Quintus Curtius Rufus in the context of "Historiography of Alexander the Great"

Alexander the Great (356 – 323 BC), a king of ancient Macedon, created one of the largest empires in history by waging an extensive military campaign throughout Asia. Alexander was groomed for rulership from an early age and acceded to the throne after the assassination of his father, Philip II. After subduing rebellious vassals, he invaded the Persian Achaemenid Empire in 334 BC. Alexander swiftly conquered large areas of Western Asia and Egypt before defeating the Persian king Darius III in battle at Issus and Gaugamela. Achieving complete domination over the former lands of the Achaemenids by 327 BC, Alexander attempted to conquer India but turned back after his weary troops mutinied. Following his death aged thirty-two in Babylon in 323 BC, his empire disintegrated in a series of civil wars fought between his followers.

Alexander founded numerous settlements during his campaigns, naming them after himself or close followers. These have been the subject of intense debate, as the accounts of ancient and medieval scholars differ wildly and are often contradictory. Plutarch provides the maximum estimate of seventy cities in his Life of Alexander, but most texts attest to between ten and twenty foundations. The Greek Alexander Romance lists between nine and thirteen cities, depending on the recension; the Syriac, Armenian, Hebrew, and Ethiopic versions of the Romance also record twelve or thirteen foundations. Persian sources such as al-Tabari, al-Dinawari, Hamza al-Isfahani, and Qudama ascribe between nine and twelve settlements to Alexander. Stephanus of Byzantium recorded around twenty settlements. Some authors additionally document the number of cities established in a specific area: for example, Strabo records that Alexander founded eight cities in Bactria. The accounts of Alexander's campaigns, primarily those of Arrian, Plutarch, Diodorus, Curtius Rufus, and Justin, provide supplementary evidence. Finally, the geographers Eratosthenes, Ptolemy, and Pliny draw upon the otherwise-lost evidence of Alexander's bematist distance-measurers.

The Metz Epitome is a late antique summary of earlier historical fragments and covers the conquests of Alexander the Great between Hyrcania and northwest India. The only surviving manuscript was found in Metz, from which the text's name originates. The manuscript was destroyed during the Second World War, but there are two transcriptions of the original. The Epitome was part of the same manuscript as the so-called Liber de Morte Alexandri Magni Testamentumque (which may have been written by the same epitomator, as suggested by E. Baynham).

The sources of the anonymous author have much in common with the historian Cleitarchus, through the writings of Diodorus Siculus and Quintus Curtius Rufus. Non-Cleitarchan elements in the text seem to reflect a certain Hebraic view concerning Alexander.

The Histories of Alexander the Great (Latin: Historiae Alexandri Magni) is the only surviving extant Latin biography of Alexander the Great. It was written by the Roman historian Quintus Curtius Rufus in the 1st-century AD, but the earliest surviving manuscript comes from the 9th century.