In the winter of 331 BCE, Alexander the Great visited the famed Oracle at Siwa in the Egyptian desert. There, it is said, he discovered an amazing truth: he was not the son of Philip II but of the god Zeus-Ammon.

This news did not come out of the blue. Alexander had grown up close to the gods. Through his ancestors Herakles and Achilles, they were even part of his family.

In The Man Who Became a God, Malcolm and Frances explore these links, what Alexander made of the Oracle’s news, and Alexander’s connection to Dionysus. Their conversation takes them from a snake in the Macedonian palace to a drunken revel in India, from war against Tyre to a scandal in Bactria. Stepping beyond the literary sources, they also dive into what Alexander’s coins say about his supposed divinity and how it was used by his successors after Alexander’s death.

Resources

on-line texts for the Alexander Historians:

Arrian

Curtius

Diodorus

Plutarch

Justin

About Malcolm and Frances

Malcolm spends his days with his head in books and his heart in faraway lands, especially ones conquered by Alexander. When he looks at maps of Alexander’s empire, his go-to response remains “Crikey”.

Frances is an academic who specialises in Hellenistic numismatics. She is currently writing a novel about Alexander’s first wife, Roxane, bringing life to the woman who existed in the shadow of a man who was larger than life.

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Malcolm

Instagram: @thesecondachilles

Facebook: @alexander.of.macedon

Frances

Instagram: @futuristichistorian

Email: spearpointatg@gmail.com

Intro + Outro Music

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