Alexander: God, King, Man
Wednesday 7 October
Castle Hill Baptist Church
10.30am
In 336 BCE at the age of twenty, Alexander, a wide-eyed boy from the hills of Macedon, inherited a tumbledown kingdom, a mountain of debts and an army which answered to nobody. Desperate to hold on to power, he led the army east into the heart of the vast Persian Empire and inadvertently began the greatest military campaign in history.
The young man became a king, the king became a hero, the hero became a living god, and the god died aged just thirty-two, broken-hearted, in Babylon.
For centuries, historians have told his story, yet Alexander has remained a mystery. In recent years, however, the ruins of his cities have emerged from the bottom of the sea and the dust of Central Asian hillsides. The diaries of Babylonian astronomers who knew him have been deciphered. The tombs of his ancestors have been unearthed. For the first time, instead of the legend, we can meet Alexander the man.
Join Edmund Richardson, who has been longlisted for The Baillie Gifford Prize 2026 to explore his new biography of Alexander, based on a series of important new discoveries and the author's own translations of source material from twelve ancient languages, plus research which has taken him from the catacombs of Egypt to the passes of Afghanistan.
A pulsating, vivid life of a true historical titan
Dan Jones
