Sommario Introduction, Mario Liverani Steps and timing of the desertification during Late Antiquity. The case study of the Tanezzuft oasis (Libyan Sahara), Mauro CremaschiPopulations of the Roman era in Central Sahara: skeletal samples from the Fezzan (south-western Libya) in a diachronic perspective, Giorgio Manzi and Francesca RicciAghram Nadharif and the southern border of the Garamantian kingdom, Mario LiveraniFarming the Sahara: the Garamantian contribution in southern Libya, David Mattingly and Andrew WilsonWater management at Pantelleria in Punic-Roman times, Vittorio Castellani and Simone MantelliniNapata, the destroyed city. A method for plundering, Alessandro RoccatiThe kingdom of Kush: Rome’s neightbour on the Nile, Derek WelsbyTrade and caravan routes in Meroitic times, Irene VincentelliPtolemaic and Roman water resources and their management in the eastern desert of Egypt, Steven E. SidebothamBetween the Nile and the Red Sea. Imperial trade and barbarians, Federico De RomanisThe ancient landscape of Aksum (northern Ethiopia), ca 400 BC- AD 700: some preliminary remarks, Rodolfo FattovichThe sustainable Sabean irrigation in Yemen, Ueli BrunnerTamna, ancient capital of the Yemen desert. Information about the first two excavation campaigns (1999, 2000), Alessandro De Maigret‘Centre-periphery’ relations in pre-islamic south Arabia, Alessandra Avanzini

The cities founded by Alexander the Great are an essential part of his overall achievements. The problems concerning them, however, are many - and some incapable of solution. This book is the first to unravel thoroughly the tradition, explaining how it originated in a tendentious political pamphlet of the third century BC, which in turn originated in Ptolemaic Alexandria in the context of the development of the earliest version of the Alexander Romance. The author explores the ramification of this reconstruction from a lost Greek original through to the Persian and Arab tradition, and concludes that the number of cities claiming to be Alexander's as recorded in ancient sources needs to be considerably reduced. The book also includes some more general new considerations regarding Alexander's policies and achievements.