The 6th/5th century BCE Greek melic (or songwriting) poet Pindar was one of the most celebrated lyricists of antiquity. His famous victory odes offer a paean to the heroic athlete, and collectively are an attempt to encapsulate, through choral songs of exaltation, the glory of the sportsman's moment of victory - whether in athletics or horse-racing - at a variety of Panhellenic festivals and Olympian games. Yet Pindar, though still respected, is now considered a difficult poet, and is sometimes dismissed as a reactionary, celebrating an aristocratic world that was passing and that deserved to...

The Book of Alexander the Great - or the Phyllada - has for three centuries been the most popular account of Alexander's career in modern Greece. After circulating in manuscript form, it was first published in 1680 in Venice, and has been continuously in print in Greek ever since. The Phyllada broadly follows the structure of the ancient Alexander Romance, but is much better organized and is a work of popular literature reflecting the immense interest that the Conqueror has generated since earliest times. Numerous folktales and local legends kept his story alive,...

The Book of Alexander the Great - or the Phyllada - has for three centuries been the most popular account of Alexander's career in modern Greece. After circulating in manuscript form, it was first published in 1680 in Venice, and has been continuously in print in Greek ever since. The Phyllada broadly follows the structure of the ancient Alexander Romance, but is much better organized and is a work of popular literature reflecting the immense interest that the Conqueror has generated since earliest times. Numerous folktales and local legends kept his story alive,...

""How can a man become a god?"" So enquired Alexander the Great of the Brahmin sages of India. And how did they reply? ""By doing what it is impossible for a man to do."" And that answer set a keynote for the Conqueror's entire career, which was characterized throughout by Alexander's attempts to achieve the unachievable: to scale fresh heights, and make the incredible real and tangible on earth. He wrestled an Indian monster larger than an elephant, fought ants the size of foxes, and contested bats with human teeth. He became a Jewish convert, sailed up the Ganges, and visited the Earthly...