https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111448282-034 Christopher Pelling A Man for All Genres: Alexander in Plutarch Abstract: Alexander was good to think with, and Plutarch did not always think about him in the same way. His best-known treatment is in the Life, paired in the series of Parallel Lives with Julius Caesar, but he also treated him in the two essays On Alexander’s Fortune or Virtue and a collection of anecdotes is preserved in the Apophthegmata of Kings and Generals, probably put together during Plutarch’s pre- paratory research. This chapter explores the differences among these various treat- ments, and relates them to the differing generic requirements of historical biog- raphy and of moralizing essay. Keywords: Plutarch, Alexander, On Alexander’s Fortune or Virtue, Apophthegmata of Kings and Generals There was a lot to say about Alexander. The Alexander is just short of being the longest of the Lives; 1 Alexander-Caesar is comfortably the longest pair. 2 Two essays debate On Alexander’s Fortune or Virtue when one essay apiece sufficed for On the Fortune of the Romans and On the Glory of the Athenians. There is much else be- sides, for the Moralia are studded with exempla drawn from all Alexander’s career, many of which do not figure in either the essays or the Life. Then there are the Apophthegmata of Kings and Generals: one way or another 3 these may well reflect a stage in Plutarch’s preparations for the Life, but there is room for fewer than half  1 The TLG gives a wordcount of 20,065 for Alexander, just short of 20,102 for Pompey. The Alexan- der may well have lost some material at the end (Pelling 1973), and if so that would have nudged it into the lead. It is unfortunate that the preface to Pelling 1988 begins “Antony is Plutarch’s finest Life; it is also his longest …” Longest in chapters (87 against Pompey’s 80 and Alexander’s 77) but not in words, as the TLG now enables one to see; at 18,514 Antony is third. 2 36,124 words; Ages.-Pomp. has 31,907, Demetr.-Ant. 31,712. 3 In Pelling 2002, 65–90, I suggested that these Apophthegmata were a collection based on Plu- tarch’s hypomnēmata. i.e., early drafts that Plutarch would have drawn up in preparing the Lives; Stadter 2014 regarded them as a work intended by Plutarch for publication “based on the anecdote collection which Plutarch also used for the Lives” (675 n. 31), which he takes to be separate from any set of historical notes (683). I take this opportunity to apologize for misrepresenting in 2002 Stadter’s argument, which had been set out in an oral presentation a year earlier.  Mistress of many genres as she is, I hope that Lucia Athanassaki may appreciate a contribution on another master of generic versatility and another traveler over many lands: Plutarch of Chaeronea and Alexander the Great.