ALEXANDER

Historians can't imagine Great Alexander of Macedon being a Roman Byzantine Emperor from Macedonian dynasty Alexander (870-913). Yet there are at least two well known sources that associate him with Rome. First is the Kartlis Tskhovreba (Georgian Chronicles). It is might be be mythology, but mythology written long ago, and it claims that Alexander's army included soldiers from "Roman country". Original Old Georgian text: მისცა ასი ათასი კაცი ქუეყანით ჰრომით, რომელსა ჰქჳან ფროტათოს. Translation (with some context):

Alexander conquered the entire Kartli region, and destroyed all the tribes that came to Kartli and mixed with the local population; he exterminated all those alien tribes and captured women and innocent children less than fifteen years of age. He left only the tribe of Kartlosids. To rule them he left a p'at'rik' by the name of Azon, the son of Iaredos, his kinsman from the country of Macedonia. And he gave him one hundred thousand men from the Roman country, called the Prot'atos. The Prot'atosians were strong people, they waged a persistent war against the Roman country.

Second is Persian book Book of Arda Wiraz: the accursed evil spirit, the wicked one, in order to make men doubtful of this religion, instigated the accursed Alexander, the Rûman, who was dwelling in Egypt, so that he came to the country of Iran with severe cruelty and war and devastation. BTW, the book is about a visit to Hell, probably a prototype of Dante's Divine Comedy. Not a document, with a stamp and signature, but a literature. Just like every other historical source that tells the story of Alexander. E.g. 1300+ Byzantine manuscript illustration:

Historical sources about Great Alexander describe him submerging to the bottom of the sea in a special device, flying in a cage carried by birds, and being tutored by Aristotle. According to Persian poem Shahnameh of Ferdowsi (d. 1020) ... Alexander is represented as a legitimate heir to the Persian throne by virtue of his half-brotherhood to Dara II, and so is a legitimate descendant of the legendary Kayanian dynasty rather than a foreign conqueror. In the third section, Alexander conquers the entire world and is in a search in pursuit of the Fountain of Youth. This part describes his war against the domain of the Indian king, a pilgrimage to Mecca, his journeys through Egypt and meeting with Qeydâfe, the queen of Al-Andalus And it's not just one source claiming he's a son of Darius: Persian sources on the Alexander legend devised a mythical genealogy for him whereby his mother was a concubine of Darius II, making him the half-brother of the last Achaemenid shah, Darius.

"Al-Andalus" (Arabic Spain) and "pilgrimage to Mecca" (Islamic tradition) didn't exist until medieval. So how exactly is Alexander an "antique" hero? Very simple: it's up to European historians to decide which of the sources are trustworthy. They do not decide this by level of realism. "The Father of History" Herodotus reports that a species of fox-sized, furry "ants" lives in one of the far eastern, Indian provinces of the Persian Empire. This region, he reports, is a sandy desert, and the sand there contains a wealth of fine gold dust. These giant ants, according to Herodotus, would often unearth the gold dust when digging their mounds and tunnels, and the people living in this province would then collect the precious dust.

We do know about lots of references to old Greek texts and we do have (some fake) Greek texts and art. We do have a lot of Near East sources refering to Byzantium as Rome, which is acknowledged even by mainstream science (they say it was "New Rome"). We do have traces of Greek art, inscriptions, language all over Near East. All we can conclude from this is a Great Greek Empire with a capital in "Rome" and some legendary "Alexander" character, associated with it.

IMHO

He was a successful (elected?) War Chief from an aristocratic Macedonian family. After several successful raids against weakened Persian Empire lots of people joined him. The secret of his success was that Persian Empire outgrew Mesopotamia and 10,000 "Immortal" army was not enough to subdue territories of modern Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran. They couldn't afford a larger standing army because nobody could - there was no social technology, economy and logistics for that yet. Regional militias weren't ready to die for the Emperor. It worked while Persians were the only guys with metal and some social order, but progress is unstoppable.

Alexander plundered conquered way less than advertised, and was probably killed by his own guys after claiming too much authority. He hasn't established an Empire, but he won Greeks the Independence. The dynasty was invented by Byzantines later. Dynasties are easy to fake: just link some real chiefs and kings into a sequence of relatives via "imaginary" wifes and concubines. Dynasties make History look solid and respectable.