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Sunday, June 30, 2019

Review of Brill's Companion to the Reception of Alexander the Great (ed. Moore)

BRYN MAYR CLASSICAL REVIEW: Kenneth Royce Moore (ed.), Brill's Companion to the Reception of Alexander the Great. Brill's companions to classical reception, volume 14. Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2018. Pp. 856. ISBN 9789004285071. €189,00. Reviewed by Christian Thrue Djurslev, Aarhus University (ctd@cas.au.dk). Excerpt:
Part II, ‘Later receptions in the Near- and Far East and the Romance tradition’, opens with much-needed studies of religious writers. Klęczar tackles Jewish tradition in an exemplary fashion, whereas Shahar revisits the Jerusalem episode. Nawotka and Wojciechowska quantify evidence from Coptic Egypt over a long period of time. Jouanno is the right person to offer a chapter on the Byzantine corpus, and I was impressed with the paleographical discussion of the (Greek) authors I found missing in Part I. She reminds us that Arrian, Plutarch and Diodorus were read for many other reasons in Byzantium. Peltonen surveys some essential references in early Christian authors, although I am not persuaded by all of his readings. Blythe provides some good summaries of inaccessible material from medieval Italy, which complements and updates Cary’s book on the Medieval Alexander (Cambridge, 1956). Nawotka revisits many important issues regarding the Alexander Romance in Syria and Persia, again with solid summaries of relevant texts. The last paper is the only one that overlaps with content from Zuwiyya’s Brill volume from 2011.
I noted the publication of the book last year.

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