Do Go On - 469 - Alexander The Great

Episode Date: October 16, 2024

Alexander The Great was crowned king of Macedon at twenty and went off to conquer the world... and he just kept going! One of the most epic stories from the ancient world, this is the seventh most voted for topic of Block 2024. This is a comedy/history podcast, the report begins at approximately 07:25 (though as always, we go off on tangents throughout the report).Support the show and get rewards like bonus episodes: patreon.com/DoGoOnPodLive show tickets: https://dogoonpod.com/live-shows/ For all our important links: https://linktr.ee/dogoonpod Check out our other podcasts:Book Cheat: https://play.acast.com/s/book-cheatPrime Mates: https://play.acast.com/s/prime-mates/Listen Now: https://play.acast.com/s/listen-now/Who Knew It with Matt Stewart: https://play.acast.com/s/who-knew-it-with-matt-stewart/Do Go On acknowledges the traditional owners of the land we record on, the Wurundjeri people, in the Kulin nation. We pay our respects to elders, past and presentREFERENCES AND FURTHER READING:https://www.worldhistory.org/Alexander_the_Great/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diogenes https://www.britannica.com/biography/Philip-II-king-of-Macedonia/Legacyhttps://www.history.com/topics/ancient-greece/alexander-the-great https://www.britannica.com/biography/Alexander-the-Great https://www.historyskills.com/classroom/ancient-history/anc-philip-ii-reading/?srsltid=AfmBOopXirlb02Bb7JRoty3vmAZfeT7BlKhkKHNvzqfa_DVFyb3l9ieK https://www.thecollector.com/philip-ii-of-macedon/https://www.britannica.com/biography/Philip-II-king-of-Macedonia/Legacyhttps://www.history.com/topics/ancient-greece/alexander-the-great https://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore-history-71-mania-for-subjugation/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Melbourne and Canada, we got exciting news for you. And we should also say this is 2026. Jess, what year is it? 2026. Thank God you're here. Right now, I'm in Melbourne doing my show with Serenji Amarna, 630 each night at the Cooper's Inn Hotel, having so much fun. We'd love to see you there. Canada, we are visiting you in September this year.

If you've somehow missed the news, we are heading up Vancouver, Calgary, Montreal and Toronto for shows. That's going to be so much fun. Tickets for all this stuff, I believe, are online. And I'm here too. Hello and welcome to another episode of Do Go On. My name is Devornikey and as always I'm here with Jess Perkins and Matt Stewart. Well, well, well, if it isn't my tiny little hedgeman. Yeah, any orders, your majesty.

To walk around and be small. Sometimes I think, yeah, I am really good at improv and I just proved it to myself once again. He did it again. I started a sentence, not sure where it's going to go, still not entirely sure where it ended up. Ended in a beautiful place. Thank you. And it just makes me want to ask a question, how good is it to be alive? Oh, well, I mean, personally, I wish I'd never born.

But at this time of the year, would you make an exception? Oh, my God, yes. Because it is the most wonderful time. I'm born again. Born again. Every October you are born again for Block, Bustatoba, Blocktoe, the biggest month. nay two months since we've annexed November on the do-go-on calendar

oh my gosh we're counting down Matt the most requested the biggest the baddest in the best way topics that's right we've got a short list of 400 or so topics that were suggested by our patrons and the most suggested topics in the hat Jack the Hat McViddy

which everyone can stop right now and put in suggestions if you're thinking of a great topic that we could do and then we put that out to a public vote and that whittled list down to the top nine, which we've been working out. Yeah, a will whist. A whittal. And, yeah, all the top nine all got at least, I think, 22% of the vote or more. Today's topic got over 23% of the vote. Wow. Huge. A lot of people wanted this topic. Yeah. And it is big. It's bad.

Oh. And let's get into it right now. Oh, my God, exciting. Are you going to ask a question like we normally do to get on a topic? Seeing as Jess and I, I think, kind of know what the topic is? I've no, I don't remember. I have no remember. This is the kind. I have no remember. As I always say, I have no remember. You can't really fault that. I know, I know. I have no remember. And you've proven it right then. Yeah. I have no remember how to speak. Now, I think you will remember the topic when I give you the question, because usually we are completely in the dark on what each other are going to talk about. But in block, we have to divvy up the list. Matt gets the top nine and we get three each, but a little guest might be coming up.

What? We might have a guest reporter. The fuck. This is exciting. You guys are going to start running stuff by me. Okay, okay. Here we go. I knew this is what happened.

Diva Perkins, here she is. Oh, why don't you let me know what's happening? Just keep me a breast. I'd love to just know what's happening in my life ahead of time. Fuck, yeah. And is that reasonable? I would do apologise. Yeah.

And then when we tried to keep your breast, you said, fuck you, I'm on holiday. Well, I was on holiday. And still fuck you and you figure it out. No, let's see if you remember this. Okay. The following rulers and monarchs have all been given what title. They're all called The Something.

Ooh. We've got Catherine. The Aragon. Yep. Not bad. Cyrus. The virus. From Maconair.

Say. Oh, Nara. Great lines. Frederick, the something. Oh, a fancy. The fancy. Frederick's a fancy. Are these all the same or are these all? It's all the same, yeah.

Peter the. Vengeful. You can't trust Peter. I can help you because my first email was Jess the great. Wow, and now it's just the vengeful. Now it's just the vengeful. Peter the pitiful. Is it, wait, how do you spell great?

G.R. It is the great, Jess, you are correct, but spelled a different way. Oh, okay, interesting. This is something a bit different. Okay. So it's Catherine, Cyrus, Frederick, Peter, Tamar was the last one, the great, but we're here to talk about probably... Tamar the Toe. Tamar the Great would have taken head off us calling them Tamar the Toe.

But we're here to talk about probably the greatest of them all. Tamar the Toe. Sorry? I'd do anything for them, whoever they were. Tamar the Toe Toe Toe You're talking the greatest of the mall

Jess The Great underscore 16 My first email address Yes You could You could There's 15 others Wow six cents

A favourite number Yeah Me too So this is the seventh Most voted for Block 2024 It is Alexander

The Great Ooh Know the name No nothing about him Totally same I mean I named my first email After him

Yeah And I've I know absolutely Nothing I wasn't after Tamar Tomah To bar the toe.

Oh, yeah, sorry. So, yeah, I know I would probably guess he's from the Northern Hemisphere. Okay. Not from Antarctica. Okay, rule that out. And maybe, but yeah, I don't know. He's like Roman or Macedonian or Egyptian or Russian. Yep.

Well, you got two, right? Oh. Wait, he's two of those things? Yeah, we'll find out. Well, if you get to be Swiss Italian, then it can be too things. If you start conquering the world, you get to be like, I'm that as well. Yeah, that's mine. That is also mine. So the great is an example. I didn't know what to call that. It's of a cognomen, which is a

appended before or after the person's name. Others you might have heard of Ivan the Terrible. Oh, yeah, that's a good one. Edward the Confessor. I looked up a list and some of my favorites include John George I, the elector of Saxony, called the beer jug. Oh. John the beer jug. That's pretty good I'm picturing a sentient beer jug But that's pretty great Ivan the first of Russia

Ivan the money bags Oh okay Really Yeah these are great Peter the first of Portugal Peter The till the end of the world passionate Oh that's a mouthful

Yeah too weird I want to go with the pumpkin eater Yeah And finally You're very good at this I think I have an idea For our Patreon game We're going to give him a cognizant of it

Yeah, yeah, cinnamon. Cognomen. What was it called? Cognomen. I was not far off then. Yeah. And what would you call Avalo of Bulgaria, Matt? Oh, Avalo.

The, um, here if you need. I'm a valo. Well, I call Avalo the cabbage. Oh. So good. Avalo the cabbage. Oh, my lord. The cabbage.

And I'm guessing that's not a positive. Because they're not all nice, are they? No, they're terrible. The unready? I'm not pretty good. Who was the unready? Ethel? Ethel, the unready, was it?

Yeah, the unready's, you know what they're saying there. This guy was not up to it. Yeah, that's brutal. Ethel read the unready was king of the English. There you go. All right, so today we're not talking about the cabbage or the beer jug. We're talking about Alexander the Great, which not surprisingly, has been suggested as a topic by quite a few people, being a very famous person and being so high in the block list.

And thank you to William Young from Hull in England. Leon from New Zealand. Max Edmonds from Bristol. Lenny Hoynes from Norway. Peter Grove from Kidder Minster Worcester in the UK. Lorraine Gray from Sydney. Andy Johnson from the Wirral also in the UK. Kieran Darcy from Birmingham.

Braden from Brisbane. Joseph Busby from Wellington, New Zealand. Keith O. Hugan originally from Sligo in Ireland, but at the time of suggestion, was living in Vancouver. I like that kind of. Thanks, Keith. Let's hear, where, but where were you born? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Where'd you go to school? Yeah. Did you move around a bit as a kid? Yeah, come on. Why? Yeah, why? What are you living as hanging, man? Yeah, yeah.

What's your full address now? We do ask a lot of questions. What your mother's made a name? Yeah, yeah, yeah. First pet. Also, Kevin Packrad from Wingdown, New York. Michael Schneider from Israel. Josh Monson from Christchurch, Julian McMahon hired from Geelong, Sarah Smith from Dublin and Ireland,

and finally, Anna from somewhere in the ACT here in Australia. Awesome. Yeah, that's a few different places. And it goes back, like, since we started the pod, basically, many, many years. People have been trying to get us to talk about Alexander the Great. Now, a bit of a note up top. Alexander the Great is probably the most famous person of the ancient world and is one of the most famous people who ever lived.

But he lived ages ago. Well before Jesus, before the Roman Empire, before sliced bread, very long time. Before sliced bread. When was sliced bread? How the fuck were they eating bread? Like a snake. You jam it in you, gob. Good luck to you.

Dissacate your job. Dave, here's the thing. Sometimes you're very funny. Sometimes. Maybe once every 10 episodes or so. Yeah, yeah. And I always make sure to point it out. And always catches Jess off guard.

Wait, what? Me? A comedian, funny. So he lived ages ago. Yeah, yeah. Not many contemporary sources of his time have survived. And a lot of what we know is from ancient historians who are also very old, but they're writing from at least a couple of hundred years later. Wow.

Who did at the time have access to the contemporary accounts. But even though the original sources are lost, thankfully the new accounts based on them have survived. This is giving TikTok lives in that you're immediately defensive. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. Like, here's a recipe for this chicken. Now, if you have an allergy to something, I'm really sorry. They're there's immediate defensiveness.

If you don't eat poultry. Yeah. This recipe is probably not for you. But somebody will still comment and be like, I don't eat chicken. You're like, okay, don't make this recipe. They can't quite make that step themselves. You're just saying that, look, this is from such a long time ago. Yeah, but I'm being defensive up top so we can have more fun with it, basically.

Because we have to factor in that Alexander had his own biographers that travel with him. He was a fantastic self-promoter, was viewed as a literal god on earth. So some of it needs to be taken with like a mine full of salt. Yeah. But what? Now, the saying taken with a grain of salt means you're taking it like with a tiny thing. A mine full of salt? Too much. What does that mean?

You've changed a saying that has a very like simple meaning. Take it with this tiny thing. But you're saying a mindful of salt now I don't understand. Do you understand why I'm being defensive up top? Absolutely. Because the last thing is like this on YouTube. This guy. I know. He's a nightmare. I don't understand. What do you mean?

What I'm trying to say is, if you want a fact-checked account where every three sentences they say, but this account is debated or we're not sure it actually happened like this, then there are literally hundreds of books and documentaries on this guy and other podcasts with interviews with historians, but we're not historians. We're comedians. And this is block where we take on the biggest and wildest stories. So what I'm saying is I want to believe. Yeah, yeah. You know what? I'm going to lean in. I'm going to lean in. I'm going to believe. I'm going to believe everything. Okay, well, I guess I'm going to have to be Scully here, Mulder.

I don't know. I don't know, Mulder. I don't know, Alexander. There's got to be a scientific explanation. Alexander. Not so great. So I'm going to try and give, I'm going to give the most fun account of an adventure story that's quite frankly, in some bits, hard to believe. But it is one of the most famous people ever lived, and let's find out why.

That was a great vibe. Love that. Thank you. Yeah, yeah. That was really funny. He was setting the tone for fun. For fun. Tingles.

Yes. Yes. I can see you've got goosebumps, man. I got literal goosebumps, man. I got literal goosebumps from a goose. Yeah. You could get that looked up. Yeah, I don't know.

Mulder. So the man who would one day be known to history as Alexander the Great was born, Alexander III in Pella, a city in Macedonia, Matt. Oh, well done. Great work. It's so funny of the brain sometimes. Yeah. Either gets very lucky or maybe knows deep down.

But I love the way you remember a fact. It's like you're on who wants to be a millionaire and there are four options there. Was it Rome? Was it Macedonia? Was it Russia? That's one of these. Can I ask the audience? He was born in 356 BCE.

So closing in on 2,400 years ago. Wow. Long time. I think my brain works like a medium does, you know, in front of a live audience. Like, I'm getting a Macedonian, Russian. Someone have an uncle with a Jain then? The kingdom of Macedonia was a region on the northern part of the Greek peninsula. And before the 4th century BC, Macedonia was a small kingdom outside of the area

dominated by the great city states of the day, including Athens, Sparta and Thebes. One man changed that all, and that was Alexander's father, Philip II. Would you believe that this king, was a Nepo baby Oh my God Classic For 2,000 years We've been doing this

God the rich getting richer And the rest of us Are you telling me his parents Were hyperlinked on Wikipedia Oh yeah Do you always know You're like oh okay Oh here we go

Yeah Had a bit of a head start This guy So Alexander was one of the most Fortunate Nepo babies In all of history And it was all set up for him by his dad Philip the second, who was the 18th king of Macedon, and a fucking badass,

his family claimed descent from Hercules. So not bad to have that in your blood. Or at least you think it's in your blood. Yeah, and they would have fully believed at the time, right? Because Hercules wasn't real, right? No. This is before the cartoon. He's like half God, half man, right?

Yeah. Before the cartoon, before Ian Sorbo, whatever. Kevin Sorbet. Kevin Sorbet, is it? No, Kevin Sorboe. Oh, you're right at the Sorbo. Again, 50-50. Who played Hercules in the 90s TV show?

A, Ian Sorbo. B, Kevin Sorbet. Matt's like, oh. We're going to wait for C. Let's see. So this is the time when Philip was born anyway, when kingdoms would send young royals to other more dominant kingdoms and city states as hostages as a pledge that they wouldn't do anything bad.

Kind of like, we have your son. So if you invade us or piss us off, we'll just kill your son. A bit of collateral. And they just have them ready to go at all times. Yeah, we've got, like, and I think you can live a pretty free life walking around, but it's like, your son's right there. If you invade, we'll just chop his head off.

Yeah. And they go, oh, no, it's all good. And then you see your dad invading. You're like, oh, Dad. You're embarrassing me. Now I'm going to get my head chopped off. Oh, dad. Dad.

Can you drop off the army around the corner? Can you give me a heads up, please. Please. Dad. Dads are so embarrassing. Oh, my God. Driving their old car. Oh, it's such a dumb.

Oh, Dad. Always listening to Fleetwood Mac. Oh, Dad. Not more than. Yuck, Dad music. Come on. Dad. Dads have no taste.

They listen to awful stuff like Fleetwood Mac. He won't stop playing rumours. Oh, Dad. And Billy. Joel. Oh my God. Damn. So embarrassing.

We get it. He didn't start the fire. Okay. So according to Britannica, when a child Philip himself spent some time as a hostage at Thebes, which was the leading city along with Athens of that decade, where the great epaminondis, the most inventive tactician of all Greek generals until then, was in charge of the best army in Greece.

So young Philip was pretty free to wander the city, and this gave him some great military ideas. and when he was sent home to Macedonia, where his brother was on the throne, he was given a command of part of the army. His brother unexpectedly died during an invasion from one of their neighbours, so the Illyrians,

and the kingdom of Macedonia was an absolute crisis, and it was very dicey times. Don't you reckon, like, of all the Nepo jobs, to just, like, jump up to being in control of an army, seems bonkers. Yeah. I went, no, no, I wandered around the streets. I have some ideas.

I got some military ideas. I got some military. He's playing with tanks by little toilet and like a little army men. Oh, pew, pooh, puh, p, p, p, you know, I got ideas. Yeah, I looked through the fence and they were doing something. Yeah. Yeah. I got it from here.

Sorry, when I say military ideas, I meant more in, like, fashion. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think I have ways I could improve the form and fit of their uniforms. In car key, it's been done. Let's do Navy. Much more flattering. Goes with more, you know, more universal, depending on your palate. Yes, and that's another one of my ideas.

Everyone gets their colour wheel done. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I'm going to add a chunky belt. But not like, not with like stuff on it, like a, I don't know, like a tool belt kind of thing. Just like, just a pop a colour. Yeah, a bit of an accessory. Yeah, that's right. So his brother died.

There are other claimants to the throne, but Philip emerged victorious and took over from his now dead brother at the age of just 23. And he immediately showed that he was a brilliant political negotiator and bought off the invading army with money and land. and signed a treaty. That's really fun that that's like just giving up. He was really good. He just said, have whatever you want. Man,

that's shrewd. That is true. I'll give you land. I'll give you money. Cheers. Take it. Take it all. This guy's had some ideas.

Yeah. But the smart part was he'd bought himself some breathing room and he used the time gain to revolutionize and prepare his army. And according to many. His army's fashion. According to many, he was a military genius and a fashion icon. He was doing it all. Farshing.

He started training a large professional army, which feels pretty obvious, as opposed to getting citizens who were occasionally called up to fight, and then they'd go back to their day job, like working a farm or whatever. So his ideas are all just pay for it. Yeah. Good ideas. Cash.

Throw money at the problem. Throw money at the problem. And he increased the army in size from 10,000 to 24,000 men, and he changed the way they fought. This is the important bit, and the weapons that they use. During this period of history, a dominant formation for fighting was the phalanx. Oh, yeah.

Heard of a phalanx? Of course. It's like a flying tree in mighty ducks. Yeah, yeah, triple dick. Yeah. Exactly. What kind of. Used particularly by Greek armies, rows of men with shields in their left arm and a long spear in their right arm

would lock in closely together with the spears pointing forward in front of them. And then it'd hold a tight line together. and it was very difficult for anyone to get close to the soldiers who were called hoplates or hoplites and they could all advance together in a big square column and smash into the enemy and just keep stabbing. Right? And it was really, really effective.

I was like the early version of, I'm just going to swing my arm. And if you get in the way, that's on you. Philip had seen this in Greece when he was a young hostage, and now King, he had an epiphany. Wait, he's... So Alexander the Great was Philip? No, this is dad.

Oh, this is dad. This is all his dad. Oh, yeah, I knew. Oh, yeah, I knew. I was just checking. Checking for the listeners home. We're going on. What the, what's going on?

Just anyone who was listening like that. I thought I'd be there. So, no, it was Alexander's that, because you got to talk about his dad because he inherits a sick kingdom from his dad. Yes. And his dad does a lot of the hard work. Sick in a positive way. Yeah, like hell yeah. Yeah.

Oh, that's sick. That is sick, Philip? Oh my God, that is sick. Yeah, actually, it was sick when Philip inherited it, but by the time he was done with it, it was sick. Okay. Do you understand? Yeah.

I love it. Do you think Philip... Oh, I got it. Do you think... In Melbourne CBD is named after it. We love... There's a place... Not far from Comedy Republic we've done.

Many shows called... And we're obsessed with them. It's so funny. I think we're semi-confident. It's like a shady sort of... Actually, I don't know. Should I be so... I'm not sure.

I don't know. Beat that out, AJ. But anyway, I want people who are visiting Melbourne to get a photo outside of... There's a Macca's next door so you can have a bite to eat as well. And then go see a show at Comedy Republic. Perfect night.

What a night out. Mac is comedy, goodbye. Goodbye, leave Melbourne. Never come back. Why, you don't need to come back. You should say it at all. So this is... Flitter street station, yada, yada.

Yeah, whatever. Yeah, you get that. You take a train home somewhere, but that's fine. So, Philip is in charge of the... the army mat and he's revolutionising it and at the time Philip is such a funny name for a badass. So funny. Phil. Yeah.

And he's a real badass. He's like a real badass. But he saw the Greek armies with these formations, these phalanxes with their spears and he thought, what have I made the spears even longer? Oh, yeah. That is badass. He's got some military ideas. And these new spears were called serrises.

Ooh, I like that. And they were one and a half times the length of the ones typically. used by its Greek neighbors. And they measured five to seven meters in length. Yeah, you're going to get close to. 16 to 23 feet. That's such a funny idea. So long.

I've got this idea. It's going to revolutionize everything. You know that thing they're already doing? That only longer. Way longer. Here's the thing. In the formation they're making, yeah, that would, because then you can't dodge one spear because there's another one right next to it.

Yeah. That is going to be really effective. But imagine somebody trying to attack you just, just hold. holding a seven metre spear. All you have to do is get around the arrowhead. Yeah. And then what are they going to do? They're like wobbling.

It's like it, I imagine it does look like when like an Olympian is running in with a pole vault. Yeah, yeah. A single one of them would look like. A single one would not be that scary. Sort of wobbling along. Yeah, yeah. You just stepped sideways slightly. Come in.

No, no, don't turn around. Yeah. And then, psh, psh, psch. Yeah, that's all they could do. You can imagine that. A whole line of them, yes, very scary. That's how the pole vault originate. It was an accident.

Yeah. The spear got caught in the ground and go, whoa. Hang on, that's interesting. Hang on, I'm on the other side of this city wall. I landed in Olympia. That was actually a little bit fun. Should we try that again? So they're carrying these ridiculously long spears,

and that meant when they came up against their enemy, their attackers would be even further away. Like, they can't get, like, if a cavalry, like a horseman runs up to you, they can't hit you because you've got like multiple meters of spear in front of you. Or that horse. That horse. Been skewered. Geez.

No good. And it was also true when coming up against the Greek phalanxes who had their own spears, but not as long, so you could stab them from further away. Oh, phalanx and phalanx. Yeah, but the phalanx on phalanx, longer spear wins. Now we've got an arms race. They're just going to go back and make theirs even longer. It's like a 50 metre long spear.

And the spears, I should also say, was stronger as Macedonia also haven't had the best forests for wood in all of Europe. So that was helpful. Must be nice. Lucky. Philip also got his army to use smaller shields so they could lock in even tighter and the shields were worn on their forearm, meaning that the soldier could use both hands to control the Sarissa. Oh, that was new.

Yeah, the other guys are holding a shield in one hand so they can only hold the spear with one hand. See, if you've got two hands. A lot more stabbing power. And he trained to the army so they could move with astonishing fitness and speed and could maneuver to different formation. depending on the battlefield or the position of their enemies. The key to their success, as Jess has pointed out, was the soldier's cohesion.

Individually, they're not the greatest fighters, but if they stuck together, they held their line, they're a devastating force. Sort of like a Macedonian Voltron. Yes. But if you take them apart. Just some robot tigers. It's like a weird yellow tiger. Who gives a shit?

Yeah. Next. Yeah. Dimer doesn't. If we put them together, oh my God, that thing's got ahead. Yeah. Typically, each unit would be 16 men deep. and eight men across, and the front five rows pointed their serrises forward, creating a wall of iron,

and the men behind would hold their spears at a 45-degree angle over the top of the one in front, which would create a bit of coverage from arrows and projectiles, create a smaller roof. Macedon, before this was famed for their cavalry, the horsemen, which Philip combined with the new phalanx to smash his opponents, and with this deadly combination, they absolutely steamrolled through their enemies. And with this now powerful army, Philip II was able to transform his kingdom from some unknown backwater into the most powerful state in the whole region. So pretty cool. Pretty cool.

Made some reforms, made them better, trained them. They're suddenly good to go. Which is so good, but you must, like, any of these things we talk about, you know, mob bosses or any sort of where you've up your game taken territory, I feel like I'd be stressed the whole time. They could learn this too and up their game. Come back. But anyway, he didn't care about that.

But he wasn't stressed because, like I said, he was. a bit of a badass and he loved fighting. Oh, he's like, a dare. This is fun. And he led from the front, risking his neck alongside his shoulder. He would like lead them into, into battle. Phil. Phil. That's not the kind of leader I would be. No. You're more of a, you're controlling from the couch. Correct. Call me if you need me. That's right. But go get them. Go get them. I believe in you guys. Rrah, rah, rah. You know what? Have some fun while you're doing it. But I'll, um, I'll be here. Yeah, might be napping.

I might have a kip, yeah. Yeah, might be to feel it massage. Yeah. Well, Jess, unlike your style, his style, got him a lot of trust and respect because people are like, okay, we'll follow you anyway because you lead from the front. My people don't trust and respect me. No, because you're sitting on the couch playing a little farming game with a tiny little bear.

Have it a good time. Yeah. Hey, what kind of leader makes the best military decisions with military ideas? Someone who's relaxed. They're comfortable. You're right. Can't give from an empty cup, Dave. All right.

You know, I have to look after myself however I need to. And you have to look after that little bear. I've got to look after that little bear. And I've got to water my crops. They're going to water themselves? Yeah. I haven't got that part yet that I can put in a sprinkler, but I'm working on it. So for the approximate 20 years that Philip was king, he fought every single year except one.

And that was because he was... COVID. Yeah. Lockdowns, I want to take over the world. Come on. I've got to be home by sundown. No, it's because he was recovering from his horrific injuries, and he put his body on the line over the years. He lost an eye due to an arrow,

which had to be surgically removed before anesthetic, of course. I imagine. Yeah, but probably what is the day surgery? I imagine back down and things, it would have been pretty good, in and out. And, yeah, the pain kills. Really clean and, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He fractured his clavicle.

He suffered a severe leg wound from a spear that hindered his movement for the rest of his life. He may have had a limp because he got stabbed so badly. But he kept fighting. Oh, he loved it. I love it again. You know how people say I was born in the wrong time and stuff like that? I think any, I think, I don't think I'm for any time because the slightest inconvenience,

if they were like, we're just going to take your eye out. We obviously can't put you under or give you any pancreas. I'd be like, just slip my throat. Just kill me. Maybe you're before your time. I perform my time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's probably a time where they just go, you need a replacement eye.

Done. Yep. Anything else? That would be your time. Yeah, yeah, yeah, true. And then, but you'll be there going, oh, I'm going to wait to like click. And then if you waited just another couple more decades, you wouldn't have, you'd just already be there. Be click free.

Yeah, yeah. They get rid of the click. Oh, great. That's one of the best Jess Berkins's quiz. I don't think I'm for any time. As soon as we hear any story Because we hear a lot of amazing stories On this podcast

Of people really overcoming the odds And so like that. Arduous journeys. Argeous journeys. People on icy cliffs. Oh yeah. You know? And I'm like, oh, I wouldn't be there in the first place

And the second that rope's cut, I'm dead. I can picture any of those epic biophics about these people And it's like the opening scene And Jess is on this icy cliff top. And she just rolls this up off. The end. Yeah. There's only one line in the whole movie

and it's just, fuck this. How do you roll? I'm done. There's like no emotion on your face. It's like, but it's the thing. It's true. It's true.

And you'd be there standing watching me following me fall over going, she was fine I was not even I'd be there I'd be there watching her off and be like fuck she's tired to me

yeah yeah you're gonna release unclipped yourself why am I there in the first place honestly why are you on a mountain I'm not doing it the first sign of zombie apocalypse

I'm like I'm out oh me too I'm not fighting for my life you don't think an instinct will kick in I hope to never find out But I assume no. I think I'd just be like, well, this is a big fun. You know, there's scenes of like the people on the Titanic,

not of the real thing, but in the movie. Am I remembering this right? There's some people just like, oh, it is what it is, and they're having a sip of a cocktail or something. Yeah. Is that you going down? Maybe, yeah. I'm playing the violin.

They're working to the end. I don't know how to, but I'm like, I'm making everybody. else's death really got over the grim. Torture these people in their dying moments. Please stop playing. We're all going to die. Isn't that bad enough?

Yeah, I'd go, great, whatever. There's an old, uh, an old Macalph. I can't remember which show it was, but it was like a fake ad for Andre Roo. Playing violin. And it's just him shredding it about. And then the, like the slogan, it's, like the slogan, for the end of the ad is entre rue

music that is unforgettable no matter how hard you try it's just on the Titanic so with this guy he's loving it he's the king he's got the sweetest army now they're doing exactly what he wants and he loves to fight he defeated the Illyrians the people that had

invaded and killed his brother and also the ones that he'd given all those land and money to to buy them off He's like, all right, just give me a second. I'll get the army good and I'll come back and I'll take it back tenfold. He recaptured amphipolis, took the West Thracian Crenadies, which he renamed, to Philippi. Love it. Oh, yeah.

Which strategically had gold and silver mines and made the kingdom very, very rich. It's now Philippi Island. Oh. What? His kingdom was big. Yeah, yeah. It's so big. Had little penguins.

Yeah, very cute. Was that first place that you mentioned were frogs? from? Was that, was that like, did you say amphibian? Amphipolis. Okay. That is almost nowhere near.

No, there's an amphip. Amphip? And did you think that there was a kingdom with all the frogs who were originally from and they just slowly conquered the world? What? I think that might have thought back then. Definitely not out.

Not now. I don't think frogs came from one place. I don't think frogs came from one place, Dave. And migrated. And took over the world. On ships. Yeah. Googling, where are frogs from?

Remember, a couple of blocks ago, we talked about the story of Atlantis, and there was this idea that there was a land of lemurs, another lost land, Limaville or something. Or am I thinking of Margaritaville? I'm always thinking about Margaritaville. But they are all from Madagascar, though, right? That is, like, I guess, the Lima Island. Yeah, we probably had this discussion a couple years ago. Sometimes I listen back to the show, and I'm like, oh, I just, I just, you know, I just,

say this year. And then I say it out on the show and I go, wow, I really have just one thought. Yeah, it happens all the time. I'll like say something out loud and then Jess on the recording says it and I'm like, oh. Oh. But it's four years apart. Yeah. Is that so weird. Yeah. You're like, oh, I haven't grown. Yeah. At all. At all. Yeah. So he's taken over his, his neighbors to quote from Britannica again, these successes frightened his neighbors into forming a coalition against him, which was joined by Athens. But it achieved. nothing. Wow.

Great. That's how powerful has become. Philip and Macedonia achieved military victories over Illyria, like I said, Athens and Thebes, the two great states, and eventually he was the most powerful man in Greece. He was also charming, smart, and has been described as the most impressive person in the Eastern Mediterranean at the time. He was just like an impressive dude. Right. But you did say that a lot of his histories were written by him. That's his son. Oh.

We're still talking about Philip? Yeah. My brain keeps clicking back to the guy that this is about. It's not. I don't know why my head keeps thinking this episode about Alexander the Great will be about Alexander the Great. You need to sort your head out, man. I've got to sort it out. Because the context of Alexander is if his son hadn't come along and overshadowed him,

we might be doing a block report about Philip the second. He was just as impressed. But isn't that amazing? I've never heard of Philip a second. I know, yeah. Even though I don't know anything about Alexander the Great. I know the name. Yeah.

To the point, I'm sure he'd be offended by this. if you Google Philip II, which I did a lot this week, he's not even the first Philip the second that comes up. Philip the second of Spain comes up from the 1500s. How annoying for this guy who basically was the king of Greece at the time. He's so, so powerful. And then a couple of thousand years later, it's like, you're not even the most famous Philip the second.

Most people don't know who you are. He needed a rebrand, you know, call himself Alexander the great's dad, who did it first. Yeah, yeah, he's much cooler dad. Yeah, who better? I was almost expecting Alexander that he's, his name to not be Alexander as well. I was like, here we go. Dave's going to be like,

Alexander the Great was born, Gregory, and it was just Alexander. And now I'm a bit disappointed. Sorry. What was Elton John's name? Reginald Kenneth Dwight. Who was born? Alexander the Great born.

Reginald Kevin Blatt. So we're still talking about Philip for a little bit longer. He transformed the Macedonian capital of Pella into a cultural and administrative centre, inviting poets, writers and philosophers from across Greece to take. take-up residents. As well as being a skilled warrior and strategist, he was a fantastic diplomacist

and used his kingdom's wealth to shore up alliances. So he was not afraid to throw money at a problem. Me too. Yeah, like just pay. Just does it literally. Just a wad of notes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It hasn't fixed any problems yet.

He was walking to a shop and throw money at him. Okay, but what do you want? And then I leave. Jess gets migraines. She's often throwing coins on her head. Yeah. Is that working? Well, it's experimental.

You'll try anything. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He also used marriage as diplomacy. He had many wives, which brings us to Alexander's mom, who was also a fucking badass. Ooh. Her name was Olympias. Oh, shit. Okay.

Philip and Olympias? How did he even have the balls to ask? Well, yeah. I'm guessing he didn't. I reckon Olympias came over and said, you come with me, Philip. And he said, yes, ma'am. Okay. Yes, yes, dear.

She was, from the things I've been reading, a very formidable person. She wasn't Macedonian, but a princess of the Melossians in Epirus, which is between modern-day Greece and Albania. There's another other things. He's come along, conquer these people, and married one of their princesses to be like, hey, we're a one kingdom now, kind of thing. She was Phillips' fourth wife, and he married her to secure an alliance. Does he have these wives at the same time? Oh yeah, yeah, multiple. I think, I think, does he go up to six, maybe?

It's a lot of wives. Mm. You know, as a wife, we're very high maintenance people. Right. You know, we take a lot. Imagine six of you. We've got six of them. Six.

Fes you got to remember all their names. Yeah. I'd just call them wife one. All of them. But you'd have to remember, yeah, I was going to say you have to remember the numbers. Yeah, that, I would have realized that on day two and said, you're all wife one. How much wife? I'm like, you're complicating things.

Her family claimed descent from Achilles, who in Greek mythology is known as the greatest of all the Greek warriors. So any child of hers... Shitty ankles, though. Shitty ang. That's right. You've got to watch out. Yeah. He wasn't a face, was he, in wrestling terms?

Is he all right? Yeah, yeah. He's a heel, yeah. Took me a second there. We are very good at what we do, aren't we? That is good stuff. I don't... I don't understand what you're talking about.

Okay. No, he wasn't a face. You're right. Yeah. He was... So it took me second there to answer is what I'm saying. Yeah, yeah, that's what I'd say too. Yeah.

I'm just saying we're very good. When he did his heel turn, people like that really got the Twitter sphere going. Yeah. That's how long ago this was. It was a Twitter sphere. Yeah. You know how the whole story of Achilles is his weak bit because he was dipped in the river by being held on it by his foot.

Ah, I did not know that. I did not know that. But like it's all about the Achilles. What about the soul of the foot? Is that also weak? Well, that didn't get wet. It's hard to get arrow through the. Do you have really strong souls of your feet?

Mine are super soft and beautiful, you know that. I too know that. Mine are very ticklish. So that's a real cryptic area for me anyway. This guy is invincible. Well, he's also ticklish. Yeah. On one of his feet.

On one of his feet. So, but any child of Olympias and Phillips reportedly had Hercules and Achilles in their blood, pretty cool stuff. Very cool. She was a force herself, reportedly being strong and politically astute, and she was from a sort of cult-like group of of snake worshippers and their stories of her sleeping with snakes in her bed, which freaked people out. She also claimed, all these claims, dissent from Helen of Sparta, who in mythology was the most beautiful woman in the world. So she was probably very hot as well. Well, yeah. Is that a, is Helen of Troy, a different Helen? That's the same one. Okay. Her birth name,

this is Olympias now may not have been Olympias. It was probably Murtail. Okay. That is. So you can see why he was approached. That's a gloa. Yeah. But the story is in 356 BCE, Phillips racehorse won in the Olympic Games. And for this victory, his wife received the name Olympias. Oh, wait, was his wife a horse? No, he's horse won and he came out and went, babe, got a new name for you.

The horse won. I don't understand how those two things are connected. They should still do that now. Yeah, yeah. Babe, you got a new name, bronze. Yeah Babe, I've just come home You are Norm Smith medal

Congratulations Love your Norm La night Norm It is a weird He came around for the Olympics Or his horse had won at the Olympics And he went To celebrate

I'm going to rename my wife That's strange Okay Philip That's cool Your power might be going to you ahead Philip is there any chance You maybe wanted to Give yourself a little

I know maybe Maybe change your shitty name No, what was hers? Mertail or her? Yeah, no, that's... Have you seen Robin Hood men in tights? Oh, yeah. And the joke in that about the...

There's a witch's name. Her name's Latrine. And the king's like, Latrine, that's a beautiful name. And she's changed it. She's changed the name. And he's like, you changed it to Latrine. And she's like, yeah, it used to be shit house. It's a great joke.

And then at the end of the film, as a punishment to Prince John, all the toilets in the land will now bear your name. And Dave, you honour that every day when you visit the John. I love it. I haven't seen that movie in so long. It's a great movie. Me neither. I saw it at the movies.

No. My uncle took me and my brother. And, man, it was a great time. See, it came out. Did it come out around the same time as Conair? I think he took me to that as well. Oh, might have. Probably a few years earlier, I reckon.

Well, I've just merged to... But you can go to the movies twice with an uncle, that's okay. Yeah, he didn't have to... It didn't have to be back to back. He didn't have to be his same day. In fact, it was pretty unlikely. Yeah, yeah. He probably took you...

Back when I was a boy. For a movie, it was once a year. You had to save up for a couple of years between those movies. And that a half time, didn't they? For some refreshments. And your brother. So, you know, that's two kids tickets. And you wouldn't...

When they brought in... the talkies. We were like, what? What is, what? What? We didn't know. Like, I don't know what. What?

We just did. We're like, what? You know? We didn't even. It was, man, you should have seen our faces. They were like, what? I think that's almost. You really should see his face.

It's all like that. Uncle, the movies are talking to me. Is everyone else hearing that? Can you hear that? Latrine? Freaking ass. Are everyone else hearing that? What are we talking about?

We haven't ever got to Alexander yet. No. No. But the next sentence here, he comes along. Mertel became Olympus in 356. Sure. And that same year, she gave birth to a boy named Alexander. And the speculation as to who his real father is because she may have been struck by lightning,

meaning that Zeus, the father of all the great gods, was Alexander's real dad. That is what happens when you get struck by lightning. As a person with a womb, it is immediately filled. Yeah, she was struck. God, baby. Struck on the womb, apparently. Oh, okay. Yeah.

Struck on the womb. Jess, we want to believe. I do. This is not my, that's silly voice. That's my, oh! Whoa! Yes! The lightning entered the body and struck just on the wound.

Just the wound. Well, didn't you know that? That's what lightning is. It's jizz. Is it? It's got jizz. It's got jizz. Really hot scotch juice.

That makes sense. Yeah. That's beautiful. Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. What? Why do you make that face? But no, I think that, yeah, that tracks.

Yeah, so Zeus is actually his father. It's a Jesus sort of situation. But, you know, but I'm sure Philip's going to be a pretty good, you know, stepdad. And so, and we're talking like three out, like this is BC. Yeah. So, yeah. And then you were saying it was written about a few hundred years later. So was it, was Jesus one of the writers?

Yeah, that's right. He's first draft. Wow. Wow. They used to, because then the Bible got written 100 years after Jesus, right? Everything took a while back then. Yeah. Yeah.

You know, publishing deal was really hard to come by. Yeah. A lot of red tape, too. Yeah. Very slow processes. Not like now. Because you had to wait for like, you know, 50,000 people to write them out by hand. Mm.

That's true. Or put into the stone tablet, you know, that takes ages. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, the system's easier. I'd be rolling off the cliff. Too hard. Hala, Jess, can you please translate this Bible into stone?

Yeah. This is a shrug. I'm good. What was the line? Just does a roll. Fuck this. Fuck this. But you're not even on a mountain.

You're just in the street. Just rolling away. Into traffic. Open a horse-drawn car. Some sort of donkey will crush your head. So Alexander finally came along in 356 BCE. We don't know that much about his early childhood, but there's a story from his youth

that shows the kind of determined person that Alexander was, even at a young age. When he was 12 or 13, Alexander greatly impressed his father and his peers when a horse was presented to his dad, King Philip II. A guy called Philonicus brought this very expensive horse in. It was huge, and it cost three times the price of any average horse.

And the horse seemed wild and untamable, rearing up at anyone who came anywhere near it. Philip, the king balked at the basin, ordered it away, stating that no one could possibly ride it and that his time was being wasted. Alexander, who remember was about 12, was watching on as the horse was led away by its disgrace seller and said, what an excellent horse! Do they lose for want of address and boldness to manage him? and basically calling his father and all his elite general spiralists for not even having a go. Philip said to his precocious son,

do you reproach those who are older than yourself? As if you were better able to manage him than they? And Alexander said, yeah, I'll have a go at taming it. And if I can't, I'll even pay for it myself. And the king's probably like, with what money? My money? That's my money. Yeah, yeah.

You're not rich, I'm rich. Real big call there, young fella. Because from my, if I just consult our little star chart over here, somebody hasn't been doing their chores, okay? So maybe if we are remembering to take out the bins. Yeah, that's right. The palace is filthy. Okay?

So I don't know what money you're bloody talking about, mate. He said, I'll have a go. He's this small boy. The crowd laughed as he stepped forward towards this giant horse. Worldhistory.org writes, Alexander had realised something the others had not. The horse was afraid of his own shirt. shadow. Turning the horse towards the sun so his shadow was behind him and slowly taking the

reins in his hand, Alexander mounted him, as in riding. You know, you know, that's great. We all, we all knew that it was. And you weren't going to make any jokes. No. Really. I, I wasn't, I wasn't thinking Dave meant he fucked a horse. Is that what he, this top of boy mounted the horse in front of everyone. I know his mom was a horse. He won in the Olympics. Yeah, she was named after a horse. The laughter of the crowd, this is world history again,

the laughter of the crowd turned to cheers as Alexander rode off. And according to the ancient historian Plutarch is one of the people writing a couple hundred years later. As Alexander returned to the arena with a large horse, when he dismounted, Philip said, Oh my son, look thee out a kingdom equal to and worthy of thyself, for Macedonia is too little for thee. That's beautiful. Because it's a big horse.

It's a big horse. But I swear to a fucking God, if you don't take the bins out. Wow. So, yeah, he can ride a big horse. So he tamed this big horse. That's one of the early stories. But also he didn't tame it. He just knew it was afraid of its shadow.

So is he having to ride it towards the sun forever? Yeah, that's not very sustainable. That's why he started traveling east and never went back. Yeah, yeah, that was the only reason. He named the horse bucephalus. I've also heard... Spucephalus? Busephalus, or bucophilus, I've heard, as well.

Which literally means ox-headed. And supposedly comes from a brand or a scar on the thigh of the horse that looked a bit like an ox's head. Where did you get this idea? Brilliant. Historians claim that this taming of the wild bucephalus was a turning point in the young prince's life, demonstrating the confidence and determination that he would hold through out the rest of it.

Alexander and his horse became inseparable, and he rode bucephalus into battle for almost 20 years. Wow. So he became his best, best pal. Such was Alexander's love for a bucephalus that when the horse died, probably from old age at around the age of 30, he named a city after it called bucephala where the horse was buried, which is quite impressive.

Does that city still remain? No, it's in India somewhere, but they're not sure where it was. He also later named a city after his favorite dog, Peritas. But that was years away. I love that this world. includes a Philip. No other name has survived. Philip has fought through the centuries.

Yeah. I'm nearly every other name I'm going to mention. Bucyphilus. Beautiful name. Beautiful. Beautiful. Bucyphilus name. It's so beautiful.

Bucythus. So for now he was... It does sound like some sort of bubonic syphilus. Yeah, yeah. Sounds awful, doesn't it? Yeah. Sounds rank. But that's years away for now he's but a boy.

And a very educated and accomplished one, when Alexander was young, he was taught to fight and ride by Leonidas of Epirus, who was a relative of his mother Olympius, as well as to endure hardships such as forced marches. So just because he was a prince didn't mean that he had everything easy. His dad wanted to train him up to be. He's like, I'm a badass. I want you to be a badass as well.

He was also famously tutored for years by the Greek philosopher Aristotle. Oh, it's a big one. All the big ones, who himself was tutored by Plato, who was himself a student of Socrates. who was credited as the founder of Western philosophy. So it's this amazing line that leads to Alexander. Aristotle's dad was Alexander's grandfather's personal doctor. So the families knew each other. Philip II had asked Aristotle, this is Alexander's dad,

personally to tutor his son and promised to rebuild Aristotle's home city, which had been destroyed. He's like, I'll use my resources to rebuild your city if you look after my son. But it's worth noting that Philip II was the one who had destroyed Aristotle's home city. Okay. Yeah. hey, that thing I blew up, I'll rebuild it for you. I'll fix it. I'm a good guy. So he's got this amazing teacher. It's kind of like if Albert Einstein was your personal

physics tutor, you'd be like, whoa. I still wouldn't understand any of it. Albert, slow down. I feel like, I don't. Okay. You can see him just like, tear his hair out and then rolling off a cliff. They're like, nah, too hard. I don't know what it says about me, but you're absolutely right. I would just be like, oh, yeah, fucked. I knew this was a bad idea. Climbing a mountain, terrible idea. What was I thinking?

Doing physics with Einstein? What was I thinking? Forget it. He's not going to start with the super basics to listen. No, no. That's boring to him. Yeah. So Aristotle sparked and fostered Alexander's interest in literature, science, medicine, and philosophy.

He also loved me. music and played a stringed instrument called a liar. Like I said, not heaps has known about his youth, but there are stories of him visiting dignitaries about the boundaries and strengths of Persia, which is one of their enemies when he was just seven years old. And it's like, all right, uh, that's a weird thing for a seven year old to ask about. How's school? Got a girlfriend?

Some of the boys he grew up with, including Cassander, Ptolemy, and particularly Hephaestian, who become his lifelong companions and generals in his army. kind of his crew that would later be known as the diatici, which we'll talk about later. Okay. I'll remember the diatici. From bits and pieces of descriptions, we have a composite idea of what Alexander looked like. So I want you to imagine this young prince or when he became king. He was literally a short king.

There was a story of him sitting on the throne of a kingdom that he'd just conquered. And when he sat down, his little feet didn't touch the ground. Yeah. So that had to bring in a stool. Turns out. It's so funny. Sounds out the horse as a pony. It was huge.

It was so big. Yes, Alexander. What? Oh, yes. Very big horsey. Imagine. Bring in the king's stool. He can't get off the throne.

You've really got to be specific about that one. His hair was described as being the color of a lion's mane, which he wore in a bit of a quiff. He may have had mismatched colored eyes, one dark and one light. And the stories of him having pointy teeth. Pointy teeth. Like sharpened to a point? Yeah, I don't know. Pointy teeth. Like that rabbit and Monty Python. Apparently, he also smelled good. Oh. This is got to be pre-deodorate. Yeah. He probably just didn't smell as bad as everyone else. Yeah, yeah. Aristosinus, who was also one of Aristotle's students, in his memoirs, tells us that a most agreeable odor exhaled from Alexander's skin and that his breath and body all over was so fragrant as to perfunits. the clothes which he wore next to him. Oh, so too much.

Yeah, like you go at home and you smell your cloak and you're like, oh, it smells like Alexander, that's weird. I hate that. I hate when somebody else has so much cologne or perfume on that, like, you hug them and then that jacket needs a wash. And it was lynx, Africa. Yeah. It smelled like a teenage boy after P.E.

Using half a pungent combination. Using half a can at a time. Yeah. You walk into the change room and you can't see through the fog. Yeah. But I... That's the good stuff. I know we're just taking all of this at its word, but he's getting people to write this.

Like, that's nonsense. That bit is, but what about the pointy teeth being short? Different coloured eyes? Maybe that's cool. I was picturing David Bowie for a little while until the pointy teeth, but he's probably, did he ever dress up as a pointy teeth man? Was that one of his eras? The pointy one, jibes.

Yeah. But anyway, I think that's a strong. It's a strong look, yeah. His voice was also somewhat high-pitched, apparently. Okay. All right, everyone. So, Dave, so far, you were like, he's little and he needs help getting off high chairs.

He's got a quiff. Like, you know who we're picturing? I've had to help you off many a tall stool. I think this guy sounds so hot. I've just noticed Dave's wearing a coloured contact lens in one eye. Change my whole persona. He's falling his teeth.

Yes, I just love all these little descriptions. That's a great kind of voice to say things like Phosphorus at all these old school names. Fetch me my horse. Dynostomini. Dinosumina. Dinosthamini. Is that right?

I think that's right. Yeah. No, it's bubonic syphilis. According to history.com, When he was just 16 years old, his father went off to battle and left his son in charge of Macedonia. Very young. He had a party, didn't he? Yeah.

We're going to having a kegher at the palace. In 338 BC, Alexander saw the opportunity to prove his military worth during the Battle of Karania. Some of these are difficult words to say, am I say. You're doing a great job. You're making it look easy. Oh, I appreciate that. And I mean, we don't know if you're wrong, right? So just do it with confidence.

Apparently some of these great words are also debated as to how they said them back then. Yeah, right. Does a lot of them have two, three possible pronunciations. Not debated by us. Not deba us. However you say it, we're like, he nailed that. Yeah, right on. We love him.

He led some cavalry against the sacred band of Thebes, a supposedly unbeatable select army made up of 150 pairs of male lovers. Isn't that amazing? They were all couples. The whole idea was, you're not going to be embarrassing in front of your partner. Like, you're not going to run away. You're going to be brave. You want to prove yourself. So were they lovers after they were recruited?

or before? I'm not sure the recruitment process was like you got, like, me and you would get matched up, or if it's like we come along to the recruitment drive and say, hey, we've been dating for many years now, we love each other. Also, we're pretty good fighters, so we should be part of the secret. Because that makes more sense. Because otherwise it's like you're, you two love each other now. Well, now that you love each other, you'll never embarrass.

Yeah, you're embarrassed. Yeah, you're not embarrassed. I met this guy Gavin last week. I don't care what he thinks about Gavin. I don't know if that logic stands of like, well, you won't do anything a bit embarrassing in front of your partner. It's like, have you ever beat in a relationship? It's entirely you doing something embarrassing.

Yeah, I feel comfortable being embarrassing in front of Gareth. Who am I love. Who I love. I made it last week, but I... Quite honestly, Gareth and I are both running now. Like, we're both... We've got something to live for now. Each other.

I love you, Gareth. Gareth. So, the idea is that they're unbeatable, this... 150 pairs, so 300 men. The teenage Alexander put his vigor and bravery on display, and his cavalry decimated the sacred band of Thebes. Oh. Were they the 300? No, but I will talk a little bit about them.

Yes, in two paragraphs time. Whoa. Can you believe it? You're talking about two groups of 300? Wow. What was this time? It was a crazy time. They made that movie, which I never saw, but I assume made a big deal about it, I've only been 300.

Yeah. But two paragraphs earlier, there was another 300. Who lost admittedly. pretty easily by the sounds of it. They were too busy loving each other to fight. Love it not a fighter. Yeah. So he's very young but he wanted to prove himself.

So he was like, oh, I'll deal with these guys. That's supposedly unbelievable. The battle has been described as one of the most decisive of the ancient world. The forces of Athens and Thebes, like I said, the two big states were destroyed. And continued resistance was impossible. The war therefore came to an abrupt end. And Philip, his father, was able to impose a settlement upon southern Greece, which all the states accepted, with the exception of Sparta,

which is where the 300 came from a bit earlier. This was called the League of Corinth and Phillips the boss. They're like, all right, stop killing us, we'll all be part of this lead together. And he said to these Greeks, let's go after the Persians from the Akemenid or the Achaumannid Empire over east in Turkey, who a century and a half earlier had fucked up Greece after the famous battle of Thermopylae, which is the one with the Spartans depicted in the film 300.

Any game of Somopoly ends in drama. Yeah. You know, there's only one winner. Yeah, yeah. I know. Nightmare. They should have known better. But Phillips's like, we should go after these people.

Yeah. Yes, it's been 150 years. I'm the boot. I'm the boot. They want to be the boot. I'm the boot. They can be that little dog. Go to directly to jail.

Do not pass go. And he was chosen as general to go and pay them back. Soon after this, however, Alexander had a big falling out with his father when Philip married another princess, this is a new wife, who was much younger, much, much younger than him. Possibly she's like 18 and he's like 45 or something. Her name was Cleopatra Euritacy, and that's not the famous Cleopatra. There's lots of clear patches in this empire. Great name. This was Philip's first wife from his home kingdom of Macedonia. Before this, he conquers a new place. He marries a local princess. Hey, we're part of the same family now. We're cool.

Conquer concubine. Cock and coccoburn. That's what he did. But he hadn't got any local wives. I guess he didn't feel like he needed. Oh, shit. I'm already the king here. I don't have any local wives. I don't have any wives. I've got all these secret second, third and fourth wives, but no.

No, nothing local. No secret first wife. So she was much younger, the new wife, Cleopatra, Euritacy, and this new marriage caused instant tension between Philip and Alexander and his mother Olympias. Oh, because she was the most recent until that point? I think she was the most influential of his wife. Probably saw herself, even though she wasn't the original wife, probably the top. dog of wives?

Top wife. Top wife. And then you're marrying this. Phillips top wife. It's a great TV show. You know what they say? Top wife. Top life.

They say that. Yeah. And it was at Cleopatra Eurytsey and Phillips wedding banquet that her uncle, Attalus. The Attalus from the book with maps. Jesus Christ. But he's the guy. He was from, from a guy who held up the globe. Is that him?

Yeah, Greek mythology, yeah. Is that him? This is a different one. Oh. Remember how there's more Cleopatra's? There's also. Atlas and Attalus in the same world. Oh, Attalus.

Yes, Attalus. Atalus. Atalus. Oh, I'm sorry. Dave, you were saying Atalus. You were saying Atalus. I thought you were saying Atalus, but you're saying Atalus. Sorry, my Macedonian slash Greek is not as strong as yours.

It might be hard for you to hear. This might sound stupid, but... It will. Macedonian, anything to do with macadamia nuts. It sounds stupid, but you need... Either of you want to go, definitely not, right? I don't think it has anything to do. But earlier when he said Macedonia, I zoned out for a little bit thinking about macadamia.

Yeah, yeah. I think I went through the same thing. I think it's just that they've both got the Mac, like a mass, and then a ear. Yeah. You know? Man, we can finally claim something. Well, macadamia nuts originate and are grown in Australia. Well, commercial production is mainly in Hawaii.

Right. Oh, yeah, macadamies are us. Australia's native nut. We got it. We got it everyone. That's such a great nut. I love the texture of them. It's an interesting texture.

You don't get it in any other nut. Pair beautifully with honey. A little salt. Oh. Oh, my goodness. Sorgeous. Dark chocolate. Not waiting after this.

Probably brazos. So, he's getting married. Philip II. Alexander's dad is getting married to this young woman, Cleopatra. And her uncle, who is one of Phillips generals, a guy called Attalus stood up to make a toast. Oh no.

To the newlyweds. Oh, it's never good when an uncle makes a toast. Yeah. No, it's never good. It's never good. Oh, Jesus, here we go. Let me tell you about the bucks. Yeah.

Oh, shut up. Why here? Yeah. He said, he called upon the Macedonians to ask of the gods that from Philip and Cleopatra, his new wife, there might be born a legitimate successor to the kingdom. Oh, no. What does he mean?

Well, Alexander, his adult son and presumed there is standing right there. Go on. What the fuck? What? And he took umbrage with what he thought was a shot at him. It was. And his mother Olympius calling into question his own legitimacy as his mother's not from Macedonia. I thought we're all one big family now.

Isn't that what you said? Huh? Dennis? No, what was his name? Philip? Philip and Dennis very similar energies. I totally get that. Dennis the second.

That's pretty good. Dennis the train station. That's my favorite train station. There is a train station on the Hurstbridge line called Dennis. Is it on the same line as the Batman station? What a great journey that would be. Oh my God, what a journey? Going from where would you do today?

I travelled from Dennis to Batman. What is your life? So, Alexander's like, what the fuck? So he basically got up and said, are you calling me a bastard? This is at the wedding. And told Atlas, go fuck yourself. Yeah. Possibly, according to some stories, throwing a goblet of wine in Atlas's face.

I would have been thrown a goblet of fire. Oh. Or a goblet of knives at him. That's good. Sorry, I'm just sipping a goblet of knives and I'm going to throw it at you. Yeah. Is that a Harry Potter thing? Goblet of fire is, yeah, yeah.

Not Goblet of knives? Goblet of knives, no. I like it, though. That was the Jess Perkins. But you were saying earlier, you can't give from an empty goblet. You can't. You simply have to refill your goblet before looking after others. Yeah.

And Philip, who remember, it's his wedding. Yeah, yeah, he's the groom. He is outraged at the comment and the actions of Alexander. Fair. Really? Oh, not fair. He asked him to a, he's like, you can't tell... Not the uncle?

You can't tell an uncle to go fuck himself and throw wine in his face at my wedding. That's a bad thing. But the uncle was... I was like, Dad, you're not going to back me on this? He was disrespecting me at your wedding? And you take it his side? Which are... In what way is he an uncle?

Is it Phil's brother? No, it's Cleopatra's uncle. What are you doing? Do you even know this guy? You're taking his side over mine? Yeah, it was a bit... Don't push me, Dad. I will F you up, dog.

And I'm, you know, I'm really close to saying the full F word. Really this close. You gonna push me? Old man? I didn't want to do it like this. But I'm coming from for the throne king. Dad. Sorry, Dad.

Sorry, God. That's weird. That was weird. That didn't feel right. Had a bit of a rush of blood. And it actually, yeah, didn't come out quite right. But it was, it felt badass. And then meanwhile, I'm back over at the hors d'oeuvres just being like, my time to clean up.

Yeah. Everyone's looking the other way. Yeah. Now I'm going, I'm going in for therdsies on the dessert. But you're right. This is kind of like, in modern sense, how the scene played out. He said, apologize son. And Alexander's, who's a pretty, you know, not a level head of guys.

Like, absolutely not. And Philip, his dad drew his sword. Whoa. He couldn't take out a pen and paper. and drew a sword. Draw a sword. Now's not the time now. Let's just have a conversation.

What the heck are you doing? See this? You're losing it. I will take over. He drew a sword. See this? I can have one of these made. We're playing pictuary after.

Let's bring it forward. And in three to five business days, I could stab you with this. This will cut the tension. I'm going to cut the tension with the drawing of a knife. No, you pull it out a knife. Sword. Big one. But Philip was probably drunk.

and remember his leg was severely injured. And when he got up, he pulled his sword and he fell flat on his face. Oh, Phil. That's so embarrassing and very funny. But also, that's going to then really like, because it's a bit funny. And also everyone's like, oh, let's check on him. It does bring, it's, it brings everything down a little bit. Yeah, yeah.

It's a bit of a comic release. That's right. And we go, what do we do with here? This is silly for us to be fighting. Phil's on the ground. Well, according to- get on up here, Phil. Phil.

Yeah, dad. Phil is down and according to historian Phil's had a fool Phil's out of fall Oh my God Phil had a fall Did you hear? You can imagine all the ironies

Can't wait to catch up At the brunch sacks there Yeah Did you see Phil When he had a fall? It was pretty funny It was funny But it was also touch and go

Yeah It was you know It makes you think He is getting to that age We need to start worrying I've actually heard It's not the first fall He's had a fall in the shower

According to historian Peter Green, so he's on the ground, Philip, standing over his father, who remember, is the most powerful man in Greece. Alexander quipped, that gentleman, said Alexander, with icy contempt, is the man who's been preparing to cross from Europe into Asia, and he can't even make it from one couch to the next. Oh, that was here on couches. Fair detail left out.

That is, and he said that in front of everyone? Yeah, fucking smoked him. He's going for his dad. He's going for his throat now. Which is pretty well. And because of Alexander's remarks, he and his mother Olympius were both exiled from Macedon for a short time. They were left together and he dropped her off in the state of Epirus and he went to Elyria.

Okay. I think I'm starting to understand why Phil doesn't, isn't that well known to history? I think Alexander might write him out soon. And then I said, this awesome line. And all these women came up and said, Whoa, they're the best abs I've ever seen. Yeah. And he fell over.

And he had a limp. Yeah. And then after I said my awesome line, my dad was like, whoa, you're a much bigger man than I ever am. So I'll exile you. I bow down to you, King, and then he kissed my feet. That's how it happened. And then I exiled myself.

I said, yeah, I'll go away for a bit. And I just put my feet up for a bit because I smoked you, dad. I smoked you. And he did, but he had to leave. Olympias was not. happy with her husband's new wife and the possibility of her birthing a new heir that could usurp her son Alexander, who's been rightfully promised to the throne. Alexander actually already did have an older half-brother, Aridaeus, and that would usually

make him the heir, him being the older son. But he possibly had, it's not fully clear, but he possibly had learning difficulties to some degree that meant Alexander was the first choice and was never threatened by his older brother. And they had a good relationship. Right. He was never seen as a potential successor. So Alexander's an exile, but after six months, but after six months, Philip and Alexander make up, and Philip tried to make good with his wife Olympius as well by holding a giant, lavish wedding for their daughter, and Alexander's full sister, who was also

called Cleopatra. This is very confusing. She was getting married to her mother, Olympia's brother, and therefore her uncle, a man called Alexander of Epirus. Okay, so there's multiple Cleopatra's, multiple Alexanders, we're marrying uncles. Yeah. What a funny, like, they're the, the. Mom and dad here, Phil and Cleopatra are like from other countries.

Phil and Olympia. Olympia. Olympia. Olympia. Yeah, they're from different Olympias. They're really like broadened out the gene pool and now they're just bringing it right back in. Yeah. It's not that they're heading in the right direction here.

Nah, they want to keep it in the family in a weird way. And it was at this wedding between Cleopatra and her uncle that something happened that would change world history. And there's a couple of versions of events. One is Philip had personal bodyguards called Somastafelakes. Very hard words. Very hard word. Even you sit written down, you're like, oh my God. Sounds a bit like snowflake.

So matter. It may have sounded easy to me. That was actually really cool to watch. It like tickled my eardrums. Somatophilakes. That's nice. Usually seven highly trained men that went with him everywhere. He went and he knew and trusted with his life, often old friends or.

Do you think you know seven people? you would trust with your life? I don't know. You? Nah. Seven. Absolutely not. And I'm looking at two of them right now.

You would trust me with your life? Yeah. Dave, the second anything gets hard, I'm rolling off a cliff. You trust me? Whilst you're tied to me. Yeah, yeah.

I'd just be there like, Dave, mate, I'd love to protect you, but I think the best thing we should do is off this cliff. Yeah. I suppose what you mean by trust with your life, especially if you are a bodyguard

who is required to die to protect me. I'm probably not choosing you. No, but if I'm required to die and I'm quite willing to do it. Yeah, actually, you'd be perfect. Okay, so I should trust you, Matt, you're willing to die for me. If that's the job. Right. But I don't know if I'm.

Yeah, life's more than just a job, you know. Pretty good super. Oh, yeah. Yeah, but I'm dead. I don't get to enjoy the super. Am I on the clock, you know, at the time? Because if I, if I've just clocked off, then you're on your own. You're not diving from that sort. Yeah, yeah.

You have to have. But no, I don't know, seven people I'd trust my life. Yeah. No. Well, Philip did. and one of these men was called Porcanius of Arrestus. These are incredible names. Yeah.

And then you just got a Philip. It doesn't make any sense. It's wild. It's very similar to June where there's a pole amongst all the other names. Yeah. This is Porcanius. He was also, as well as being a guard, one of Phillips lovers. He had so many wives and his body was falling apart from his war injuries.

I don't know how he had the time or energy, but he's doing a lot. Yeah. He's doing a lot. I'm winking. Having a lot of fun. Doing a lot. Yeah. Well, let's just say he's having a lot of fun.

But what did they have for fun back then? There was no Netflix. There was no Xbox. Just chill. There's no board games probably. So what else could they be doing for fun? Yeah. You fill in the blanks.

Yeah. And Philin'n's butt. That's right. And he was shooting blanks. No, he wasn't. He had kids. Well, I mean, you might have been. Zeus had to step in and zap his wife's womb to get it to get it all going.

Zap. Just give it a quick zap. Okay, so this porcelaneous... Porsanius. Porsanius. Pulsanus. Pulsan, husband, but... A lover and bodyguard.

Yeah. That's not really disputed, but this sensational version of events comes from Greek historian diodorus, Siculus. They seem a little more sex positive back then. Oh. I like that. There's so many people that are banging all the time. It's nice. It's very open in that respect to this kingdom, for sure.

You would prefer it to be more open your sex stuff? Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right. What do you want to talk about? What do I want to talk about? Do you want to be more open with it? I don't want to talk. I want to fuck. Oh, okay, sorry.

What do you want to fuck about? So this comes from a guy writing a couple hundred years later. Diodorus Siculus. And again, this controversy centers around Attalus, the guy who made the toast at Phillips wedding and said, I hope you have a real genuine Macedonian air on your hands. And then Alexander was like, what the fuck? Yeah.

That guy, Atlas, he's again in this controversy. Of course he is. Every family's got one. Uncle Adelis. Yeah. What does he like? Well, Adelis also had a lover named Porsanius. Confusingly, it's a different Porsanius.

Oh, my God. You've got a name like Porsanius and you've got multiple. You'd be so confident going into Get a Gmail. Portnus. I'm going to, what the heck? Porsanius taken? I'm signing up for Instagram at Porsanius. Oh, I have to go under.

underscore 01. What? And I found this so confusing. I found the best explanation on Wikipedia, which is like a Macedonian great history website. But I had to even put in, make it Porcanius 1 and Porcanius 2, because that was still,

because Porcanias have arrested someone. Which one's that one? So we'll call the original Porcanius, the bodyguard, Porcinius 1. Yep. Atlas, his lover, is called Porcanius 2. Okay. Yep, okay.

And if it doesn't make sense, this bit only goes. for a minute. So, you know, it's not that integral. I'll do my best. Porcanius, Philip's lover, one of his bodyguards. Porsanias one. And he insulted Porsanius 2 after he thought that Philip his lover potentially had made moves

on the second Porsanius, and he was jealous. So he probably called Porsanius 2 a coward or something like that publicly, called into questioned his honour. So to secure his public honour and prove that he wasn't a coward, Porsanius 2, who's the beloved of Attalus, indicted himself in battle whilst protecting the king, and he died. Oh, Portanius 2. Yeah, kind of like took a bullet for the king. Like, I'm real brave, I'll do it!

And Porcanius 2 died. He's lover, Attalus. He blamed Porcanius 1 for making Porcanius 2 risk his life for honour. He's like, you called my boyfriend into question. And then to prove himself he had to risk his life and he died. But isn't that was the job? No, that's the job of the other Porcani. Yeah, no, that's right.

This is a different, like, just in battle, he like, risked his life. But he was in battle. Yeah. So that is one of the risks. He's like, oh, you, you made him, like, be risky in a war. In a war. Yeah. He definitely wouldn't have died otherwise.

No. It's the safest war that's ever been. So Adelis is really mad at Porcanius one. Okay. And this is a flag that's a brief mention of sexual assault coming up here. Adelis invited Porcanius one to a banquet where he got Porcanius one really, really drunk, and then sexually assaulted him. And Porzanius, remember, is the lover of King Philip II. He appealed to the king for justice.

He said, that man just assaulted me. You should punish him. Philip was angry at Adelis, but because it was his new wife's uncle with whom he wanted an alliance, he couldn't really punish him. Philip seemed like a real, like, he didn't want to say anything to defend his son at the wedding. Same guy, two strikes for this guy, yeah. He's like really, yeah, he's trying to kiss Adelaus's ass a bit. Yeah, he's really sucking up to Adelis.

that. Yeah. And Porcanias, he's hurt because his lover who's the king is all powerful, hasn't defended his honour. Yeah. And this is all like, he's like open about having affairs with others. It doesn't matter. It's not like monogamy wasn't an issue back then, obviously.

An issue like it is now. It's a real problem. It's a huge problem. We need to stamp it out. No, he's like, because he's got multiple wives. I think he's pretty open that a lot of these people have lovers. It's all pretty cool. But one of his lovers is like, hey, you should stand up.

for me, I'm your lover and I've been like really wronged here. So Porcani's is super hurt. He's pissed off at Philip. So the wedding comes round of Philip and Olympius's daughter, Cleopatra, when she's marrying her uncle, a bit weird. The king puts on A bit weird. This is an Adelis, the uncle, is it? No, this is a

different uncle. Another guy from Epperon. This is another Alexander. This is an Olympius's brother. Far out. Marrying her daughter. And the king, Philip, he puts on a big spectacle for his daughter, lovely, big, big lavish wedding, big celebration in the theatre. Philip enters surrounded by his bodyguards, the seven guys.

They'll go with him everywhere, but he waves them away because he wants to walk in on his own so he can appear approachable by all the dignitaries that he's invited to the wedding. So he's left unguarded. And it's at this point that Porcanius, his guard slash lover, steps forward and stabs the unprotected Philip

in the ribs, killing him. Whoa. So he publicly assassinations the king. Whoa. Because he was hurt about... That's one version of events. Yeah. Wow.

He wasn't just, yeah, he was assaulted and then his lover wouldn't stand up for him. Yeah. He's the king and could do something quite serious about it. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, could have killed Adelaus. Wow. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. Look, I'm just throwing it out there. I'm not saying that's what he should have done. No, no, no.

Just saying that would have made sense, maybe. So, Porsanias kills the... kills the king, stabs in the roof, he dies pretty quickly. Porsani's attempts to flee, but the story is he trips over a vine and is... That's so embarrassing. He's quickly cut down himself by the other bodyguards. They're like, oh shit, they kill him. Now, this assassination has been the subject of much speculation and conspiracy.

Was Porsani's acting alone, with the sole motive of being, you know, the spurned lover of Philip? Or did, some people say this, Alexander and his mother Olympias have something to do with taking out the king? Because now it's, yeah, he wants his chance to take over the throne before the... Yeah, before the possible new air is born. And Olympius is really pissed at her husband as well. Was there a second stabber behind the grassy knoll? These questions have been asked for centuries. Because I had long stabbing spears back then.

Yeah, so long. Someone could have stabbed from anywhere. Yeah, that was so long. Or some people say, did the Persians who were about to be invaded, have an inside man thinking that if they killed Philip, they'd stop the invasion. And if they think that, spoiler, they're wrong.

Okay. But with his father murdered, at just 19 or 20 years old, Alexander quickly eliminated all other claimants to his father's throne. This is also why people think it's a bit suss that Alexander took care of everyone else

to make sure he was the king straight away. But I suppose you would do that if your dad is killed and people say, I could be the king. He got rid of everyone. He was brutal here. He had his father's young. youngest wife, Cleopatra, the new wife and her two children killed.

Oh! As well as her uncle Attalus, the man that had insulted him with a toast, implying that he was a bastard. He would have known that was coming, right? Yeah, yeah. So he'd be like, uh-oh, this is not going well for me. I knew I shouldn't have had that extra brandy at the wedding and said that silly thing I said. I said, I was only going to have five goblets tonight.

The sixth one always gets me in trouble. Always gets your job. On the news of Philip the second's death, there were a real. revolts in northern Greece, but Alexander quickly crushed those and sent the message that, like his father, he was not to be messed with. He heard that the people of Thebes were revolting, and in just 14 days, he marched an army 240 miles to crush them, which is really, really quick back then. In Thebes, as a punishment for their rebellion, he burned the whole city to the ground, except for the temples, and one house that he purposefully left standing. It belonged

to a poet called Pinder, whose writing he liked, specifically because it praised his ancestors. Alexander the first of Macedon. So the whole city doesn't exist anymore except for one house and a few temples and the poet's like, okay. And he was, he slept through it. Imagine getting up to get the newspaper and then went like,

what the heck is going on out here? Jeez, Louise. It's a bit full on, isn't it? Whoa. Britannica writes that 6,000 people were killed and all survivors were sold into slavery. After this, the other Greek states were cowed by this severity. because they were like, oh, Philip's a badass, but he's gone.

We'll see if we can take on his son. I'm sure that he won't be as strong as Philip. And then he came in and was like, oh, no, I'm probably worse. And they were like, okay, you're still the boss, even though you're 19. There's a great and often recounted story of Greek philosopher and one of the founders of cynicism, a guy called Diogenes of Synope, who is a total wild god. Sinicism had a founder? Yeah, before that, you weren't.

You couldn't be cynic. Wow. Wow. God, imagine. I said, what about this? And they went, oh, that's pretty good. Yeah. I've never had that thought before.

That could be fun. That could be fun at parties. This guy is pretty wild. He would criticize those around him and had a reputation for sleeping and eating wherever he chose in highly non-traditional fashions, often sleeping in a large ceramic jar called a pithos in the marketplace. He would just have a nap in a jar. He'd get into a giant, giant, it looks like one of those big vars. He would just get in.

Get in there. He would also wank in there a lot. This is known by history. He'll know by history. I just, I really wasn't expecting that. That, okay. Yeah, yeah. It's weird enough that he was just getting into a big vase for a nap.

When there's so many more comfortable places to nap, but he'd also just have a wank in there. Have a wank in there. He, he trapped of being a genie, didn't he? That's what he wanted to do. I want to live in this to her. I want to leave in. in this jail, I want to wank in this jail. I love this jail. I love this jail. I'm not going to

rub a lamp. I'll rub something else. He declared himself a cosmopolitan and a citizen of the world rather than claiming allegiance to just one place. Okay. And this is from his wiki page. He became notorious for his philosophical stunts, such as carrying a lamp during the day, claiming to be looking for a man, often rendered in English as looking for an honest man, as Diogenes viewed the people around him as dishonest and irrational. Right. I'm looking for an honest man. Not you.

Can't see any. Not you. This guy sounds very cynical. When Alexander got to Corinth in Greece, many of the local statesmen and philosophers came to Alexander with their congratulations. Welcome, New King. Is this where Paul in the Bible wrote all his letters to those, the Corinthians? Is that the same?

Yeah, same place. Yeah, right. So that's a Greek city. Greek city, yeah. Corinth. There you go. It's a memory, like, just in church and you're sort of dozing in and, like, concentrating in and out.

Paul's letter to the Corinthians. I'm going back to sleep. And it'll often be my dad reading it out as well. No, you don't go out there, Dan. And do you just think it was your dad's letter to the Corinthiansians? Yeah, I'm like, dad. Dad, stop reading your own letters. Yeah, why do you write like that?

That's so weird. It's got nothing to do with church, dad. Dads are so embarrassing though, aren't they? But I think it makes sense that those kind of masses are really continuing to thrive because they made it just great for all generations to enjoy. Fun for the whole family. So he gets to Corinth, Alexander, and the local statesmen and philosophers come up to say, congratulations to New King, give him presents, giving him lovely treasures.

Remember this guy had violently shut down all opposition. Alexander expected Diogenes. He's a bit of a community leader, despite being a bit of a weird, though, to do the same, but Diogenes didn't turn up. So Alexander went to visit him in his jar. He's knocking on the jar. You in there, mate. You're decent? No.

And Pluto. You know, like, that, like, people playing, like, the jugs? If you don't tell by that from inside, there's just a jug. He's having a go in there. Having a good time. Having a tug in the jug. If it's a rockin' do not come and knocking. So please.

Just the soundtrack to his way. You don't get this on other historical podcasts. No, that's right. Plutarch writes of the story a few hundred years later and it's awesome. He wrote, since that philosopher this is about Georgianese took not the slightest notice. of Alexander and continued to enjoy his leisure in the suburb of Cranian, Alexander went in person to see him and he found him lying in the sun, so he must have just gotten out of the jar.

So funny. He's out of the jar. What is this guy? He's so wild. Doeuf and he's raised himself up a little when he saw so many people coming towards him and fixed his eyes upon Alexander. And when that monarch addressed him with greetings and asked if he wanted anything, yes, said Diogenes, stand a little out of my son.

Ah, he's casting a bit of shade on him. Do you mind? I'm trying to even out the tan lines. Yeah, mate. Get out of here. Get out of here. And he said that... Don't go anywhere near my jug.

Yeah. And Plutarch continues, it is said that Alexander was so struck by this and admired so much the haughtiness and grandeur of the man who had nothing but scorn for him. He said to his followers who were laughing and jesting about the philosopher as they went away, Alexander said quote, but truly, if I were not Alexander, I wish I were diogenes.

Whoa. Really? You want a wank in a junk? He's like, this guy gives so little fucks about anything. Oh, that's living. Yeah, this is like in a movie where it seems like someone's really stuffed up and the big guy goes, kind of like your moxie joke. Yeah, that's right. You start tomorrow.

I'm either going to kill you or hire you. I like it. Everybody else kisses my ass. You tell it like it is. Finally some truth. This guy lives in a jug. Let's not hold him that highly. Let's not hold him highly at all.

And he's like, the rest of you could learn a thing or two. And the next week he comes back, they're all in jugs. But they've gotten into jugs that are just a bit too small, so they're all stuck. My entire army is stuck in a jug. What the fuck is wrong with you? You know what Jess would do if she was stuck in a jug at the top of a cliff? Roll right off, maybe. It'd be easy to roll that way.

It could be fun. Right at the end. Right. Wee. Oh, no. Well, it's not sure how Diogenes died. His contemporaries allege that he held his breath until he died. Although other accounts of his death say he became ill from eating raw octopus or from an infected dog bite.

I'm going to go with the octopus or dog bite. Because if you hold your breath, you'll pass out and your body will take over. Yeah. Well, for most people. Yeah, true. This is Diogenes. If you're inside a jar, maybe there's less oxygen. Yeah.

He put the lid on. The wrong lid, not the one with the air holes poke through. Oh, no. When asked how he wished to be buried, he left instructions to be thrown outside the city wall so that wild animals could feast on his body. When asked if you minded this, he said, no, not at all. As long as you provide me with a stick to chase the creatures away. When asked how he could use the stick since he would lack awareness, he replied,

well, if I lack awareness, then why would I care what happens to me when I'm dead? Okay. That's just a weird roundabout conversation. Yeah. You make, yeah, you're asking for a stick. Yeah. If you don't, and if you don't care why, you ask me for anything. Feed me to the wolves, we'll give me a stick.

Yeah, what are you talking about? Mate, you've lost it. I think that Jug guys lost his marbles. You ever that guy just crawls into jug sometimes as a nap? I think he's going a bit nuts. Yeah, I think he's losing it. It's the first time I'm hearing of this. He always seemed so put together.

when he was wanking in that jug. I'd kill it. I love it. It's the best. This is one of, yeah, this is of all the ridiculous things. What have we?

We're up 450-odd episodes now. One of the people I named as suggesting this topic actually suggested that I focus on diogenes because what a wild person of mystery. Love it. Gave no fucks. So like his father, Alexander was now top dog in Greece and he wanted to pick up straight up or his dad had left off, conquering the vast Persian Empire, which at the time was ruled by a guy

called Darius III. This was still under the guise of getting even for the Persians for fucking up Greece and the Greek states 150 years earlier, but it would also bring much needed wealth to the kingdom. And to be honest, I think Alexander liked fighting and was looking for his own glory to prove that he could do something that his dad wasn't able to. Alexander and his huge army crossed over into Asia Minor in 334 BCE. He had within 333,000. He had within 33,000. thousand foot soldiers and 5,000 cavalry. They were a combination of arches, javelin throwers, phalanx soldiers with the long syracos we talked about, and an intimidating cavalry force. Alexander's second in command was a guy called Parmenio, sometimes called Parmenion,

who had worked with Alexander's father and was also a fantastic general in his own right. They also travelled with surveyors, engineers, architects, scientists, court officials and historians. So it's a really big crew on the road. Amazing. So they go to Asia, reportedly Alexander threw a spear into the ground, saying that he accepted Asia as a gift from the gods. On the other end, Darius III, the Persian leader didn't really see the young Alexander as that much of a threat. But what about his huge army? It just sounds like there's enough people just to like go, all right, we'll take him on one-on-one.

Everyone here. We've just doubled your population right now. But Persia is so big at the time. It's one of the biggest... Surveyers are going fist to fist. Yeah. They've got those little things that they measure stuff with. Yeah.

Oh, my God, you could throw that pretty hard. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. We're talking modern-day Iran, but it's way bigger than that, is it? It's so big. It's one of the biggest empires of the ancient world. Persia was, is that right? Persia, is that, like, modern-day Iran is the center of it?

But also, at the time, it was Turkey, it was Syria, parts of Afghanistan. Like, it was massive. Yeah, yeah. And Darius was a bit like, I've got multiple armies. I'm going to take care of this guy Who gives a shit? Yeah Never even heard of this guy

He goes back to playing That farm game With the bear That's having a good time This really has nothing to do With the story But when I looked him up Darius

The third was preceded as king Of Persia by King Arses Spell A RSES Oh okay Which I think is the best name Of the ancient world Give it to me again

King Arces King Arces of Persia A RSES Yeah, that's pretty good. Arses. King arses. That's awesome. That's really good.

I had to mention it. You had to. Doesn't need a Poganym or whatever you said before. Yeah, Pogonim. Poganym? Poganym? A cogicinemian. Cogcinamen.

Cogicinaman. Cogicinaman. Did arces have a cogsingerman? Arsus. the big asses the tort asses the cracky asses the parted so anyway

Darius the third was now in charge of Perjure because King Arces has left the scene but the first army that confronted Alexander wasn't led by Darius who thought Alexander was a bit small time for him and instead the army was led by three of his sartraps which are kind of like governors of different regions it was 3.34 BCE and took place

at the Granicus River And according to Britannica, the Persian plan to tempt Alexander across the river and kill him in the Malay almost succeeded. But the Persian line broke and Alexander's victory was complete. Darius's Greek mercenaries were largely massacred, but 2,000 survivors were sent back to Macedonia in chains. The victory exposed Western Asia Minor to the Macedonians and most cities hastened to open their gates. The tyrants were expelled and democracies were installed. So a lot of these locals that have been conquered by Persia because it's the edge of the Persian Empire. And when a new person comes along, they're like, oh, thank God.

Right. Come on in. You're saving us. Yeah, saving us from this empire. And are they coming in and being like a new problem or are they, you're saying installing democracies? Yeah, Alexander who's pretty happy with the places he conquered usually to let them rule themselves as long as they bowed down to. He bowed down to him. It seems like he was more interested in conquering than ruling.

Right. Because, like, he's got this big empire. But, like, his mother's basically in charge of everything because he's like, I'm going to take the army and go get some new places. That's what I like doing. See you later. You keep everything running here. When the street lights are on, though, you're home for dinner.

Yeah. But then he, like, conquers a new place and goes, sweet, I'm in charge. You have you that? I'm the king. Great. All right. You can have your, whatever you do, do whatever you do, your culture. I'm fine with your culture.

really care about that. Oh, so they'd be stoked if, yeah, if he's sort of like fraying them almost. Yeah, but often, but then sometimes he would like burn the whole city of the ground. Apart from one or like Paul Jennings. You like Paul Jennings. You like Paul Jennings. Your house could stay. I loved round the twist.

Razz was fantastic. But he took, so he, so he, he, um, he beat Darius's army and he proved himself a serious threat to Darius and he continued on taking port cities to eliminate the threat of the Persian Navy. Some like Harlecharnassus, which is a great ancient city, resisted and Alexander had to take it via a month-long siege. Another famous Alexander story is that when he got to Gordium, he was confronted with the Gordian knot. Have you heard of the Gordian knot? No. This was a complex knot that was tied to an ox cart, and it was said, whoever could untie it would be destined to rule all of Asia. So Alexander was invited to have a go. He couldn't untie it.

So he pulled out a sword and dramatically just cut right through it. And this is become a famous story used as a metaphor for a seemingly impossible problem, which is solved by brute force. He's kind of ruined it for anybody else who wanted to have a track. Yeah, the next person was like, I actually had a few theories. Yeah, that wasn't in the spirit of the notch. That's real bat and ball going home sort of stuff. Yeah, yeah.

I can't, wait, it's stupid anyway. Yeah, yeah. Cut in a half. But, okay. Every knot must be able to be undone, though, right? Unless it was some sort of trick knot. No, it couldn't be. They don't exist.

They wouldn't have done that, though, would they? Would they trick him? Would they trick him? Him? I don't know. But he cut right through it and went, yes, told you. Did they, as like modern day scientists or whatever, figured out the knot, or is the knot? I think it might be a mystery.

Oh, my God. Mystery not. Mystery not. Oh, mystery not. Oh, whoa. Was it a mystery not all along? I was going to call this episode Mystery Not. I think that's for the best.

You know, really draw people in. Oh, guys, there's plenty more mystery not's coming up, so don't tune out. That's not. Mystery not? Great stuff. A bit of fun. Finally, in 33, so he keeps just marching on being like, take that city, take that city. A lot of them say, come on in, but he keeps going into Persia.

Finally, in 333 BC, Alexander and his army came. face to face with the Persian army led by Darias, the third himself, who after the previous years devastating loss, decided to take personal control of his forces, being like, obviously the problem was that they weren't led by me. Yeah. I'll saw this guy. I'll have to do everything. Yeah, bloody hell. This bloody young upstart coming, 20 years old, I'll show him what's what. It took place in Isis, which in modern times is in southern Turkey near the border of Syria. Dariah's army greatly outnumbered his invaders. It's always hard with the numbers of how many soldiers

because in the ancient world they inflate them. They're like, there was 38 billion people on the dance floor. What are you talking about? When I dropped the needle, it went off. It was wild. Three billion.

It was so sweaty in there. But everyone was at loving it. Yeah. The DJ was playing the perfect song. It was just bang after banger. And drink for actually very recently price. Yeah. Everyone was having a good time.

And everyone said, this party, Darius, you're awesome. But then Adelis did a speech and everyone left. Oh my God, he sucks. He sucks. You suck Adelaus. But then he came in for a speech. We came at a party.

So the numbers are probably, and this is probably accurate and not inflated. Alexander probably had about 37,000 men, whereas Darius had between 50 and 100,000 at his disposal. Okay, so one of those numbers is bigger than the other. Oh, yeah. But they're both bigger than 37. That's true. Yeah. One is a bit bigger and one's like way bigger.

Like so, so, so big. So, so big. The battle was fought along. One's the capacity of the MCG. Oh, when you put it like that, that is quite big. Whereas the other ones, like the capacity of Amy Park, Amy Stadium. Oh my God. Whatever.

Yeah. Yeah, it's like, well, you're going to go to the Food Fighters? You're going to go to Taylor Swift. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's, there we go. Yeah, one of them plays their instruments live. This is our errors tour because we're going to make errors because we,

see that Dave Grohl rant? No. The Swifties doesn't like it. And I don't know. I don't have an opinion. Okay. But I hope the Groleans and the Swiftians come for us could really use the publicity. 50% of our audience is Twifties.

Yes. The other 50 are Groolians. Yeah, that's right. So we know them all now. Yeah. But that's what we do. You know, we're just like we're pot stirers. Yeah.

Me personally, I'm a swift growler. Mm-hmm. But get in, get out. Mm-hmm. That really tickled me. Well, it will and quickly. So the battle was fought along a narrow coastal plain with the ocean on one side and a river down the middle,

dividing the two armies. Because the plane was only 1K or 1km wide, Darius wasn't able to deploy all of his troops in a single line. What's how many people he had? He couldn't even line them up. Two by two. And one K. is not wide enough.

However, it was rainy, and the Macedonians had to push across a muddy river, surrounded by slippery banks, and no matter how tight, you're... I'm just picturing the mud and Jess going, I'm out. I'm rolling into the river. I don't even like... I don't even like walking on sand. Like the hard sand near the water, lovely, but like, oh, the loose sand. The soft fat, fuck, that.

And at the other end of that, you're probably, what are you doing? having a drink or watching a moot? I don't know, you're doing something nice after a walk on the beach. They're going to battle. Nah, absolutely not. Roll. I'm good. I'm all right.

You're rolling off the sandy cliff. Yeah. And you're not even making it to dinner. Absolutely not. Let alone a battle. No, I don't want to go battle. And it's muddy. It's muddy as.

And no matter how tight your formations are, it's difficult. to walk across a muddy river. Right. Down a bank, across the river and upper bank. And the... You're slipping and sliding sort of thing? They're all over the place. And remember, their secret is to hold tight together.

Yeah. Yeah. So one person slips and you're like, well, now we're exposed. We all go to sleep. Yeah, yeah. Can't, when you're that slippery, being tight is hard. Yeah. Yeah. And they're under fire from arrows.

But the Macedonians kept pushing forward the superior training and discipline really coming to the fore. They kept together as a team. The phalanx of spears, the sermons. the Sarisus, the really long pulse, was in the middle, and you can imagine the left flank of cavalry was controlled by Alexander's right-hand man, Parmenio, and Alexander was on the right commanding his own cavalry. So you can imagine the foot soldiers are all in the middle,

and then the horses are split into two groups, one on either side. That's the formation. The two armies clashed, and things didn't start out well for Alexander. The fighting was tough, and there were huge casualties on both sides, but the superior size of the force of the Persians appeared to be too great to overcome. Alexander on the right hand side of the battlefield, pushed through Darius' own cavalry with his own horses,

and broke a hole in their line. And this meant that Alexander and his best cavalry were able to get behind the Persians and attack them from the rear and take the pressure off his phalanx of spear guys who are really getting smashed. That's a big advantage when you come up from behind because you can tap them on the opposite shoulder. And they'll look at what?

Oh, you go. You. Alexander, you are great. Yes me, everybody. time. You dog. You dog. Alexander saw Darius himself on the battlefield and ordered his unit to charge into the men surrounding the other king. And seeing that things were not going his way, Darius the third decided to run away. Oh, I pulled a Jess.

Yeah. I'm good. Did you say roll away? I'm not necessarily a coward. He's running away like, well, I'm scared. I'm not in the battle to start with. She never got there. Like somebody goes, I challenge you to war. And I'm like, oh, don't worry about that.

You can have it. Just shut up. Just take it. Yeah. I'm just blocking him. Yeah. If anything, you're running towards them. Sorry, I'm not home.

Yeah. The castle's closed. Whatever. Like, just shut up. I'm not going to war. Leave me alone. I'm not going to take any of your stuff. I just want to play my little video games and just leave me alone.

You want to go battle. Have a good time. But I'm not. I'm not into it. Dry said similarity. He's like, I've got to get out of you. He took off so quickly that he left his wife daughters and mother behind.

Yes. And I guess you have to be pretty confident of victory to bring them to the battlefield in the first place. Yeah. And then you're like, I've got to get out of here. See ya! Come on, kids, we're going to the battlefield.

Imagine that's not a great look. No, not good. This is from Wicke now. The person saw that their great king had gone and that the battle was being lost and they abandoned their positions and fled in full route. The Hellenic cavalry, which is Alexander,

pursued the fleeing persons for as long as there was light. As with most ancient battle, significant carnage occurred after the battle as the pursuing Greeks slaughtered their crowded, disorganized foe. So Alexander had just won what on paper was a pretty impossible fight, and this was the beginning of him writing his name into the history books as one of the greatest military commanders of all time. And you might be worried about Darius's family. But Alexander treated them with great respect, after he captured them, and they all seemed to have gotten along. In fact, he married Darius's daughter, Statera II.

Yeah, he got them very well. God, I'm very well. Wow. Yeah, and apparently they, you know, they liked each other. Wow, a married couple liked each other. But like the family and everything, they were like, That's this guy's all right. Darias had turned and lost, but he was not fully down and out,

and he retreated into his very vast kingdom to gather a new army to face Alexander. Oh, my God. And he's really hoping that stories from the front don't come back. When people are like, hey, where are your kids? Where's your mom? I think they're fine. Yeah, they're good. They're all right, they're okay.

They're probably out shopping, I think. Yeah. They're shopping, you know, grandmas and kids, they go shopping. Probably gone on the movies or something, I think. You know, they're up the credit card. Don't worry. Don't worry, I'll get the bill. It's all right, I'm the king, so it's fine.

We can afford it. Now, I've already mentioned a couple of sieges, which Alexander was really good at winning. Whilst Darius was gathering his new army, the most famous of Alexander's sieges came next in 332 BCE, called The Siege of Tyre. Tire was a strategic coastal base for the Persians on the Mediterranean Sea and it was impossible or thought impossible to capture because it was an island and was surrounded by really tall walls on all sides. So he couldn't get anywhere inside it.

And I should point out that Alexander didn't really have much of a navy at this time. So he's like, how are we going to attack that without ships? So he responded to this problem by first blockading a besieging tire for seven months and then he built a giant bridge. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. His engineers built a kilometer long, 200 foot wide causeway. According to History.org, the causeway was built using rocks, timbers and rubble taken from the buildings of the old city nearby.

Initially, work progressed well. The water near the mainland was shallow and the bottom muddy. But as the causeway lengthened, the Macedonians and Greeks began to run into trouble. The sea floor shelved sharply near the city to a depth of 18 feet or 5.5 metres. work slowed to snail pace and the work gangs found themselves increasingly harassed by missile fire from the city walls. So the closer they got to the island, the island just started shooting

shit at the people trying to build this really long bridge. Eventually Alexander constructed two siege towers at the end of the causeway. Like most of Alexander's siege towers, these were moving artillery platforms with catapults on top to clear the defenders off the walls. The towers

were made of wood but were covered in raw hide to protect them from fire arrows but the Tyrians inside were able to fight back and they burnt down the siege towers. So he's built this bridge, built these platforms, and then they've burnt it down. He's like, fuck.

He decided, okay, it would be easier to capture the island with ships. So he captured a bunch and returned and batted through the walls of the island and captured the city. And he was not kind of the holdouts as many as 8,000 were killed and the remaining 30,000 citizens

all sold into slavery. Jeez. Wow. So he's brutal. Or if you like hold out with him and make it difficult, he makes it difficult when he captures the city. So great by name, probably not great by nature of this guy. Oh, there's a tagline. Yeah, there we go.

That has summed him up. If you want to know his essence, there it is. Great by name. You'd probably say the opposite by me about me. Not great in name. Great in nature though. Yeah, yeah. Your name isn't great, is it?

Not a great name. No. Perky by name. Yeah? Paki by nature? No. No. Okay.

I wouldn't say so. No. Kind of grumpy. I guess, yeah. Probably my name, Grumpy, my nature. Yeah. It was around this point that Darius, the third, the king of Persia, tried to get a plea deal going with Alexander. Alexander had taken over about half the Persian Empire, and Dariah said, look, if you stop now,

I'll concede that half to you and let you live in peace. I'll be over here with my half. You'll be over there with my half. Both big kings. How about it? Yeah. So he'd give up one of his halves. Yeah, he's like, well, you've taken that bit all good,

but if you stop now, I won't even, we won't have to have any more battles. That's yours. That's yours. And Alexander was a bit like, but I already have this half. Yeah, yeah. He's like, and yeah, you can keep it. Yeah, yeah, that's yours. That's forever.

I won't take it back because I was about to. Yeah, I've decided. And easily, it was going to be easy and chill for me, but I'm deciding to be cool. I'll let you go. I'll let you live. And you can keep my daughter. And his friend. Yeah, keep her, whatever.

It's all good. That's yours now. I've got my half, though. Let's have that in writing. And his friend and second in command, Parmenio said, if I were you, I would take the deal. To which Alexander replied, I would too, were I Parmenio. But I am Alexander.

Oh, that's good. No deal. He's like, I've already got this half. I'm going to get the other half. I'm getting it all. That makes some sense as well because it's like, you're trusting that guy to be like, yeah, He's just going to quietly...

Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's not going to strengthen his armies again and try and take it back. Come and take it back. Like I'm doing now. Or like my dad did when he paid off those guys and then soon after came and took it back. He's like, I know these guys pretty well because I am these guys. Yeah, yeah. So Darius is like, fine, no deal.

And he went to get another army together and Alexander moved on into Egypt. So he went south into Egypt. Most of the towns on the way simply surrendered. But the city of Gaza was a heavily fought. qualified stronghold and they held out. So it was another siege. When his engineers pointed out to him that because of the height of the mound, it would be impossible.

This encouraged Alexander all the more to make the attempt. So he's telling me you can't do something. He's like, a bit like Jess. Yeah, yeah. Oh, no, you're the, you're not the opposite. You're like, tell you you should do something. You're like, I'm not going to do it then. Oh, that's true.

As a kid, I was the, tell me I can't do something and I'll, and I'll be like, well, fuck you. But now I've just given up online. But as a kid, you're like, I can't take that ancient Egyptian city? Well, watch me. Watch me take it. But now you're like, you should do this thing. It'll be really fun.

And I'm like, fuck you. How dare you? Now I'll never do that thing I'd probably enjoy. Shut up. So Alexander's like, fine, challenge me. Fool me once? Can't get full again. Whoa.

That was his. Now watch this drive. It took three attempts. Alexander suffered a serious shot. or during some of the city's defense, which pissed him off. But he again broke into the city, killed all the men of military agents, sold all the women and children into slavery. Again, he's not the best guy.

He rolled into Egypt and everyone surrendered and he was crowned Pharaoh. Whoa. This is why you said Egypt at the start. I was like, he was the king of Egypt. By this time, Egypt had fallen under the Persian Empire, and they probably saw Alexander as the liberator from Darius the third, who was the previous Pharaoh. Yeah.

For context as to how long Egypt has been around, it's like hard to fathom really. Chipsut that Matt spoke about recently was Pharaoh over a thousand years before this. And Kufu, also known as Chiops, had built the Great Pyramids over a thousand years before her. Wow. And Alexander lived over 2,000 years before us. Yeah, amazing. Wild. Yeah, that's insane.

So, yeah, he's now Pharaoh. He's Pharaoh. He did some good things as well. For example, he restored the temples, neglected by the Persians and dedicated new monuments to the Egyptian gods. Because he wasn't interested in posing his own ideas of truth, religion or behavior upon the people. As long as they willingly kept the supply lines open to feed and equip his troops, he often let locals rule their own cities. He's like, just don't mess with me and I won't mess with you. Cool.

And whilst in Egypt, he took a bit of time off from fighting to really find himself. This meditation. Got in a jug. Got in a jug. Oh, he found himself all right. Oh, there I am. Oh, there I am. So yeah, he's been on the road for a few years at this time.

He's burnt out. Exactly. He needs a bit of time. So he travelled to the desert in Egypt to consult the oracle of Amun, a god of supposed good counsel. He was supposedly told there that, yes, you are the son of Zeus. Remember that rumor about his mother? So telling the most powerful man in the world that he is a god, yeah, that's going to go to your head. Yeah.

Much like lightning went to her wound. Yes. In his time, Alexander founded many cities. and name many of them after himself, as well as his horse and dog, as I mentioned. Plutarch writes that he founded 70 cities, but it's probably more likely to be closer to a poultry 20, naming them most after himself, the most famous of which was in Egypt, called Alexandria. It still exists as the second most populated city in modern day Egypt with a population

of over 6 million people. He made that city, and that's where the famous library of Alexandria was. But that's a story for another time. 331 BC, Alexander again faced Darius the third on the battlefield. Again, Alexander was outnumbered. Darius had recruited an army from across his empire, probably about 100,000 this time. Huge. He'd recruited the fine...

How many MCGs is that? Matt, how many MCGs? How many did you say? 100,000. That's one MCG. And you've got to... You've got to imagine this MCD full of the finest cavalry, sithed chariots, even 15 elephants supported by Indian archers.

Yeah, mate. It's called Grand Final Day. Yeah. Okay. It's a parade. Look it up. Look it up. It's a big day on the city's calendar, okay?

North Melbourne once had an elephant, I think. I think it was North Melbourne or, or, calm, was it? Pre-game at a time of that an elephant and the elephant got spook by the crowd. Oh, that's sad. Yeah, well, like, so they've got an elephant. I know this is just a small suburban ground. Oh, no. And the elephant was like that.

Oh, no. That's crazy. Yeah, what wild story. I don't think anyone died or anything, but. Is that? elephant needs to fucking try a fucking spoonful of concrete, harden the fuck up. Yeah, man, you're bigger than all of them.

Yeah. Oh, no, I've just seen some ants on the ground. I'm spooked. Yeah. That's the same thing, you idiot. Yeah, but Alexander came along was like, it's just scared of its own shadow. Yeah, let's ride at east.

Keep walking at east. And Alexander said, hey, ants, you can stay here in your little aunt homes, and do it, however you like, as long as you just bow down to me. I'm the great one. We cool? We cool? Put me on your money. Bow down to me, that's it.

Yep. I won't destroy you with a magnifying glass. Let me sat on one of the anthills and his feet didn't touch the ground. So little. He's so small. Facing Darius III, and I'll tell you this, for the final time. On the morning of the battle, Alexander is said to have overslept. Oh, no.

We've all been there. He was that confident. He made sure his men were well-fed, well-rested, which can be said for Darius's men who were awake all night, expecting a night ambush. So they'd been in their armor and battle gear all night ready by the time Alexander took to the battlefield. So they'd been like up half the night spooked. And he's like, oh, okay, I'll get up a final. Well, after a buffet breakfast. We'll do the quiz on the paper. And then, uh, then I guess once everyone's ready, we'll head over.

Everyone finished wordle. No spoilers. No spoilers. Take your time, boys. Take your turn. Our world history.org writes, As Alexander looked across the battlefield towards the Persians, Alexander called out individual soldiers by name, speaking of their bravery and other battles, and asking them again to fight for Macedonia. As he spoke, an eagle,

which is the favourite animal of Zeus, flew overhead and towards Darius. To Alexander, this was another omen of victory. Yeah, it feels really good. And then it flies over and it took his shit onto his... And he's like, yeah, this is... It's going to go off me. So he's getting complacent because he's just like, this is meant to be.

Yeah, he's like, I don't even need to try here. Yeah, I was in bed like 24 minutes ago. Yeah. Again, Alexander commanded the right-hand side. Parmenio commanded the left with the phalanx in the middle. Again, the fighting was brutal. A gap opened up in the middle of Alexander's army. And Darius saw this as an opportunity to smash through it and he sent in his best soldiers.

But it was an Alexander trap. Oh, cheeky. They got smashed. Alexander took his unit and went straight for the centre where Darius himself and the Royal Guard stood. Now without their line of best cavalry protecting them because they'd gone into the trap, he, like, got as close as he could and there's a chance that Alexander himself even threw a spear at Darius. Whoa. As Darius was running away.

As Darius was using his youngest child as a shield. Take her, take her. Need another wharf? I can make more But if you kill me, I can't I can't I'm a wharf maker Darias seeing the danger

Just like he had two years earlier Took off and fled the battlefield Without their leader The same thing happened Many of the troops in the centre gave up And they were chased down as they fled Alexander could have chased down And killed Darius himself

But he heard his right-hand man Parmenio Who was actually on his left side Was being Sorry And that made me laugh You're my right-hand man, yet sometimes you're in front of me, sometimes you're behind me, sometimes you're at your house. I need you, holding my hand. I don't know.

It's a very confusing peric. I don't understand why I call you a right-hand man if you're never in my right-head side. Anyway. So, Alexander took his cavalry over and rescued Parmenia and surrounded the guys who had overcome Parmenio. His right-hand man's got Palm in his name as well. Is that on purpose? I'm just thinking like a Parmesan. I'm just thinking cheese the whole time with this guy.

Oh, I was thinking palmetto or whatever those horses are. Palomino? Palomino. What's the thing I said? I don't think it's a word. It's not anything. I'm picturing those horses. Oh, whatever.

Parmado. The horses. And then I said palomino. Yeah. What did I say? Parmetto sounds like a nice place, though. Imagine that. a pet of palms.

That's nice. So what did I say? Because obviously what I said is also a thing. It's probably also beautiful. Parmeadow or whatever. Pard meadow. That is where I, if I retire one day into a jug, I want that to be situated in a palm meadow.

Wow, beautiful. We'll go find Matt in his jug. So par meadow. Yes. Slash Parmazen. Yes. Slash Palomino. Slash Palomino.

Slash Palomino was rescued by Alexander, but that meant Darius got away. So, Alexander won the battle. Whilst Darius fled, Alexander conquered the famous city of Babylon. Ah, yes, I've heard of it. It's a big deal. Yeah, where'd you hear about it from a Dave Matthews song? Or Dave Gray, one of those two. In the neighborhood of Babylon.

That one. What's that? A river's of Babylon. Yeah. Sublime covered that. I know that. Also, they sing, Boney M.

I was going to say it feels Boney M. Rasputin as well. Yeah. Rastatin as well. I don't know. That's the version I know. I don't know. It seems weird that Sublime would cover Boney M, but maybe.

Crazy things have happened. You and I became friends. I know. No one saw that coming. Rivers of Bevelon is a Rastafari song written and recorded by Brent Dow and Trent McNaughton of the Jamaican reggae group, The Melodians,

in 1970. But it was re-populized. in Europe in 1978 by Boni M. There you go. Love it. And you can also check out the sublime version. Hmm. And then what was I talking about?

Oh, Palominos. Despite basically having control of the whole Persian Empire at this point, Alexander went after Darias, who went on the run for many, many months. Darias himself was finally assassinated by one of his own generals, a guy called Bessus, who then proclaimed himself the king of Persia. And it's like, well, you're not really. And the controls most of it now. Bessus apparently stabbed Darius

and left him bleeding to death on the side of the road and Alexander's men found him dying and he said to have his final words, I love this, I'm not sure if we believe this, his final words were apparently giving thanks to Alexander for looking after his family. That feels right, no, that feels, that feels right. And you smell real good.

And he smells really good. Oh my God, those abs. And I think I just tried to war with him all those times because I was so jealous of him and how good he smelled. I just wanted to be near him. I just wanted to be around him. He was just such a, such a man. Enigmatic force.

Alexander gave him a full king's burial and then went after Bessus. He was pissed that this guy had killed the guy that he was trying to kill. Yeah, he's like, come on man. That was me. I was going to do that. He was mine to kill. I call dibs. On killing him.

Yeah. Well, he did. Alexander eventually caught up with Bessus and had him executed in a horrific way. And yeah, I can't even remember what it was now. But it was horrific. I wrote horrific because I was like, I don't think we need to go into that. Okay, it was that bad. Probably really nasty.

Now I want to know. Paper cups. Oh. Honey and put into one of his many ant kingdoms. To be eaten alive. Sick them boys. Now at the age of just 26, Alexander was king of Macedon. Oh, I'm sorry.

He's 26. He's 26. Okay. King of Macedon, Pharaoh of Egypt and king of Persia, which together is so big. But he kept going. Well, yeah, he's only 26. He got a lot of life to live. He ends up becoming the mayor of Marabin.

He really? He's done it all. He's done it all. Come on down down, guys. We've got heaps of good stuff going on and rubbing this weekend. We've got a town festival. We've got a Battle of the Bands. Body jars headlining.

There were a couple of hiccups along the way, according to History.com. To gain credibility with the Persians, Alexander took on many Persian customs. He began dressing like a Persian and adopted the practice of proscenesis, which was a Persian court custom that involved bowing down and kissing the hand of others depending on their rank. The Macedonians were less than thrilled with the changes in Alexander, and his attempt to be viewed as a deity. They refused to practice proscenesis. They're like, this is weird, man. We don't do this.

Right. And Britannica writes, Macedonian laughter caused the experiment to founder, and Alexander abandoned it. So these Persians are coming in, like, sort of like, bowing at his feet, kissing his feet, kissing his hands. And the Persians are like, Macedonians like, what are these people doing? And then, and he's like, you. Yeah, I know. It's embarrassing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I didn't mean to be treated like a god. I did it because I thought it was funny. Just see them. Oh, my God. Such a good bit I just did. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. And some historians say that Alexander the great bit. Yeah.

New title. So I'm arguing that Alexander had to take on various customs of the different kingdoms he conquered as a way to communicate with and control his subjects. Sort of be like, yeah, yeah, I'm your king. Showing a bit of respect back to the. I do what you do. You know, we know each other now. But it did put him at odds with some of his own men,

and some plotted his death. What? That seems wild. He's shown that he's done like he's pretty good at this game. Yeah, that's right. None better than me so far. Yeah, global monopoly. He is all over it.

He's buying hotels, putting them on top of Park Avenue, etc. Easy, pizzy. Easy. Peasy. Parmenio, your second-in-comer. man had a son called Felotus who was implicated in a plot

against Alexander. Oh my God. The great king subsequently had both Felotus and his father Parmenio killed. And we're not sure if Parmenia was actually

involved in the plot. That's his right-hand man. That's his right-hand man who had been with him the whole way had been loyal to his father, Philip. He was like a...

Much older than Alexander, yeah. Wow. And it'd been like a real figurehead to him. Yeah. This is what I'm telling us the problem. He's done,

he's conquered more. than anyone ever before, but you never, someone's always coming for you. Yeah. Be small. Yeah. No one comes for you for you a little. Lending to the background.

Roll off a cliff. Then obviously get conquered and sold into slavery. Oh yeah, there's no good options back then. No, that's right. You're the smallest person. It's not good either. Our Britannica writes, This ruthless action excited widespread horror,

but strengthened Alexander's position relative to his critics and those whom he regarded as his father's men. All Parmenio's adherents were now eliminated and men close to Alexander promoted. So he got rid of all the old guard that were really loyal to his father just in case. But yeah, it's like you also lose a lot of knowledge and ability. Right. Yeah, they would have been playing their role.

He's thinking, nah, it's me, I'm a god. I'm a literal god. The eagle flew over. Yeah, exactly. Whatever I do, whatever I do, that's what a God would do because I'm a God. So everything I'm doing, I'm nailing it. Even saying this right now.

I'm doing it perfectly. These words in this order is exactly how a God would do. And even when I slipped up earlier and accidentally said the wrong word, that was God. It was God. It was God. I'm God. I'm a God. I'm a God.

Whatever. But that's all of this is part of it. Everything I've said. Even the dog thing. I'm reading God script. Yeah, and Gobb script as well. I love you, Gobb. Unfortunately for his friends, this wasn't the last friend to suffer his wrath.

Cletus. What? It could be Clitus, but I want to call him Cletus. Cletus. Cletus. Another general and close friend of Alexander made fun of Alexander's new Persian persona, and whilst he was drunk, mocked the king a little too much for his liking, and Alexander lashed out and killed Cletus with a spear.

an actor that he later deeply regretted. Yeah, I see he's a bit of an overreact. Yeah, I went too far there. Apparently had quite a temper. Yeah, that has been apparent. Yeah, yeah. But like, and then, like, the rage, the mist drops, and he's like, I've just killed one of my best friends.

We've all done it. You can't judge him. We've all done it. We've all sort of snapped and then gone, oh, I feel a bit silly. Was Cleetus there when the Jugman was sort of giving him no respect? He's like, this guy loves it. He loves it when people don't respect you. He loves a little roast.

Yeah. He's having a bit of fun. Fun amongst friends. Despite these hiccups, Alexander and his army continued on their quest for what now seemed like world domination. On and on and on the troops went into, in modern day terms, they went into Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and even India, conquering everyone along the way. A crazy fact about Alexander the Great is he never lost a battle. Wow. So he just kept winning.

Already. He dies of old age. Wow. Dies of old age, 120 years old. Wow. And he did. He conquered the whole world. Wow.

And you guys don't know much about your conqueror? I know. I'm just realizing I'd recognize that quiff. He's on the back of our coins. Already he had amassed an incredibly huge empire that stretched across three continents and covered about 2 million square miles or 5.2 million. square kilometers. If that was a modern day country, it would be the seventh largest on earth.

After Australia, 7.7 million square kilometers and above India, which is 3.2 million. And now he was in the process of taking over India. It's like he's traveled so far. And by the time he got there, his army, they'd been on the road for almost a decade. And when they left, they didn't know how long they'd been gone for. Certainly not this long and this far away from home. They just kept going thousands and thousands of miles. It's like this wild adventure, but also the conditions had been really, really tough.

Sometimes it was really, really hot, sometimes it was really cold. They went through floods. Sometimes it was perfect. Yeah, it was just right. Sometimes it was like a beautiful holiday. Yeah, it was fantastic. Yeah, walking on the sand. But sometimes it was pretty touching go.

They were in pretty uncharted territory, and some thought they were literally going to find the edge of the earth. That's how far they're traveling. Oh, this is pre-referring. round earth. Theories. Yeah, but before the conspiracy theorists, the round earthers got going. Is that right? Yeah, this is pre.

When is, when does that happen? When's Copernicus and stuff? Much after this. And is Copernicus a person? Yeah, yes. Or is there a type of horse? That's Copernicus with the telescope. When I'm looking up, he lived 1,800 years later than this.

Okay. Close. Wow. About the same. Yeah. 1008 so, that pretty recent. Yeah,

like much closer to us than the... Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, so much. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I get it. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, it's all, you know, it's history.

You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. After winning some battles in the north of India, when the soldiers heard that actually there's heaps more land and plenty more Indian kingdoms to overcome, that had enough. Alexander wanted to keep going,

but for the first time in his life, he faced a revolt. He had officers advise him that we should really go. Alexander was furious, but eventually took their advice and turned back, which in itself was a crazy journey across the desert where he lost a lot of people. He was like, I want to go this way. And they're like, okay, that's across the desert. Yeah, there's a water slide that will take us all the way back.

And it'll be fun. He's like, no, I want to go this way. We're walking through the sand. And I'd be like, well, I'm just going to stay here and wait for a Volta to come and kill me then. When Alexander finally reached the city of Soussa and Persia, he wanted to unite the Macedonians and Persians and he ordered 80 of his officers to marry Persian princesses at a mass wedding.

Britannica writes that he also married 10,000 of his soldiers with native Persian wives who were given generous dowries. And it's at this same mass wedding that he himself married Statera, the daughter of his conquered enemy Darius III. In total, Alexander had three wives, so a lot less than his dad. But he was a bit busier than his dad, I suppose. Yeah. But the Macedonian officers forced into these Persian marriages were, again, pretty unhappy.

And they were even more annoyed when 30,000 Persian youths started receiving Macedonian military training. And the Macedonians already in the army saw these newcomers as a threat to their own privileged positions. Like, you're getting a new army? What about us? Just an extra army, just to keep us, we've got more territory now. Like, it makes sense. It does make sense. But they're like, but we should be the army.

You are the army. Yeah, you are the army. But there's a new army. They're just also army. But they're Persian and we're Macedonian. No, no, we're all. We're all people. He's like, and now you married to them.

That's your wife's family you're talking about. He's saying one world, one love. Yeah. And he's, you know, he's singing by the rivers of Babylon. Everyone now. There was an open mutiny involving all but the royal bodyguard. but when Alexander dismissed his whole army and enrolled Persians instead, the opposition broke down.

They're like, oh, I didn't think you would do that, okay? So they came back. According to History.com, to further diffuse the situation, Alexander returned their titles and hosted a huge reconciliation banquet. So he called their bluff. And they went, okay, yeah, I'll still be in your army. In 323 BCA, Alexander returned to Babylon, and he was reportedly back to Babylon.

scouting out Arabia, which was south of what he had already conquered, when he conquered. Concord. Concord, you love that plane. I am Alexander the Conquard. Concoa. This sentence is going to sound weird now. He'd already conquered when he suddenly fell ill after a prolonged banquet and drinking bout. Okay, well, we've all been sick after eating a drink.

He's hung over. You skipped through him going through a desert and people die. Like, man, a lot of people go. Anyway, I had a tummy ache. And now I'm going to go under the details of it. Yeah, no, I don't need to edit this report at all. It was... One time, he drank too much and he felt a bit shiki-wicky.

It was quite the tummy ache. He was sick for about 10 days with a bad fever. Been there. Yep. And things were not looking good. And because he had no clear succession plan, he was asked to whom he would leave his vast empire and reportedly answered to the strongest.

Oh, my God. Which is a bit too open, Alexander. Yeah. It's kind of, it's beautiful and poetic. Yeah. It is a bad, like, business model. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Come on, if you want to keep it all together.

Yeah. Yeah. And all good things and indeed all great things must come to an end. No. And Alexander the Great died on June the 13th, 323 BCE at around 32, having reigned for 12 years and eight months. Wow. 32. 32.

Finally. Nearly 33. There's a few parallels with Jesus, right? Jesus dies at 33. There's only one story of Jesus from childhood. Like, there's only one story of Alexander from childhood. It's slightly different. His is about riding a horse, and Jesus was upset at people selling stuff.

Isn't that the story? I don't remember that story. I think the only story they have of, I think, is meant to be recorded about, supposedly recorded about Jesus was that someone set up a market in a church. And he's like, what do you do? You can't sell. Hell things. This is God's house.

Is that the lenders in the temple? Is that different? Probably. That sounds like, in my father's house. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'm just wondering if... I set up markets in my father's house all the time. Garland sales.

No, like full farmer's markets. Oh, yeah. Like, yeah. Fresh eggs. Yeah, pigs. Fresh pigs. Fresh pigs. Funny wild.

And how does your father take it? He's like, oh, bloody hell, hell. Do you bloody done it again? Who are all these people, do you? Jess, you moved out years ago and still once a month on a Sunday, you come in here and you bring in... It's crazy. Oh, those flowers are quite nice. Jeez, all these prices are marked to go.

He's actually in on it. He's like, you're basically giving this stuff away. I'm sure this would be the last ever market we ever have here. Closing down sale. When I say I hold a market in my father's house, I say my dad and I have ran a, we run a market. That's a father's market. It's a father's market. It's Perkinson's.

son. He wanted a boy. Son crossed out or whatever. Or Jess, if that's all, we've got left. My son moved to Queensland and now I'm just stuck with this one. So, yeah, I'm afraid. Did you know that he, do you know anything about his death? Did you know that he was going to die? You joked before about living to 120. Did you have a feeling? Well, when you said that he never lost in battle, I'm like, I guess he's going to either get taken out or died.

You had a feeling he would die. Yeah, because he was from thousands of years ago. in. You were great. What a child. Al. I loved it. Al. Can I call you Al?

Al. Let me be the first to Persian kiss you on the hand, mate. I'll do whatever you like, man. I don't care. I'm going to call him Zander. I like it. I like it. No, not if Alexander's choose Zander.

Yeah, that's true. No, me? Like, of the options. Yeah, Zander's good. Alex, blech. I've seen a million of them. I had an uncle Lex. That was pretty good.

It's pretty good. Yeah, but like Lex is Lex Luthor, Zander's, Zander, Alan, the Melbourne comedian. Yeah, yeah. Okay, there's Zander Cage, Triple X. Oh, and there's also Zander from Buffy. Yes. Oh, yeah. Okay, that's got to be Zander.

Yeah, yeah. So. Hmm. Zander from Buffy. I don't think he's ever been described as cool before. Wow. If he's listening, he is loving that. He's feeling pretty good about this.

So, Alexander, he died. His death has been the centre of much speculation for over 2,000 years. Was he poisoned? Some say he might have had malaria or drunk contaminated water and just got sick from that. There are lots of diseases and fevers that could kill you back then. It was quite easy to die back then. Yeah, for sure. I would have loved it.

So many options. Halfiel work's already done. What's that slight infection? All right, well, I'll just lie here and wait to die. Tifoyed and meningitis have also been. mention. And some people are like, yeah, it was, or did he just drink too much? Yeah, yeah. A lot of options. Like, he could have been, yeah, assassinated. I've heard some historians say, I can't remember who I heard say this, that he's like, well, if he was poisoned, I don't think it,

I don't think it was poisoning because he was alive for 10 days afterwards and not that many poisons take that long to kill him. Yeah, true. But like, fevers or malaria or illness is more likely to do that. But there's probably be other people that say, no, there is a poison that can be. That's the slow burning poison. Yeah. the 10-day poison. Alexander, like we said, had left no succession plan and had no obvious or legitimate air, and he just said, cryptically, to the strongest.

His son by his wife, Roxanne, was born after Alexander's death, so she was pregnant when Alexander died, and they named the son Alexander IV. There was support for both baby Alexander the fourth and Alexander's half-brother, Philip Araddeus, who mentioned at the start of the report, probably had learning difficulties, and they were actually appointed joint kings, albeit in name only, as there was a big power struggle going on between Alexander's generals,

many of whom were lifelong friends he grew up with. I mentioned them at the start of the report as well, and they were referred to as the diatici, and that translates as successes. So they weren't called that at the time. It was only after he died that they said to be called the diatici. And there were lots of rival assassinations, including Alexander the great son,

Alexander IV, was eventually murdered, So was his brother, Philip Aridaeus, and Alexander's mother, Olympius, was also murdered. Jesus. When Alexander the Greater was out conquering, she'd done a lot of ruling from Macedonia. So she was a very skilled and powerful person, and, you know, people trying to grab the throne, we're like, we've got to get rid of her. Yeah. She knows what's what.

40 years of civil war between the Diatiki ensued before the Hellenistic world settled into three stable power blocks. The Ptolemaic Kingdom, founded by. Ptolemy in Egypt. He was one of Alexander's lifelong friends and generals. The Seleucid Empire founded by Seleucus in Syria and the Middle East. Antiginid took over Macedonia, founding the Antiginid dynasty. And Lysamicus founded the kingdom of Lysamicus, which included the famous city of Thrace. And a lot of these dynasties lasted centuries in their own right, much longer than Alexander was able to hold on to power himself. We've spoken about the Ptolemy's in Egypt before. report topic. Cleopatra was from the Ptolemaic kingdom a few hundred years later and was its last

active ruler. She was later. Yeah, about 300 years later. She was the last of the Ptolemy's. Which was, so her great, great, great, great, great, great, grandfather was Alexander's general. I had a Ptolemaid account when I was a kid. I think. Is that the same thing? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What do I say? Yeah. What did I say? What I say? What a tale? Yeah, so he was gone. And through his generals and their descendants, his impact was felt for centuries. His campaigns had greatly increased contact and trade between East and West, and vast areas to the East were significantly exposed to Greek civilization and influence for the first time. His expedition and his own personal interest in scientific investigation brought many advances in the knowledge of geography and natural history.

Like I said, some of them thought they were going to find the edge of the world. And they're like, oh, there's people here, like lots of them. Yeah, wow. History.com writes, His influence on Greek and Asian culture was so profound that it inspired a new historical epoch called the Hellenistic Period, which is usually classified as being between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BCE and the death of the aforementioned Cleopatra in 30 BCE. So there you go.

Book ended by two of our report topics now. During the Hellenistic period, Greek cultural influence reached its peak in the Mediterranean and beyond. Prosperity and progress in the arts, literature, theater, architecture, music, mathematics, philosophy, and science characterize the era. Greek became the lingua franca in these places, making it easier to trade and communicate. It's like, hey, we all speak Greek now. It's all great to me. It's a much more open world.

Which is something. We all speak. Phrase meant something very different back then. Britannica gives him a big rap writing, it is not untrue to say that the Roman Empire, the spread of Christianity as a world religion, and the long- centuries of Byzantium were all in some degrees the fruits of Alexander's achievement. Of course, I should say that these things weren't stuff he set out to do. They'll just buy products of his drive to basically ruthlessly take over the world and conquer everyone. But he also influenced future generals and world conquers who are inspired by him, including

two very powerful Romans, Pompey, who also called himself Pompey the Great. He apparently adopted Alexander's haircut as a tribute. This is like... As you have done. Is that where the pompadour comes from? Maybe I'm not sure. Whoa. We're looking to that. He also wore a cloak that he claimed Alexander himself for, so he was very much trying to be him.

Three centuries later. There's stories of Pompey's contemporary, Julia Caesar, weeping in a statue of Alexander because Alexander had achieved so much more than him. It's weeping in a statue. Yeah, it's full on. I don't go to the MCG and stand at the statues. Warnies. He took so many more international wickets than me.

I'm there at Ron Barassi. Much better mustache than I'll ever have. And it continued on Napoleon Bonaparte 2,000 years later, set sail for Egypt to establish an Eastern Empire so he could emulate Alexander the Great. Wow. Which is crazy. Yeah. It's like, yeah, he must be looking down from wherever he is going.

Guys, this is embarrassing. Chill the fuck out. You're not me. You'll never be me. Do your own thing. Yeah. It's cool. Is that why not.

Napoleon sort of known as being short, even though he wasn't. He's trying to be... Trying to be short. He wanted to be seen as short. He was walking around on his knees a lot. He's actually very tall. Oh, I guess you'll have to bring in the stool because my feet aren't on the ground. Napoleon, you clearly... You're fine, man.

You're quite tall. Yeah. A figure mentioned in both the Bible and the Quran is often interpreted as being Alexander. Such is his influence and notoriety. Who knows how much more of the world he would have conquered if he hadn't suddenly died so young. In a decade, he had conquered one of the largest empires of the ancient world. But that's my report on Alexander the Great, which by the way, he probably wasn't called great in his lifetime, but started being called that after his death.

Probably the Romans started referring to him as Alexander the Great. But we all know him as that. And yeah, his, his, myth lives on. He was known as Alexander the Fragrant. I just wish, I mean, if I could have a time machine and do one thing, it would be to go back in time, get a quick whiff, and then get back in the time machine and come back to tell you all. That is what you would use. use a time machine.

Yes. You'd sniff the quiff. Hashtag, sniff the quiff. We're bringing the hashtags back. Yeah, it's time. It's time. Thank you for that, Dave, because, yeah, for such a famous person and a well-known name, I knew none of that.

Absolutely. Not a single little skerick of it was familiar to me at all. And that's the point of this podcast. If you told the story of him being like, A 16th century Russian. Yeah, I'd be like, oh yeah. Nice. Da, da.

Yeah, yeah. I thought that was. That was one of the four options he did. Was he Russian? Or if you were like, it was actually the 1700s, I'd be like, uh-huh. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That feels right. BC or the other one.

Yeah, that feels close and but far away. He was on the first fleet. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Discovered Australia. Convict, sole life of bread. He was a combat. I would have believed it. So actually, I don't know if anything we just heard is true.

Where do you lie to us, Dave? Have we just walked into a classic Alexander the Great Trap? All right, I'll start the report. No. The real report now. No, I'll die. Like I said, a lot of it could be mythologised because, like, you know, he thought he was a bit of a god.

And also it's so long ago. But, like, he, there's no doubt that he conquered such a big swath of land. It's crazy. Some of his direct quotes and quips. Yes. But I love them. I can't leave out. And it's like, well, I too would do that of our Parmenio. But I am Alexander.

If I was a little bitch, that's what I'd do. Totally. No, I fully get it Parmeny. Because if I was like a little tiny baby and like a little woozy bitch, yeah, that's what I would do. It does feel a bit like so like in 2000 years time if people are talking about. Us. Look at Richard the third and none of the actual contemporary stuff survived. But then they just base it on what Shakespeare wrote in his plays.

And then he said, it's like, he probably didn't. But it's fun. Yeah. And he's a wild, a wild figure. They're basing Queen Elizabeth, our current queen, Elizabeth II, her life on the crown. Yeah, yeah, watching it going, it was exactly like that. And then they picked a bit of fluff off his jumper and the other guy was like, oh my God, they must be having an affair because that's a very intimate thing to do.

That's how it was back then. The highest form of intimacy was taking fluff off someone's jumper. They called it fluffing. All right, that brings us to everyone's favorite section of the show where we get to thank some of our, I'm going to say it, some of our great supporters. Okay, okay. Oh my God, Patreon the Great. Yeah, I think each and every one of them. I don't get it.

You could name them that. I think they're all fantastic. I love them all. I'd have them all as my wives. I know Darrell had six. Dennis. Dennis had six. Philip.

Philip had six. I'm going to have all of them if they want. Okay. Obviously, you've got to opt in. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Because then when me and all of the patron supporters of the show go on a battle, we'll all fight really hard because we don't want to embarrass each other.

Playing the long game there. Exactly. But yeah, Dave, what's this section of the show? We take 20 to 40 minutes depending on how silly Jess is feeling. and then we just really thank some of these great supporters. Yeah, that's right. These people that already support the show and get bonus content like bonus episodes.

We put out for a month now, including our Dungeons and Dragons campaign, which is rocketing along, and people are giving us a lot of great feedback. And we're going to continue it next year over the new season. You get access to the Facebook group, which is one of the loveliest places on the internet. And pre-sell tickets, discount tickets.

We're going to send out our Christmas card. so hopefully you've signed up. You want one of those cards. And, yeah, basically, you also get to know that you support the show, which is hopefully a nice thing to know. And we also shout out to some of our people, as well as invite them into the fact quota question, Matt, which... Yeah, I think it has a jingle go, something like this.

Fact quote or questions... D-de-he always remembers the ding. She always remembers the quiver. Vibrato. That was one of the best I've seen. Thanks. Yeah. That was up there with Belinda Carlyle.

Thank you so much. Oh my God. That means so much to me. Wow. One of the best quivers in the game. Oh, my, well, heaven is a place on it. Oh, yeah. Heaven is a place in my ears when Jess is singing.

Thank you so much. So, yeah, people get to give us a fact, a quote or a question. If they're on the Sydney-Schenberg level or above, if you want to get involved in any of this stuff, go to Patreon. Go on Pod. But yeah, get to give us a fact, quote, or question, brag, suggestion, really, whatever you like. You also get to give yourself a title. I'm going to read out three this week. These are blocktastic.

facts, quotes and questions. Oh yeah. First one comes from Andy Swibs. Swibsy. Swibsy. Swibzy. Swibzy. Whose title is Monday.

Totally. Okay. Yeah. You feel in a bit Monday. I get it. And Swibs's got a suggestion. Writing, I've just moved across the country and things have been awesome in mine and Hoogie's

new home. Hoagie's wife. Right. Previously where Chicago dwellers is right? That's right. Good memory. Yes. That's correct.

Wow. Brother works in Gary. He's a cop in Gary. or fireman and Gary, something like that. We're giving away a lot of swabs details here, but we're docks in twigsy. All is amazing here. She is still the shit. However, that's not a bad one.

Hoogsy the shit. That's nice. That's a good example of a cogs minimum. Yeah. However, work has been slow for me on the engineering front for the past month or so, and I feel like I'm in a perpetual state of Monday. when it comes to work. So this is more so me asking for a suggestion than me giving one. I've taken up watercolour painting and I'm really loving it, especially with how work has been slow. It

helps me get grounded. However, I seem to have not found my style yet. I find myself painting and drawing things similar to my partner and friends of mine who are all incredible artists. So I wanted to see if we could get a few suggestions of things I can try painting and drawing to help me find my style by try and error. I've got painters block. I will try to be on top of this so I can make a post on the Facebook group, the friendliest corner of the internet. Lovely.

When it comes out, otherwise, whoever beats me to it, I'd love to get a thread with everyone's input. P.S., today is also my one-year anniversary of marriage to the one and only Hoogsy. Oh my goodness. And I wanted to just squeeze in and say, I fucking love you. Cheers. That's not. Was that for us?

It doesn't say Who Woods, too. Loves us. That's so nice. Thanks for saying that on your anniversary. Thank you. Yes. That means a lot actually. Yeah, I mean, it's a big day for us too. You're probably seeing Hoogsie and you can say it to her in person. I would hope so. It's nice to know that there's room enough for all of us in this marriage. Yeah. What's a what's a five-way thruple? Is that just what it's called? A five-way throuple? I think they call it a Philip the second. Oh, yeah.

Philip Massage the second. So what do you think? What should Swabsie be painting? I know Swabsie took me out to the Guinness Factory and Brewery in Chicago, I'd love to see a watercolor painting of a pint of Guinness with the, you know how it does that color thing going up? Oh, is it? You pour it, do the double pour and then it slowly moves up. I want to see it where it's sort of like, it's in a state of flux, it's happening.

It's moving. What do you reckon about that? I love that. I think that's beautiful. I think that's art. Yeah. And here's the thing too. Isn't art just like getting inspiration from other places and other things and other people?

That's how people find their stuff for sure. Nobody has an original idea. So the fact that you're like, oh, I'm painting like my wife and our friends who are great artists. Yes. Well, what an honour to them. The Beatles were trying to do blues. I mean, you'd rather paint like a great artist than a bad artist. Yeah, yeah.

You're going to copy someone good. Copy the greats. Yep. Any suggestions that are on what to paint, though? Just subjects or styles. Dogs Oh, you love a dog Love dogs

Yeah Paint my dog Love cats Um We don't love cats And also I'm not sure if this You want this to be a lucrative

thing or it's just an artistic thing But a great way to make money as an artist Dogs Dog I'll pay for a patty of my dog Yeah Yeah Okay you have to tell you we've got a Guinness We've got a dog

What about, you know Still life classically It's just a fruit ball But often you see You see a pear Yep You see an orange See an apple

What about the more exotic fruits? Okay. Dragon fruit. Dragon fruit. Pomeran. Mango steams. Star fruit. Starfruit.

Yeah. So, still a life of more exotic fruits. Yep. Love it. Get a few different colors in this, Wobsy. We love, we love color. Yeah. We love big and color in our art, don't we?

Huge, yeah. The bigger the better for them. I love big splodges of color. Yeah. Circles. Just make a big painting of circles. Yep. With colors.

Oh, I love colors. What do they say? artist, copy, great artist, steal. That's what they say. I think, and that's how they, you know, provide for themselves to buy their shoplift. And they sell the proceeds and buy paints with it. That's right. Swabsie, thank you so much for checking in.

Looking forward to seeing these arts of work. What a trip titch that will make. Yeah, and thank you for congratulating us on our anniversary. Yeah. We love you too. And Hoogsie as well. Yeah. Hoogsy the shit.

Yeah. This three-way, this five-way thruple is mutual. Yeah. Michael de Rizzi is coming in next. I'm a little behind listening to the pod because I've been a bit obsessed with my country's election, but I'm trying to catch up in time for Block. Well, God damn it, Michael, it is Block. You're right in the middle of it here.

Anyway, he's offered a quote saying, oh my God, I think I might know vaguely the voice. I can't do impersonations, but see if you can guess it. In Springfield, they're eating the dogs. The people that came in, they're eating the cats. the dogs. They're eating the pads of the people that live there. Oh yeah, that wasn't. They're in the dogs. Yeah. They're eating the geese. Uh, he says, that was from a 78 year old, senile piece of shit. Now, I will say, of course, that 50% of our audience are fierce Trump supporters and they might not like that characterization. But I'm just reading the words on the page.

That's right. We're just having fun of their voices here. Yeah. We're not censoring anyone. No. And I think the 50% of our. audience who are big Trump fans will certainly I'll appreciate that. I'll accept that Michael can say his two cents. That's democracy. That's right. This is the land of the free.

That's right. Podcast world. Thank you very much for that, Michael. That is one of the funniest quotes in politics for some time. So funny. They're reading the dogs. I mean, almost anything he says is pretty fun. I saw a little clip and I couldn't find it yet.

I wanted to send it to you, but it was these two Irish comedians probably doing a podcast. and they're just doing, they're quoting it back and forward. And what I was like, it kind of sounds like he's doing Dr. Seuss. They're reading the dogs. They're in the cats. They're eating the people that don't have any hats. It was a bit of fun. Thank you, Michael.

Next one comes from Nate Ramirez. Ramirez. I'm Ramirez. Okay. Seashore, seashell seller. And Nate has a brag writing. Hello, Matt, Jess and Dave. I'm not sure if this fits under the brag category.

but it seemed appropriate. My dad was a firefighter for the last 30 years. Can you guess the number of the final station that he worked at? It's a two-digit number. Is it 69? Dave, do you want to have a guess? Is it 68? Jess.

Close as that going over. Jess, you are correct. Yes. On this episode, 269, no, 4669. Wow. Wow. That is magic. That is not planned.

That is not planned. I don't read this or read them. And we're only 2,000 episodes away from 2469. Oh my God. Yes. I tell you what? 2,000 episodes. Just a poultry, 2,000?

We can't do that, right? Do we have enough weeks in our lives? I don't know. And Matt doesn't. We might have to bump it up to like three episodes a day. Yeah. No, I can't. I think that's about 40 years or something.

I'm busy. We could probably make you and I, Jessica, make 40 years. He's not making 40 years. Are you kidding me? I'll outlive you all. It's so true. It's so true. Thank you.

Jess will give her way before you. In the Water Wars, Jess is rolling off and I'm tired to her for some reason. Stop tying yourself to me. Thank you so much to Nate, Michael and Andy. Next thing we like to do is shout out to a few of our other fantastic supporters. Jess normally comes up with a game. Yeah. So what's the word, Dave?

The Cog cinnamon. C-O-M-M-C-O-G. N-O-M-E-N. Okay, I want to get some examples of cognomens. We're going to give them cognomans. There's a Wikipedia list if you want to... I don't want your help. How about I read out the names?

Dave, you say the-the. Thank you for including me in this. Or you read out the names and I say the-da because I reckon I can do that. It's up to you. What do you prefer to do? I've been talking a lot. I'm happy to say the. All right.

Jess, you ready? No. Well, let me explain briefly while Jess is finding. I'm trying to find one. So I'm going to read out nine names. These people have been supporting us for a little while on the shoutout level or above, which I believe is called the arse prod level, but any level above that, you also get a shout out. And yeah, I'm going to read out the name.

Dave's going to say the, Jess is going to say. I'll just make it up. All right. So here we go. I just love it. First up, from Address Unknown, which we can only assume means there from Dig Within the Fortress of the Moles. please and thank you to

Golia Jones I'm going to see if it's Julia Jones I've never seen Julie a spell like that but that doesn't mean it's That's the Italian way You're all supposed to Italian Yeah

Italian doesn't have the letter J in it Anyway Golia Well so named Jones Yeah Jones is an Italian Ready for this? Yes

The Little Julia Jones the Little How close to Halloween is this coming out Because that's a perfect one Sorry Julia That's like John Carlo and stuff Yeah

St John Next up also from address unknown I guess right there with Julia In the Fortress of the Moles Oh my God, how's this for a name? Please and thank you to Richard Judge Dick Judge Dick Judge the mouse

Okay Dickie Judge the mouse That's so good third in a row completing a trip ditch of mole people. Please and thank you to Lena Holes. Lena Holes, the... The Swiss. Like Swiss cheese has holes in it.

Yeah, yeah. The Swiss. I like that a lot. Lena Holes, the Swiss. Am I doing it, right? You're doing it fantastic. Yeah, yeah. I mean, one of them was the cabbage.

And that's a historical figure who was like in charge of people. Cabbage. The cabbage. The cabbage. Small hands. smell like cabbage. What's that from? Austin Powers or something.

Maybe, yeah. There's a kid at school who quoted a lot of Mike Myers. Right. And he said that cabbage, why not? Smell like cabbage. Small hands. It is awesome. From North Hampton in Great Britain.

Please and thank you to Freya Davies. Wow, that's a sick name. That's great. Freya Davies. The apple. Oh, yeah. The apple. That's way better than cabbage.

Yeah. Yeah, you'd rather be an apple than a cabbage. Yeah. From Dublin, we'll see you soon. In Ireland, it's Malcolm LaRourour. Malcolm LaRour, the... Crusher. Oh, my God.

That's awesome. It's the Irish Nick Cody. That was... Isn't it going? Yeah. He named Crusher, yeah. From Selbridge in Ireland. Please and thank you, Adam Leach.

Adam Leach, the... The... The... Harpoon. Oh, I love the word harpoon. I put on my list of words I like. Okay. Short list.

Cool. It's harpoon and plop. Like a harpoon. Do you like that song? Chebert-a-s song? Like a harpoon. No, I love your impression of it. I don't know if it, and then it was covered by something for Kate, so I don't know which version I'm doing.

I think I'm doing the. That feels Paul Dempsey one. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. It did feel. Um. From Belfast.

Oh, my God. Lots of Irish listeners. What would we do in that week? In, I think maybe we were putting our Irish. Pre-sailer. Yes. From Belfast in Belfast in Craverton. It's David Tennant.

Well, David Tenant, the doctor. Oh my God. Which I'm sure David gets never, and it's never tedious or boring or annoying. Sure, it's always funny. Alternative, the landlord. No. Flipping it on its head there. No.

It's mine. It's my thing. In Scotland. Will you read your funny little names? And when I say it's, I mean, please and thank you, to Sophie Skilling. Sophie Skilling, the... Professor. Oh, that's a good one.

Thank you. Yeah, I really like that. I'd want that one. Upskilling. Yeah, yeah. On a recent episode of primates, I did Bedtime for Bonzo. And Ronald Reagan's dad in it was a career criminal whose a criminal name was the professor. I like that.

Which is a pretty sick... That's pretty cool. Pretty sick name. And a fantastic bit of cinema. And finally from Musselburr. Musselbrough. Yeah, probably Musselboro. Mussel burr.

Mussel burr. In Great Britain. Pleasing thank you to Heather Johnson. Heather Johnston, the gossip. Oh, yeah. That's a good one too. Thank you. And hopefully, I'm guessing maybe we'll see a lot of you at the live shows coming up to

Heather, Sophie, Adam, David, Malcolm Freyer, Lena, Richard and Gullia, Julia, Julia. What's Julia Gullia? That's an Adam Sandler. Shanman. Finally we do the Triptage Club. We've got six inductees this week. Dave, you want to quickly explain to us what the Triptage Club is? This is our Hall of Fame, our Clubhouse,

where we inducted people that have been on the shoutout level or above for three consecutive years and to say, hey, thank you so much for your support. We've already given you a shout out a couple of years back, but now we're going to enshrine you forever by welcoming you into the clubhouse. We have a big ceremony. every week we welcome new people in and inside there's games there's people there's stories to tell there's all sorts of things and i can't wait i think we're going to be doing this live in leeds which i'm actually i'm really pumped for i think it would be so much fun live i can't wait to see just

just work like you already it feels like you perform this section of the show to me and dave i can't imagine what you'll do in front of hundreds of people i think it's going to be fantastic i don't know i'm pretty shy And you're behind the bar, Jess? What are you working on? I put me on a stage and I just, oh, I get all, I get all shy. Oh, what do I say? Oh, what are words?

Behind the bar? Yeah. You'll never believe it. I, because we were talking about this just before. Yeah. But I just got a shipment of beautiful Hawaiian macadamias. Oh, my God. I didn't know they were ours.

Yeah. Like, we could just get them here. I got them from bloody Hawaii, but they're gorgeous. Oh, probably made by the Dolf Company. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, who were not problematic at all. No, no, no. A beautiful history on the island.

Yeah, I think the whole history of Europeans in Hawaii. Very positive. Yeah, as far as I know. As far as I know. All right, so, six names. Oh, Dave, have you booked a band for the after party? Oh, my gosh, you're never going to believe it. What?

You will never believe this. What? I have booked an Aussie band this week. Why? I've been attempting them to reform for a long, long time. The Great Sahia. Whoa. They're great.

Patience. Yeah, known for? 19, 2020, 1920, 19, 2020. Oh, yeah, so good. That's the one I can remember. Gravity can't get you high. I'm looking forward to, is that another one of those songs? I think it was one of their albums.

Oh. I had a few of their albums. Gravity won't get you high 2006. And they'll be playing that in full. They just emailed. We were too young, so we didn't know. Yeah, that was big triple J band. We couldn't listen to music in 2006.

We were too little. Oh, my God. We were still basically in the womb with Zeus hitting our four. mother's womb. That's too little. All right, so six names into the Triptage Club. Here we go.

On this, the 416 names. Oh, imagine this. People getting behind. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, imagine the hype. We'll actually be doing it live. It's going to be sick. It's going to be crazy. But we will make everyone in the crowd

who's not in the Triptage Club already leave. That's right. It's very exclusive. All right. So Dave, are you ready? Dave's going to hype them up. He's sitting on the stage. He's the MC.

I'm on the door. I've got the door list. About to read out six names. If you hear your name, run on in. All the other, I think thousand plus members of the Drip Ditch Club will be chanting along. Just will be holding Dave's, but just to make sure he feels safe.

I don't hold his butt. I just have my hand. Nassel between the cheeks. There's no, there's no, quix. Betwixt the cheeks. No, no, no. King asses. King asses.

All right. Are you ready, Dave? I'm ready. From Ridgehaven, which is what Jess calls her spot on. It is quite the haven. In South Australia, please and welcome Lauren Boyle. It never feels like toil

when I'm talking to Lauren Boyle. From North Miami Beach in Florida, it's Daniel Carraway. I get carried away every time I see Daniel. From Parkville here in Melbourne, Victoria, it's Simon Windley. That's a silent D on Windley. Simon Winley.

Yeah. From Sigel Farrier. You've nailed that. In Iceland, it's Mossie. Again, having a bit of gossie with Mossie. From a rising sun in maybe Maryland in the United States and Shelby. Tell me more, no, tell me more, Shelby, more, you know, something like that. Yeah, yeah, that's good stuff.

Woo! The first name is harder sometimes. We did it. Some had the car. Back yourself, it's good stuff. Shelbyville, yeah, I love you. From Mariamer my cousin. Elgin in Moray.

in Great Britain Jenna Morrison More like 10 out of 10 of Morrison Woo! Welcome, Jenna, Shelby,

Mossy, Simon, Daniel and Lauren make yourselves at home. Please grab a macadamia nut and get ready

to enjoy the greats. Probably one of the best bands Dave was booked in quite a while. Can't wait to see the grades. Yeah.

Huge. I'm excited. I can't remember who I books last week, but surely they were great. I'm sure they were. Yeah.

In their own way. I don't book any bad. bad ones. That's right. Hey Dave, we are done. But we got, what have we got? Six, five more block weeks ago? Six more blocks to go. Can you believe it? And they're only heating up. Yes. Something getting bigger, bad or better from here. Jess, anything we need to tell people before we go? No. Well, if Jeff doesn't, I'd love to tell you to sign up to our mailing list, our tour mailing list. Follow us on social media. We're putting up videos. Do go on pod. Do go on podcast on TikTok, but everywhere else I think it's too gone on pod. Dave, boot this baby home.

We'll be back next week with the sixth most votable topic of Block 24. But until then, I'll say thank you so much for listening. And goodbye. Bye. Don't forget to sign up to our tour mailing list so we know where in the world you are and we can come and tell you when we're coming there. Wherever we go, we always hear six months later, oh, you should come to Manchester.

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