The Man and the Myth Behind Alexander’s Legend

Alexander the Great is one of history’s most storied men. He may be the subject of more myths than any other historical figure, including even Julius Caesar and Genghis Khan. But what about the man himself?

In Alexander: God, King, Man, Edmund Richardson parses the many dimensions in his biography of the storied Alexander. Using recent archaeological discoveries, it offers an intimate and revealing look at this conqueror from Macedonia.

Richardson starts at the Battle of Issus, Alexander’s first great victory over Darius. Next, he presents Alexander’s early life, showing how he rose to be king of Macedonia and conquered Greece.

Richardson then follows Alexander’s subsequent conquests. Many seem ad hoc. Having conquered “x,” Alexander moves to “y” because he has nothing better to do. Richardson also shows how the successive conquests changed Alexander. Tell an impressionable young man he is a god often enough, in enough different places, and he begins to believe it.

Richardson peels away the layers of myth surrounding Alexander, revealing the man underneath those myths. Richardson uses many fresh first-person accounts in this book. An Egyptian priest who fought against Alexander at Issus as part of a levy raised by Darius wrote an account of the battle. Babylonian astronomers recorded their impressions of Alexander on recently translated clay tablets before and after he took Babylon. Unearthed Egyptian papyri record the impact Alexander had on Egypt after his conquest.

He examines folklore about Alexander, who proved the ancient counterpart to King Arthur. Any good story about a king doing something unusual became part of Alexander’s legend. Richardson sifts through much to show how grand stories reveal insights into the true Alexander.

This book excels at showing how the ancient world, especially pre-Christian times, differs from today. Mercy as a concept was unknown. Glory was all. Frightfulness was a virtue. On several occasions, Alexander ordered massacres of a city’s entire population to burnish his reputation as a conqueror.

Once he ordered a march across the desert Gedrosia, leading to 10,000 dying—half his army. There was no military purpose to the march. However, Semiramis and Cyrus had ordered similar marches across the same desert and lost nearly all their army. In losing only half, Alexander felt he demonstrated he was the better general.

For anyone with more than a passing interest in ancient greatness, Alexander: God, King, Man should not be missed. It offers immersion into Alexander’s life and the times in which he lived.

“Alexander: God, King, Man,” by Edmund Richardson, St. Martin’s Press, September 2026, 480 pages, $33.00 (Hardcover), $16.99 (E-book), $20.50 (Audiobook)

This review was written by Mark Lardas, who writes at Ricochet as Seawriter. Mark Lardas, an engineer, freelance writer, historian, and model-maker, lives in League City, TX. His website is marklardas.com.