The reading public knows Maurice Druon primarily from the “Cursed Kings” saga, which revealed the dark secrets of the Middle Ages, and the “The End of Men” trilogy, which tells about the backstage of European society in the first decades of the 20th century, about the decline of the dynasty of financiers and industrialists. Alexander the Great, who lived thirty-three years old, was considered by some priests on both sides of the Mediterranean to be the son of Zeus-Amun. The Egyptians crowned him with the crown of the pharaoh, and the Babylonians with the royal tiara. The Jews saw in him one of the rulers of the world, the harbinger of the Messiah. Some peoples of India embodied his features in the image of Buddha. Ancient Christians ranked Alexander among the saints. Islam gave him a place in the pantheon of its heroes under the name Iskander. Alexander's contemporaries constantly asked the question: “Is he a man or a god?” Maurice Druon in his novel tried to recreate the image of the conqueror's closest adviser, restore the favorite's train of thought and wrote memoirs that could have belonged to the pen of the great ruler.