All Alexander's Women (enlarged edition 2025) by Robbert Bosschart

In this new edition of All Alexander's Women (enlarged edition 2025), Robbert Bosschart further develops the role of women in Alexander's life, including their place as equals to men. 

It is fascinating to follow the author as he digs ever deeper into the many oriental sources that are not commonly shared in our Western literature. Besides the Darab-Nama, and the Sikandar-Nama, the Persian versions of the Alexander Romance, he discusses the Liber de Morte, Alexander’s fictional last will, and his role as prophet in the Koran. The Persian viewpoint is unique and worth further investigation, an ongoing process - as it turns out.

Hence Bosschart’s updated and enlarged edition, which is richly illustrated with many rare and very telling pictures. 

The content of his book has been discussed in my earlier blogpost of May 2018 when I commented on his 3^rd edition. The matter of Equality of women and men in ancient Persia has been developed in my recent post with the eponymous title.

All Alexander’s Women by Robbert Bosschart (3rd edition - meanwhile replaced by his 5th edition)

This is the third edition of All Alexander’s Women by Robbert Bosschart (actually replaced in March 2025 by his 5th edition). It is rare and rather exceptional to find a book on Alexander the Great looking at this world conqueror from an entirely different and unusual angle: the women who were part of his life in one way or another. This is what Robbert Bosschart has accomplished.

The role of these women was widely developed in his previous two editions, in which he stated that Alexander the Great would have introduced equal rights for men and women had he lived long enough! This status of women’s equality was not something Alexander created but existed already in the Persian Empire he conquered. It is said to go back to the Zoroastrian doctrine backed by Cyrus the Great and even before that in a matriarchal era. The leading power was the goddess Inanna, equaled by Anahita and blended later on with Ishtar, Isis, Cybele, and the entire Greek female pantheon; she was still venerated in the Sassanid era.

In this third edition, Robbert Bosschart talks us through the relations Alexander had with women, the best known being his own mother Olympias and his sister Cleopatra, Queen Ada of Caria and Queen-Mother Sisygambis of Persia, the two latest having adopted him as their son. This was not a small matter, for in the case of Persia it meant that Alexander was accepted to rule “by the power of Ahuramazda” together with that of the goddess Anahita.

It is a vast topic hardly mentioned in our Western literature since ancient Greeks generally treated women as mere trade goods. It is easy to understand why this concept of equality - which must have looked very “Barbarian” in their eyes – was willfully left out of their literature. The macho Roman writers did the same and as a matter of course our Western world was unaware of the customs and habits of the East.

Robbert Bosschart is taking us a step further as he develops the Persian point of view on the matter of equality, which he only touched on superficially in his previous versions. He is digging even deeper into the subject exploring many oriental sources. One of them is the Persepolis Fortification Tablets, an archive of thousands of clay tablets containing over 15,000 texts from the Achaemenid Period which are only partially translated till now.

Another aspect highlighted in this book is the Persian version of the Alexander Romance, the Darab-Nama, and the Sikandar-Nama, a mixture of Old Persian tradition with Hellenistic and Muslim themes. Also discussed is the Liber de Morte, a fictional last will which is often but not always attached to the Alexander Romance. Last but not least, the author reminds us that Alexander is elevated to the status of prophet in the Koran, hence his nickname the “Two-Horned”. The book also includes an interesting chapter about the “King’s Eyes”, integer secret keepers that were responsible for reporting to the king (a kind of Persian Intelligence Service avant-la-lettre) and controlling the implementation of his laws and orders all through the King’s huge empire.

To complete his extensive research and to take it to a level to be comprehended by all, Robbert Bosschart has added several helpful lists and tables: Historical Dates/ Facts in Alexander’s Life; Chronological list of Persian kings; The Classical sources on Alexander’s era; Reference works; Biographical/Geographical Index (alphabetical); and an extremely useful list of Where Alexander’s Women appear in the Classical Sources”.

I find the subject of this book truly fascinating! The Persian viewpoint for one, is unique. And just imagine what our world would have looked like had Alexander lived long enough to realize his “merging” of East and West as he undoubtedly planned when he celebrated the mass wedding in Susa. Not only would our world have known one single ruler, one single currency, and one single vehicular language (Greek), but we also would have lived in a society where men and women were each other’s equals.

P.S. For those who can’t wait, a select extract of a good 50 pages of this book is available (free of charge) at Academia.edu.

The Last Will of Alexander the Great?

Alexander’s Last Will has been found? The thought alone triggers immediate widespread reactions of awe, incredibility, amazement, suspicion, curiosity, you name it!

David Grant, who has a master's degree in ancient history, has just published a book on the matter under the title “In Search of the Lost Testament of Alexander the Great”. He spent ten years and countless hours of research to reach the conclusion that Alexander’s last will was hidden in plain sight for centuries as it constitutes the last chapter (Liber de Morte?) of the Alexander Romance which is generally not taken seriously by scholars. It is indeed very difficult to sift out facts from fiction.

It will be interesting to read what David Grant has to say about this testament as found in the Romance and how he went about to conclude that those lines are trustworthy.

The Alexander Romance appeared during the 3^rd century AD and was most popular during the Middle Ages. Originally written in Greek, it has been embroidered further when it appeared in Armenian in the 5^th century and in Syriac in the 7^th century. All of these versions have been translated into many languages as The Romance circulated through Europe, Asia, and Africa, all with their own additional twists or deletions of passages.

Pending my conclusions on David Grant’s book, which I still have to read, it transpires from The Romance that Alexander – if he did indeed write this will – was very lucid and was not confused by the fever that is said to have hit him. I have questions of my own about this will, but it is pointless to develop them and I do not know what this author’s conclusions are.

To be continued, no doubt …