Alexander the Great and His Time Hardcover – January 1, 1959

by Agnes Savill (Author)

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He was educated by Aristotle, he was king of Macedon, conquerer of much of Asia and one of the greatest leaders in the world. He was incontestably one of the most brilliant generals of all time and one of the most powerful personalities of antiquity. He influenced the spread of Hellenism and instigated profound changes in the course of world development.Here is a full study of the life, personality, accomplishments, and failures of Alexander of Macedon, more commonly known as Alexander the Great.

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ASIN ‏ : ‎ B002E5JZ6Y
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Barrie and Rockliff (January 1, 1959)

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Michael M. Tiller

Excellent Clear introduction to Alexander , his army ,and his empire

Reviewed in the United States on May 28, 2021

To Seek out and explore new worlds -To Go Where No One has gone before!
G Rodenberry came from somewhere.

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"Dr. Z" Richard Zeile

A Dated Panegyric

Reviewed in the United States on April 29, 2019

Agnes Savill wrote this 364-page panegyric to the great Greek in 1954 and revised (corrected errors as she states) in 1956. I listened to the 1993 Blackstone audio recording by Nadia May on 9 compact discs, about a ten-hour listening experience. Savill was a physician whose other book to gain any kind of attention was the 1935 "The Hair and Scalp- A Clinical Study." The reading is well-paced and clear, but with two minor annoyances. Brief sections, sometimes a sentence, sometimes a paragraph are dubbed in from time to time. I got the impression that these were corrections from the second edition, but why would the first be recorded if the second is already available as it certainly was in 1993? The second annoyance was my subjective experience of the reader's voice which sounded to me for all the world like Angela Landsbury, and my mind kept wandering to "Murder She Wrote."

Savill's treatment of her subject was rather odd. She narrates the life of Alexander in the first half of the book putting his actions in the best light, and arguing with several of the sources along the way. Then follows two chapters on the character of the man in the course of which she explicitly denies Lord Acton's dictum that "Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely." Finally there is several chapters on background, the intellectual world of the Greeks, and a concluding one looking at interpretations of Alexander in light of then current European thought including Freud and Henri Bergson.

A boy (and I was one) admires Alexander as a winner, the center of attention and praise, who does what he wants and is praised for it. A woman such as our Authoress, may admire Alexander for the good he does, for using his power to help everybody. Such is Savill's portrait of the conqueror, a man animated by a growing vision of the brotherhood of man, whose skill at handling men and affairs is praiseworthy in every way, whose magnanimity and sense of justice (versus entitlement) shine through the centuries, and whose self-discipline gives lie to the jealous lies spread about him by subsequent claimants to his legacy.

There is a lot of truth to Savill's claims, but a more effective writer allows the description of the incidents speak for themselves, and some of her claims suffer from overstatement as when she argues that Alexander's 10-year empire is the turning point in western history over and against the life of Christ and the 2000-year history of institutions that act in His Name. In too many cases Savill tries to have it both ways, that Alexander accepted divine honors not out of megalomania but out of political considerations, and yet he had a "yearning" which guided him on, comparable to Socrates' daemon (discussed in the last chapter in terms of Bergson's philosophy). There is the conundrum of culture, where certain practices are justified as part of the culture, and that discernment of values that transcends mere culture which justifies defying culture. Our Authoress tends to praise her hero for the latter, but refrain from blaming him for the former. The question of how we discern those transcendent values is left hanging, subsumed in the assumption that we of the 20th century have progressed to a less occluded perspective.

Although I am highly interested in the subject, I found the treatment somewhat tedious at times which surprised me. More fact and less opinion would have made this good book better. I found the latter section on Alexander's time to be more engaging, reminiscent of Will Durant's "Age of Greece." A real asset is her attention to the successors of Alexander, the break-up of his empire, loss of his vision for brotherhood among the rulers (this seems to have migrated to the philosophers), and the concerted effort by the Macedonians to degrade Alexander's reputation to avoid conceding power to remaining family members. Another area of strength is the discussion of Aristotle's influence on the Conqueror, as well as Alexander's stream of reports and specimens to that eminent scientist & philosopher. A final strength of Savill's book is the discussion of many of the sources, surviving and mentioned by those surviving sources, and their conflicting perspectives.

For some, all history is fable, a tale with a moral attached. Alexander's death at age 32 has been presented as the culmination of a life spent in dissipation, due to drinking too much. Savill suggests that it was a disease, like malaria, which he may have picked up in India, which lay dormant for a time, then became active, overwhelming the hero in Babylon. But for her, the entire story becomes a fable of what good one man with vision and self-discipline (and maybe the kind of divine guidance a Bergson can rationalize within the parameters of scientism) can accomplish. But without a resurrection, the vision dies with that one man.