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From the Greeks to the Arabs and Beyond written by Hans Daiber, is a six volume collection of Daiber’s scattered writings, journal articles, essays and encyclopaedia entries on Greek-Syriac-Arabic translations, Islamic theology and Sufism, the history of science, Islam in Europe, manuscripts and the history of oriental studies. It also includes reviews and obituaries. Vol. V and VI are catalogues of newly discovered Arabic manuscript originals and films/offprints from manuscripts related to the topics of the preceding volumes.
The life and exploits of the Macedonian King Alexander the Great were recorded and passed down in the legendary biography, known as the Alexander Romance of Pseudo-Callisthenes. During the Middle Ages the Romance became extremely popular, after its Greek original had been translated and elaborated in numerous versions and vernaculars. Alexander's fame spread all over Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Central and South East Asia. In this study the focus is on the Arabic tradition. For the first time this field of research has now been explored in all its details, resulting in a complete survey and classification of this rich tradition. The book is written as a quest. It presents the process...
Mystery surrounds the parentage of Alexander, the prince born to Queen Olympias. Is his father Philip, King of Macedonia, or Nectanebo, the mysterious sorcerer who seduced the queen by trickery? One thing is certain: the boy is destined to conquer the known world. He grows up to fulfil this prophecy, building a mighty empire that spans from Greece and Italy to Africa and Asia. Begun soon after the real Alexander’s death and expanded in the centuries that followed, The Greek Alexander Myth depicts the life and adventures of one of history’s greatest heroes - taming the horse Bucephalus, meeting the Amazons and his quest to defeat the King of Persia. Including such elements of fantasy as Alexander’s ascent to heaven borne by eagles, this literary masterpiece brilliantly evokes a lost age of heroism.
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This book seizes on one of the eternal objects of widespread attention in Ancient History and turns the tables on the scholarship that has shaped and dominated the field. Instead of scrutinising the documents in order to reconstruct the biography and assess the historical significance, Diana Spencer traces the deployment and development of the mythical figure of Alexander. She explores and synthesises a selection of Latin texts, from the Late Republic to Hadrian, to form a series of themed discussions which investigate the cultural significance of Alexander for Rome. The selected texts - drawn from verse and prose, history, epic and oratory - are presented alongside their English translation, and provide an insight into a world where to think about Alexander was to engage with the burning ideological issues of Rome during a period of intense and often violent political and cultural change. The book makes clear how particular texts and issues may be readily accessed, providing a valuable resource for teachers and their students, whilst also offering a new approach to cultural histories of Rome and Alexander.
The Alexander Romance is a difficult text to define and to assess justly. From its earliest days it was an open text, which was adapted into a variety of cultures with meanings that themselves vary, and yet seem to carry a strong undercurrent of homogeneity: Alexander is the hero who cannot become a god, and who encapsulates the desires and strivings of the host cultures. The papers assembled in this volume, which were originally presented at a conference at the University of Wroc?aw, Poland, in October 2015, all face the challenge of defining the Alexander Romance. Some focus on quite specific topics while others address more overarching themes. They form a cohesive set of approaches to the delicate positioning of the text between history and literature. From its earliest elements in Hellenistic Egypt, to its latest reworkings in the Byzantine and Islamic Middle East, the Alexander Romance shows itself to be a work that steadily engages with such questions as kingship, the limits of human (and Greek) nature, and the purpose of history. The Romance began as a history, but only by becoming literature could it achieve such a deep penetration of east and west.
Comprising selections from the writings of Arrian, Plutarch, and Quintus Curtius Rufus, this definitive biography of the greatest conqueror in history features an Introduction on Alexander's enduring legacy by acclaimed British television personality Michael Wood.