Hellenistic Lives: including Alexander the Great (Oxford World's Classics)

Plutarch’s Hellenistic Lives brings together ten biographies spanning the transformation of the Greek world from the rise of Macedon to the expansion of Roman power. Alexander the Great stands at the centre of the collection, alongside Demosthenes, Phocion, Eumenes, Demetrius, Pyrrhus, Agis and Cleomenes, Aratus, Philopoemen and Flamininus. Through their careers, Plutarch explores leadership, character, ambition and the political upheavals of the Hellenistic age.

This Oxford World’s Classics edition is translated by Robin Waterfield and introduced by Andrew Erskine, with supporting chronology, maps, explanatory and textual notes, glossary and reference material. Plutarch wrote biography rather than modern political history, combining anecdote, moral judgement and historical tradition to reveal character through action. The wars and reversals of the Hellenistic world are seen through the ambitions, virtues and failings of the people caught up in them.