Alexander in Dante and as heir to Zeno

It will not come as a surprise that Alexander figures enigmatically in Dante. Scholars apparently are not even sure that he appears in the Commedia. If he does, it comes in Canto 12, the circle of the violent to others, where an Alessandro is steeped in the river of blood along with many other tyrants:

Quivi si piangon li spietati danni;
quivi è Alessandro, e Dïonisio fero
che fé Cicilia aver dolorosi anni.
(12.106-08)

Some have suggested other tyrant Alexanders, while others are certain it's Alexander the Great.

Those who think it's another Alexander, such as Alexander of Pherae, note that Dante has an admiring passage in the Convivio about the Great:

"Make to yourselves friends of the money of iniquity," thereby inviting and encouraging men to render acts of liberality through benefactions, which engender friendships.⁽⁴⁴⁾ How fair an exchange does he make who gives of these most imperfect things in order to have and acquire things that are perfect, such as are the hearts of worthy men! This market is open every day. Indeed, this kind of commerce is different from all others, for when a man believes he is buying one person with a benefaction, thousands and thousands are bought with it. Who does not still keep a place in his heart for Alexander because of his royal acts of benevolence? Who does not keep a place for the good King of Castile, or Saladin, or the good Marquis of Monferrato, or the good Count of Toulouse, or Bertran de Born, or Galeazzo of Montefeltro?⁽⁴⁵⁾ When mention is made of their gifts, certainly not only those who would willingly do the same, but those as well who would sooner die than do the same, retain in their memory a love for these men. Conv. 4.11

In the De Monarchia, Dante finds that

Alexander king of Macedon came closer than anyone else to winning the prize of monarchy. De Monarchia II.VIII

But Dante notes that Providence had it in mind for Rome to become the chosen vehicle for empire. And Sayers notes that one of Dante's sources, Orosius, described Alexander the Great as a terrible tyrant, "insatiable of human blood."

Plutarch, on the other hand, wrote not only his lengthy Life of Alexander, but another lengthy work, included in the Moralia, in which he debates whether Alexander's extraordinary life was due more to Fortune or to his own virtue. Here he views Alexander's project in a way that might be suggestive in light of the link to the Stoic worldview we glimpsed in Epictetus, here represented by Zeno:

Moreover, the much-admired Republic of Zeno, the founder of the Stoic sect, may be summed up in this one main principle: that all the inhabitants of this world of ours should not live differentiated by their respective rules of justice into separate cities and communities, but that we should consider all men to be of one community and one polity, and that we should have a common life and an order common to us all, even as a herd that feeds together and shares the pasturage of a common field. This Zeno wrote, giving shape to a dream or, as it were, shadowy picture of a well-ordered and philosophic commonwealth; but it was Alexander who gave effect to the idea. For Alexander did not follow Aristotle's advice to treat the Greeks as if he were their leader, and other peoples as if he were their master; to have regard for the Greeks as for friends and kindred, but to conduct himself toward other peoples as though they were plants or animals; for to do so would have been to cumber his leadership with numerous battles and banishments and festering seditions. But, as he believed that he came as a heaven-sent governor to all, and as a mediator for the whole world, those whom he could not persuade to unite with him, he conquered by force of arms, and he brought together into one body all men everywhere, uniting and mixing in one great loving-cup, as it were, men's lives, their characters, their marriages, their very habits of life.39 He bade them all consider as their fatherland the whole inhabited earth, as their stronghold and protection his camp, as akin to them all good men, and as foreigners only the wicked; they should not distinguish between Grecian and foreigner by Grecian cloak and targe, or scimitar and jacket; but the distinguishing mark of the Grecian should be seen in virtue, and that of the foreigner in iniquity; clothing and food, marriage and manner of life they should regard as common to all, being blended into one by ties of blood and children. De Fortuna Alexandri

and a little further on:

Alexander desired to render all upon earth subject to one law of reason and one form of government and to reveal all men as one people, and to this purpose he made himself conform.

One thing seems clear: Plutarch's need to underscore his view of Alexander tells us there were other, strongly different views that he was trying to counter.