Dan Snow's History Hit - Alexander The Great

Episode Date: October 7, 2023

This is everything you need to know about the famed conqueror Alexander the Great. Alongside Tristan Hughes, host of the hit podcast The Ancients, Dan follows Alexander on a whistle-stop tour from his life in Macedonia to his epic battles with the Persians and eventually, to his death in Babylon.Produced by James Hickmann and edited by Dougal Patmore.Discover the past on History Hit with ad-free original podcasts and documentaries released weekly presented by world-renowned historians like Dan Snow, Suzannah Lipscomb, Lucy Worsley, Matt Lewis, Tristan Hughes and more. Get 50% off your first 3 months with code DANSNOW. Download the app or sign up here.We'd love to hear from you! You can email the podcast at [e-mail] can take part in our listener survey here.

Hello everybody, welcome to Dan Snow's History Hit. The other day I was recording a podcast on the great commanders of history, and my brilliant expert on that, the covert American military officer, who's known as Angry Staff Officer on Twitter, but I can assure you he's a very brilliant historian. He was not a fan of Alexander the Great, and I didn't think I was either. So I decided to go and do a full podcast on Alexander, check whether I have underestimated, check whether I'm being harsh on a man widely regarded as one of the greatest military leaders of all time. And I knew just the man to go to, Tristan Hughes, the Tristorian. History hits in-house, Alexander the Great Specialist.

He's got his own smash hit podcast. Millions of people are listening to the ancients. He's just written a book about Alexander the Great's successors. And he's a font of knowledge for all things Macedonian and age of Alexander. And we just went for it. We just rampaged straight through Alexander's early life, his remarkable apprenticeship, his tutoring at the hands of Aristotle, his slightly dodgy ascension to the throne of Macedon, his bloody housekeeping, and then his invasion of the Persian Empire, Asia Minor, the Levant, North Africa, and points further east, until eventually he stood with his army on the banks of a river deep into what is now India. It is an extraordinary tale. He died at age just 32 in Babylon, his new capital city of a vast empire, but one that wouldn't really

outlive him. This is everything you need to know about Alexander the Great. Enjoy. No black-white unity till there is first and black unity. Never to go to war with one another again. And lift off, and the shuttle has cleared the tower. Tristan Hughes, good to have you on the podcast, buddy. Thanks, Dan, it's a pleasure to be here. Well, you know, the Tristan engine is firing all cylinders. Award-nominated, massive million-listener podcast. It's awesome, buddy. And I'm going to ask you about your favourite subject, which is Alexander the Great. That's what you came to us wanting to talk about in History Hit, and it's what you've

been able to do. So I'm very glad that you've been able to share your passion for Alexander and his successes with the world. Well, I must admit, it is a bit daunting, because Alexander the Great, he is such a massive topic. It's almost doing an interview on the Roman Empire, because there is so much of this figure that you could talk about. And I think there are people who have dedicated their academic lives to studying the life of Alexander the Great or even just parts of his story. So it'd be nice to do an overview, but of course we can delve into the detail of particular parts too. Well, and if people want more detail, the Ancients podcast regularly deals with bits of Alexander's life and indeed death and legacy. So please go and

listen to that sibling podcast here, Dan Snow's History. Let's get into it. Let's nice and simple. When was he born? Okay, so Alexander the Great is born in around July, in July 356 BC. So this is some 50 years after the Peloponnesian War written about by Thucydides in Athens versus Sparta. And kind of 150-ish after your battles of Marathon, Salamis, Thermopylae, that sort of thing. Yeah, exactly. Just under 150 years since then. But of course, you've still got the Persian Empire to the east. It's

still the superpower of the age. And Alexander, he is born in northern Greece to this kingdom, which is on the edge of the Greek world at that time, the kingdom of Macedon. And you mentioned the Persia is still a big geostrategic fact, so that's sitting there. Frankly, not that fast. It was defeated in the Greco-Persian wars of the 5th century BC, your battles of Plataea and Salamis and stuff. So they're doing okay. What's going on in Greece? Sparta won the Peloponnesian war. Is Sparta's hegemony still in place? Well, no. It's been interesting in Greece over since Sparta had won the Peloponnesian War. I mean, you have seen the rise of Thebes at that time.

Of course, you've got battles such as Lutra and Mantinea. And so that Spartan hegemony has well and truly fallen. We should do another podcast one day on how Thebes beat the Spartans. Because everyone goes on about the Spartans. We forget that this city of Thebes ended up bringing to an end that period of Spartan dominance. It's crazy stuff. It's crazy. And also the short-lived dominance of Thebes, especially when you do get to the start of Alexander's reign, some 20 years after he's born, when actually the city-state of Thebes is completely levelled by Alexander the Great. So Thebes enjoys this brief time right in the

spotlight in the early 4th century BC, but then Alexander comes along and completely levels it. Yeah, well, let's talk about the teenage Alexander. So that's when he's born. His dad, I mean, arguably he owes so much to his dad, who even had Alexander not existed, Philip would be one of the remarkable figures of ancient history, wouldn't he? Yes, I think you're absolutely right. And I think whenever you're talking about Alexander not existed, Philip would be one of the remarkable figures of ancient history, wouldn't he? Yes, I think you're absolutely right. And I think whenever you're talking about Alexander the Great, and you can go down so many different angles when talking about this figure, you almost always have to start with his father, Philip II, because he is so influential on Alexander's career. I mean, Philip, he inherits the Macedonian kingdom in 359 BC,

Philip inherits the Macedonian kingdom in 359 BC, so three years before Alexander is born, and he inherits a kingdom in complete crisis. As mentioned, Macedon at that time is seen very much on the periphery of the Greek world in the central Mediterranean. The kingdom of Macedonia has just suffered a terrible defeat against the Illyrians. And the preceding king, Philip's brother, a man called Perdiccas, had died alongside thousands of his soldiers in this battle. But what Philip does over the course of his kingship, which is just over 20 years, he transforms Macedon from this backwater, from this kingdom in great crisis, into the dominant power in the central Mediterranean. Perhaps most famously, he does this by reforming the Macedonian army by introducing the iconic infantry formation that is the Macedonian phalanx, re-equipping most of his

infantry, his soldiers, with this roughly four to six metre long pike called the sarissa. They fight together in tight packed formations called the phalanx alongside heavy-hitting companion cavalry that the macedonians were already famous for and with this nucleus of his new army he is able to subdue various enemies whether it's greek city-states further south where it's the the Thessalians, but also Thracians in modern-day Bulgaria and Romania to the northeast, Paeonians in what is now present-day Macedonia to the north, or Illyrians to the west. But he also uses other tactics like diplomacy. He has several marriages, and there was a joke that kind of emerged that Philip took a new wife after every war he fought. He was polygamous,

and almost all of his marriages were diplomatic to further secure and solidify his kingdom's borders. And so much so, by the time that Alexander is in his late teens, he is Philip's main son, and he is in a growing kingdom that has now solidified itself as the dominant power in the central Mediterranean. And there is a little bit of gossip around Alexander's succession. Philip of Masson was killed at a party. Very strangely and bizarrely, the assassin was then immediately murdered by was alexander or some of his mates so talk me through the kind of the death of philip and whether you have any suspicions well okay so the death of philip so philip is seems to be in good health in 336 bc

and it's been pretty good for philip up to that point he has just defeated a couple of years earlier like his last kind of great battle the bass of chiron air against a combination of city states such as thebes such as athens And then he's basically taken control of almost all of the city-states in Greece, except for Sparta, which is interesting in its own right. But what follows that is that Philip takes another marriage, this Macedonian noblewoman called Cleopatra, and her uncle is the man called Attalus. And why this is interesting is because at that marriage ceremony, Attalus wanting to promote his niece Cleopatra and her marriage to Philip basically raises a toast and praises Philip and say, may you have legitimate heirs

with my niece. Now, shots fired, lad. Shots fired because Alexander is also at that banquet. To make it clearer as to why this is such a kind of an attack, Alexander's mother isn't a Macedonian. Angelina Jolie in the famous Alexander 2004 movie, she is a Molossian. She came from the region of Epirus, which is now northwest Greece

and southern Albania. But because she is not a Macedonian and she was the result of a diplomatic marriage, of course, there is an attack by Aslis on Alexander basically saying, look, my niece is going to give Philip legitimate Macedonian heirs. You do not deserve to be the successor kind of thing. It was very much an open attack at Alexander at this wedding feast. Alexander goes into a drunken rage. Philip supposedly takes out his sword. He's so angry with Alexander for his anger himself, for being so enraged at Attalus' statement. And it basically results in Alexander going into exile for a bit. He goes to the Illyrians in the northwest,

his mother Olympias goes back to her homeland in Epirus in Molossia. So when you know that background, that there is this hostility there at court and that Alexander and Philip, they're not on the best terms in these immediate years before Philip's assassination, then when Philip is assassinated, some have speculated well was Alexander involved in it probably not because Alexander is reconciled with Philip just before his assassination there is a thought as to whether Olympias Alexander's mother was involved in the assassination attempt in the assassination of Philip but once, that's very difficult to prove too. The story with Philip's assassination is that his bodyguard, the man who killed him, had a personal grievance against Philip and that Philip hadn't addressed

the shame that he had suffered actually at that same wedding feast. And so he had just taken it on himself to murder Philip right in the open at this great ceremony at Agai. But whether Alexander was involved in the murder of Philip, I think is quite unlikely. However, that rumor does continue. But Alexander, straight away, he tries to pin the blame, not on himself, not on any other Macedonians, but says that the Persian king, Darius III, had paid Pausanias, this bodyguard, to assassinate Philip. So Alexander steers all blame away from himself. There is a suspicion that maybe Alexander was involved in the assassination, but I think it's unlikely. But then when Philip dies, Alexander has to go around doing some pretty aggressive housekeeping, doesn't he? He does, and it's absolutely brutal. Now, the Macedonian court, the Royal Macedonian court, is chaotic, and it has a history of political murders, particularly because of the practice of polygamy. So Philip takes several

wives, he has several children, he has two sons, but he also has a nephew, the son of his deceased brother, the previous king. And so partly as a result of that, you have these internal politics, these internal factions forming. And so when Philip dies, there is straight away a struggle for the succession. Alexander seizes the moment. He is proclaimed king. He gets the support of some of the most important nobles in Macedon at that time. To secure his control, he then removes any potential threats to his kingship. That includes his cousin, the man called Amintas, who was also of royal stock. There were also rumours that he was also planning his own attempt for the kingship. He also removes certain nobles who would try to triumph their own family lines and their own

links to Philip II, most famously a man called Attalus, who Alexander describes in a later speech as being his greatest enemy of all. But there is a lot of murder following Philip's death so that Alexander can secure himself as Philip's clear and true successor. There's a lot of murder in-house, but then he, as we've mentioned at the beginning, he just destroys Thebes. He has a sort of lightning campaign to pacify his father's empire, doesn't he?

Yes. So he sorts out these internal troubles, first of all, and then, as you say, he uses the army that has already been created by Philip. It's also lightning fast because Philip has reformed the logistics system too. He marches, he fights against these Thracians and also a tribe called the Tribali near the Danube River. He solidifies that northern part of the empire recently conquered by Philip. And let's remember how old he is. How old is he at this point? When he assumes the throne, he is roughly 20 years old. He has just turned 20. So this is 336 BC, 20 years after he's born.

And we can't be sure. Is he leading these campaigns himself? Is he relying on his dad's key lieutenants? What's going on here? So to an extent, he is relying on key lieutenants in one particular case, in the case of one of Philip's most capable adjutants, which is a man called Parmenion. Parmenion has already crossed into Asia Minor, into Persian territory, and is almost with a Macedonian advance guard, waiting for Alexander to arrive and to start his campaign against the Persian Empire, which he will do a couple of years later in 334 BC. However, during those first two years when he is consolidating his control over the Macedonian

Empire in Europe, Alexander is leading these campaigns. So he is marching his army up to present-day Romania, up to the Danube River. He is fighting against these tribes in the north. He is then marching back. He is fighting others. He's fighting Illyrians in the west of Macedonia. And then when he hears a revolt at Thebes, the Greek city-state of Thebes further south, he has a lightning march down from western Macedonia. In the space of some 13-14 days, he arrives outside the walls of Thebes. He lays siege to the city. It's not an easy siege, but he ultimately does storm and conquer Thebes. To show that he's not to be messed with, that no other Greek city-state should consider revolt, that he is here and he means business, he completely levels the Greek city-state

of Thebes to the ground and leaves only one house standing. That is the house of the poet Pindar. Because Alexander, although we remember him primarily as this warlord, as a man who's raised for war, this great commander of cavalry and infantry, and also siege machinery too, he was also a great lover of poetry. He's taught by Aristotle. There's the later story that he had a copy of the Iliad under his bed when he slept. And of course, alongside that, Pindar, he's this famous poet from the 5th century BC, which Alexander also has a huge admiration for. So in answer to your question, yes, he embarks on these various different campaigns straight away to the north of Macedon, to the west of Macedon, and into Greece proper to secure the Macedonian control of these lands in the early years of his reign.

Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned Aristotle, his tutor. I mean, that's one of the great kind of relationships of all time, isn't it? One of the greatest thinkers in human history and one of the greatest military commanders. It's extraordinary that he was his tutor. So he's pacified Greece. He's shored up his father's Balkan Empire, Greek and Balkan Empire. What next? So next, he turns his attention east. And there is a debate how much that his father, Philip II, had been preparing for a great campaign of conquest against the superpower, the Persian Empire. Because before that time, you had had Greek expeditions that had gone into the western extremities of the Persian Empire, which is present-day Anatolia and the Greek city-states of that west coast. But largely, those previous Greek campaigns had been campaigns of getting plunder and loot, and then they return back to the Greek mainland. But Alexander's next goal, once he secures these lands to the west of the

Aegean, is to take an army between 30,000 and 40,000 men with his Macedonians right at the core, but also some very important allied troops too. And they cross the Dardanelles, the ancient Hellespont, and they invade the Persian Empire. He can't have thought, I am going to conquer the Persian empire, can he? Well, it's an interesting one. I said that these Persians, they don't know that Alexander the Great

is going to be any different to these other Greek armies that have been ravaging the Western part of the Persian empire over the past 50 years or so. And it's interesting how much you have to look into the story of Alexander as to whether this idea that he always had an idea of conquering the mighty Persian Empire was right there at the beginning in 334 BC

when he crosses into Anatolia, or whether that is later fiction. I don't really know you can say for sure, but what we get is that as he gets more and more success as he invades Asia Minor, that idea that he just wants to conquer of Alexander to see how far he can go, to see how many lands he can conquer, to see if he can best these heroic figures that he's learned of all through his early years. So I don't know how much Alexander, when he invades Persian territory, actually how much of his thoughts have been developed into him wanting to conquer the mighty Persian empire, or if that comes later. What I can say is that later fictional stories, and I think they most likely are fictional, emerge around his crossing of the

Hellespont later, where let's say he throws a spear into the Persian-Asian territory, that side of the Hellespont, and he claims Asia as his spear-won territory. You know, that very kind of iconic image saying, I'm now going to conquer it all. I think his ideas of wanting to conquer the whole of the Persian Empire will probably come later as he gets more confident as he gains these initial victories. Right, Tristan, he's thrown a spear into Asia. What next? Tell me about the opening moves of his campaign. He's 22 years old. He's marching into Asia. What's the first battle he has to fight?

So the first battle he has to fight doesn't happen very long after his army has landed in Asia Minor, and it occurs at a river called the River Granicus. And this battle is not against the Persian king Darius III. Darius is hundreds of miles to the east at this time, and he doesn't see Alexander as this great threat. As I mentioned, you've had these Greek armies venturing into Persian Anatolia before. They've done some raiding, they've done some looting, and then they've ultimately gone back to the Greek mainland. So what happens is that the

Persian governors in these western provinces, we'll say governors because it's just more clear to understand what role they had, the Persians called them satraps. But they gather together and they mass all of their forces in Anatolia, largely local troops, but they also do have some elite cavalry from as far away as Afghanistan. And they gather these forces alongside a lot of Greek mercenaries too. And they try to stop Alexander at this small river. Alexander picks up the gauntlet. There's a story that's Parmenion, one of his lead adjutants, tells him when they arrive at the river later the day, right, our men are tired. Let's sleep for tonight and then let's fight the battle the next day. But Alexander says, no, we're fighting it now. And so the battle

begins. It's largely a cavalry fight. Alexander first sending his scouts across the river. Then Alexander himself follows up. We don't know what's really happening at the rest of the line because as with our sources, they focus in on Alexander and what he's doing. He has a few dices with death. There's this famous story that two prominent Persians spot Alexander as he's fighting in the midst of the fray. Alexander is able to spear one straight away, but whilst he's preoccupied with that, the other Persian raises his sword. He's about to deal Alexander the death blow when one of Alexander's other senior subordinates, a man called Clitus the Black, steps in and cuts off the Persian governor's arm

before he can land the killing blow. So Alexander survives a dice with death right at the start of his campaign. It could have so easily been snuffed out his whole career. It's fascinating. Not unlike Napoleon at the Battle of Toulon, took a bayonet in the leg, I think it was. Could have been the end of him. So Alexander has won his first battle. You briefly touched on some of his father's innovations. Why would the Greeks prove to be so successful? Is it just that Alexander is a stone-cold genius, or is there a real technological, tactical edge that the Greek heavy infantry, and perhaps heavy cavalry as well, have got at this point? I think there very much is a tactical edge. And it's like, of course, you have the Macedonian infantry and the Macedonian heavy cavalry that you've highlighted there, this hammer and anvil

technique where the phalanx formations would hold the enemy in place. And then you'd have the heavy cavalry hitting from behind if that was possible. But I think sometimes that focus on Alexander's central Macedonian units, the heavy cavalry and heavy infantry, takes our focus away from many other parts of his army that are revolutionary in many senses. For instance, Alexander the Great's siege machinery. Alexander doesn't just fight pitched battles. Again and again, he has to lay siege to formidable strongholds. He has some fantastic engineers with him on campaign, such as a man called Diades. They have stone-throwing catapults. They have great siege engines. They have rams. The mundane ladders are even so important

in him taking so many of these settlements. He has allied units like these elite light infantry, these javelin men from the upper Strimmon River just north of Macedonia, the Agrianians. He has slingers, he has archers, he has light cavalry. It's a combination of all of these things that gives his army the edge combined with a fantastic command structure. And why I mean fantastic is that Alexander is a very charismatic leader. He leads from the front and he gains this incredibly charismatic reputation. His aura is more than any others in the army. But to have that type of leadership style, that very daring leadership style, he has to have the complete trust and dependence on his subordinates that they are going to see through their parts of the battle plan whilst Alexander is leading his companion cavalry or his elite foot guards and dealing the killer blow in a battle. And that is also the genius is because Alexander does have those figures. I love referring to them as mini

Alexanders because you see them really rise following Alexander's death. Figures like Alexander does have those figures. I love referring to them as mini-Alexanders because you see them really rise following Alexander's death. Figures like Perdiccas, like Craterus, like Ptolemy, and so on. They emulate Alexander's charismatic style of leading from the front in these battles. They share in the risks of their men, and they are completely dependable for Alexander. And their roles in the battles are almost as important as Alexander's. So I think the keys to Alexander's successes, alongside the outrageous luck he had, was the skill of his army, the Macedonian units, but also the allied units he has, was the technology that he had with these siege machines, but also the great quality of the commanders

that he had at his disposal too. Those all play super important parts as to why Alexander's army are able to carve their way through this ailing superpower that was the Persian Empire. You're listening to Dan Snow's History, talking to Tristan Hughes about Alexander the Great. More coming up. I'm Matt Lewis.

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so he's won his first battle in very very northwest turkey today quite a troy quite near the gallipoli peninsula if people want to locate themselves a year later he's fighting a much more significant battle issus and that is again sort of where turkey meets syria you say on the mediterranean that kind of part of the world so it's taken a year for him to sort of conquer what is now turkey asia minor has it and he's now moving south and the major persian force is going to meet him there yes exactly right dan you mentioned troy there which is quite interesting because alexander does do a sightseeing visit to Troy. Of course he does, with his great love of the Iliads. And so Troy has very much become this kind of tourist site for the likes of Alexander and his companions. But anyway, yes, let's keep moving on.

In that year or so, he has conquered large parts of Asia Minor. He's famously cut through the Gordian Knot with his sword, according to one tradition. through the Gordian Knot with his sword, according to one tradition. So therefore claiming that Asia was his territory and that he would go on to conquer Asia. And yes, Darius, in the meantime, has been gathering a large army at one of his capitals at Babylon because he's realised, okay, this Alexander figure, it's not going to be a case of he's just in the Persian Empire for a bit, then he goes back to Greece. This guy is coming east and he's just in the Persian empire for a bit. Then he goes back to Greece. This guy is coming east and he's coming fast. So Darius Gael has this great army. They come to blows at the Basilavisus. And the Basilavisus is a very interesting one because

they're placed either side of a river, the Pinarus river. And actually the battle site is pretty narrow. It's pretty thin before you get to the mountains. So Darius has a larger army than Alexander's, and yet he can't use it to full advantage because the terrain isn't expansive enough for him to use that to his best tactics. However, he still would have thought that he would have won that battle. But Alexander, once again, you see this initiative. He takes the advantage. He charges on the riot across the river with his companion cavalry.

His infantry fight in the center against lots and lots of thousands of Greek mercenaries that were fighting for the Persians. This idea that the Persian Empire just had Asian units is fiction. There were lots of Greeks that were fighting against Alexander the Great in Persian service for money. It's a hard-fought battle, particularly for the infantry in the centre and for Alexander's opposing wing on the left side near the sea, which is commanded by one of his chief adjutants, a man called Parmenion. But ultimately, Alexander is able to cross the river to make a blow into the Persian army and

he starts enveloping the Persian army and Darius despite having a numerical advantage he is defeated and he is forced to flee eastwards quickly so quickly that he leaves a lot of his baggage he leaves his chariot and he has to leave his family behind and they all fall into Alexander's possession following his defeat at isses so alexander has defeated darius for the first time at the basil of isses so that kind of eastern coast the mediterranean so your israel's your lebanon's syria turkey that that's now pretty firm in alexander's hands although he has to go and conduct probably his toughest battle isn't it it's his um the siege of tyre which is a settlement now on the coast of Israel.

And I'm always struck, he fights this crazy siege against the people of Tyre. Why didn't Darius come and attack him while he was doing that? It strikes me that Alexander was quite vulnerable at that point. Darius is fleeing back to Babylon. He's there trying to gather his next massive army, which reached to fight Alexander again. Tyre, you know, this this great center mother city of the phoenicians as you say it holds out against alexander for months before alexander does

ultimately conquer it tyre by the way strategically it's an island fortress and it also really results in alexander these great engineering projects the creation of a mold out to nearly to the island the putting of artillery on ships. Diades, the great engineer that I mentioned earlier, is so important. His machines are so important to Alexander's ultimate taking of Tyre that he's later called the man who took Tyre. And then, I mean, from Phoenicia, from Tyre, once he's conquered those important naval cities, which of course is so important to Alexander destroying without really engaging the persian fleets because the phoenician ships they were very important for the persian navy so when alexander

conquers these places like tyre he is actually taking those phoenician ships from persian control and they are now part of the macedonian empire so a win-win for alexander from there he also has a big siege of gaza a bit further south He then conquers Gaza too. And then that whole eastern coastline of the Mediterranean, that really important eastern coastline, is in his possession. And of course, the next step from him there is Egypt. And Egypt, he seems to have a kind of, I would say midlife crisis, but he's far too young. He has a remarkable episode in Egypt, doesn't he? Egypt, after its long and illustrious tradition of being self-ruling,

was now a province of the Persian Empire. Alexander goes there and actually goes on like a mad gap year and finds himself. I mean, he really does do a bit of a crazy one here, doesn't he? I think the story of Alexander in Egypt, of all of the countries, of all of the parts of the Mediterranean and Near Eastern and Middle Eastern world that he conquers, I think his relationship with Egypt is perhaps the most fascinating of all, because you get this story of him in Egypt during his life, but also, of course, that is ultimately where his body ends up following his death too. But you can go to Egypt today. You can go to places like Luxor, where ancient Egyptian city

of Thebes, not to be confused with the Greek city of Thebes, where Alexander almost certainly never went to. And yet you go to the heart of one of these Egyptian temples and you're shown a depiction of a pharaoh on the wall right in the centre of this temple. And they tell you that's Alexander the Great. It's not a Tutankhamun. It's not Ramesses. That's a depiction of Alexander the Great as a pharaoh. Well, I knew that, Tristan. You know how I know that? Because I've watched your excellent documentary when you go to Luxor and you ignore all the ancient Egyptian stuff that other people find fascinating. And you are just there, focused like a laser beam on the Alexandrian legacy there. So go and check that out on History at TV, everybody. other one, in the next temple nearby, there's a depiction of Alexander the Great's brother, Philip Aridaeus, as a pharaoh too. That's another story entirely. But it is very interesting how Alexander, although he doesn't spend very long in Egypt, he's very much because of Egypt's

long-lasting culture, its prestigious culture, he's almost integrated into it. I don't think he's crowned as pharaoh in a big ceremony that some believe. I don't think there's really enough time. But alongside that, he then goes and founds one of his greatest legacies, the city of Alexandria, which is still a city today on the Mediterranean coastline. And then he takes this weird, bizarre trip into the desert of present-day Libya to the Oracle of Amon, the Libyan god Amon, who the Greeks aligned with their chief god Zeus. Now, Alexander goes there, and it's a bit difficult from the sources but it seems that either when he arrived or when he consulted the oracle

he was greeted as the son of Zeus and he received all the answers that he had been hoping for. Basically that he had been proclaimed by these priests and by the oracle as the actual son of Zeus. So he was the son of a god. Those priests knew where the largesse was going to come from, didn't they? Very wise. They knew where their bread was buttered. So he comes away from Egypt thinking he's now divine. And I imagine that didn't help his interpersonal relationships, particularly, as we'll discover. Issus is the end of 333. 332, therefore, he's kind of on the coast and he's in Egypt. But 331, his mind's back in the game, isn't it? He heads to finish off the Persian Empire.

Yes, exactly. If you're looking for superlatives, then I think we could say that his next big clash against the Persians in 331 BC is his greatest victory. And this is the Battle of Galgamela. This is the great battle that starts that 2004 epic movie, Alexander. And it's perhaps one of the best recreations on screen of an ancient

battle from the sources that we have surviving darius in the meantime he's been gathering a huge army back in babylon to fight alexander once again there are stories that he sent letters to alexander basically offering a offering Alexander the western portion of the Persian Empire saying, you can keep that, just let me keep the rest east of the Euphrates River. But Alexander supposedly just replies, no, I'm after all of it, buddy, so I'm coming for you next.

And that's what he does. And so they come to blows on this massive plain in northern Iraq, near a town called Arbaea. And what follows is perhaps some of the greatest genius, military genius of Alexander. It's told again and again and again. Darius, at Issus, the battle, he'd kind of been constrained because of the narrow terrain. He's got a massive plane at Galgameda to play with. He's got chariots. he's got elephants, he's got some of the best elite

heavy cavalry in Central Asia, and he's got thousands of infantry too. And despite Alexander being completely outnumbered, what he does in this battle is he is able to maneuver his army to the right, starts moving his army to the right. The Persians, they want to still envelop Alexander so they respond. And then there's a cavalry fight that breaks out on the far right-hand side. More and more of these horsemen are sucked in. Darius sends the chariots forward into Alexander's army, but Alexander's army repels them with the phalanx. There's a story that the phalanx breaks ranks and these scythe chariots, these chariots had spikes on the side. They go through and they don't really cause any damage whatsoever and are then dealt with. They're also damaged by the javelin men who just shower

javelins on these chariots. And what follows is a big, big clash. There's fighting on the left, there's fighting in the centre, there's fighting with Alexander and these horsemen on the right. And then partway through the battle, Alexander spots a gap that has been created in the enemy line. And he gathers a part of his elite, heavy shot cavalry, his companion cavalry. They form a wedge and they go straight for that gap in the Persian line. And he is targeting Darius, the head of the snake. Alexander charges through Darius. One of our sources says he panics. There's very much this portrayal of Darius as the coward. But another of our sources says Darius tried to stay for as long as he could, and he actually wanted to stay there. But he was ultimately convinced

that because he was the great king, he did have to retreat because of this decisive act by Alexander with his shot cavalry. So Darius flees the field and what follows is a general rout of the Persian army when they see that their king has left the field. That being said, there are still parts of the line which fight for very, very long. Parmenion, who is often overlooked and he's always commanding that part of the line completely opposite where Alexander is, Parmenion's on the left wing, he is fighting loads and loads of Persians, more than his own number, but he still holds the line whilst Alexander is doing that decisive movement on the right. And although Parmenion gets a bit of stick, he was apparently calling for aid for Alexander a couple of times during the battle. But when

Alexander ultimately does go to help Parmenion, he arrives too late because Parmenion and his troops have actually dealt with the danger already. So there are these very parts of the battle, but it results in Alexander gaining this overwhelming victory against Darius. His army completely leaves the field in tatters. And this is, I think it's fair to say, Alexander's greatest victory. I'm Matt Lewis. And I'm Dr. Eleanor Janaga. And in Gone Medieval, we get into the greatest mysteries. The gobsmacking details and latest groundbreaking research.

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Find out who we really were. By subscribing to Gone Medieval from History Hit. Wherever you get your podcasts. I mean, it's seen as one of the great victories of all time. And I do love the fact that he identifies and destroys his enemy's centre of gravity. And that's the one that's still taught. Even though he's well outnumbered, he works out that if he can deliver enough troops on a very targeted attack on Darius's position, that he can send his enemy flying. It's an extraordinary story. Poor old Darius. I feel a bit sorry for him. He

has a miserable last few weeks of his life, doesn't he? He does. And it takes a few months until that happens. I think it's 330 BC, whilst Alexander's taking control of the rich centres of the Persian Empire, like Babylon, Susa. Oh God, so he survives a year or two, does he? Yeah, he does, because he flees east of the Zagros Mountains. He goes first to Ecbatana, one of these other capitals in Media.

And then when Alexander is pursuing, Darius is forced to flee further east, still hoping of raising a new army in the most eastern provinces, northeastern provinces of the Persian Empire. But then one of his subordinates, a man called Bessus, seeking terms with Alexander and a few other conspirators as well, but Bessus is the man who's always seen as the ringleader. They kill Darius and leave him on the roadside. Alexander comes a few days later. Some of the sources say that he actually sees Darius whilst Darius is still alive. That's unlikely. But he finds Darius's corpse, feels very sorry for Darius, makes sure that he has a royal

burial fit for the king back in the Persian heartlands, and is buried in the royal Persian tombs. And then Alexander, I mean, he's now the new real king of Asia, of the Persian empire, but he's now determined to get rid of Bessus because Bessus has been this kingslayer of an enemy in Darius that he ultimately respected. And so Alexander's campaigns don't finish there. He now decides that he wants to conquer the rest. He now decides that he wants to bring Bessus to justice and go as far as possible. And at this point, what does as far as possible mean? Where does the Persian Empire end at this point in history?

So the Persian Empire at this time, it stretches as far as you could say, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan in the northeast, the Suridaria River, what was called the Jaxartes River. There was a settlement called Cyropolis, named after, of course, the King Cyrus II, Cyrus the Great, founder of the Persian Empire. That was very much seen as a northeastern boundary. And when Alexander ultimately does get there, he founds one of his cities, fittingly called Alexandria-Escate, Alexandria the furthest.

But then the Persian Empire also stretches south across the Hindu Kush into the Indus River Valley so modern-day Pakistan so those are still areas of the Persian empire that Alexander was still to conquer but those are the areas that he campaigns in in the latter years of his life okay so he's on the way east he's completing the conquest of his empire we should say there's some criticism of him that he turns Persian doesn't't he? I mean, when he captures these great cities of Persia and he starts to act, or does he act more like a great Persian king than a Greek? Or is this all just propaganda about how the sort of the rugged masculine Greeks are being corrupted by the softness of the East? I mean, that masculine Greek softness of the East kind of thing, that's kind of, you know,

the nature of the literary sources that we have surviving. But I think Alexander doesn't really have a choice there because Macedon, and actually the Greek mainland, is now a very small part of his new empire. And he's now got all of these various noble families, prestigious families of these various Iranian heritage, you know, especially the Persian heartlands who have their own proud history. You've already seen how Alexander has embraced Egyptian culture when he's in Egypt, and he very much embraces Persian culture when he gets to these heartlands of Persia. And of course, he's also bigged his ego up by now thinking that he is the son of a god, the son of Zeus. And the most infamous case of this, and I say infamous because of how our sources portray it, is the practice called

this, and I say infamous because of how our sources portray it, is the practice called proskinesis, which is a Persian practice where someone prostrated themselves in front of the king and basically seeing the king as a god, when this was completely unacceptable to so many of the Greeks. But Alexander allows this practice for his Persian subjects. It's not for all of his Greeks to do, but he has to embrace these various parts of Persian culture if he is to maintain control of this large empire. But of course, that does lead him to have issues with certain parts of his army, particularly later when the Macedonian infantry, let's say, who had been right at the centre of so many of his victories, particularly early on his reign, they realise during the latter years of Alexander's campaigning

that Alexander, he is looking at Asian units, at recruiting tens of thousands of new soldiers trained in the Macedonian manner, trained to form phalanxes, to basically be the successors to the Macedonians. And they get enraged by that too, because Alexander is not focused back on the West and Macedon as he had been in the past. So yes, I think Alexander has to embrace these various parts of Persian culture, because he has to now deal with these various important Persian families and these Persian governors. Many Persian governors, he allows to stay in their positions

because they know the administration, because largely these ones have decided just to go over to Alexander rather than resist him. So I think it's a very difficult line for him to balance. But ultimately, he doesn't really live long enough to really try and consolidate this new Asian Greek empire. So he's embraced his Persian subject, perhaps more than some might like, and he continues his conquest of all the Persian lands. Then he goes further, doesn't he? This is

the bit that always confuses me. He crosses into what is now India and keeps going. Yeah, he does. And even before that, when he's in Afghanistan and Uzbekistan, those years are ultimately the hardest of all of his campaigning. He has to face a revolt which lasts for years, this Sogdian revolt, right at the northeastern corner of the empire. And he's only ultimately able to kind of, well, win might be too strong a word, but he's only able to pacify this revolt by marrying a noble princess, a noblewoman of one of these chief Sogdian families. And then he actually installs his new father-in-law, this Sogdian chief, as one of the key governors in that area of the world. And he's forced to leave a garrison of some 13, 14, 15, a thousand mercenaries to try and contain order on this northeastern frontier of his new empire.

So those years after defeating Darius in those two great battles, after Darius's death, are the hardest of his campaigning career. And then, as you say, he heads south. He goes from Afghanistan, from ancient Bactria and ancient Sogdia, and he crosses the Hindu Kush into the Indus River Valley. Now, although officially these were parts of the Persian Empire, they're very much ruled by their own Indian rulers. You have, for instance, Taxiles, who rules from the capital of Taxila, who is friendly to Alexander once he crosses the Hindu Kush and faces all the issues that he has there. But of course, perhaps most famously of all, you have this final great battle, open-pitched battle that Alexander faces against the enemy of Taxiles. And this is Porus,

king of the Paravas in the Punjab. So he's in the Punjab. He fights this mighty battle. Is his army starting to get reluctant to keep going further east? What does Alexander want to do at this point? Yes, his army very much is getting reluctant to go any further east. It's interesting because he defeats Porus at the Basel of the Hydaspes River. And actually, I think he was always going to beat Porus because Porus's kingdom is very, very small, especially when you consider the resources that Alexander had at his disposal by this time. There were like 100,000 men, including Persians as well. He'd integrated all these new units into his army as he'd progressed further, further east, horse archers

too. But Porus and his Indian war elephants and his army had given a hell of a fight. And as the Macedonians are marching, well, the whole army are marching further east, but particularly his Macedonians, they're the most vocal. They're the ones who had served with him since the start. As they cross more rivers, they ultimately reach the Hyphasis River, which is today the Bayas River. And they hear grumblings, they hear rumours that there are more Indian armies awaiting them further east, as far as the Gangetic plain and for these soldiers they're like this is enough we can't keep going we can't keep fighting these armies because you know sooner or later we're going to come a cropper and so what alexander has at the bank of this river western

bank of the high fascist river is he has a mutiny the soldiers had been serving them for so long who alexander had convinced to go with him to the edges of the world and further. This is largely unexplored territory. This is unknown territory. They decide to make their stand. And Alexander, he has a great hissy fit almost, like Achilles. He goes back into his tent and is really angry for a bit,

but ultimately he gives in. He listens to his subordinates like Craterus and Coenus and he decides, okay, enough is enough. But what we're going to do is we're going to sail down the Indus River to the mouth of the Indus River, and then we'll march back along the coast and go back to Central Asia. And so they decide to go no further, but it's not the end of Alexander's campaign in India because Alexander's almost just like, okay, but we're also going to do a bit more campaigning in Indus River instead.

So he campaigns down, he marches back along what is now southern Pakistan, southern Iran, gets back to the now center of his empire in the old Persian capitals. He fancied looking west next, didn't he? The Mediterranean basin, Italy and beyond, didn't he? Yes, I think so. Now, of course, people say, what about Arabia? And they're very much right, because in the months before Alexander ultimately dies, spoiler alert, in Babylon,

he has sent his Admiral Nearchus with a fleet to scout out the coastline of Arabia. And it would make sense to launch a campaign there, because Arabia, that coast, is so important in the trade between India and the Mediterranean and the Red Sea. So he may well have been looking at doing a future campaign around Arabia, at least learning more about these trade cities that were on that peninsula. But ultimately, I do think he would have looked back further west, especially the city-state of Athens, which has been becoming more and more troublesome over the years. It's rebuilding its army. It's

rebuilding its fleet. The people in charge at Athens, people like Lycurgus and Hyperades, they are actively anti-Alexander. And there are people at Alexander's court telling him this, telling him that he needs to go and punish the Athenians, to lay siege to it with siege engines, to stop them from potentially revolting. But yes, I think Alexander, having returned from the Far East and during that suffering a terrible disaster crossing the Gedrosian Desert, a logistical nightmare where lots of his baggage train, lots of the people accompanying his army die. Alexander has no more intention of looking east. Arabia, maybe, but ultimately he's looking further west.

You know, maybe to places such as Italy or Carthage in the future, but I think primarily he'd want to go back to Greece and he'd want to target Athens. Crikey. Thoughts and prayers for Athens. If Alexander the Great turns up with the army of Asia at his back, I think that would have been... But I think you hit a really striking point there,

and that's the fear factor that Alexander has at this time. So many people do not revolt from Alexander because of the reputation he's had. He's killed so many people over the course of his campaigns. Cities that have tried to resist, people who have mocked him. He's been merciful at times, but especially during the later years of his campaigns, he becomes more and more genocidal. And he does get that fearful reputation. And I think it's a testament that when Alexander dies and people hear that he has died, that this fearsome leader is no more, that they decide to revolt. They'd been hanging on. They'd not decided to revolt during his lifetime because of that fear factor that Alexander possessed. Yes. Well, let's kill him off because he dies in Babylon at age 32. He has a strange lingering

death. You've written and recorded so beautifully about the death of Alexander the Great, the sort of fights over his deathbed, the extremely large fights the minute he dies, the wars, the sestics you've written books about. I mean, this is your thing. So just briefly, why does it all just completely fall apart? Or does it completely fall apart when he dies? What does the empire look like after Alexander? Well, they try to act as if Alexander was still alive. Weirdly, they meant his coinage deal and they impose a regency and i think they already have to do it because of necessity but also i think because there's a desire amongst many of these

generals to wish that he hadn't died and stan died so suddenly alexander is no clear air when he dies he has one son who's alive but he's illegitimate and he's hundreds of miles west at pergamum he has one legitimate son but he's not yet born and they don't know it's going to be a son. Roxanne, the Sogdian noblewoman he marries to stop that revolt in the northeast, she's either six or eight months pregnant at that time. And what you also have is that you have all of these people who outlive Alexander. These key generals who'd served with him, Perdiccas, Ptolemy, Leonartus, Lysimachus, all incredibly confident and arrogant figures. They want to have a role in what this new empire looks like. And so what you

see under the guise of a regency, whilst they wait for the heir of Alexander, for this young son to come of age, but also his older brother, a man called Aridaeus, who Alexander had taken with him on campaigns because we don't know what he had, but this Aridaeus had a condition which meant that Alexander never saw him as a threat. So under the pretense of still having kings of these successors of Alexander, the real power actually lies with these former generals of Alexander who take control of various parts of his empire and so you get perdiccas who is the regent so in all but name perdiccas is the new king but of course in name it's alexander's elder brother aridaeus and the little boy alexander's

son who is also called alexander and is born a few months later. But in reality, Perdiccas is the main man in charge. But even that doesn't last long because Perdiccas, he tries for the kingship, many of the other generals try for the kingship too. And so, after they have to deal with a number of revolts that break up immediately after Alexander's death, roughly three years later, you have the outbreak of the First Great War between these former generals of Alexander the Great, which will culminate in Perdiccas' death on the River Nile, and also the deaths of several other notable figures, such as another of Alexander's chief subordinates, a man called Craterus. So basically, within three years of Alexander's death, you have the First Great Civil War being fought over his empire. And what you

will have is intermittent civil war between these former subordinates of Alexander that will endure on and off for the next 40 years until you have the emergence of more solid kingdoms. You have the Ptolemaic kingdom, the Ptolemaic empirered in Egypt. The famous Cleopatra from Cleopatra and Julius Caesar, Cleopatra and Mark Antony, she was a Ptolemy. You have the Seleucids who are largely in the Near East and in Turkey. And you have the Antigonids who are centred in Macedon. that emerge from these decades of crisis that will ultimately come into conflict with a new great power that emerges following Alexander's death, which, Dan, I think you know which power I'm talking about.

A lot of people have been thinking about it weekly, as I've heard, as I've learned recently. Perhaps even daily, perhaps even daily, yeah. Yeah, the Roman Empire. Okay, so thank you very much, Tristan. I mean, that was great. People can go to your podcast, The Ancients, if you want more content,

brilliant content on that, all about the ancient world, about Alexander and much else besides. Tell everyone about your book, Tristan, that you wrote. Oh, my book. That was a passion project and it was a deep dive into what happens after Alexander the Great's death.

That is my main area. I find Alexander fascinating and when you do that period, no doubt my main area. I find Alexander fascinating. And when you do that period, you no doubt, you have to learn more about Alexander himself. But this tries to explain why his empire starts to really crumble so quickly. The first three years following his death,

and it's called Alexander's Successors at War, the Perdiccas Years. There is a sequel, but that is still quite a way away. I'm a bit preoccupied, I must admit at the moment, but one day I will get the sequel done of Eumenes and Antigonus and the rest. That's very exciting. Tristan Hughes, brilliant historian, author, broadcaster, host of the Ancients podcast. Thank you for coming on and telling me all about Alexander.

Thank you for coming on and telling me all about Alexander. Thank you, Dan. you