An empire of blood: Orosius and Alexander the Great

Abstract This paper explores the dangers that Orosius believed Alexander the Great and his conquests posed to his Christian teleological reading of history. It argues that Orosius carefully crafted his account of Alexander to demonstrate that both the man himself and his conquests could only be read in an entirely negative light and could not have contributed to God’s salvific plans as Rome had. However, it concludes that while Orosius constructed this attack in a skilful fashion, it had only a limited effect in diminishing Alexander’s reputation in later periods.