Plutarch: Alexander is the essential companion to Plutarch's Caesar, the life paired with Alexander in Plutarch's Parallel Lives. This new English version of Alexander is followed by an Afterword about Plutarch’s Parallel Lives by the translator, Christopher Pelling, Emeritus Regius Professor of Greek at Oxford University.

Plutarch composed his Lives in parallel pairs, and one choice must have seemed obvious: Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar, two dominating and colourful figures who each changed the world they lived in, Alexander by bringing down the Persian Empire and Caesar by winning the war which ended the Roman Republic and prepared for the rule of the emperors. It is their personalities that interested Plutarch most, as he uses ‘little things, a word or a jest or a playful moment’ to show what the men were really like. Alexander is seen to be a great soldier, full of spirit and ambition, gradually coarsened by his own successes until his final months at Babylon in a court full of superstition, terror, and dread; Caesar too is a brilliant figure, loved and admired by soldiers and people, letting nothing stand in his way until finally he lies dead, stricken down by his former friends on the Ides of March.

This dynamic audiobook is available in two parts, bringing together Plutarch: Alexander with its sister volume, Caesar. A new Afterword offers listeners a rare opportunity to explore the striking parallels and profound contrasts between these two titans of history.

Christopher Pelling

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