Life Alexander III of Macedon (356–323 BCE), tutored by Aristotle and successor to Philip II, forged a vast empire from Greece to the Indus Valley. The epistolary corpus attributed to him, the Letters of Alexander the Great (Ἀλεξάνδρου τοῦ Μεγάλου Ἐπιστολαί), is pseudepigraphical, composed by later authors rather than being contemporary historical documents [1].

Works The extant collection is fragmentary, preserved within the works of later historians and manuscript traditions. It comprises a set of pseudepigraphical letters, not a single cohesive work [2].

Significance This collection is a key example of ancient pseudepigrapha and the Alexander Romance tradition. Composed between the 3rd century BCE and 2nd century CE, these letters were used to lend authority to narratives or illustrate Alexander’s character, shaping his posthumous legendary image. Historians like Plutarch and Arrian used them cautiously, and the corpus is vital for understanding the literary construction of Alexander’s myth in Hellenistic, Roman, and medieval periods [2].

Sources 1. Encyclopædia Britannica: Alexander the Great: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Alexander-the-Great 2. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Classics: Alexander the Great, letters: https://oxfordre.com/classics/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780199381135.001.0001/acrefore-9780199381135-e-267