Customer Reviews

The Marshals of Alexander's Empire

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Due to the high price of this work, I had been hesitant to buy it. But it is worth every dollar. Heckel is accurate, academic, informative. His stories about the lives of Krateros, Perdikkas, Ptolemy etc. continue from the point where most Alexander biographies have stopped. Don't expect something that is easy to digest: a normal page in Heckel is half narrative, half annotations.

The lives of Alexander's generals are fascinating and tragic stories on their own account. As Heckel puts it: the men that had fought so hard to conquer Persia were never destined to rule it. That sums up the overall tragedy.

Whether you're a professional or an amateur, if you pursue Alexander history, this book is a must-have (despite it's forbidding cost). It's the first recent prosopographical study of Alexander's court, and the only one in English. Heckel uses both textual and epigraphic evidence to present thorough studies of key figures in Alexander's administration: Parmention, Krateros, Hephaistion, Leonnatos, Ptolemy, Antipatros . . . just to name a few.