Abstract

In this paper I offer an overview of modern scholarship on the letters of Alexander the Great, starting from the eighteenth century. I aim to show that—contrary to what one would imagine—most modern scholars generally deemed the letters to be authentic, and that the skepticism about the epistles was strongly influenced by the role Plutarch played in their transmission, by the idea of the presence of a collection on which the Romance of Alexander was based, and by the link between the letters and Chares, the court chamberlain.