A monograph on Alexander the Great within a Universal History: Diodoros, Book XVII

In the XVIIth Book of the Bibliotheke, the first item after the prologue is the birth of Alexander and the last is the account of his death and alleged poisoning: this is the only book devoted to a single man and exclusively containing information related to his deeds. This paper analyzes the structure of XVIIth Book, and specifically Diodoros’ portrait of Alexander, in order to define whether the Book may deserve the name of monograph or has biographic features. The paper also aims at emphasizing the role of this Book within the whole Bibliotheke as a way to understand how Diodoros organized his work