The truth about Greek 'legends': Alexander the Great was a mummy's boy, the Spartans were thugs and ancient Athens was corrupt



Angelina Jolie played Olympias, Alexander's mother in the Hollywood film Alexander. Research indicates she was the true warrior in the family

The myth of a democratic ancient Greece populated by fearless and enlightened rulers has been shattered by new research released today.

The Spartans were thugs, Alexander the Great was a mummy's boy and ancient Athens was corrupt and bankrupt, argues Cambridge University classicist Dr Michael Scott.

He also goes on to warn that the eventual collapse of Greek democracy 2,400 years ago took place in circumstances chillingly similar to modern Britain.

Dr Scott points out that Athens imploded in the middle of crippling economic downturn, while politicians fiddled finances, sent troops to fight unpopular foreign wars, and struggled to cope with immigration.

He believes the parallels between the ancient world's 'Golden City' and Britain's credit crunch, expenses' scandal and war in Afghanistan cannot be ignored.

Research by Dr Scott shows the classical heroes of that era as fallible mortals with a propensity to violence and political back-stabbing.

Alexander the Great, recently voted the greatest Greek of all time by a poll in Greece, is widely credited with spreading civilisation as he marched across what was then the known world.

But according to Dr Scott, he was little more than a mummy's boy who sent an endless stream of letters from the battlefield to his mother, Olympias.

His military successes merely built on the pragmatic foundations laid down by his father Philip II.

In fact, it was Olympias, sympathetically portrayed by Angelina Jolie in the Hollywood blockbuster Alexander, who was the true warrior in the family.

Dr Scott described her as a violent and fearless leader who is suspected to have murdered her own husband before being captured in battle and put to death in 316BC.


Gerard Butler starred as King Leonidas in the Hollywood movie '300', which told the story of the Spartans' bitter last stand against an overwhelming Persian army


This famous mosaic depicts Alexander the Great's defeat of the Persian king Darius it was found in a house in Pompeii. Dr Scott argues that Alexander was, in fact, a bit of a mummy's boy

Colin Farrell

Colin Farrell starred as Alexander in the Oliver Stone epic which charted his conquests across what was then the known world

When it comes to the Spartans of Thermopylae, long famed as an elite band of noble troops, they are branded as nothing more than a bunch of warmongering bullies who policed Athens with mindless violence.

Even Athenian orators like Isocrates, traditionally remembered as one of the most enlightened politicians of his time, is exposed as ditching democracy in favour of Philip of Macedon, the father of Alexander.

Dr Scott's book argues Athenian democracy did not fall as a result of being conquered by Sparta at the end of the fifth century BC.

Instead the stresses and strains of the fourth century BC, when Athens sacrificed its ideology in a last-ditch attempt to remain a player on the world stage, was the real cause.

It abandoned past allies and tried to forge 'slippery-fish' alliances with the new powers of Macedonia and the Persian king, all at the expense of its once flourishing democracy.

Athens committed itself to unpopular wars and its economy, heavily dependent on trade and overseas resources, crashed when conflict began to affect arterial trade routes.

This resulted in series of domestic problems, including an inability to fund a traditional police force, and democracy began to buckle under the strain.


Dr Michael Scott and his book, right, which exposes many of the myths surrounding ancient Greece

The city started the century a flourishing democracy but by the end it was hailing its latest ruler, Demetrius, as both a king and a living God.

Dr Scott added: "In many ways this was a period of total uncertainty just like our own time.


'It survived the period through slippery-fish diplomacy, at the cost of a clear democratic conscience, a policy which, in the end, led it to accept a dictator King and make him a God.' 

He said his new history of the fourth century BC should be read as a lesson for the challenges of our generation.



'It is a period of history that we would do well to think about a little more right now - and we ignore it at our peril.' 

Dr Scott's book 'From Democrats to Kings' is released today.

How Alexander was a mummy's boy