Does it boggle anyone's mind that the only primary source on Alexander the Great's life is

Pretty sure that dude liked men

If I see it on Facebook, I know it's true.

I like the Tin Man.

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an an inscription on a temple saying "Alexander was here."

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So Alexander tagged a church? TPOS.

The details are usually chronicled as mythology, and the rest is guess work based off of what is left behind. You can see the remnants of cities and villages and the spread of a certain type of structure and civilization then you guess which parts of the myth that supports.

They didn't have churches ;)

shite people think the main stream media tells the truth so god only knows what bullshite was false back then!

Well, this is sort of the way it works for many ancient topics - people, places, events. It's like a puzzle trying to trace back source material. That's what doing "real" historical research demands. Source scrutiny. Who knew what from whom, when, and why?

You will find that a lot of the things we assume are concrete about ancient history are actually built on decades-old recollections and retellings of other sources sometimes hundreds of years old. Take the second Punic War for instance. The main source is Polybius, who, though he was diligent in his research, wrote decades after the war. It's easy to take his words as gospel, but you really should account for some interpretive wiggle due to the difference in time there.

Any and every history is as much about the writer as the event. They are equal partners in creating history. Not a mind-blowing concept, but a smart catch on your part when reading about Alexander.

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Like the Bible?

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