The Landmark Arrian: The Campaigns of Alexander (Landmark Books)
Anabasis Alexandrou (The Campaigns of Alexander), by Lucius Flavius Arrianus, a Roman of the second century, is the principal literary source for modern accounts about the Macedonian conqueror. If its composition three centuries after Alexander the Great lived inherently raises scholarly questions, Arrian’s account possesses a narrative momentum that will always interest general readers of ancient Greek history. To that audience, the editors have directed their Landmark series, which counts Herodotus, Thucydides, and Xenophon in its prior lineage. Its formula of maps, photographs, chronologies, footnotes, and appendixes exceptionally elucidates texts without impeding their flow; readers may digress into academic controversies or forge ahead to the next battle, according to their wont. Arrian satisfies the latter inclination: historians use his information to reconstruct Alexander’s battlefield tactics, which this volume’s charts graphically depict. Arrian’s Roman audience harbored additional curiosities about Alexander, such as omens of his divinity, purges of his retinue, or incidents damaging to his reputation such as the destruction of the Persian capital Persepolis. A dual-use technology, the Landmark package is ideal for library needs: students may study, and browsers may browse. --Gilbert Taylor