Described as a prosopography, or a collection of biographical sketches, this book is the only complete collection of its kind that is available in English. The coverage extends from BCE383/2 with he birth of Philip of Macedon, and continues through until BCE281 and the Battle of Corupedium. Although initially this may seem to be a vast period of time extending beyond Alexander's leadership the nature of his leadership and conquests were such that events before and after his death and the people involved therein bear a relevance to his life story. Essentially, this book provides an over view of the life of Alexander the Great through the people associated with him.
The individual entries are not excessively long and cover all those people known to have played a role in the campaigns of Alexander and in his life. There are over 800 biographies that include Alexander's army commanders, nobles, and regional leaders of the Persian Empire among others. In addition to the main body of entries that make up the majority of the text there is, from page 274, a list of Anonymous Individuals. These are people who are mentioned in the literature but who remain nameless. They are divided into categories for both males and females, including Persian and Macedonian aristocracy, Barbarians (men) and prominent Macedonians and Greeks. For each entry only brief biographical information is given for there is scant evidence for these particular individuals. Usefully Heckel has also included 15 stemmata or family trees, providing a helpful picture of the way in which many of those whose biographies relate to one another.
Many of the main entries have been cross‐referenced and, although this does provide an overall picture of how the people concerned relate to one another, it does make reading the book rather challenging as the reader finds themselves continually moving between entries in order to gain a full picture. Along with the numerous abbreviations relating to the original texts or Heckel's sources this is a drawback, but it does allow the author to make the entries slightly shorter than might usually be found in a who's who. Certainly, all the important information about who the people are and their role in the reign of Alexander the Great can be reliably found very promptly. Each entry is followed up by footnotes and references, a clear indication of the volume of material that is available and the difficulty of including only prescient information in a single volume.
At the end of the main text, after the notes (pp. 285‐344), Heckel includes an Appendix (pp. 345‐347) containing some intriguing lists of names. These lists are of men who served Alexander, all of whose biographies are included. There is also a list of the politicians that Alexander excluded from Athens during his reign! Finally Heckel includes a list of the teachers of Alexander, of whom only Aristotle can be validated; it is however, interesting to see the other names associated with him.
Heckel's introduction makes some useful points, for example his Latinised spellings, and the exceptions to this rule – a far better approach than has been used in many previous volumes. Other notable inclusions are a Glossary (p. 348), Bibliography (p. 359) – there is a considerable amount of wider reading – and a Concordance (p. 353), which is particularly useful as it provides the Greek or variant spellings as well as the spelling that Heckel has used for each of the entries in the volume. There is one map showing Alexander's campaigns between BCE334 and BCE323, which provide an interesting picture of the vastness of Alexander's conquests in only 12 years
This book is an interesting and useful reference resource providing a fascinating insight into the people and places relating to Alexander the Great. It is a good quick reference and should prove to be an invaluable resource for researchers and an interesting book for the more casual enquirer.
