Alejandro Magno como "conquistador-civilizador": la lectura ilustrada de Flavio Arriano y Plutarco entre los siglos xviii-xix

Book Chapter

Authorship

MORENO LEONI, ALVARO MATIAS

Date

2017

Publishing House and Editing Place

Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México

Book

Recepción y modernidad en el siglo XVIII. La Antigüedad Clásica en la configuración del pensamiento ilustrado (pp. 21-57)
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México

ISBN

978-607-02-8644-5

Summary Information provided by the agent in SIGEVA

From the mid eighteenth century to the beginning of nineteenth century there was among numerous European intellectuals a deep interest in understanding some aspects of the historical figure of Alexander the Great as well as in explaining to his readers the historical scope of his amazing and short-lived conquests. Diferent historical sources allowed to explore this subject, but modern intellectuals preferred rather to focus on two classical texts: Flavius Arrianus’ Anabasis and Plutarch&r... From the mid eighteenth century to the beginning of nineteenth century there was among numerous European intellectuals a deep interest in understanding some aspects of the historical figure of Alexander the Great as well as in explaining to his readers the historical scope of his amazing and short-lived conquests. Diferent historical sources allowed to explore this subject, but modern intellectuals preferred rather to focus on two classical texts: Flavius Arrianus’ Anabasis and Plutarch’s On the Fortune or the Virtue of Alexander. The aim of this paper is to argue that this option was linked to modern intellectual interests on commerce as a central vector to achieve civilization. In this sense, it will be explored here in which way the narrative- argumentative models of both Arrianus and Plutarch were adopted by Montesquieu and Droysen, but at the same time how these modern authors made creative readings of the- se ancient sources according to their modern interests.