians," "Alexander and the Greeks," "The Generalship of Alexander," and so on. Cartledge is a historian rather than a biographer, more interested in military strategy and imperial administration than human character and psychological nuance. Alexander and the principal people in his life remain thin compared with the more fleshed-out creatures in Foreman's book.

The origin of the book is also annoyingly obvious in the kind of repetition that makes sense in lectures but intrudes in writing. Twice we read that Alexander and Hephaestion laid wreaths at the tombs of Achilles and Patroclus in Troy; three times we're told that Alexander sent 300 suits of armor to Athens for dedication to Athena on the Acropolis. Alexander's return from India to Babylon is mentioned in five different chapters, but never with the detail to convey what a debacle it was (of the 85,000 people under Alexander's command, only 25,000 survived). Cartledge's tone also wobbles wildly, perhaps another acceptable feature of the lecture that doesn't translate well into print. We read of a "childhood chum," "bigshot beneficiaries," and a treasurer's "fandangoes" (read: fraud); a Macedonian general who defeats three Persian forces is said to "save Alexander's bacon three times over." Finally, egregious errors throughout suggest that the book was rushed into print to take advantage of Oliver Stone's newly released movie on Alexander. Quotations don't end, numbers don't match, and on page 220, "ten to twelve talents" surely means 10 to 12 thousand talents.

In the quest for Alexander, then, you'll find Foreman's book the more congenial guide, but better still is Mary Renault's magisterial "The Nature of Alexander." After 30 years, it's still the study that more than any other brings Alexander alive in all his mesmerizing, monstrous humanity.

Alan Helms is professor of English at the University of Massachusetts at Boston.