Camp Gagnon - The Conqueror Who Thought He Was A God | Alexander the Great

Episode Date: February 18, 2026

Today we dive into the life of Alexander the Great, how his conquest began, and other interesting topics... WELCOME TO History CAMP!🏕️Shoutout to our sponsors: Chubbies and BlueChewGet 20% OFF With Code ‘CAMP’ at http://chubbiesshorts.com/CAMP👕🧢 SHOP OUR MERCH HERE: https://camp-rd.com/🎟️ 🎫 Comedy Tour Tickets Here: https://markgagnonlive.com 🎩👽 Daily Dose Of History Here: https://www.dailytodayinhistory.comTimestamps:0:00 Welcome to History Camp1:34 Alexander’s Early Life8:06 Taming Bucephalus + Fathers Death10:24 Alexander's Conquest Begins15:22 Oracle of Amun19:08 Alexanders Demands20:19 Battle of Gaugamela22:47 Alexander’s Men Back Down24:30 Mysterious Death + Gay Lover?33:13 The Naked Wise Men35:48 Alexander’s Legacy#camping #history #podcast #mystery #historyfacts #ancienthistory #war #culture #battle #ancient

The same man who wept because there were no more worlds to conquer, died in a stranger's bed at 32 years old. And the same man who built one of the largest empires in human history stretching from Greece to India never lost a single battle. In 13 years of constant warfare, across deserts, mountains, and rivers that no Greek had ever crossed, he stayed undefeated. He tutored under Aristotle, he tamed a horse, no one else could ride when he was just 10 years old.

He declared himself a god, and half the known world, believed. He founded over 20 cities and named most of them after himself. He held the largest empire the world had ever seen in the palm of his hand. And then one day, he died, suddenly, mysteriously, and in the ancient city of Babylon, after 12 days of agony, and no one has ever been able to fully explain it. His body was stolen, his empire collapsed within a generation, his tomb, once the most visited monument in the ancient world, vanished. Completely. No one knows where it is. This is the story of Alexander the Great.

Conqueror, king, self-proclaimed son of Zeus, and one of the most contradictory figures in all of history, a man who spread civilization around the world, but yet drowned cities in blood. So, if you are a fan of ancient history, specifically looking at the lives of one of the most impactful and powerful men ever to walk this earth, well, this is the episode for you.

So sit back, relax, and welcome to History King. What's up, people, and welcome. back to history camp. My name is Mark Gagnon, and thank you for joining me in my tent where every single week we explore the most interesting, fascinating, controversial stories from around the world from all time forever. Yes, that's what we do here in this tent. We try to figure out everything that's ever happened ever. I mean, I was born in the 90s. That's when I got here. And so my job is try to figure out everything that's ever happened on this planet right before that date. And then even some of it after that date as well. But this episode is not possible

without you. I want to say thank you so much to every person that has clicked this video, comments, subscribed, and just contributes to the show in any way. Truly, you are the reason that the light stay on at the tent, and you keep the fire burning. It's also not possible without the Greek freak himself. The young Alexander, that's what they call him, okay? He is just truly a stallion of a man. His name is Chrysos Capadopodos. How are you?

Very excited. All right, Christos, we don't have time to jump in because I need you to save your voice to help me the pronunciation. We're talking about one of the most famous Greeks that wasn't even Greek. We claim him Yeah, I know you claim him Okay, but this is a pretty liberal claim I mean the guy's quite literally Macedonian Alexander's not Greek

I mean To me your guys are all Greek All right I mean you can go all the way to like Albanian I'm like hey they're Greek Let's not come that far I mean come on dude Anything over there is Greek

Tunisia that's Greece I don't know it's all come on It's all the same thing Jokes Anyway let's dive in Okay and I'm seriously I do need help with pronom I got you. I appreciate that. All right. So where do we start with old Alexander the Great? Okay. I'm glad you asked. We're going to go all the way back to 356 BC. Alexander the Great was born in a town called Pella. This is the capital of the kingdom of ancient Macedonia. This was a rough, semi-barbaric state on the northern fringe of the Greek world. Now, the Greeks considered Macedonians to be barely civilized. I mean, they're not quite barbarians. You know what I mean? They're not like those crazy people over the

mountains, but they're not really Greek either, you know, and especially in that time, even still to this day, correct me if I'm wrong, the Greeks have a very consistent and, shall we say, pure sense of what it means to be Greek. And the Macedonians definitely were not it, right? You can think of it as like, you know, the opposite side of the tracks kind of vibe. So Alexander's father was a man named Philip II, and he was a brilliant military strategist. And he literally transformed Macedonia from a backwater kind of like small kingdom getting beaten up by all the big guys all around him to a dominant power in Greece. I mean, Philip basically invented the Macedonian phalanx, this, you know, devastating formation built around the Sarisa. This is an 18-foot, like, spear thing.

And he would basically organize his men in such a way that it was impenetrable. He basically created a man-made ancient tank that would just go around and destroy their enemies. I mean, he was truly a military genius. I mean, he wasn't a perfect guy. You know, some, some reports say that he would hit the ball a little too hard, a bit of a drinker. Some said he liked to fight, you know, he loved women all around him. He lost an eye in a battle one time, but none of that matters, okay? He was a military genius. And he unified Greece, I mean, by force, but he did it with an army that would have made, you know, any empire in the world nervous. He truly created a just a, a force. force of nature and brought Macedonia to New Heights. And Alexander was perfectly primed to take over. Now, Alexander's mother was Olympius, a princess from Epirus, who was, by all accounts, pretty intimidating. Ancient sources described her sleeping with snakes as a part of religious rituals. Now, whether that's true or, you know, a metaphor, regardless, you can imagine how that would affect the people that heard that. They're like, you know, this girl sleeps with snakes.

She was extremely ambitious. She was very mystical. And she convinced herself that Alexander wasn't really Philip's son at all. No. Philip was just the dad that stepped up. Alexander's real father, according to Olympias, is Zeus himself. Yeah. This is just boy moms.

Like, boy moms can't fathom the idea that their son is not literally God. Like, Olympus, like, sounds crazy, but like, ask any of your friends, like women that have boys, Like they just create this thing where they're like, my son is literally Jesus. And that's what she did. She said, my, Philip is not the daddy. No, no, no, no. Zeus is the dad. Maripovich.

Put them on there, dude. You are not the father. And all of a sudden Zeus comes out, crazy. Regardless, we're off track. So whether she literally thought this or she was kind of laying the political groundwork for Alexander's later claims to divinity, it's one of those questions that historians argue about to this day. I mean, you can imagine any type of secession. it is at the advantage of a king or a monarch or a great military leader to have a divine lineage.

And this happens in basically every culture and every kingdom around the world, that if the leader is able to say like, hey, I come from a divine bloodline, it gives them so much more credibility and a better grasp on power. So maybe she was setting up her kid for that. Maybe she believed it. Maybe a little bit of both. But who knows? What we do know is that Alexander wasn't just some prince coasting on his father's name. You know what I mean? I mean, Philip the second. This is how smart his dad was. He hired Aristotle. Yes, like the actual Aristotle, one of the greatest philosophers that ever lived, one of the big three, as we call him, you know, played up, Socrates Aristotle. And he literally personally tutors Alexander the Great from the age of 13. And for three years, Alexander was studying philosophy and science and medicine and literature with one of the most brilliant minds in human history. Basically, while on campaign with his dad. So he's learned military stuff. He's learned philosophy. He's learned philosophy.

I mean, he carried a copy of Homer's Iliad with him for the rest of his life, annotated by Aristotle himself. And some reports say that he literally slept with it under his pillow, that his pillow would be a dagger and then an annotated version of the Iliad by Homer and annotated by Aristotle. I mean, crazy. So think about that, right? This is a kid who was raised by like a warlord, military genius general dad,

a mystical mom who was sleeping with snakes who tells him that his real dad a god and then the greatest philosopher in western tradition maybe one of one of the greatest will say is now like his personal tutor and that is what it takes to create Alexander soon to be the great and then there's the horse when Alexander was 10 years old a horse trader brought a magnificent black stallion into philip's court and the horse was crazy when it was like wild and aggressive and philip's best horseman tried and failed repeatedly to try to take came the Stalin. Now, Philip was about to send the animal away back to the horse trader when Alexander, just a kid, 10 years old, notices something. The horse is afraid of its own shadow.

So Alexander turned the horse to face the sun so it couldn't see the shadow behind him, and then he mounted it. The horse, who went by the name of Busephalus, became his legendary war companion for the next 20 years. I mean, it sounds like Hercules. Does it not? I wonder if that's inspired by Alexander the Great. It's got to be. Got to be, right? Like literally, Hercules is like the strong young child that sees like this crazy winged horse and then tames it and then it's like his homie forever. You got to think Olympius was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's Hercules guys. The same story. Yeah, it's the same story, right? I mean, of course, the son of Zeus, tames a horse. Now, whether that really happened or if that is kind of Plutarch's

retelling of Alexander, we don't really know, but it's in the record and historians debate it to this day. Now, Philip reportedly watched this happen and said, my son, seek out a kingdom worthy of yourself. Macedon is too small for you. I mean, understatement of the year, right? I mean, he's not wrong. Like, literally Macedonia is way too small. You got to take over the whole world. So, in 336 BC, Philip was assassinated at his own daughter's wedding, stabbed by one of his own guards. And the motives, I mean, we did a whole episode on Philip II. You guys should check that out. There's a lot of debate to this day.

Some historians say that his own wife, Olympius, arranged it and got him killed. Others point to the Persians and say that, you know, the Persians, because obviously the Persians, the Macedonians, there was tension. They got him killed. Others think that it was just a personal grudge that the guards maybe were underpaid or they had some other reason that they would hate Philip II. No one really knows. Whatever the reason, what we do know is that Alexander became the king. of Macedon at just 20 years old. And within two years, he would invade the largest empire on earth. So in 334 BC, Alexander crossed the Hells Pond. This is a narrow straight,

basically separating Europe from Asia, with roughly like 40,000 infantry and 5,000 cavalry, basically gas and horseback. His target was the Achaemenid Persian Empire, the superpower of the ancient world, which controlled territory from Egypt to modern-day Pakistan. The Persian Empire, had roughly 50 million subjects. Alexander had, you know, a pretty good-sized army, but, I mean, it was unlike anything that the Persians had. I mean, he was much smaller and a near-suicidal level of confidence. So his first major battle was at the Granicus River,

where he personally led a cavalry charge across the water and nearly got himself killed, basically off rip. A Persian commander swung an axe at his head, and it would have split his skull if one of Alexander's companions hadn't cut the man's arm off mid swing. I mean, again, this exists in, you know, sort of retellings of the event. It seems almost impossible to believe that that happened, that as he's winding up to

swing, all of a sudden his arm gets chopped off, I'll play along. I mean, sure you will, because you love Alexander. You're glazing. You're glazing Alexander, dude. You're glazing, glazing Xander, the great. All right. I'm sorry. Anyway, I don't know if he got his arm fully caught off mid-swing, but this is what the story is, again, I think it's important to look at the mythos around these great people because that also contributes to how people remember them. Was it true that he got his arm cut off right before he died? Who knows? But it did exist in the minds of the people and the generations that came after that then contributed to the reputation that Alexander still has to this day. Now, Alexander fought on the front lines. He, like, you know, was, you know,

out there. He was commanding his people out in the open. He would take wounds and he would bleed alongside his men. And he was, in some ways, reckless and other ways inspiring. But he ultimately built so much trust within his army that they would do anything for him. And then came the battle of Isius in 333 BC. This is Alexander's first face-off against Darius the third. This is the Persian king of kings himself. This is the big boss, all right? Darius brought an army that outnumbered Alexander. by at least two to one. I mean, basically twice the size, but it didn't matter. Alexander smashed the Persian center with a cavalry wedge aimed directly at Darius. The Persian king started to panic and fled the battlefield, basically abandoning his army

and all of his money and his mother, his wife, his kids, basically everything that he cared about. And Alexander captured them all. But here's the thing. Alexander treated Darius' family with respect. He didn't execute them or kill them or cast them away. He didn't rancet. He didn't ransom them, he reportedly told Darius's mother that she should consider him her son. This wasn't just mercy. It was a calculated political statement. Alexander wasn't just trying to defeat Persia. He was trying to become Persia. He was trying to absorb them into his empire. And it was a really different approach to conquest that the world really hadn't seen up until this time. Now, after Isos, Alexander marched south along the Mediterranean coast. Now, most cities surrendered without a fight.

I mean, they saw what happened to the Persians and how big their numbers were, so they just said, hey, it's easier if we just go along. But the ancient Phoenician city of Tyre refused. And this is where Alexander, the Great, starts to look a little bit darker. All right. Now, Tyre was an island fortress, separated from the mainland by like half a mile of open water. And it had never been conquered throughout its whole history. Alexander's response was to build a, like a bridge, basically, across the sea. And it took seven months.

When his army finally breached the walls, Alexander unleashed a massacre. I mean, 8,000 Tyrians were killed. 30,000 were sold into slavery. He crucified 2,000 prisoners of war along the beach. And he did this on purpose. The brutality had a reason. I mean, it made a very clear message. Resist, and this is what happens.

And then just a few months later, Alexander did it again in Gaza. and he would do far worse later. I mean, the contradiction was already embedded in Alexander's character. He had this astonishing generosity one day and showed so much mercy to women and children and then was apocalyptic in his violence, the very next. And it really all seemed to hinge

on whether or not he felt someone was being respectful and bending the knee to him. And then if you showed any type of fight or if you were going against his character, he took his disrespect and vowed to destroy you and everyone around you. But if you were willing to broker a deal or you just, you know, pledged some type of fealty to Alexander, then he'd say, all right, you guys are good people. He was ruthless. And then in 332 BC, Alexander marched into Egypt. And something shifted.

Egypt surrendered immediately. The Egyptians had been suffering under Persian occupation for years, and they basically saw Alexander as a liberator, right? If they're going to be occupied by someone, Alexander seemed a little bit better, right? Might as well change it up. The priest crowned him as Pharaoh, and then Alexander did something that changed everything. He made a detour, hundreds of miles through the Libyan Desert, to the Oracle of Amun at Siwa, one of the most sacred sites in the ancient world. And no one knows exactly what the Oracle told him. Alexander went in alone, as was the custom, and when he came out, he reportedly told his closest companions that the Oracle had confirmed what his mother had always told him, that he was not actually the son of Philip.

but the son of Zeus Ammon. He was the son of a god. Now, did Alexander actually believe this? Once again, no one knows. Historians have been literally debating this for thousands of years. Some think that this was just political propaganda, right? Some say that the Oracle never even told him that he just came out and started telling people, yeah, actually the son of Zeus, as a way to legitimize his rule over Egypt and eventually the entire Persian Empire. Now, keep in mind, this is Zeus Ammon. This is a way for him to basically, combine the Greek Macedonian tradition as well as the Egyptian tradition and say I have the divine bloodline from the one god, the god that basically you guys care about. Whatever it is, that's who I am. Now, others think that he genuinely came out believing in his own divinity, especially as victory

after victory seemed to basically confirm to him that, hey, maybe I am more than human. What's up, people? We're going to take a break really quick because I want to tell you about a sponsor we have that I'm so stoked about. Yes, it's Chubbies. If you never heard of Chubbies, I've been wearing these since legit like late high school. Yeah, I'm so stoked. I started this podcast because I wanted a deep dive on crazy stuff in history and just, you know, random wormholes that I got into on the internet. And now I'm working with a brand that I've literally worn for 10 years. Because Chubby is one of those brands that you put on and you go, oh, this is comfortable. They're like the OG, like I'm going to the beach, I'm chilling on the boat, I'm walking through

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And it's all that wrinkle-resistant, quick-drying, anti-microbial greatness that basically makes all their stuff, you know, the most, basically the mix between, like, I'm the most comfortable I've ever been. I could go to sleep right now, but also I'm a functioning adult that looks amazing while I'm at work. And great news, this is the 15 year anniversary, and they're bringing back the originals. These are literally the shorts that started the entire thing. Same iconic fit, the same in-seam options, and that same energy like, you know, I'm just going to pull up and crack a brew on a Friday, that type of vibe. So whether you are weekending, weekdaying, going to the beach, barbecue, or just living your life, Chubbies has you covered. So for a limited time, Chubbies is giving the listeners of this program 20% off. with the code camp if you go to chubby shorts.com. That is 20% off your order with the code camp, C-A-M-P at chubbies shorts.com. I mean, if you guys trust anything I ever say, Chubbies is fantastic. The shorts are truly amazing and you're getting 20% off. What are you waiting for? Go check them out. Now, let's get back to the show. Now, here's what we know for certain. From C-A-onward, Alexander increasingly demanded divine honors. He wanted people to prostrate themselves

before him. He literally wanted complete submission, people just to lay down. And some say that he kind of inherited this from a Persian custom called proscenesis that was deeply offensive to Greeks and Macedonians, who historically only bowed before gods. So as a result, several of his Macedonian generals refused to bow down. One of them, Calistennies, Aristotle's own nephew, mocked this practice. And what happened to old Calistennies? He was later arrested on charges of conspiracy and died in custody of the state. Coincidence? I mean, probably not. Now, after Egypt, Alexander founded the city of Alexandria, the first and most famous of his many namesake cities. It would become the intellectual capital of the ancient world, home to, of course, the Great Library and a beacon of learning for centuries

to come. Even today, it's still a major Egyptian city and very important to trade and tourism. And, you know, a cultural hotspot, needless to say. Alexander spent about six months planning its layout personally, and he would never actually return to see it finished. In 331 BC, Alexander met Darius for the last time in the Battle of Gagamila. And this was the big one. I mean, Darius had assembled everything that the Persian Empire literally had. Estimates range from 100,000 to some even say 250,000 troops at the top.

Some suggest that it's possible they even had war elephants, and chariots with sides on them and cavalry from every corner of the empire, anything that they could throw at it. Alexander, on the other hand, had roughly like 47,000 men. I mean, some say, like, it might have been four to one. I mean, he was so outnumbered,

but yet Alexander won again, decisively. He used just this brilliant tactical feint. He drew in the Persian left wing out of position and then driving his companion Calvary deep into the gap, like basically a spear directly at Darius. And once again, Darius fled. This time, he would never recover. The king of kings, this great leader, Darius, was murdered by his own generals a few months

later while fleeing east. Alexander reportedly wept when he found Darius's body. He gave him a royal funeral, and then he declared himself the legitimate king of Persia. Not just a conqueror or someone that came in and took over the kingdom. was the successor of the King of Kings, of Darius himself. And this is where Alexander's story shifts from military campaign to something more ambitious and, in a way, almost the most tragic ending possible. He didn't go home. I mean, he had conquered so much. He had gone through Egypt and Tyre. And, I mean, he took over the Persian Empire, one of the greatest empires in

history, but he kept going east. He went into Afghanistan, where he fought a brutal guerrilla war that lasted three years. I mean, there is something interesting that no one can fight in Afghanistan. I mean, the Russians tried it, didn't work. The Americans tried it, didn't work. Alexander the Great tried it. Even he had a hard time.

And then, after Afghanistan, he went into Central Asia, where he crossed mountains that no Western Army would ever cross again until the British did it in the 19th century. I mean, unprecedented levels of fear and, Maybe, you know, not fear. Levels of bravery and insanity and fearlessness. And then he goes to India.

At the Hydaspe's River in 326 BC, Alexander fought King Porras, his most difficult battle to date. The Indian king fielded war elephants that terrified the Macedonian horses. And Alexander won, but at a cost. And Porras impressed him so much that Alexander actually asked him how he wished to be treated. And Poris replied, as a king. Alexander restored his kingdom and actually made him an ally. But at this point, Alexander's men had had enough.

They had been marching and fighting and marching and fighting for eight years. I mean, there were thousands of miles from home. Many of them hadn't seen their families or their children for decades. And when Alexander announced that he wanted to push even farther east toward the Ganges, towards the end of basically what they even had on their map, his army freaked out. I mean, they panicked. Like, they basically mutinied. And for the first time in his life, Alexander was defeated.

Not by an outside army or some force he couldn't control. It was by his own men. So as a result, he turned back. But the retreat was almost worse than the advance. Alexander chose a route through the Godrosian desert. And this is in modern day, Pakistan. And this retreat killed more of his soldiers than any battle he ever fought. Ancient sources claim that he lost up to three quarters

of his force due to heat and dehydration and starvation and exposure to the elements. Some historians believe that he chose this route deliberately as punishment for the mutiny against him. Others think that he was trying to outdo the legendary queen, Semiramus, and Cyrus the Great, who had both failed to cross this exact same desert. Either way, it was a catastrophe. But yet, Alexander marched on. In June of 323 BC, Alexander was in Babylon, planning his next campaigns. He had plans to invade Arabia, and he was building a fleet of a thousand ships. And at this point, he was 32 years old and still pretty young, had a lot of energy, and one of the most powerful men in the world.

And he was still apparently insatiable. And then he went to a banquet. He drank heavily, which wasn't unusual for Alexander. He had been drinking heavily for years at this point. Ancient sources described nights where he consumed staggering quantities of wine. But after this particular banquet, Alexander developed a fever. And over the next 12 days, the fever continually got worse. He tried to conduct business as usual, meeting with generals and planning naval operations and trying to build out this fleet and performing religious sacrifices, all that. But his condition deteriorated rapidly. At one point, he lost the ability to speak. His officers filed past his bed one by one as he laid there dying. And all that he could do was lift his head slightly and just move his eyes and recognize. addition. And on June 10th, or perhaps the 11th, 323 BC, the date on this actually varies by source. But on this day, in 323, Alexander the Great died. He was 32 years old. And here's where it gets really

interesting. Nobody knows really how he died. The ancient sources suggest poison, specifically that Antipater, his regent in Macedon, arranged for his son Cassander to bring a toxic substance to Babylon. Some accounts claim that it was delivered in the hoof of a mule because no other container could hold it without it being so corroded. And the poison theory was widespread in the ancient world. And Alexander's own mother, Olympias, reportedly believed it. But modern historians and medical researchers have proposed dozens of alternative explanations. Typhoid fever are complicated by a perforated bowel, malaria, West Nile virus, acute pancreatitis from his alcoholism, Gianne Barre syndrome, a neurological condition that could explain the ascending paralysis described in the sources.

One 2019 study suggested that he wasn't even dead when they started preparing his body for burial. How crazy is that? That the paralysis was just so complete in his body that it just mimics death. And he laid completely unconscious, but still fully aware what was going on as he was laid into a coffin and then buried. Think about that for a second. We'll probably never know for certain, but what we do know is this. When his generals gathered around his deathbed and asked who should inherit the empire, Alexander allegedly whispered a single word.

Cratisto, the strongest. Some historians think that he was actually trying to say Cretoree or Cretarus, one of his generals, but the damage was already done. One single ambiguous word said by a frail dying man ignited 40. years of war. Alexander's empire didn't survive him. It couldn't. He had built something that could only function with him at the center. A personal empire, basically, held together by one man's will and charisma and, you know,

fearlessness and, of course, his military genius. Within hours of his death, his generals were already carving up the empire. These were the diatici, the successors, and their wars were as brutal and complex as anything Alexander himself had waged. Perticus, Ptolemy, Salucas, Antigonus, Lysimachus, Cassander, names that most people have never heard before, fighting wars that shaped the ancient world for the next three centuries. As a story goes, Ptolemy stole Alexander's body,

literally hijacking his funeral procession as it was heading back to Macedon and diverted it to Egypt, where he installed it in a magnificent tomb in Alexandria. The body became a political trophy, so to speak, and possessing it basically legitimized Ptolemy's claim to rule. Julius Caesar visited the tomb. Augustus visited it. The Roman Emperor Caligula reportedly stole Alexander's breastplate from the sarcophagus. And then, sometime around the 4th century AD, the tomb simply just disappeared. One of the most visited monuments in the ancient world, a tomb that literal Roman emperors and can't, from around the world had pilgrimage to for decades just vanished. Nobody actually recorded its

destruction. Nobody even recorded it being moved. It was just gone. And over 140 official search attempts have been made, but yet none have succeeded. Alexander's Lost Tomb remains one of the most interesting and puzzling unsolved mysteries in all of archaeology. Some believe that it lies beneath modern Alexandria, buried over centuries of urban development and rising water tables. Others think that it was destroyed during religious riots in the late Roman period. A few fringe theories place it in locations as far flung as Venice and the Siwa Oasis. The body of arguably the most famous conqueror in history is just gone, and it has been for over 1,600 years. So what do we make of Alexander today? What is this legacy? I mean, he conquered more territory.

by the age of 32 than any human being before him and maybe any human being since. He spread Greek language and culture and philosophy across enormous swaths of the world, from Egypt to the borders of China. The Hellenistic period he kicked off lasted 300 years and created a common culture that connected civilizations that had never spoken to each other ever before. Greek became the lingua franca of the ancient world. The New Testament was literally written. in Greek because of Alexander the Great Buddhist art, those like serene statues of the Buddha

with the flowing robes and all that stuff. Some say that it was influenced by Greek sculptural traditions carried east by Alexander's army. I mean, the ripple effect of this conquest literally touched every known civilization on earth. But here's the thing. The same man who built libraries burned Perzopoulos, the ceremonial capital of the Persian Empire. one of the most magnificent buildings in the ancient world, completely to the ground. And whether it was a drunken impulse or deliberate revenge for the Persian army of burning Athens 150 years earlier, it was an act of cultural destruction that still stings. I mean, so much history was lost in one day.

He massacred entire cities at Tyre, at Gaza, at the Sogdean Rock. He destroyed Thebes, one of the oldest cities in Greece and sold its entire population into slavery in order to make an example early on in his reign. An estimated 250,000, some say up to 400,000 people died in his wars. Many of them were just regular civilians like you and me. He killed his own friends. In a drunken rage, he ran a spear through Cletus the Black, one of his oldest companions, and literally the man who had saved his life at the Granicus River. He regretted it immediately and was so ashamed and reportedly tried to kill himself afterward, but the damage was done. And then there was Hephaestian, Alexander's closest companion, literally his childhood friend,

and some might say possibly the love of his life. When Hephaestian died of fever in 324 BC, Alexander's grief was so extreme that it shocked even the ancient world. I mean, he laid on the body for a full day and night and ordered the sacred flame at the temple to be extinguished. This is an honor that is reserved only for the death of the king. He crucified the doctor who had failed to save him. He ordered a funeral that cost the equivalent, if you put it in today's money, of a billion dollars. Some ancient sources describe Alexander's reaction as that of a lover, as a wife, as like the mother of his kids, but, you know, not just a friend. in the ancient world, that distinction was less scandalous than it sounds, but it does reveal the depth

of this emotional attachment that he had with this man. And it also complicates this image of the cold-blooded conqueror. Alexander the Great wasn't one thing. He was a philosopher king who would murder his friends and he was a visionary that committed atrocities and he was a man who wanted to unite the world but ultimately just left it shattered. Here's what I've find really interesting about Alexander. At the height of his power, Alexander reportedly encountered a group of Indian philosophers. They're called the Gymnosophis or the naked wise men. And he asked them a series of questions. He asked one, how can a man become a god? And the philosopher answered by doing something that man cannot do. Alexander spent his entire life trying to do what man could not do.

I mean, he crossed every boundary, geographic, military, political, even metaphysical, you could say. He tried to reach the literal end of the world. He tried to become divine. And in a way, I mean, I guess he succeeded, right? 23 centuries later, we're still talking about this guy. I mean, he might be the person that exists the oldest in the casual consciousness of people you talk to. Alexander the great Napoleon, he's always up there and he's arguably the one farthest back in the time. timeline. And maybe it worked. I mean, to this day, his name is still the city that five million people call home in Egypt. What's up, guys? We're going to take a break really quick because you know what time it is. It's time to level up and Bluchu just dropped something wild. Okay, Bluetooth's been rocking with us from the beginning. So of course, we have to rock,

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and that means you're going to be rocking quicker and staying in the, game longer. Let me just say that's how we put this tent up every single episode. We give Christos a blue chew and you know what? We have this tent rocking all year round, okay? That's what it takes. Now, I recommend this in a, you know, a married Christian relationship, but you know what? You guys can do whatever you want. Blue chew is the ultimate service to get you these chewables to your door in a discreet way to keep the bedroom on fire. We have a special deal for the listeners of this program. You're going to get 10% off your first month of Blue Chew Gold. If you use the code Gagnon, G-A-G-G-N-O-N. That's promo code Gagnon, G-A-G-G-N-O-N. You can visit bluechoo.com for more details

and important safety information. And thank you so much to Blue Choo for keeping the lights on and making this show possible. Now, let's get back to it. To this day, he still shows up in the legends of cultures from Iceland to Indonesia. But he died at 32, alone in a random city, maybe poisoned possibly by the people closest to him. I mean, his empire lasted less than a generation. His body lost. And his final words, just the strongest. And it's ironic because it became less of a command and more just a curse that basically condemned the world that he was leaving to decades of war. And maybe the lesson in all this is that, sure, you can conquer the whole world and still lose everything. I mean, you can build an empire that stretches from

the Mediterranean to the Himalayas and it can all just crumble because you never actually figured out a way to make it last without you. Alexander proved that one person can change the world, absolutely. But he also proved that one person can't hold it together. And the greatest conquer in history, undefeated in battle, dead at 32, and to this day, still missing. And that is a story of Alexander the Great. I mean, it's just, I think there's so much that you can learn from Alexander the Great. There's actually more that I wish I could learn. But it's one of those things where it's like, all right, you did it. You conquered the whole world. You succeeded for what? Alexander's legacy is interesting because it even was affecting people in that time. Now, a story that was told to me by Dr. Manning, a professor at Yale, a historian that studies specifically like the Hellenistic period, is a brilliant guy. You should check out that episode. But he says something that's so funny to me. And basically, I think it was like 50, 100 years later, something like that. There's a guy named Pyrrhus.

and Pyrrhus is a Greek dude from Epirus, the same town that Alexander's mother is from, and also Christos. And he's chilling there. And then all of a sudden there's a Greek town at the southern part of Italy that's having trouble with Rome. And basically, Rome is like threatening to conquer them. And so they call our boy Pyrrhus.

And they're like, hey, can you defend us and fight against Rome? And he's like, all right, sure. So he starts doing these battles on his way up to Rome and is losing. But he's winning the battle. but losing so many men in the process, that he's just getting, like, destroyed, but technically winning. And he does, like, three of these in a row

because he thought that he could become the next Alexander the Great. He was obsessed with Alexander. He copied, like, his whole vibe, copied all of his, like, battle tactics, and literally was, like, Alexander's mom is from Epirus. I'm from Epirus. My mom's from Epis. Like, I'm basically Alexander. Like, he literally wanted to be him.

He thought he was him, but he's not that guy. Turns out you're not that guy, buddy. Sorry, Pyrrhus. But that's literally where we're, get the term Pyrrhic victory. Like winning, but it cost you a lot to get there. Literally comes from this guy trying to bite Alexander's whole swag. Just fascinating. Truly a fascinating guy. I look at Alexander and I'm like, dude, you had it all. And I don't know if he could have done anything different. He was literally raised on campaign with his father. He was trained to be this philosopher king from day one.

His mom literally told him, hey, you're a god. There's no chance he's going to be anything other than that. and there's no way he's going to go back to just live in a normal life in, you know, Greek Macedon. It's just not going to happen. Like the story that is probably not true, but I think really captures who Alexander is, is he looked at the moon and wept for he couldn't conquer it. I've heard it said that Alexander wept after conquering these last towns in India because there was no more world left to conquer. There's a couple different versions of the story.

Almost certainly all of them are apocryphal. But it does capture something about who this guy was and ultimately how he was remembered as just like this consummate conqueror that he just existed for conquest. And I think it's an interesting story because ultimately the attributes that make people great are often the things that destroy them. Like I think about Steve Jobs. Like he was such a great visionary, a brilliant guy, truly always thought for himself, rejected the words of other people, rejected authority and was like, I'm the source. And as a result, invented amazing things, literally built some of the first personal computers that had like the best UI, developed the iPhone, founded Pixar, like truly a visionary and didn't take anyone's word for it. But then you get sick. And doctors are telling him like, hey, you should do these treatments. And he goes, I'm going to do my own treatments. I know what's best for me. And ultimately dies. And it's like there's so many people I can think of that the things that make them great also are their curse. And I always say what it takes to get on is different than what it takes to. to stay on. And if you burn fast on the way up, you're probably going to burn bright on the way down. Just how it is. So if you're building something in your own life, if you've got a career,

if you're doing anything, that competitive edge that you have, the thing that makes you great, this is how I think about myself. Like, if there's something that I have that gives me a competitive advantage, I always keep that in the back of my mind because there's a flip side to it that ultimately will bring you down. Oh, you're a workaholic and you just grind all day nonstop. That's amazing. Well, you're going to get to the top, but then one day you're going to have family and kids, and then you're just going to keep on grinding and then, forget about them and then your kids hate you and then you don't really have a relationship with them and then you've just succeeded in business but then you have this family that you're

disconnected with like is that really success like there's a well-roundedness to require so many different facets and attributes of what truly makes someone great and Alexander is such a good example of a dude that was so good at conquest but wasn't good at state building or empire cohesion or you know literally creating a thing that's going to exist after he's gone to Philip's credit, Alexander's father, he did develop a sustainable world. I mean, he basically put Macedon on the map and conquered a bunch of surrounding states and built like a really functional empire that even when he was gone, it continued to grow. Alexander, no such luck. Now tell me something, Christos, can you remind me Alexander's children's names?

Got one confirmed legitimate son, Alexander the fourth, with his wife Roxana, and one reputed illegitimate son Heracles with his mistress Barcene Now basically both of them were killed As like babies, right? Correct. Like he has these kids And like the wives or mistresses

Whatever they're also killed By the Basically the successors That are in this power struggle Yep So it's like yeah dude You had these kids You did everything right

But like you didn't create a system Where things would flourish without you But in his mind he's like Why would I need to do that? I'm 32 I'm literally God I can do whatever I want. Now, what is interesting is people always say, oh, was Alexander's father, Philip

II, killed by Olympus? Some say that he was poisoned or, you know, maybe set up or whatever. The fact that Olympius believed in her lifetime, allegedly, that Alexander was assassinated, poisoned, makes me think like, oh, she's, she killed Philip de second. The fact that her own son gets killed and she's like, yeah, I totally buy it. it because that's what I did to my husband. It's just kind of like a fringe theory. I know I'm working off, you know, historical conspiracy here, but I think she killed him. What do you say? I have no comment. Oh, just in case the state of Olympias comes to sue you. Or the country of

Greece, yeah. All right, all right. Come on. I mean, look, Olympias was Macedonian, right? Sure. I know. I guess she was from empress. That's right. My hometown. Have you been there? All the time. they have shrines for Alexander? No. Really? Not that I know of. I think I'd have something.

Olympias, nothing? I don't think so. Wow. There's got to be statues somewhere, but it's just not prominently displayed. What about Mount Olympias? That's in a different part of Greece. It's not a Nupido. But it is funny that Mount Olympias, it's exactly what Zeus did.

That's right. You know what I'm saying? You know what I'm saying? Come on. Dap me up. People at home. All right. I think we wrap this thing up.

But you know what? I've learned a lot about Alexander. He got me a little bit fired up. I think the biggest lesson is don't let your best attributes and the qualities that make you different. And that give you the ability to get ahead be the thing that ultimately take you down. Hedge, learn.

Look inside yourself. Hey, I have a great talent for this thing. Is it possible that my obsession with that talent and fixating on that could also be my downfall? That's my only thing that I think about for myself. That's how I try to, you know, do my life. I just try to, everything has a flip side that can be evil. You know what I mean? A ying and a yang. I think it's a yin and a yang. Regardless, don't let yourself be Alexander the great. Learn from all the great things that he did, the, you know, the courage, the fearlessness, the innovation, the confidence, but also learn from his downfall. The fact that, you know, he didn't create a successful, you know, prosperous empire at the time of his death, that he pushed his men too hard, that he didn't listen and have that. He didn't listen and have that. He didn't. empathy for the people around them. Just, you know, there's two things you can learn from every great man,

what to do and what not to do. Anyway, if you are fans of history camp, great news, we're right here, if you also like religious content, if you like deep dives on what everyone believes, that's what I like to do. I like to figure out why everyone believes what and who is the God that they worship and how do they orient themselves either directly or indirectly to this belief system. That's why I got religion camp. So we got episodes on Islam, Mormonism, LDS, sorry, Christianity, Judaism, I mean, Hinduism, Sikhism, everything you can imagine we do it all there. We also have Camp Gagnon. That's where I do deep dives on all sorts of crazy conspiracy stuff, random theories I find on the internet, interviews and deep dives with people way smarter than me. You can check that out there.

But if you rock with the history vibe, that's totally fine because we drop these episodes every single week here at History Camp. Anyway, you can buy the merch at Camp R&D, get yourself dripped out in the threads. Also, I'm on the road. Mark Gagnon Live. I would love to see you guys at a stand-up comedy show sometime soon. But anyway, this has been another episode of History Camp. Thank you guys so much for being a part of it, and I will see you in the future to talk about the past. Peace.