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Why do Plutarch's and Wiraz's views of Alexander's Persian conquests differ so greatly?
Wiki User
∙ 8y ago
Plutach tried to describe a factual history, but he wrote it some 400 years after Alexander's reign and so you could hardly call him an eyewitness. It is also uncertain what exact source material he had available and how accurate and contemporary that was. What we do know is that he modelled Alexander's character much on that of Julius Caesar, whom he admired. Modern historians have doubts on several points of fact in Plutarchus' account, but it is the only detailed history of Alexander we have and there is supporting evidence for much of what he writes.
The Book of Arda Viraf was written even more than 700 years after that of Plutarch and it is not even an attempt at factual history writing, but "the dream-journey of a devout Zoroastrian" called Wiraz (or Viraz, or Wiraf) who very probably was not even a real person. If we have doubts about the amount of hard evidence at the basis of Plutarch's history, we can at least double or triple those doubts for the Book of Arda Viraf written some one thousand years after Alexander's exploits. Alexander stands there accused of "destroying" Persia and its culture but that is certainly incorrect. Alexander loved the Persian culture and the trappings of the Oriental veneration for its monarch, which he now came to enjoy. The scriptures that he is said to have destroyed only came in written form long after his death and until then, were only oral history.
But regardless of the book's very shaky factual foundation, it represents a Persian point of view that was in consequence hostile to Alexander. Plutarch also had the disadvantage of writing long after Alexander lived (and he did also admire him) but in all probability his acces to Greek and Macedonian source material was infinitely better than that of the writer of the Book of Arda.
Wiki User
∙ 8y ago
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