Alejandro Magno. - Alexander the Great and his empire: a short introduction

Alexander the Great
AND HIS EMPIRE

A SHORT INTRODUCTION

Pierre Briant
TRANSLATED BY AMLIE KUHRT

First published in France under the title Alexandre le Grand. Copyright
Presses Universitaires de France, 1974.
English translation copyright 2010 by Princeton University Press.
Requests for permission to reproduce material from this work should be sent
to Permissions, Princeton University Press.

Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street,
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Third printing, and first paperback printing, 2012
Paperback ISBN 978-0-691-15445-9

The Library of Congress has cataloged the cloth edition of this book as follows

Briant, Pierre.
[Alexandre le Grand. English]
Alexander the Great and his empire : a short introduction / Pierre Briant ; translated by Amlie Kuhrt.
p. cm.
First published under the title Alexandre le Grand. Paris : Presses universitaires de France, 1974.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-691-14194-7 (hardcover : acid-free paper) 1. Alexander, the Great, 356323 B.C. 2. Alexander, the Great, 356323 B.C.TravelTurkey. 3. Alexander, the Great, 356323 B.C.Military leadership. I. Title.
DF234.37.B7413 2010
938.07092dc22 2009047945

British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available

This book has been composed in Goudy Oldstyle
Printed on acid-free paper.

Printed in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3

Maps

Figures

Publications frequently referred to in the footnotes are cited in abbreviated form as follows:

Bosworth, Alexander and the East = A. B. Bosworth, Alexander and the East: The Tragedy of Triumph, Oxford 1996.

Bosworth, Commentary = A. B. Bosworth, A Historical Commentary on Arrians History of Alexander III, Oxford 1980, 1995.

Bosworth, Conquest and Empire = A. B. Bosworth, Conquest and Empire: The Reign of Alexander the Great, Oxford 1988.

Briant, Antigone = P. Briant, Antigone le Borgne: les dbuts de sa carrire et les problmes de lassemble macdonienne (Centre de Recherches dHistoire Ancienne 10), Paris 1973.

Briant, LAsie Centrale = LAsie centrale et les royaumes procheorientaux du premier millnaire (c. VIIIeIVe sicle av.n..) (Recherches sur les Civilisations 42), Paris 1984.

Briant, Darius dans lombre = P. Briant, Darius dans lombre dAlexandre, Paris 2003.

Briant, tats et pasteurs = P. Briant, tats et pasteurs au Moyen-Orient ancien, Paris and Cambridge 1982.

Briant, History = P. Briant, From Cyrus to Alexander: History of the Persian Empire (English translation of Histoire de lempire perse: de Cyrus Alexandre, Paris 1996), Winona Lake, IN 2002.

Briant, Rois, tributs et paysans = P. Briant, Rois, tributs et paysans: tudes sur les formations tributaires au Moyen-Orient ancien (Centre de Recherches dHistoire Ancienne 43), Paris 1982.

Briant-Joanns, eds, La Transition = P. Briant & F. Joanns, eds., La transition entre lempire achmnide et les royaumes hellnistiques (Persika 9), Paris 2006.

Le Rider, Alexander the Great = G. Le Rider, Alexander the Great. Coinage, Finances and Policy (trans.), Philadelphia 2007.

For a list of further relevant abbreviations, see either Briant, History (2002) or A. Kuhrt, The Persian Empire: A Corpus of Sources (2 vols.), London 2007.

All references to Arrian are to Arrians Anabasis of Alexander, unless otherwise stated.

I should like to thank Dr. Robert Allen for his editorial help, which has improved the English of the translation.

A. K.

The first edition of this book was published in 1974 in Paris by the Presses Universitaires de France in its well-known series Que-sais-je? (no. 622), replacing an earlier book with the same title by Paul Cloch, which had appeared in 1954. Since then there have been five new French editions (published between 1976 and 2005), as well as translations into several European languages (Italian, Danish, Swedish, Bulgarian-Macedonian, Romanian, Greek, Portuguese-Brazilian), as well as Chinese and Japanese.

In terms of structure and basic ideas, the present book is very similar to the one published in French in 1974. I remain committed to the agenda with which I prefaced the first edition:

This is not a biography. Its aim is rather to consider major aspects of a historical phenomenon that is not reducible merely to the person of Alexander, however important the role played by that personal element may have been. The books structure reflects that deliberate choice. The account of Alexanders conquest itself is concentrated in a short preliminary chapter, to familiarize the reader with its chronology. The main body of the book is devoted to examining the larger questions it raises: the origins of the conquest and Alexanders aims; the nature and relative importance of various forms of resistance encountered; the organization of the conquered territories; and relations between conquerors and conquered.

Nevertheless, while keeping the same approach, I have updated the text as appropriate for each edition. I have taken care to rewrite sections where my presentation no longer seemed appropriate in the light of new documents and associated interpretations, but also as a result of changes in my own ideas on the subject.

The present edition has, furthermore, been revised with close attention to each page. Several discussions have been completely recast. New maps and several illustrations have been added. As the format envisaged by Princeton University Press allows me more flexibility than did that of the French publication, I have been able to include many more references both to ancient texts as well as recent studies. I have not tried to add exhaustive bibliographic references, as I feel they would be as likely to confuse as to enlighten. In order to widen the perspective, I thought it would be useful to add a section specifically devoted to bibliographical and historiographical issues. This is contained in the appendix and will, I hope, complement the main body of the book.