Funeral Games was published by John Murray in 1981, completing the Alexander trilogy. Where the first two volumes portrayed the creation of an empire through the force of a single extraordinary personality, Funeral Games shows what happens when that personality is removed: the empire tears itself apart within a generation, as Alexander’s generals — the Successors — fight over the corpse of his achievement.
The novel covers roughly five years after Alexander’s death in Babylon (323 BCE), following multiple perspectives: Ptolemy (shrewd, patient, who takes Egypt and keeps it), Perdikkas (ambitious, who claims the regency and dies for it), Olympias (Alexander’s terrible mother, returning from retirement to murder everyone who threatens her grandson’s claim), and Eurydice (a young queen who tries to exercise power in a world that destroys women who reach for it).
The tone is radically different from the first two volumes: where Fire from Heaven and The Persian Boy were illuminated by Alexander’s charisma, Funeral Games is dark, crowded, and merciless. Without Alexander’s unifying presence, the empire reveals itself as held together by nothing but his will — and the men who served him prove capable of destruction on the same scale as his creation, but without his vision to guide it.
Renault was in her late seventies when she wrote this, and the novel has the quality of a final statement about power: it consumes those who pursue it, destroys those who oppose it, and leaves nothing permanent behind.
Collecting Funeral Games
First edition (John Murray, London, 1981): Cloth binding, dust jacket.
Market values:
- First UK edition in dust jacket: $20–$50
- Signed first edition: $50–$120
- US first (Pantheon, 1981): $15–$35
- Complete Alexander trilogy (firsts): $80–$250