Photo by Jaap Buitendijk
	Angelina Jolie stars as Queen Olympias and Colin Farrell portrays Alexander the Great in Oliver Stone's action adventure drama "Alexander." MORE COVERAGE Review: "Alexander"

History is written by the victors, but even supporters of Alexander the Great question just how "great" he really was. Despite the research of legions of archaeologists and historians over generations -- an estimated 2,000 books and articles have been written about him since the 1960s -- his legacy remains uncertain.

Three Hollywood films about Alexander were recently in simultaneous production. It's perhaps unfortunate that the most costly to produce and first to be released is by a victor famous for creating his own history.

According to director Oliver Stone, everybody killed JFK and Richard Nixon resigned to keep the world from knowing about his attempts on Castro's life. Now, with a $150 million budget and Colin Farrell in the title role, Stone begins his new film by proclaiming the tale to be the "true story of Alexander the Great."

"I don't have a problem with however they portray him. This is only a Hollywood movie," says Ian Worthington, professor of Greek history at the University of Missouri-Columbia. "But to proclaim that this is the 'true story' despite the continuing debates about Alexander's greatness, to deviate from some of the few facts that everybody agrees about because people won't like it ... well, people should know what really happened."

To be fair, Worthington points out, he hasn't seen Stone's "Alexander." But there's no evidence either that Stone has read Worthington's book, "Alexander the Great: Man and God" (Pearson Publishers). Since his historical analysis came out last year, Worthington has added information about the Greeks and Alexander's army for a paperback edition that was released two months ago. He says he just wants to get the story straight, and continues to have trouble with the word "great."

"In a sense, it's only semantics," he says. "Like asking whether Ivan was really 'terrible.' But Alexander is probably the second most known figure from antiquity after Jesus Christ. The world was changed because of his actions and continues to be influenced by the decisions he made. He was absolutely and by all accounts a truly great general. And yet, calling him 'the great' implies that he was a great man, great in all things, and that absolutely was not true."

Stone gets some things right. Alexander could be brutal when he wanted to be, capable of slaughtering thousands at a time in battle, including his own soldiers, murdering or enslaving entire populations and killing or maiming individuals, says Worthington, "because he wanted to." But it's difficult to apply contemporary perceptions of genocide to cultures that didn't think that way. Stone also shows Alexander as being excessively generous. It is true that unlike many rulers, he shared the spoils of war with his troops.

But despite ample written depictions of Alexander, some dating to not long after his death on June 10, 323 B.C., questions remain about his relationship with his mother Olympias and his father Philip, questions which Stone seems to answer authoritatively. And then there's the question of Alexander's sexual orientation.

"He wasn't gay in our sense," says Worthington. "You'd have to say he was bisexual, but that's because everybody in that culture was. The Greeks had same-sex relationships. Nobody at all in Alexander's camp would have been surprised if he spent one night with his boyhood friend and another night with a woman. Nevertheless, Warner Bros. wanted his gayness toned down."

Despite the editing, a group of Greek lawyers are threatening to file a lawsuit against Stone and the film company for their portrayal of the sexuality of the 4th century B.C. king.

Military academies still teach Alexander's military tactics, but as a diplomat and ruler, he was anything but "great."

"When you look at Alexander as king, you see his paranoia, his drinking, his rage, his inability to deal with diplomacy and politics. What I call the 'rosy Alexander' is not the historical Alexander."

Ultimately, Worthington says he doesn't want audiences to avoid the movie. He just wants them to see a broader view of one of the pillars of modern civilization.

"Does it matter if [Stone] gets it right?" he asks. "No. I'm not going to slam the movie because it slams things historically. 'Gladiator' got things wrong and it was a great movie. I just want people to ask themselves, 'Do you see a balanced view of the man? Do you think Alexander knew anything but fighting? Do you think Alexander is truly great?'"