History ArtisticLicenseHistory / AlexanderTrilogy

* The historical Attalus was certainly antagonistic to Alexander due to family affairs, but he was loyal to Macedonia and never attempted to betray it. Even when Demosthenes tempted him with the idea of a rebellion, he refused and instead brought his letters to Alexander to prove his loyalty, only for Alexander to execute Attalus anyway in order not to take any risks. In the books, Alexander merely orders to ''arrest'' Attalus, and the latter is killed because he apparently chose that very moment to rebel against him.

* Skeptic philosopher Anaxarchus, Alexander's main court philosopher, is notably AdaptedOut of the story. His apprentice Pyrrho does get mentioned in an in-universe letter to Aristotle, but this also mentions him to have learned with Hindu sages, for which timeline doesn't fit. In real life, those sages were actually Kalanos and the gymnosphists, whom Alexander and his entourage were yet to meet both in history and in the books by the point the letter is sent.

* In the books, Eurydice had two children when they were all executed by Olympias, not one.

* Skeptic philosopher Pyrrho gets mentioned in the novels in a letter to Aristotle, which also mentions him to have learned with Hindu sages, but the timeline doesn't fit. In real life, those sages were actually Kalanos and the gymnosphists, whom Alexander and his entourage were yet to meet both in History and in the books by the point the letter is sent.

* Alexander is much less bloodthirsty here than he was in real life, with much less massacres to his name (and even in those, they always come along with some excuse or external reason that is not mentioned in sources).
* In real life, Leonidas wasn't a secret agent of Philip II (well, that what we know) and certainly didn't die at the siege of Tyre, as he outlived Alexander's entire conquest of the Achaemenid Empire. We know it because Alexander had the chance to laugh at Leonidas's lesson about the high price of incense, sending him back an incense cargo with the advice not to be so penurious. Also, the real Leonidas was a relative to Olympias, which is not mentioned in the books and would not fit easily with his role as a spy for Philip.

* In the books, Eumenes is the only friend of Alexander that doesn't have military training, which makes him the official ButtMonkey in anything requiring physical conditioning. In real life, while Eumenes did serve mostly as a secretary to Phillip and Alexander, he was a trained soldier and actually commanded forces during Alexander's conquest (to the surprise of some other Greeks who believed he was a simply civile servant), and he even defeated Craterus personally in the Battle of the Hellesponto after Alexander's death. The books establishing him as an unathletic nerd is even more absurd, as the real Eumenes had a reputation to be a gymnasium beast who even excelled at pankration of all things.

* Instead of being killed in Gaugamela as in the second book, the historical Barsine actually outlived Alexander himself and gave birth to his son, Heracles. They were both executed much later, during the Wars of the Diadochi.
* The characters of Athenophanes and Stephen are both real, but they were neither philosopher wannabes nor master and servant respectively; Stephen's incineration, horrifically enough, was not even accidental as portrayed in the book. In real life, Athenophanes was actually an entertainer in the service of Alexander, while Stephen was an unrelated singer boy infamous for his ugliness. What happened really is almost ComedicSociopathy: after witnessing the effects of naphta, Athenophanes proposed to Alexander to test its possible weaponized usage on a living human, and they callously grabbed the funniest-looking guy around (who even idiotically accepted out of desire to prove himself to the king) to use him for it. To be fair, however, Alexander realized they had gone overboard when he saw the fire could not be quenched quickly, and after the incident ordered Stephen to be taken to his personal doctors.

* The Battle of Gaugamela is portrayed much more faithfully in comparison, but it still has some important differences, mainly orbiting around the novel's claim that everything in that battle except Alexander's final victory happened according to Darius's plan. While it is true that the historical Darius chose the plains of the battle to avoid another Issus and maximize the usage of his war chariots, Alexander actually surprised him when he took a different route to avoid scorched earth (Darius had no way to force Alexander to take it, but it was the most usual road), turned the field advantage on the Persians even before the battle (this because he managed to capture some hills in front of the Persian army, which gave him a huge tactical advantage by high ground), and had the Persians fearing a possible night attack (which Parmenion suggested but Alexander rejected), none of which happens in the novel. Also, in real life the Hellenic rear and camp were saved by a Greek allied phalanx Alexander had intentionally left to guard the zone, not by an amazingly well timed Macedonian reinforcement.

* The Agrianians from the books are [[BarbarianHero uncouth brawlers]] who wield long knives and fight like [[TheBerserker berserkers]]. Historically, Agrianians served in Alexander's army as peltasts, a type of light infantry that performed strategic skirmishing and carried javelins and shields.

* Thalestris, the unnamed queen of the Amazons who visits Alexander in the novels to conceive a child with him, is a legendary character, and was confirmed as such in Alexander's own time (apparently Lysimachus himself heard the story and said jokingly "And where was I, then?").

* Halicarnassus is almost destroyed in the second book because Alexander has to demolish many houses in order to drag his siege machines to the city's fortress, which is still untaken by that point. In real life, it was Memnon who set fire to the city before escaping the siege.

* The choice to portray the Battle of Issus as a deliberate trap set by Darius is particularly stupid, because the very happening of the battle was acknowledged historically as a huge strike of bad luck for the Persians that concluded in their defeat. To elaborate, Darius tried luck to get his gigantic army between Alexander and Parmenion in order to separate them, but as Alexander had already rejoined Parmenion by then, all Darius accomplished was getting behind the combined Macedonian army. This might sound good for the Persians at first, as they had the chance to capture the Greek naval base in Issus, but it also had the side effect of pointlessly stucking the large Persian army in a narrow range of coast, which impeded it from deploying comfortably to face the quick-thinking Hellenics once they came back. As a result, Alexander had the perfect chance to attack without being overwhelmed, break through the Persian numbers, and slaughter their disorganized mass. Therefore, suggesting this place of battle was an intentional Persian choice only implies Darius and all his generals were either suicides or the worst strategists ever, making the whole trap even more incoherent.
* The Battle of Gaugamela is portrayed much more faithfully in comparison, but it still has some important differences, often orbiting around the novels' claim that everything in that battle except Alexander's final victory happened according to Darius's plan. While it is true that the historical Darius chose the plains of the battle to avoid another Issus and maximize the usage of his war chariots, Alexander actually surprised him when he took a different route to avoid scorched earth (Darius had no way to force Alexander to take it, but it was the most usual road), turned the field advantage on the Persians even before the battle (this because he managed to capture some hills in front of the Persian army, which gave him a huge tactical advantage by high ground), and had the Persians fearing a possible night attack (which Parmenion suggested but Alexander rejected), none of which happens in the novel. Also, in real life the Hellenic rear and camp were saved by a Greek allied phalanx Alexander had intentionally left to guard the zone, not by an amazingly well timed Macedonian reinforcement.

* The novels's characters meet war elephants for the first time in India, when in real life they saw them as soon as the Battle of Gaugamela, even if the elephants were ultimately not deployed due to fatigue. Alexander captured them with the rest of the Persian camp and added several more to them during the rest of his conquest; he only refrained from using them in the Hydaspes because they didn't serve well his chosen strategy.

* By the way they are described, the Agrianians from the books are [[BarbarianHero uncouth brawlers]] who wield long knifes and fight like [[TheBerserker berserkers]]. Historically, Agrianians served in Alexander's army as peltasts, a type of light infantry thst performed strategic skirmishing and carried javelins and shields.

* In real life, Leonidas wasn't a secret agent of Phillip (well, that what we know) and certainly didn't die at the siege of Tyre, as he outlived Alexander's entire conquest of the Achaemenid Empire. We know it because Alexander had the chance to laugh at Leonidas's lesson about the high price of incense, sending him back an incense cargo with the advice not to be so penurious. Also, the real Leonidas was a relative to Olympias, which is not mentioned in the books and would not fit easily with his role in the story.
* In the books, Alexander and Memnon meet for the first time in the Persian empire. In real life, the two actually knew each other since Alexander's childhood, as Memnon passed several years in Phillip's court due to having been exiled from Persia for supporting a revolution. The reason Memnon was later so skilled at countering Macedonian strategies (as well as the reason of Alexander's own knowledge of Persian military) was precisely the time they passed together, in which Memnon had even played somewhat of a [[TheMentor mentor role]] to the seven years old Alexander. The same goes with Barsine, who lived with Memnon in Phillip's court around the same time.

* Probably in order to increase Eumenes's ButtMonkey status, he is shown to be the only friend of Alexander that doesn't have military training. While he did serve mostly as a secretary to Phillip and Alexander in real life, he was a trained general and even defeated Craterus personally in the Battle of the Hellesponto after Alexander's death.
* As Manfredi admits in the appendix of the second book, the story [[CompositeCharacter conflates]] the historial characters of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amyntas_IV_of_Macedon Amyntas IV]] and [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_of_Lyncestis Alexander of Lyncestis]], which contributes to Alexander's AdaptationalHeroism by having him pardoning his most dangerous successional rival after Phillip's death. In real life, Alexander immediately [[{{Realpolitik}} ordered Amyntas and two other royal candidates to be executed]], and he only spared Alexander of Lyncestis because the latter knelt to him at the moment. This Alexander also went to marry Antipater's daughter, which the fictitious Amyntas doesn't.
* The historical Attalus was certainly antagonistic to Alexander due to family affairs, but he was loyal to Macedonia and never attempted to betray it. Even when Demosthenes tempted him with the idea of a rebellion, he refused and brought his letters to Alexander to prove his loyalty, only for Alexander to execute Attalus anyway in order not to take any risks. In the books, Alexander merely orders to ''arrest'' Attalus, and the latter is killed because he apparently chose that very moment to rebel against him.

* The real Aristander was already in Phillip's court before the birth of Alexander. He was, in fact, the seer who interpreted his parents's prophetic dreams. In the books, however, he meets Alexander in Halicarnassus.

* Instead of being killed in Gaugamela as in the second book, the historical Barsine actually outlived Alexander himself and gave birth to his son Heracles. They were both executed much later, during the Wars of the Diadochi.
* The characters of Athenophanes and Stephen are both real, but they were neither philosopher wannabes nor master and servant respectively; Stephen's incineration, horrifically enough, was not even accidental as portrayed in the book. In real life, Athenophanes was actually an entertainer in the service of Alexander, while Stephen was an unrelated singer boy known for his ugliness. What happened really is almost ComedicSociopathy: after witnessing the effects of naphta, Athenophanes proposed to Alexander to test its possible weaponized usage on a living human, and they callously grabbed the funniest-looking guy around (who even idiotically accepted out of desire to prove himself to the king) to use him for it. To be fair, however, Alexander repented when he say they could not quench quickly the fire, and ordered Stephen to be quickly taken to his personal doctors afterwards.

* The Skeptic philosopher Pyrrho gets mentioned in the novels in a letter to Aristotle, which also mentions him to have learned with Hindu sages, but the timeline doesn't fit. In real life, those sages were actually Kalanos and the gymnosphists, whom Alexander and his entourage were still to meet both in History and in the books by the point the letter is sent.

* In the books, Bucephalus is bought by Phillip as a gift to Alexander, which the latter chooses to tame personally instead of leaving it to his caretakers. In real life, Phillip had rejected the offer to buy the animal for being too expensive, and it was Alexander who offered to buy it himself if he could tame it, which he did.

* Alexander's exile from Macedonia was harsher in real life, as Phillip also exiled several of Alexander's friends, who included Nearchus, probably out of spite. Similarly, the books have Alexander having no other military experience than the Battle of Chaeronea when he is exiled, despite in real life he had already played military and political tasks in Thracie (where he had founded the city of Alexandropolis), Perinthus and Amphissa.
* The role of mediator between Alexander and Phillip during the former's exile was played by a soldier named Demaratus, not by Eumenes.

* In the books, Eurydice had two children when she was executed by Olympias, not one.

* Halicarnassus is almost destroyed in the second book because Alexander has to demolish many houses in order to drag his siege machines to the city's fortress, which was still untaken. In real life, it was Memnon who set fire to the city before escaping the siege.
* Bizarrely enough, the novels play a CompositeCharacter with two ''cities'', namely Termessos (in the Taurus Mountains in Caria) and Telmessos (in the Mediterranean coast in Lycia), by conflating them both as Termessos. The city famous by its diviners and Aristander's home was Telmessos, and the one who was built on a unsurmountable mountain was Termessos. Also, in real life, Alexander's attack on the latter was much less successful than in the book, and he ultimately abandoned his attempts to capture the city because it had little strategic value.
* The choice to portray the Battle of Issus as a deliberate trap set by Darius through spywork is particularly stupid, because the historical battle's very happening was acknowledged as a huge strike of bad luck for the Persians that ended up with their army destroyed. To elaborate, in real life Darius tried luck to get his gigantic army between Alexander's and Parmenion's small, divided forces in order to separate them, but as Alexander had already rejoined Parmenion south of his position, all Darius accomplished was getting behind the combined Macedonian army and capturing their base in Issus. But while this still might sound good for him, the blunder also had the side effect of pointlessly stucking the large Persian army in a narrow range of coast, which impeded it from deploying comfortably its vast numbers to face the quick-thinking Hellenics. As a result, Alexander had the perfect chance to attack without being overwhelmed, break through the Persian numbers and slaughter their disorganized mass. As a conclusion, suggesting this place of battle was an intentional Persian choice only implies Darius and all his generals were the worst strategists ever, which only makes the whole trap stuff even more incoherent.
* The Battle of Gaugamela is portrayed much more faithfully in comparison, but it still has some important differences, often orbiting around the narrative's claim that everything in that battle except Alexander's win went according to Darius's plan. While it is true that the historical Darius chose the plains of the battle to avoid another Issus and to maximize the usage of his war chariots, Alexander actually surprised him when he took a different route to avoid scorched Earth (Darius had not real reason to force him to take one or another), turned the field advantage on him even before the battle (this because he managed to capture some hills in front of the Persian army, which gave him a huge tactical advantage by high ground), and had actually the Persians fearing a possible night attack (which Parmenion suggested but Alexander rejected), none of which happens in the novel. Also, in real life the Hellenic rear and camp were saved by a Greek allied phalanx Alexander had intentionally left to guard the zone, not by an amazingly well timed Macedonian reinforcement.
* The novels's characters meet war elephants for the first time in India, when in real life they saw them as soon as the Battle of Gaugamela, even if the elephants were ultimately not deployed due to fatigue reasons. Alexander captured them with the rest of the Persian camp and added several more to them during the rest of his conquest.

* By the way they are described, the Agrianians from the books are [[BarbarianHero uncouth brawlers]] who wield long knifes and fight like [[TheBerserker bersekers]]. Historically, Agrianians served in Alexander's army as peltasts, a type of light infantry thst performed strategic skirmishing and carried javelins and shields.

* The characters of Athenophanes and Stephen are both real, but they were neither philosopher wannabes nor master and servant respectively, while Stephen's incineration, horrifically enough, was not even accidental as portrayed in the book. In real life, Athenophanes was actually an entertainer in the service of Alexander, while Stephen was an unrelated singer boy known for his ugliness. What happened really is almost ComedicSociopathy: after witnessing the effects of naphta, Athenophanes proposed to Alexander to test its possible weaponized usage on a living human, and they callously grabbed the funniest-looking guy around (who even idiotically accepted out of desire to prove himself to the king) to use him for it. To be fair, however, Alexander repented when he say they could not quench quickly the fire, and ordered Stephen to be quickly taken to his personal doctors afterwards.

* The role of mediator between Alexander and Phillip's during the former's exile was played by a soldier named Demaratus, not by Eumenes.

* Bizarrely enough, the novels play a CompositeCharacter with two ''cities'', namely Termessos (in the Taurus Mountains in Caria) and Telmessos (in the Mediterranean coast in Lycia), by conflating them both as Termessos. The city famous by its diviners and Aristander's home was Telmessos, and the one who was built on a unsurmountable mountain was Termessos. Also, real life, Alexander's attack on the latter was much less successful than in the book, and he ultimately abandoned his attempts to capture the city because it had little strategic value.

* By the way they are described, the Agrianians from the books are uncouth brawlers who wield long knifes and fight like bersekers. Historically, Agrianians served in Alexander's army as peltasts, which means they were a specialized unit that did strategic skirmishing and carried javelins and shields.

* In real life, Leonidas wasn't a secret agent of Phillip (well, by what we know) and certainly didn't die crucified in Tyre. In fact, after Alexander had conquered the Achaemenid Empire, he had the chance to laugh at Leonidas's lesson about the high price of incense by sending him back an incense cargo with the advice not to be so penurious. Also, the real Leonidas was a relative to Olympias, which is not mentioned in the books and would not fit easily with his role in their story.
* In the books, Alexander and Memnon meet for the first time in the Persian empire. In real life, the two knew each other since Alexander's childhood, as Memnon passed several years in Phillip's court due to having been exiled from Persia for supporting a revolution. The reason Memnon was later so skilled at countering the Macedonian strategies (as well as Alexander's own knowledge of Persian military) was precisely their time they passed together, where Memnon had played somewhat of a mentor role to the seven year old Alexander. The same goes with Barsine, who lived with Memnon in Phillip's court for the same time.
* Similarly to the previous, Nearchus is here portrayed as a random navarch who Alexander is introduced to in the Persian coast. In real life, Nearchus was one of Alexander's childhood friends in Pella, and he was even exiled by Phillip after the incident with Attalus. The same happens with Harpalus.
* Probably in order to increase Eumenes's ButtMonkey status, he is shown to be the only friend of Alexander that doesn't have military training. While he did serve mostly as a secretary to Phillip and Alexander in real life, he was a trained general and even defeated personally Craterus in the Battle of the Hellesponto after Alexander's death.
* As Manfredi admits in the appendix of the second book, the story [[CompositeCharacter conflates]] the historial characters of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amyntas_IV_of_Macedon Amyntas IV]] and [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_of_Lyncestis Alexander of Lyncestis]], which contributes to Alexander's AdaptationalHeroism by having him pardoning his most dangerous successional rival after Phillip's death. In real life, Alexander immediately ordered Amyntas and two other royal candidates to be executed, and he only spared Alexander of Lyncestis because the latter knelt to him at the moment. This Alexander also went to marry Antipater's daughter, which the fictitious Amyntas doesn't.
* The historical Attalus was certainly antagonistic to Alexander by family affairs, but he was loyal to Macedonia and never attempted to betray it. Even when Demosthenes tempted him with the idea of a rebellion, he refused and brought his letters to Alexander to prove his loyalty, only for Alexander to execute Attalus anyway in order not to take risks. In the books, Alexander merely orders to ''arrest'' Attalus, and the latter is killed because he apparently chose that very moment to rebel against him.

* Memnon died while besiging Mytilene, not while trying to evade Alexander's forces in Caria.
* Instead of being killed in Gaugamela as in the second book, the historical Barsine actually survived Alexander himself and even gave birth to his son Heracles. They were both executed much later, during the Wars of the Diadochi.
* The characters of Athenophanes and Stephen are both real, but they weren't philosopher wannabes nor master and servant respectively, and Stephen's incineration, horrifically enough, was not even accidental as portrayed in the book. In real life, Athenophanes was actually an entertainer in the service of Alexander, while Stephen was an unrelated singer boy known for his ugliness. What happened really is almost ComedicSociopathy: after witnessing the effects of Naphta, Athenophanes proposed to Alexander to test its possible weaponized usage on a living human, so they callously grabbed the funniest-looking guy around, who even idiotically accepted to do it out of desire to prove himself to the king. To be fair, however, Alexander repented when he say they could not quench quickly the fire and ordered Stephen to be taken to his medics afterwards.
* The ''Alexander Trilogy'' gives a heavily fictionalized version of Philotas' conspiracy where the former and Simmias are the only historical characters. However, the biggest difference is that the novel shows all of them as guilty, while in real life only Philotas was executed: Simias and his brothers Attalus and Amyntas (not to confuse with the similarly called book characters), who had been all accused to be part of the conspiracy, got acquitted.

* Thalestris, the unnamed queen of the Amazons who visits Alexander in the novels to conceive a child with him, is a legendary character, and was confirmed as such in Alexander's own time (apparently Lysimachus himself heard the story and said "And where was I, then?").
* Darius' second daughter Drypetis was not also named Barsine like Memnon's wife. That was his ''first'' daughter, Stateira II.

* In the books, Bucephalus had already been bought by Phillip as a gift to Alexander. In real life, Phillip had rejected the animal due to being too expensive, and it was Alexander who offered to buy himself it if he could tame it, which he did.
* The first book's rendition of the Battle of Chaeronea has Alexander wiping out the Theban Sacred Band with a cavalry charge of all things, which in real life should have been futile against a tight Greek phalanx like that. Ancient sources are vague about this, but the ones that really elaborate have the Macedonian forces being a phalanx, not cavalry.
* Alexander's exile from Macedonia was harsher in real life, as Phillip also exiled several of Alexander's friends, who included Nearchus, probably out of spite. Similarly, the books have Alexander having no other military experience than the Battle of Chaeronea when he was exiled, despite in real life he had already played military and political tasks in Thracie (where he had founded the city of Alexandropolis), Perinthus and Amphissa.

* In the books, Eurydice had two children when they were executed by Olympias, not one.

* In real life, Leonidas wasn't a secret agent of Phillip (well, by what we know) and certainly didn't die crucified in Tyre. In fact, after Alexander had conquered the Achaemenid empire, he had the chance to laugh at Leonidas's lesson about the high price of incense by sending him back an incense cargo with the advice not to be so penurious. Also, the real Leonidas was a relative to Olympias, which is not mentioned in the books.

* Olympias's prophetic dream about Alexander wasn't about having sex with a snake, but about a thunderbolt striking her womb. Also, according to sources, Phillip had his own dream about Alexander in which he saw himself engraving a lion in Olympias's belly.

!!Culture
* The ''Aphrodite of Knidos'' statue doesn't cover her breasts with her arms as Alexander claims. It actually covers her pubis with her hand.

!!Military
* The novels's characters meet war elephants for the first time in India, when in real life they saw them as soon as the Battle of Gaugamela, even if the elephants were ultimately not deployed due to fatigue reasons. Alexander captured them with the rest of the Persian camp and added several more to them during the rest of his conquest.

* The Battle of Gaugamela is portrayed much more faithfully in comparison, but it still has some important differences, often orbiting around the narrative's claim that everything in that battle except Alexander's win went according to Darius's plan. While it is true that the historical Darius chose the plains of the battle to avoid another Issus and to maximize the usage of his war chariots, Alexander actually surprised him when he took a different route to avoid scorched Earth (Darius had not real reason to force him to take one or another), turned the field advantage on him even before the battle (this because he managed to capture some hills in front of the Persian army, which gave him a huge tactical advantage by high ground), and had actually the Persians fearing a possible night attack (which Parmenion suggested but Alexander rejected), none of which happens in the novel. Also, in real life the Hellenic rear and camp were saved by a Greek allied phalanx Alexander had intentionally left to guard the zone, not by an amazingly well timed Macedonian reinforcement.

* The characters of Athenophanes and Stephen are both real, but they weren't philosopher wannabes nor master and servant respectively, and Stephen's incineration, horrifically enough, was not even accidental as portrayed in the book. In real life, Athenophanes was actually an entertainer in the service of Alexander, while Stephen was an unrelated singer boy known for his ugliness. What happened really is almost ComedySociopathy: after witnessing the effects of Naphta, Athenophanes proposed to Alexander to test its possible weaponized usage on a living human, so they callously grabbed the funniest-looking guy around, who even idiotically accepted to do it out of desire to prove himself to the king. To be fair, however, Alexander repented when he say they could not quench quickly the fire and ordered Stephen to be taken to his medics afterwards.

* Bizarrely enough, the novels play a CompositeCharacter with two ''cities'', namely Termessos (in the Taurus Mountains in Caria) and Telmessos (in the Mediterranean coast in Lycia), if it is not a honest mistake. The city famous by its diviners and Aristander's home was Telmessos, and the one who was built on a unsurmountable mountain was Termessos. Also, real life, Alexander's attack on the latter was much less successful than in the book, and he ultimately abandoned his attempts to capture the city because it had little strategic value.

* In real life, Leonidas wasn't a secret agent of Phillip (well, by what we know) and certainly didn't die crucified during Alexander's campaign in Persia. In fact, after Alexander had conquered the Achaemenid empire, he had the chance to laugh at Leonidas's lesson about the high price of incense by sending him back an incense cargo with the advice not to be so penurious. Also, the real Leonidas was a relative to Olympias, which is not mentioned in the books.

* Similarly to the previous, Nearchus is here portrayed as a random navarch who Alexander is introduced to in Persia. In real life, Nearchus was one of Alexander's childhood friends in Pella; he had the same age as Ptolemy.

* The first book has Alexander pardoning his cousin Amyntas and making him a cavalry general for his Persian campaign, which is the first clue that the trilogy is pulling a strong AdaptationalHeroism on Alexander: in real life, as soon as Alexander became king of Macedonia, he ordered Amyntas to be executed (along with other two relatives) in order to remove potential rivals. Amyntas's role in the trilogy is thus conflated with that of the general [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amyntas_(son_of_Andromenes) Amyntas]], an unrelated Macedonian noble who did serve under Alexander in Persia.

* Bizarrely enough, the novels play a CompositeCharacter with two ''cities'', namely Termessos (in the Taurus Mountains in Caria) and Telmessos (in the Mediterranean coast in Lycia). The city famous by its diviners and Aristander's home was Telmessos, not Termessos. In real life, Alexander's attack on Termessos was much less successful than in the book, and he ultimately abandoned his attempts to capture the city because it had little strategic value.
* The choice to portray the Battle of Issus as a deliberate trap set by Darius through spywork is particularly stupid, because the historical battle's very happening was acknowledged as a huge strike of bad luck for the Persians that ended up with their army destroyed. To elaborate, in real life Darius tried to get his gigantic army between Alexander's and Parmenion's small, divided forces in order to separate them, but as Alexander had already rejoined Parmenion south of his position, all Darius accomplished was getting behind the combined Macedonian army and capturing their base in Issus. However, while this still might sound good for him, the blunder also had the side effect of pointlessly stucking the large Persian army in a narrow range of coast, which impeded it from deploying comfortably its vast numbers to face the quick-thinking Hellenics. As a result, Alexander had the perfect chance to attack without being overwhelmed, break through the Persian numbers and slaughter their disorganized mass. As a conclusion, suggesting this place of battle was an intentional Persian choice only implies Darius and all his generals were the worst strategists ever, which only makes the whole trap stuff even more incoherent.

* Bizarrely enough, the novels play a CompositeCharacter with two ''cities'', namely Termessos (in the Taurus Mountains in Caria) and Telmessos (in the Mediterranean coast in Lycia). The city famous by its diviners and Aristander's home was Telmessos, not Termessos. In real life, Alexander's attack on Termessos was much less successful than in the book, and he ultimately abandoned his attempts to capture the city because it had little strategic value.

* The second book makes a big deal of the fact that the murderer Pausanias was possibly silenced by random guards who might have been in the loop. In real life, this would have been difficult, as the soldiers who mistakenly killed him instead of taking him alive included Perdiccas and Leonnatus.

* The first book's rendition of the Battle of Chaeronea has Alexander wiping out the Theban Sacred Band with a cavalry charge of all things, which in real life should have been futile against a tight Greek phalanx like that. Ancient sources are vague about this, but the ones that really elaborate have the Macedonian forces being a phalanx, not cavalry.