Alexander the Great: The Making of a Myth

Product Information

The British Library exhibition on the mythmaking of Alexanderopened in October 2022 and will run until February 2023; it is a story-led exhibition arranged in six sections: And Alexander is still popping up many centuries later – including in a Superman comic dating from 1983 in which a megalomaniac villain called Planeteer kidnaps eight heads of state including Margaret Thatcher, in an attempt to cast himself as Alexander’s reincarnation. This is not unconsidered populism. It’s something far worse. By mixing up vaguely Alexandrian materials from different times and places, we are being led to think his history is not reliable. Instead, the curators suggest, it’s merely a concoction in which Assassin’s Creed has as much veracity, and is as culturally valid, as the ancient historian Plutarch’s Life of Alexander – shown here in a lovely copy made in Renaissance Florence. There is no need to book in advance. Drop in places are limited to 25 people per workshop and allocated on a first come, first served basis. Join Jamila Gavin and Sally Pomme Clayton as they share their stories about Alexander. Create a heroic puppet and join our shadow puppet theatre. Build your own inventions from junk materials. Quiz our curators. Or design your own story game. Which adventure will you choose!

When it comes to making myths, Alexander the Great’s story has it all. He built an empire that stretched across the world. Rode across the sky on a flying chariot. And descended to the bottom of the sea in a glass bell. Or did he? These stories permeate western and eastern cultures and religions, and have endured for more than 2,000 years. Even now, Alexander continues to appeal to new generations and his image persists today in film, theatre, literature and even video games.

A lexander the Great​ was a pioneer of political spin, a master of image-making. He permitted only a single court-approved sculptor, Lysippus, to do his portrait and took a team of propagandists and influencers on his invasion of Asia. On a medallion dating to late in his reign or just after, he appears in the guise of Zeus, holding a fiery thunderbolt – the first time a European monarch minted his own image. His widely circulated drachma coins, issued in a uniform design across his vast empire, show the profile of a beardless, youthful Heracles, with features so much resembling Alexander’s own that coin dealers today sometimes confuse the two. After Alexander died of a sudden illness in 323 bc, leaving no viable heir to the Macedonian throne or the headship of his immensely powerful army, his leading generals (the ‘successors’) ramped up this image-making campaign, drawing power from the myth of the man they had served for thirteen years. What is most striking, perhaps, is the continuity of the storytelling. One of the most arresting parts of the exhibition – which Peter Toth, the curator of western ancient and medieval manuscripts, admits is his favourite – is a display in which a 16th-century manuscript from Iran showing Alexander conquering China is displayed alongside an Indian poem about his defeat of the Russians.

Bizarre though they may seem, many of the legends have a kernel of lived experience, a subject touched on in many of the catalogue essays. * In Asia, Alexander did encounter animals that must have seemed monstrous to him, including monkeys that might have appeared like ‘wild men’. It has even been suggested, not implausibly, that the fable of the foot-shaded Sciapods arose from Alexander’s glimpses of yogis. In one case at least we can be certain of the correlation between fact and fantasy: Alexander’s encounters with the Gymnosophists, a sect of ascetics who, in many late antique and medieval texts, are depicted either welcoming the Macedonians or fiercely upbraiding their campaign of conquest. A passage preserved from the writings of Onesicritus, one of Alexander’s senior officers, reveals that such an encounter did in fact take place and that the invaders were tongue-lashed by a sect leader called Dindimus or Dandamis. This free-spoken holy man has served both Greek Cynics and early Church Fathers as a vessel for anti-materialist diatribes, a tradition still very much alive in 17th-century England, as seen in the BL’s copy of The Upright Lives of the Heathen from 1683. Piece together an epic tale 2,000 years in the telling. From astrological clay tablets, ancient papyri, and medieval manuscripts, to Hollywood and Bollywood movies and cutting-edge videogames, this major exhibition crosses continents to explore the fantastical stories that turned legacy into legend. I was born just a few miles from Exeter and have been an Honorary Fellow in the department since 1996. I spent thirty years as a classics editor, most of those years for Routledge; since retiring from that role in 2006, and returning from London to live in Devon, I have been taking an active part in university affairs, including teaching, research and a planned conference. Pharaoh, prophet, philosopher. European, Middle Eastern and Asian cultures have all moulded Alexander into the fictional hero they want him to be. And today artists and storytellers alike are still trying to reimagine the man and his myth. Who was he really? You’ll have to decide for yourself.He built an empire that stretched across the world. Rode across the sky on a flying chariot. And descended to the bottom of the sea in a glass bell. In the library, on the other hand, “we have the afterlife, we have the storytelling, and that’s what we can showcase. We don’t think anyone, anywhere has done that before.” Storyteller and musician Luke Saydon will take us on a storytelling journey full of curious puppets, catchy songs, sensory props, wearable crafts and playful moves. Find out more about the exhibition here https://www.bl.uk/events/alexander-the-great-the-making-of-a-myth On January 27th, in addition to the exhibition, it will also be possible to attend a conference on the Monsters of Alexander. Moreover, should you wish to ask questions about the organization and the takeaway of the exhibition to the curator Peter Toth, you can join the online Forever Alexander international conference on January 23th at 4:30 pm (Spain time).

From the Middle Ages onwards the Alexander-Romance was translated into several languages, such as Latin, Syrian, Coptic, Armenian, Hebrew, Persian, English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Ethiopic, and Malay! Every translation bears new elements to the story, as it is the product of a different culture. Seeing the richness and the value of this material, the British Library curators – Peter Toth, Ursula Sims-Williams, Adrian Edwards, and Yrja Thorsdottir – decided to organize the first ever exhibition about the storytelling around Alexander, rather than the historical one. Undoubtedly, Alexander III was an important historical figure who set forth a new era, but the mythological Alexander had an even greater impact: as Greeks say, he still ‘lives and rules’, and his impact has been ongoing for over 2300 years, permeating Islamic, Asian and European cultures. The Library's buildings remain fully open but some services are limited, including access to collection items. We're Modern mythmaking … Alexander and the Trees of the Sun and the Moon comic illustration by Reimena Yee. Photograph: (c) Reimena YeeAlexander the Great acceded to the throne at the age of 20, as king of the ancient Greek kingdom of Macedon. By his death in 323 BC, he had created one of the largest empires in the world – but myth proved more powerful than historical truth, and Alexander’s life remains lost in legend. In 2009 I was appointed Consulting Editor in Classics to I.B. Tauris Publishers in London, and am actively seeking new authors for their classics programme, and for the series I edit, 'Understanding Classics'. Accompanying the first ever exhibition on the storytelling around Alexander the Great, King of Macedon, this book charts the evolution of a legend that continues to captivate audiences today.

Macedonian general Alexander died at just 32, having conquered a vast swathe of territory. Photograph: Museum of Classical Archaelogy Besides Latin and Greek, my languages include fluent German and adequate French, Italian and Modern Greek. I am taking classes in Turkish and Persian.

Find a course

The ongoing contemporary resonance of Alexander is one reason why the exhibition felt timely, said Edwards. “The stories tell us he was trying to bring together a multicultural empire, to merge a Persian and Greek culture – we know that led to discontent among his soldiers on both sides.” Recently, too, the ruler has been celebrated as an LGBTQ character from history, said Edwards – his relationships with men as well as women having been discussed even in his lifetime. All upcoming public events are going ahead as planned and you can find more information on our events blog The exhibition misunderstands medieval romances. In these legendary tales, Arthur, Roland, and Alexander are interchangeable images of heroic kings. A show about romance literature could have been great – but this one gets snagged on the silliest stories about Alexander and fails to put them in that bigger picture. We end up with a recreation of the tomb of Alexander – not the real one, of course. No, this a materialisation of a virtual space from Assassin’s Creed Origins. If games are as real as histories, why do we need exhibitions like this – or libraries for that matter? Alexander the Great: The Making of a Myth exhibition is currently on at The British Library until Sunday 19 February 2023.