Alexandria in Egypt is just one of many "Alexandrias"--ancient cities traditionally thought of as having been founded by Alexander the Great. In this book, one of the world's leading experts on the period unravels this fascinating tradition, explaining how it originated in a tendentious political pamphlet of the third century BC, which in turn originated in Ptolemaic Alexandria in the context of the development of the earliest version of the Alexander Romance. His work will force historians to alter radically their overall assessment of Alexander's achievement, arguing that he founded far fewer cities than usually supposed.