Paul Cartledge, Provoker of Mythicists? Alexander the Great and Jesus

Paul Cartledge’s book on Alexander the Great is quoted by Chuck Grantham in a recent blog post:

It has been well said that the search for the historical Alexander is something like the search for the historical Jesus. Many contemporaries had an interest in preserving a version of what he said and did, but none of the subject’s actual words have been certainly preserved verbatim; and those writers whose words have survived all had an interest in recording, or creating, a particular image of their hero- or villain- for the edification of their contemporaries or posterity. With the result that the searches for both tend to be massively controversial.

What, hasn’t this guy read all the mythicist websites? Doesn’t he know that there is a consensus among mythicists that historians don’t hold views of this sort? He’s a professor of history at Cambridge University, for crying out loud!

Presumably he has no need to worry about the opinion of mythicists, since he doesn’t have a blog… 🙂