Cultural depictions of Alexander the Great

Ancient and Medieval literature

In the Bible

In Middle Persian literature

In the Qur'an

In Persian literature

Other references

Cities

• Alexandria, Egypt
• Alexandria Susiana, Iran
• Alexandria in Ariana, Afghanistan
• Alexandria of the Caucasus, Afghanistan
• Alexandria on the Oxus, Afghanistan
• Alexandria of the Arachosians, Afghanistan
• Alexandria on the Indus, Pakistan
• Alexandria Bucephalous, Pakistan
• Alexandria Eschate, "The furthest", Tajikistan
• İskenderun, Turkey
• Kandahar, Afghanistan
• Iskandariya, Iraq

As city planner

Literature

• Dante talks well about him in the Convivio and De Monarchia; the position of Alexander in the Divine Comedy, though, is more uncertain, for though there is a reference to an Alexander being punished in the Circle of the Violent, it is not explicit as to whether this is in fact Alexander the Great himself. Alexander, however, is notably absent from Dante's depiction of virtuous pagans.
• Alexandre le Grand, tragedy in five acts by Jean Racine, first staged 1665.
• In the late 1830s, Letitia Elizabeth Landon wrote three major poems on Alexander, beginning with in 1835, which was followed by and in 1837, the latter being one of her Subjects for Pictures.
• In 1868 Tchaikovsky contemplated writing an opera featuring Alexander the Great, taking place in Greece and Babylon and centering on the relations between Hebrews and Greeks. The plot would have featured a Jewish woman falling in love with Alexander and for his sake leaving her Jewish lover, who eventually becomes a prophet. However, though surviving Tchaikovsky letters include details of this planned opera, its plot and characters, he finally abandoned this plan and chose instead for an opera with a Russian background.
• Rudyard Kipling's story "The Man Who Would Be King" provides some glimpses of Alexander's legacy. Made into a movie of the same title in 1975, starring Sean Connery and Michael Caine.
• Dutch writer Louis Couperus' Iskander. De roman van Alexander den Groote is a historical novel about Alexander after his invasion of Asia. Largely based on the Alexander historians Quintus Curtius Rufus, Arrian, and Plutarch, the novel thematises Alexander's psychological condition during the last years of his life.
• Alexander appears in "A Trooper of the Thessalians", a short story by Arthur D. Howden Smith.
• In 1949, Terence Rattigan's play Adventure Story, based on Alexander the Great, premiered in London.
• Robert Payne published a novel in 1954 about Alexander's life, Alexander the God.
• In 1958, Maurice Druon wrote a novel about Alexander, Alexandre le Grand. It was translated into English as Alexander the God by Humphrey Hare.
• From 1969 to 1981, Mary Renault wrote a historical fiction trilogy on the life of Alexander: Fire From Heaven, The Persian Boy, and Funeral Games. Alexander also appears briefly in Renault's novel The Mask of Apollo, and is alluded to directly in The Last of the Wine and indirectly in The Praise Singer. In addition to the fiction, Renault also wrote a non-fiction biography, The Nature of Alexander.
• Science fiction writer Poul Anderson wrote an alternate history story, "Eutopia", featuring a timeline where Alexander the Great lived to an old age and established a stable empire that endured to modern times as an enlightened, peaceful and advanced Greek-speaking world culture. Similar "Alexandrian timelines" also appear in several other alternate histories by various writers.
• Ivan Efremov wrote a historical novel Thais of Athens about the life of hetaera Thaïs, as she follows Alexander in his campaigns. Alexander and Thaïs have a love relationship in the novel.
• French writer Roger Peyrefitte wrote a trilogy about Alexander the great which is regarded as a masterpiece of erudition: La Jeunesse d'Alexandre, Les Conquêtes d'Alexandre and Alexandre le Grand.
• In Alan Moore's Watchmen, one of the main characters, Ozymandias, goes into detail about how he followed in Alexander the Great's footsteps in order to achieve enlightenment.
• A further trilogy of novels about Alexander was written in Italian by Valerio Massimo Manfredi and subsequently published in an English translation, entitled Child of a Dream, The Sands of Ammon and The Ends of the Earth.
• David Gemmell's Dark Prince features Alexander as the chosen vessel for a world-destroying demon king..
• Judith Tarr's historical fantasy novel Lord of the Two Lands is about the relationship between Alexander and an Egyptian priestess.
• Steven Pressfield's 2004 book The Virtues of War is told from the first-person perspective of Alexander. Pressfield's novel The Afghan Campaign is told from the point of view of a soldier in Alexander's army. Alexander makes several brief appearances in the novel.
• In Fate/Zero, the light novel authored by Gen Urobuchi, Alexander appears as the Servant Rider, and is referred to as the King of Conquerors.
• In Stephen Baxter's A Time Odyssey series, Alexander plays a part in the first and third books, featuring an encounter with Genghis Khan's horde and the extension of Alexander's empire into the New World.
• In Nicholas Nicastro's 2004 historical novel Empire of Ashes, Alexander's career is described from the perspective of a skeptical Athenian soldier/historian who must debunk Alexander's official divinity to save himself from a charge of sacrilege.
• Eternity by Greg Bear features an alternate reality in which Alexander did not die young and his empire flourished instead of collapsing.
• In the novel by Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels in part III, chapter VII, Gulliver sees and talks to the ghost of Alexander the Great.
• In the pages of The Haunted Tank from DC Comics, the spirit of Alexander sent the spirit of Confederate General J.E.B. Stuart to protect World War II Lieutenant Jeb Stuart Smith and the Light Tank M3 Stuart he commands.
• In Tom Holt's comic novel Alexander at the World's End an impoverished scholar's life is set upon a new course when he becomes Alexander's tutor.
• Hitoshi Iwaaki's Historie tells what Alexander is in his opinion. Alexander in the story is timid, but smart. He has a split-personality disorder, the original one has a snake birthmark on his face, another one named Hephaestion puts makeup to conceal it, as he loathes snakes, which his mother Olympias worships. His birth also was questioned, but easily extinguished when his mother killed the man rumored to be his real father.

  Television

• ', TV series pilot, starring William Shatner as Alexander, directed by Phil Karlson.
• The Search for Alexander the Great
• 'Alexander Senki, Anime / TV series, starring Toshihiko Seki as Alexander, directed by Yoshinori Kanemori, and with character designs by Peter Chung. It was based on the novel Alexander Senki by Hiroshi Aramata. Also known as Alexander ; '. The series debuted on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim block variety show in 2003.
• The middle episodes of Chanakya, a 1991 Indian TV series based on Chanakya, depicts Alexander's invasion of northwestern India, his death, and the rebellion led by native Indian kingdoms under the leadership of Maurya Empire founder Chandragupta Maurya against Alexander's successors in India.
• The 1996 miniseries Gulliver's Travels, starring Ted Danson, featured a visit from Alexander the Great.
• In the Smallville season 1 episode "Rogue", Lex Luthor shows Clark Kent the armor that Alexander the Great wore in battle. The breastplate is gold, with red and blue diamonds, and a snake shaped like the letter S.
• ', mini-series, hosted by Michael Wood, directed by David Wallace.
• In the miniseries Yu-Gi-Oh! Capsule Monsters, Alexander the Great was the main villain in the Capsule Monster World.
• Alexander was occasionally featured on Histeria!, depicted as a somewhat egotistical man who liked to make it clear that "I'm great! Ha ha!" The first episode to feature him was "Really Really Oldies But Goodies", which featured a sketch about his habit of naming cities after himself, which leads to a scene where World's Oldest Woman gives Toast multiple directions to different cities called Alexandria. In "A Blast in the Past", Alexander consults Sigmund Freud about his past, fretting about the fact that his father always considered him "pretty good" rather than "great". Finally, in "When Time Collides!", Alexander is shown as the reigning champion on a Jeopardy! parody, because all of the correct responses to the answers are centered on him. He even finds a way to win when Charity Bazaar gives the correct response.
• The second season of Spike TV's Deadliest Warrior, which features computer simulated battles between historical warriors, pitted Alexander the Great against Attila the Hun, with Attila emerging victorious, with 59.6% of the wins.
• Chandragupta Maurya, a 2011-2012 Indian TV series based on Maurya Empire founder Chandragupta Maurya, depicts Alexander's invasion of northwestern India, his encounter with a young Chandragupta, and Chandragupta's subsequent rivalry with Alexander's successor Seleucus Nicator.
• Porus, a 2017 Indian TV series based on the life of Porus, depicts his battle with Alexander, played by Rohit Purohit.

  Radio

• Alexander a six-part BBC Radio 4 series by David Wade starred Michael Maloney as Alexander.

  Film

• Baz Luhrmann had been planning to make a film about Alexander, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, but the release of Stone's film eventually persuaded him to abandon the project.

  Music

Video games

• Alexander is a character in the computer games Age of Empires and '.
• Alexander is a leader of the Greeks in five of six games of the Sid Meier's Civilization series, and the leader of Macedon in Civilization VI. He is a lone Greek leader in the original, third and fifth games, a male leader in the second game, and the lone leader of the Greek civilization in the fourth game and has the leader traits Aggressive and Philosophical.
• In the second ' expansion pack,, Alexander the Great's conquests are chronicled in a campaign and the six battles in the 'Historical Battles' campaign are modeled on Alexander's battles.
• Almost all the battles fought by Alexander appear and are playable in the game Ancient Battle: Alexander, the player can also choose to play against Alexander.
• Alexander the Great is also featured in the game called released by Midway games.
• He is also mentioned in the computer game Age Of Mythology, in the history information text of the unit called Hetairoi.
• Alexander is also mentioned in Age of Empires II during the Saladin campaign and in the Conquerors expansion pack in the Attila the Hun campaign.
• In Stainless Steel Studios' 2001 game Empire Earth, several of the levels in the Greek campaign revolve around Alexander's conquests. He is also depicted on the game's cover.
• In the Chicago level of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4, a barber shop is called Alexander the Great Barber shop.
• In the 'Fate' series, Alexander the Great is called the Iskander, King of Conquerors. His spirit is resurrected and becomes a Rider-Class servant used to fight for the prize of the Holy Grail. Iskandar is briefly mentioned in the first visual novel game and anime series Fate/stay night as an example of the Rider-class Servant. It was hinted that he was the most powerful of the characters, but died in a two-versus-one battle. He is detailed in full as Rider in the prequel, Fate/Zero.
• In Assassin's Creed II, it is said that a deceased Assassin, Iltani, poisoned Alexander the Great.
• In BioShock 2, a now hideously mutated and clinically insane researcher, Gil Alexander, who was a part of Big Daddy production refers to himself as Alex the Great.
• In the video game Dante's Inferno, "the great Alexander" is mentioned as being one that had previously tried to battle his way through Hell.
• In the fashion of Mike Tyson, many of the enemies in the game God Hand will taunt the main character, Gene, by saying "I'm Alexander the Great!" and "You're not Alexander!"
• Several games in the Final Fantasy series feature a being called Alexander that can be summoned in battle and appears as a moving fortress with holy-elemental attacks. While most of these appearances do not seem to be related to the historical Alexander, the MMORPG, in which he appears as an entire raid dungeon of his own, has made more direct references to Alexander the Great by naming two partitions of the dungeon after Gordias and Midas. An area within Alexander where the player attempts to disable his engine is referred to as the Gordian Knot.

  Airports

• Kavala International Airport "Alexander the Great", in Eastern Macedonia and Thrace ;
• Skopje "Alexander the Great" Airport, in the Republic of Macedonia.

  Other

• Shaun Alexander, of the Seattle Seahawks, is often referred to as "Alexander the Great".
• Alexander Ovechkin, of the Washington Capitals, is often referred to as "Alexander the Great".
• He was depicted on the reverse of the Greek 100 drachmas coin of 1990-2001.
• The 9K720 Iskander, a Russian mobile theater ballistic missile system.
• Secunderabad, a city in India is named after Sikandar Jah, in turn named based on a derivative of Alexander's name.
• The biography of Lord Macharius, a famous conqueror from the Warhammer 40000 universe, copies that of Alexander's conquests in general details.
• , adopted a modified historical image of Alexander as its corporate logo in 2015.
• "Alexander the Great vs. Ivan the Terrible", a 2016 episode of Epic Rap Battles of History, featured Zach Sherwin portraying Alexander in a rap battle against Ivan the Terrible and others.