Quote Originally Posted by Arjos View Post
I agree that the Romani created (or there was already) legendary image of Alexandros, but some of the reasonings I don't get them:

- Intoxicated band in Punjab (would the author have preferred an army with waterborne diseases?)
The author, in fact, is Livy. In his Alexander Discursion in Book 9 Livy opposes Alexander's leadership to the collective genius of the Roman Senate and military, obviously to the advantage of the latter:

Would the clever generalship of one young man have succeeded in baffling the whole senate, not to mention individuals, that senate of which he, who declared that it was composed of kings, alone formed a true idea? Was there any danger of his showing more skill than any of those whom I have mentioned in choosing the site for his camp, or organising his commissariat, or guarding against surprises, or choosing the right moment for giving battle, or disposing his men in line of battle and posting his reserves to the best advantage? He would have said that it was not with Darius that he had to do, dragging after him a train of women and eunuchs, wrapped up in purple and gold, encumbered with all the trappings of state. He found him an easy prey rather than a formidable enemy and defeated him without loss, without being called to do anything more daring than to show a just contempt for the idle show of power. The aspect of Italy would have struck him as very different from the India which he traversed in drunken revelry with an intoxicated army; he would have seen in the passes of Apulia and the mountains of Lucania the traces of the recent disaster which befell his house when his uncle Alexander, King of Epirus, perished.
Beard refers to this passage to demonstrate that even in Rome the Alexander myth was not accepted without demur.

AII