The Persian Alexander/Iskander

Type:

Book Chapter

Author:

John Boardman

Published:

2018

Publisher:

Princeton University Press

This chapter discusses the challenge of determining how modern Persia/Iran might value Alexander. The land whose great empire had been destroyed by Alexander did not forget its conqueror and could even be more inclined to forgive him. Indeed, it proved to have the longest memory of antiquity, although not in the immediate aftermath of its defeat. There is virtually nothing of Alexander in Parthian story or art, and Sasanian art appears to ignore him, often in favour of more “classical” subjects. In the years before the advent of Islam, there was knowledge of the Alexander Romances via the Pahlavi and Arabic versions, but then two great compilations of Persian history gave him prominence, as did artists.

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