This book explores cases of decapitation found in sources on the reign of Alexander the Great. Despite the enormous literature on the career of Alexander the Great, this is the first study on the characterisation of violent deaths during his hectic reign. This historiographical omission has involved the tacit and blind acceptance of the details found in the ancient sources. Therefore, this book seeks to illustrate how cultural expectations, literary models, and ideological taboos shaped these accounts and argues for a close and critical reading of the sources. Given the different cultural considerations surrounding decapitation in Greek and Roman cultures, this book illustrates how those biases could have differently shaped certain episodes depending on the ultimate writer. This book, therefore, can be especially interesting for scholars focused on the career of Alexander the Great, but also valuable for other Classicists, philologists, and even for anthropologists because it represents a good case of study of cultural symbolism of violent death, semantics of power, imperial domination and the confrontation between opposite cultural appreciations of a practice.

Rome was an empire of images, especially images that bolstered their imperial identity. Visual and material items portraying battles, myths, captives, trophies, and triumphal parades were particularly important across the Roman empire. But where did these images originate and what shaped them? Empire of Images explores the development of the Roman visual language of power in the Republic in Iberian Peninsula, the Gallic provinces, and Greece and Macedonia, centering the development of imperial imagery in overseas conquest. Drawing on a range of material evidence, this book argues that Roman imperial imagery developed through prolonged interaction with and adaptation by subjugated peoples. Despite their starring role in Roman imagery, the populations of Rome’s provinces continuously reinterpreted and reimagined Roman images of power to navigate their membership in the new imperial community, and in doing so, contributed to the creation of a universal visual language that continues to shape how Rome is understood.

A unique ‘backstory’ of Alexander and his successors: the biased historians, deceits, wars, generals, and the tale of the literature that preserved them. ‘Babylon, mid-June 323 BCE, the gateway of the gods; prostrated in the Summer Palace of Nebuchadrezzar II on the east bank of the Euphrates, wracked by fever and having barely survived another night, King Alexander III, the rule of Macedonia for 12 years and 7 months, had his senior officers congregate at his bedside. Abandoned by Fortune and the healing god Asclepius, he finally acknowledged he was dying. Some 2,340 years on, five barely intact accounts survive to tell a hardly coherent story. At times in close accord, though more often contradictory, they conclude with a melee of death-scene rehashes, all of them suspicious: the first portrayed Alexander dying silent and intestate; he was Homeric and vocal in the second; the third detailed his Last Will and Testament though it is attached to the stuff of romance. Which account do we trust?’ In Search Of The Lost Testament Of Alexander The Great is the result of a ‘decade of contemplations on Alexander’ presented as a rich thematic narrative Grant describes as the ‘backstory behind the history’ of the great Macedonian and his generals. Taking an uncompromising investigative perspective, Grant delves into the challenges faced by Alexander’s unique tale: the forgeries and biased historians, the influences of rhetoric, romance, philosophy and religion on what was written and how. Alexander’s own mercurial personality is vividly dissected and the careers and the wars of his successors are presented with a unique eye. But the book never loses sight of central aim: to unravel the mystery behind Alexander’s ‘unconvincingly reported’ intestate death. And out of Grant’s research emerges one unavoidable verdict: after 2,340 years, the Last Will and Testament of Alexander III of Macedonia needs to be extracted from ‘romance’ and reinstated to its rightful place in mainstream history: Babylon in June 323 BCE. Although the result a decade of academic research, In Search Of The Lost Testament Of Alexander The Great is written in an entertaining and engaging style that opens the subject to both scholars and the casual reader of history looking to learn more about the Macedonian king and the men who ‘made’ his story. It concludes with a wholly new interpretation of the death of Alexander the Great and the mechanism behind the wars of succession that followed.

Military Strategy: A Very Short Introduction adapts Clausewitz's framework to highlight the dynamic relationship between the main elements of strategy: purpose, method, and means. Drawing on historical examples, Antulio J. Echevarria discusses the major types of military strategy and how emerging technologies are affecting them. This second edition has been updated to include an expanded chapter on manipulation through cyberwarfare and new further reading.

The most influential account of the career of Alexander the Great was penned by Cleitarchus in the decades after Alexander's death. Most of the surviving ancient texts on Alexander were based upon his work, but every copy of the original was destroyed in antiquity. Now the entire book is being revived in an exciting reconstruction based upon an in-depth analysis of the surviving ancient works that it inspired. This volume presents the section dealing with Alexander's campaigns in Afghanistan. It became a blood-soaked slog against unrelenting opponents who adopted the same guerrilla resistance as is seen there today. Alexander was also beset by internal dissension with treason and plot within his own camp. How he coped with these dual challenges, through ruthless force in combination with conciliatory gestures, still offers useful lessons in strategy. Alexander was uniquely successful in establishing the region's rule by Greek kings for the next few centuries. A date for Alexander's accession is also proposed.

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Sample Book Insights: #1 Military strategy is the practice of reducing an opponent’s physical capacity and willingness to fight, and continuing to do so until one’s aim is achieved. It takes place in wartime as well as peacetime, and may involve using force, directly or indirectly, as a threat. #2 The practice of military strategy has always been about finding ways to weaken an adversary’s material capacity and willingness to fight with respect to one’s aims. Grand strategy is the concern of the head of state, and it is often but not always separate from the business of the general. #3 Grand strategists and military commanders attempt to out-position their rivals by building alliances and coalitions, or by securing treaties and agreements that increase or preserve their power relative to their rivals. #4 Military strategy is the equivalent of national military strategy in contemporary defense literature. It describes how a state will use its military power in pursuit of its policy goals.

For nearly two and a half millennia, Alexander the Great has loomed over history as a legend–and an enigma. Wounded repeatedly but always triumphant in battle, he conquered most of the known world, only to die mysteriously at the age of thirty-two. In his day he was revered as a god; in our day he has been reviled as a mass murderer, a tyrant as brutal as Stalin or Hitler. Who was the man behind the mask of power? Why did Alexander embark on an unprecedented program of global domination? What accounted for his astonishing success on the battlefield? In this luminous new biography, the esteemed classical scholar and historian Guy MacLean Rogers sifts through thousands of years of history and myth to uncover the truth about this complex, ambiguous genius. Ascending to the throne of Macedonia after the assassination of his father, King Philip II, Alexander discovered while barely out of his teens that he had an extraordinary talent and a boundless appetite for military conquest. A virtuoso of violence, he was gifted with an uncanny ability to visualize how a battle would unfold, coupled with devastating decisiveness in the field. Granicus, Issos, Gaugamela, Hydaspes–as the victories mounted, Alexander’s passion for conquest expanded from cities to countries to continents. When Persia, the greatest empire of his day, fell before him, he marched at once on India, intending to add it to his holdings. As Rogers shows, Alexander’s military prowess only heightened his exuberant sexuality. Though his taste for multiple partners, both male and female, was tolerated, Alexander’s relatively enlightened treatment of women was nothing short of revolutionary. He outlawed rape, he placed intelligent women in positions of authority, and he chose his wives from among the peoples he conquered. Indeed, as Rogers argues, Alexander’s fascination with Persian culture, customs, and sexual practices may have led to his downfall, perhaps even to his death. Alexander emerges as a charismatic and surprisingly modern figure–neither a messiah nor a genocidal butcher but one of the most imaginative and daring military tacticians of all time. Balanced and authoritative, this brilliant portrait brings Alexander to life as a man, without diminishing the power of the legend.

Alexander the Great (356-323 BC), who led the Macedonian army to victory in Egypt, Syria, Persia and India, was perhaps the most successful conqueror the world has ever seen. Yet although no other individual has attracted so much speculation across the centuries, Alexander himself remains an enigma. Curtius' History offers a great deal of information unobtainable from other sources of the time. A compelling narrative of a turbulent era, the work recounts events on a heroic scale, detailing court intrigue, stirring speeches and brutal battles - among them, those of Macedonia's great war with Persia, which was to culminate in Alexander's final triumph over King Darius and the defeat of an ancient and mighty empire. It also provides by far the most plausible and haunting portrait of Alexander we possess: a brilliantly realized image of a man ruined by constant good fortune in his youth.