Editing Alexander the Great (section)

===Influence on Rome===
[[File:Roman - Medallion with Alexander the Great - Walters 591 - Obverse.jpg|thumb|This medallion was produced in [[Imperial Rome]], demonstrating the influence of Alexander's memory. [[Walters Art Museum]], [[Baltimore]].|upright]]
Alexander and his exploits were admired by many Romans, especially generals, who wanted to associate themselves with his achievements.<ref name="Asirvatham">{{harvnb|Roisman|Worthington|2010|loc=Chapter 6, p. 114}}</ref> [[Polybius]] began his ''[[Histories (Polybius)|Histories]]'' by reminding Romans of Alexander's achievements, and thereafter Roman leaders saw him as a role model. [[Pompey the Great]] adopted the epithet "Magnus" and even Alexander's anastole-type haircut, and searched the conquered lands of the east for Alexander's 260-year-old cloak, which he then wore as a sign of greatness.<ref name="Asirvatham" /> [[Julius Caesar]] dedicated a [[Lysippus|Lysippean]] [[equestrian statue|equestrian]] [[bronze]] statue, but replaced Alexander's head with his own, while [[Octavian]] visited Alexander's tomb in Alexandria and temporarily changed his seal from a [[sphinx]] to Alexander's profile.<ref name="Asirvatham" /> The emperor [[Trajan]] also admired Alexander, as did [[Nero]] and [[Caracalla]].<ref name="Asirvatham" /> The Macriani, a Roman family that in the person of [[Macrinus]] briefly ascended to the imperial throne, kept images of Alexander on their persons, either on jewellery or embroidered into their clothes.{{sfn|Holt|2003|p=3}}

On the other hand, some Roman writers, particularly Republican figures, used Alexander as a cautionary tale of how [[autocratic]] tendencies can be kept in check by the values of the [[Roman Republic]].<ref name="Asirvatham2">{{harvnb|Roisman|Worthington|2010|loc=Chapter 6, p. 115}}</ref> Alexander was used by these writers as an example of ruler values such as {{lang|la|amicitia}} (friendship) and {{lang|la|clementia}} (clemency), but also {{lang|la|iracundia}} (anger) and {{lang|la|cupiditas gloriae}} (over-desire for glory).<ref name="Asirvatham2" />

[[Emperor Julian]] in his satire called "The Caesars", describes a contest between the previous Roman emperors, with Alexander the Great called in as an extra contestant, in the presence of the assembled gods.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.attalus.org/translate/caesars.html|title=Julian: Caesars – translation|website=attalus.org|access-date=29 March 2020|archive-date=26 February 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200226035227/http://www.attalus.org/translate/caesars.html|url-status=live}}</ref>

The [[Itinerarium Alexandri]] is a 4th-century Latin description of Alexander the Great's campaigns.

[[Julius Caesar]] went to serve his quaestorship in Hispania after his wife's funeral, in the spring or early summer of 69 BC. While there, he encountered a statue of Alexander the Great, and realised with dissatisfaction that he was now at an age when Alexander had the world at his feet, while he had achieved comparatively little.<ref>Goldsworthy, 100</ref><ref>Plutarch 1919, XI, 2</ref>

[[Pompey]] posed as the "new Alexander" since he was his boyhood hero.<ref>Leach, John. Pompey the Great. p. 29.</ref>

After Caracalla concluded his campaign against the Alamanni, it became evident that he was inordinately preoccupied with Alexander the Great.<ref name=":02">{{Cite book|last=Goldsworthy|first=Adrian|url=https://archive.org/details/howromefelldeath0000gold/page/74|title=How Rome Fell: death of a superpower|location=New Haven |publisher=Yale University Press|year=2009|isbn=978-0-300-16426-8|pages=[https://archive.org/details/howromefelldeath0000gold/page/74 74]}}</ref><ref name=":92">{{Cite book|last=Brauer|first=G.|title=The Decadent Emperors: Power and Depravity in Third-Century Rome|year=1967|pages=75}}</ref> He began openly mimicking Alexander in his personal style. In planning his invasion of the Parthian Empire, Caracalla decided to arrange 16,000 of his men in Macedonian-style [[phalanx]]es, despite the Roman army having made the phalanx an obsolete tactical formation.<ref name=":02" /><ref name=":92" /><ref name=":292">{{Cite book|last=Christopher|first=Matthew|title=An Invincible Beast: Understanding the Hellenistic Pike Phalanx in Action|publisher=Casemate Publishers|year=2015|pages=403}}</ref> The historian Christopher Matthew mentions that the term ''Phalangarii'' has two possible meanings, both with military connotations. The first refers merely to the Roman battle line and does not specifically mean that the men were armed with [[Pike (weapon)|pikes]], and the second bears similarity to the 'Marian Mules' of the late [[Roman Republic]] who carried their equipment suspended from a long pole, which were in use until at least the 2nd century AD.<ref name=":292" /> As a consequence, the ''Phalangarii'' of [[Legio II Parthica]] may not have been pikemen, but rather standard battle line troops or possibly ''[[Triarii]]''.<ref name=":292" />

Caracalla's mania for Alexander went so far that Caracalla visited Alexandria while preparing for his Persian invasion and persecuted philosophers of the [[Aristotelianism|Aristotelian]] school based on a legend that [[Aristotle]] had poisoned Alexander. This was a sign of Caracalla's increasingly erratic behaviour. But this mania for Alexander, strange as it was, was overshadowed by subsequent events in Alexandria.<ref name=":92" />

In AD 39, [[Caligula]] performed a spectacular stunt by ordering a temporary [[Pontoon bridge|floating bridge]] to be built using ships as [[Pontoon (boat)|pontoons]], stretching for over two miles from the resort of [[Baiae]] to the neighbouring port of [[Puteoli]].<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Wardle |first1=David |title=Caligula's Bridge of Boats – AD 39 or 40? |journal=Historia |date=2007 |volume=56 |issue=1 |pages=118–120 |doi=10.25162/historia-2007-0009 |jstor=25598379 |s2cid=164017284 }}</ref><ref name="seutonius-calig-19">Suetonius, ''The Lives of Twelve Caesars'', Life of Caligula [https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Suetonius/12Caesars/Caligula*.html#19 19].</ref> It was said that the bridge was to rival the Persian king [[Xerxes' pontoon bridge]] crossing of the Hellespont.<ref name="seutonius-calig-19" /> Caligula, who could not swim,<ref>Suetonius, ''The Lives of Twelve Caesars'', Life of Caligula [https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Suetonius/12Caesars/Caligula*.html#54 54].</ref> then proceeded to ride his favourite horse [[Incitatus]] across, wearing the breastplate of [[#Post-death events|Alexander the Great]].<ref name="seutonius-calig-19" /> This act was in defiance of a prediction by Tiberius's soothsayer [[Thrasyllus of Mendes]] that Caligula had "no more chance of becoming emperor than of riding a horse across the Bay of Baiae".<ref name="seutonius-calig-19" />

The diffusion of Greek culture and language cemented by Alexander's conquests in West Asia and North Africa served as a "precondition" for the [[Mithridatic Wars|later Roman expansion]] into these territories and [[Byzantine Greeks|entire basis]] for the [[Byzantine Empire]], according to [[Robert Malcolm Errington|Errington]].<ref>{{harvnb|Errington|1990|p=249}}.</ref>