M. Cary

This is one of my prized possessions, something that fits with what a dear friend has termed my love for "fine old things" -- most apt!

The book -- and I'm sure a new reprint won't do at all (not Scullard's updated version!), it must be an old version like the 1960 edition I have -- is a treasure, a true gem for the book lover.

It is a classic of scholarship, first of all. One of the perennial histories that has stood the test of time. But it is more than that. It is a sacred object, in its way. Each dense paragraph has a single italicized sentence in the margin succinctly summarizing the paragraph, for easier assimilation of the thread of the account.

It has plates with old photographs and drawings of important sites, including architectural plans of major buildings and public places. It has maps that are delicately and precisely folded into the pages, so one turns the page and unfolds a new mystery.

There is a pull-out glossary of Latin terms and major Latin aphorisms, with author.

To remove the volume from the shelf and open it is to travel into a magical place of the past, the closest to time travel we have, and all by way of a book of the type "they don't make anymore", rendered with love and care.

Probably not the book for the latest viewpoint. But this seemed like the place to profess my love!… (meer)

Alexander the Great gets all the press. But the really interesting characters were his successors.

Alexander created an interesting situation: He ruled the largest empire the world had ever seen. But, although he scattered Greek cities and citizens all over the place, he never really set up an administrative machine to govern that empire. When he died, there was nothing to hold it all together. So, naturally, it fell apart.

This is the story of the pieces left over.

It is an unsatisfactory story in a lot of regards, simply because we have so little information about the "Hellenistic" world -- there are fragments in Polybius, and from Diodorus is an epitome of sorts (but one that often does not comprehend what it was written about), and that is about it. So we must piece together the history of the era from hints here and there. The result must always be wrapped in uncertainty.

It shows, sometimes, in this book. There are places where it is brilliant, and places where one simply gets lost because there isn't enough data. The first two times I tried to read this book, I gave up at the same place both times. Then I realized that I should just skip a few pages. Believe me, it picks up again! It took most of a lifetime for it to be determined that Alexander's Empire would break up into three main parts: The Antigonid Kingdom (Greece), the Ptolemaic Kingdom (Egypt), and the Seleucid Kingdom (much of the old Persian Empire). The men who created these nations were fascinating -- proud, militant, uncompromising. This book cannot tell us all about them, but it tells us most of what there is to know.… (meer)