Led by Plutarch of Chaeronea Simulacrum
About this course
The third of the three Greek depth studies of OCR GCSE Ancient History (J198/01), taught by the biographer who wrote the most influential surviving Life of Alexander. Plutarch is honest about his craft — he writes lives, not histories, holding that a jest can reveal character better than a battle, and he wrote five centuries after Alexander from sources now lost. He therefore teaches two things at once: the extraordinary career, and the discipline of reconstructing a life from late, admiring, contradictory evidence.
The study covers Alexander's whole arc — the inheritance from Philip and the Macedonian army; the destruction of the Persian Empire (which the student has already met from the Persian side); the march to the edge of the known world and the mutiny that turned him back; and the question never settled: visionary or conqueror?
Plutarch leads alone, as the central prescribed biographical source.
This is a text-and-source course. Four modules, ending with the student able to narrate and explain Alexander's career and to defend an evidenced judgement on his character — while understanding how little of the record is secure.
Led by Plutarch of Chaeronea Simulacrum
The question
Plutarch begins by being fair to the father. Philip II found Macedon backward and made it master of Greece, building the sarissa-phalanx and Companion cavalry that Alexander would lead to India — so the student first weighs the inheritance before crediting the son. Then the formation of the king: education under Aristotle, the taming of Bucephalas (a character-revealing anecdote of exactly the kind Plutarch prizes), the murder of Philip, and Alexander's accession at twenty, securing his throne by crushing the Greek revolt and destroying Thebes. Throughout, the student meets Plutarch's biographical method — character over chronology — and its limits as evidence written five centuries late.
Outcome
The student can explain Philip's creation of the army and state, narrate Alexander's accession including Thebes, assess how far his success rested on Philip's foundation, and understand Plutarch's anecdote-driven method and its limits.
Sub-units
Led by Plutarch of Chaeronea Simulacrum
The question
Having met the Persian Empire from within, the student now watches it fall. Alexander crossed into Asia with a small army and broke Persia in three great battles — the Granicus, Issus, and Gaugamela — taking Tyre and Egypt between them, founding Alexandria, and visiting the oracle at Siwah that men said called him a god. The student narrates the conquest, explains the foundation of Alexandria and the divinity claim, and studies Alexander's adoption of Persian dress and ceremonial and the resentment it bred among his Macedonians. The source task is to separate the propaganda of divinity and the contested tradition of his "orientalising" from what can be securely known.
Outcome
The student can narrate the conquest of Persia through the three battles and key sieges, explain Alexandria and the Siwah divinity claim and the Persian-custom controversy, and evaluate the propaganda of divinity as a source problem.
Sub-units
Led by Plutarch of Chaeronea Simulacrum
The question
A lesser man would have stopped at Persepolis; Alexander went east — into Bactria and Sogdiana, marrying Roxana, into India to beat Porus on the Hydaspes in the hardest fight of his life. Then, at the Hyphasis, the army that had followed him eight thousand miles refused to go further, and the conqueror turned back — and the march home through the Gedrosian desert killed more men than any battle. The student narrates the eastern campaign and the Hydaspes, explains the mounting tension between Alexander and his Macedonians (the killing of Cleitus, the demand for proskynesis, the mutiny), and weighs the divided tradition of his later tyranny and drunkenness against the heroic one.
Outcome
The student can narrate the eastern campaigns through the Hyphasis mutiny and Gedrosian return, explain the Hydaspes and the growing tension with the army, and evaluate the competing traditions about Alexander's character.
Sub-units
Led by Plutarch of Chaeronea Simulacrum
The question
He died at Babylon before thirty-three — of fever, or wine, or poison, depending whose account you trust — and his empire was torn apart by his generals within a generation. Now comes the real task: the verdict. Was Alexander the civilising visionary, fusing Greek and Persian, founding cities, carrying Hellenism across the world? Or a magnificent destroyer, a drunkard and murderer who left only ambition and ruin? Plutarch refuses to hand over the answer; he gives the evidence, hostile and admiring both, and requires the student to judge — anchoring a substantiated verdict in cited ancient evidence and acknowledging how late, partisan and legendary that evidence is.
Outcome
The student can explain Alexander's death and the succession crisis and his legacy, and can construct and defend a substantiated judgement on the visionary-versus-conqueror debate using cited evidence from a divided source tradition.
Sub-units