Professor Robin Fox begins a thorough biographical portrait of Alexander the Great in this first lecture for The Modern Scholar Series. Describing his subject right off that bat as probably the greatest king and conqueror the world has ever seen, Fox offers a brief sketch of the Alexander as a historical figure and then provides the context of Alexander's time, place, and the most important people in his life. From the start Alexander's relatively short, but incredibly eventful reign was chronicled by court historians, and this has proven to be a mixed blessing for modern analysts when it comes to separating fact from fiction.