A childhood-to-adolescence portrait of Alexander the Great growing up in the Macedonian court of his father Philip and his volatile mother Olympias, tutored by Aristotle at Mieza and bound to his lifelong companion Hephaistion, ending as Philip is assassinated and the young Alexander claims the throne.
Books mentioned in Fire from Heaven (3)
Iliad by Homer: “Phoinix had given Achilles his own Iliad, a secret from Timanthes... At the top sat the leather scroll-case of the Iliad.”
The Education of Cyrus (Cyropaedia) by Xenophon: “They were reading Xenophon's The Upbringing of Kyros, which, next to Homer, was just then Alexander's favourite book.”
Heracles (The Madness of Heracles) by Euripides: “The play had been The Madness of Herakles, Hephaistion wondered, after, how he could have missed the omen.”