ABSTRACT

This last chapter emphasizes that ancient writers wrote about Alexander primarily to make an impact on their contemporary audience and to fulfil their rhetorical and ideological intentions. The changing political realities and audience of the text exerted an impact on the way Alexander was presented. In the premodern world, the exemplarity of the past was considered a self-evident source of wisdom for individuals and societies. The ‘present’ the writers were interested in shaping was limited by their interests and subjective views, and their history was selected and interpreted according to the rhetorical impact on their audience. In modern research, there are two ways of using history: the ‘right’ (praised and beneficial) and ‘wrong’ (condemned and harmful) way. In the context of the Classical and post-Classical period, the concept of abusing history is anachronistic. Demands for historical accuracy or historical objectivity were not made, unlike in the modern world. Notwithstanding these demands, the exemplarity of the past and the uses of history are rarely neutral media in the present. The past, as an arsenal of lessons, is often used as a tool for the presentation of subjective views and as a vehicle for political propaganda. In antiquity, the many-faced Alexander and his legacy could be used without compunction to defend opposing viewpoints or to promote contradictory ends.