Mary Renault is justly lauded as a groundbreaking LGBT authoress, but this detracts from her brilliance as a historian of ancient Greece and Persia. She methodically weaves history, geography, and Greek literature with fiction to depict the life of Alexander the Great: his childhood, love for Hephaistion, Philip’s court, tempestuous relationship with mum, Olympias, rise to power, and conquest of Asia. Renault’s books, which I started reading as a twelve-year-old, shaped my life, and developed in me, inter alia, a passion for Iran. The essay is part literary criticism, part history, part travelogue. Renault inspired my travels in Iran.