The ethics of empire in the saga of Alexander the Great

s:1255:"Alexanders saga, the saga of Alexander the Great was most probably presented by an Icelander as a gift to the joint kings of Norway in the winter of 1262-3. The Icelander abbot Brandr Jonsson had just been appointed bishop of Holar by the Norwegian hierarchy thus becoming the first native of Iceland for several decades to occupy an Icelandic see And 1262 was the very year in which Iceland finally succumbed to pressure and became part of the Norwegian empire. Keeping these events in sight without laying undue emphasis on them. The Ethics of Empire examines the thinking of the saga in contrast with that of its source. Walter of Chatillon's Alexandreis the most successful Latin epic of the Middle Ages. Walter's poem is radically ambiguous in its portrayal of Alexander, but the Old Norse-Icelandic translator proves himself more than a match for his master clarifying some issues whilst adding ambiguities of his own and producing a work of astonishing richness and subtlety. The present analysis gives special prominence to the relationship between the scene in which God promises Alexander sovereignty over all peoples and that in which the Macedonian declares his wish to conquer peoples who may live beyond the world of the northern hemisphere.";