Predictive History - The Story of "Civilization", "Secret History", "Game Theory" and more - Civilization #11 - The Greatness of Philip II of Macedon

Episode Date: October 7, 2025

Civilization #11 - The Greatness of Philip II of Macedon

Okay, so today we will be discussing how Greek culture spread around the world and how it can dominate the Western world and became the basis of Western civilization. Now, normally Westerners understood this process as one of the fusion, meaning that Greek civilization was the best, and so everyone wanted access to it. So it spread because Greek civilization was the best. Historically, that's not true. What happened was that Greek civilization spread for a process of conquest, primarily by Alexander the Great. So the question I want to answer today is, how did Exxon of the Great conquer the world?

Because Exxon of the Great himself is not Greek. He's Macedonian. So he's like a close cousin, but he's not considered culturally Greek. He's from a place called Macedon, which is north of Greece. And for most of its history, Macedon, the kingdom of Macedonia, was poor, it was weak, it was divided. So how was it possible that Macedon, the kingdom of Macedon, would conquer the world and not Sparta or Athens, which for most of it?

of Greek history were the dominant powers. So for me to explain what happened, I need to explain to you two thought experiments. So we're going to do two thought experiments to develop the ethical tools in order to better understand the process of military conquest. So let's do a thought experiment. There's a father and there's a son, okay? And they're both business people. They start a business.

The father starts with nothing and he makes $10 million, okay? Which is a great accomplishment. The son takes his business and expands it, okay? 10 million dollars, the inheritance, into 10 billion dollars. Okay? And this happens a lot. So who is the most more impressive, the two, the father and the son? The father is more impressive because he started with nothing, right?

It's much harder to build something from nothing than it is to expand something. The problem though is that we, in society and history, in the media, we celebrate the sun because $10 billion is a lot of money. Does that make sense? So it's a father who does all the work and builds the organization and the capacity for growth. It's a son who expands it and gets all the credit, okay? And this happens a lot in history. Now what we're going to do is we're going to think about the qualities of a father and

a son that allow them to succeed, okay? So what can we say about the father? How are we able to build a great business? He is what? And the first one we can say is he is innovative, right? meaning he has a new idea that allows him to capture markets. Now it's possible that he stole the idea, but that also shows that he has wisdom and judgment, right?

So he's innovative or he has wisdom and judgment. Okay, doesn't make sense. That's the first major quality of the father. very innovative, okay, or he's wise and has good judgment. Second quality about the father we can say is that he's a very effective manager of people. Okay? Because remember, he has nothing. So he has to build loyalty among his workers.

He has to find workers, he has recruit workers, and he has to make them work hard for him. Right? So what can he do to find good workers and ensure they work hard for him and build a business? Why would you want to go work for someone and work hard for him? Well, they pay you good money, but a lot of people pay you good money. What's different about this business? Good, okay. So the vision, right?

Or the dream. So the business has a vision and a dream that compels you. Okay? You see the potential for growth. Okay, so not only is a father innovative, but he's also a visionary. He's a dreamer and that's what attracts you to him. Okay, the other thing is that he's fair, meaning that he promotes talent, right? You want to work for someone who will treat you fairly, who will be honest with you. So if you work hard, he'll tell you while you're working really hard, thank you much, okay?

But if you're not working so hard, then he might give you some feedback on how to improve. That's very hard to do because normally what do we humans want to do? So a good boss would promote talent and most people would do what? Promote his or her friends, right? Promote people that they like, promote people who suck up to them, okay? That's the natural human instinct. So in other words, the father, he's almost a very much. like selfless. He's always thinking about the greater good, which is really the company or the

business, right? So he's going to work harder than everyone else. If you come to work at seven o'clock in the morning, he'll come at, he'll come in at six o'clock. If you leave at 10 o'clock at night, he'll leave at midnight, okay? He's always working harder than you to show that he is the most loyal to the company, and that's what makes you loyal to the company as well. Okay, does that make sense? So these are the three distinct qualities of a good business person, a good founder, innovative, a good manager of people by sharing the vision, by communicating the vision, and by being feared people, by promoting talent, okay?

And also selfless, very disciplined, okay? We'll work very hard in order to achieve the greater good to ensure the company succeeds. Now it turns out that these personality traits are consistent with extremely successful people. So when we study other great leaders, for example, Ganga Khan, Mohammed, then we will recognize they all share very similar personality traits. And I want you to remember the three distinct qualities that make them great world leaders, The first is they are strategic to the point of visionary. This means they have a vision of what the world should be, and then they have a long-term plan

on how to achieve that, okay? They're very strategic. The second thing is they are innovative to the point of revolutionary. Okay? So what they understand is if you want to change the world, you must destroy the status quo. You must change the way society is structured, okay? And they're willing to do that, even though they know it'll be a very bloody process involving lots of wars, okay? There's a second quality that they have that's different from everyone else. The third quality is they are extremely disciplined to the point of selfless. They are fanatical and obsessed with achieving their vision.

They won't eat, they won't sleep until they achieve their vision. For them, it's all about achieving the vision and the greater good as opposed to personal happiness. Does that make sense? So this is a pattern that we'll see over and over again where the great world leaders that have changed history forever have possessed these three distinct qualities that make them unique of their time. And so Genghis Khan, Muhammad are two examples, but also like Napoleon and Julius Caesar.

Basically all the great world conquerors in human history have these similar characteristics. Does that make sense? Now the sun is very different. Okay? So if the father succeeds because he is innovative, why does the son succeed? No, he's not actually. How do you transform $10 million into $10 billion if your business person? What must you do? You must be aggressive, right? You're aggressive risk taker. The father is not a risk taker because he has no opportunities to take risks, okay? So the example here is you have $10 million. You can go to a

bank and say, I have a great business, can you lend me a billion dollars so I can buy out my competitors? Okay? Now, when you do that, that's risky, but that's how you expand very quickly, right? So the first thing about the son that's very different from the father is he succeeds by taking risk that no one else are willing to take, okay? That's the first thing. Who does he promote? His father promotes talent. Who does he promote? Who does he want around him? exactly he wants his friends okay so he's gonna promote loyalty all right if you listen to him if you're obedient to him if he likes you then he will promote you okay the father's very different the father will not do that because if you do

that that's gonna hurt the internal structure of your company right and the father is selfless what does a son care about what drives him what does he really care about what so the father is motivated to build a great company right he wants to achieve his vision what drives the son usually it's the idea of personal glory okay he's very selfish you understand he wants to be remembered he wants to be famous he wants to be admired and respected okay the father cares about the vision the son cares about the personal glory why would the son put personal glory first and first think about psychology what drives him what does

he want to prove exactly exactly you understand he's great and his father it's insecurity because everyone will say to him you are where you are because your father built a great organization so for him he must prove he's better than the father by expanding and by winning glory for himself Does that make sense? And again, we will see this pattern in human history all the time. And I want you to remember this, because this describes perfectly the relationship between Philip, the second of Macedon,

the men who actually built the greatest military in the world, and action of the great, who will take this army, the greatest army in the world, and conquer Persia. Okay? Does that make sense? all right so over the next two classes I will show you

Philip how this relationship between the father and son describes very well the personalities of Philip and Alexander okay all right

does that make sense okay so and this repeats itself throughout history this makes sense to you right you will see this in life you will see this throughout history Now, the other thing I want us to look at, another thought experiment is, for our history, what we discovered is poor countries often conquer rich countries.

And for us, that's very confusing, because normally we think if you are rich, you have a very strong military, you have advanced technology, and you have a lot of resources, right? And therefore it's very hard to be conquered. But we see this fraught history all the time where poor nations, poor countries quickly conquered rich nations, okay? So how can we explain this? And to explain this, we'll do another thought experiment, okay? So let's compare North Korea with South Korea. And these countries are same culture, same people, but they're night and day. North Korea, we know, is poor, South Korea is rich.

North Korea is primitive, meaning they are not, they don't have that much of that technology. South Korea is very advanced, right? Technologically advanced, right? Think of Samsung, the phones, the cars, and the phones they produce, and the computers they produce, right? A very advanced country. The last thing is that North Korea is a dictatorship,

and South Korea's democracy. So if we were to take a snapshot of North and South Korea today, right, then we could easily predict that in 20 years time, North Korea would be poorer, South Korea would be richer, right? Okay. But that may not happen. What is South Korea's problem? What is South Korea's biggest problem? Do you, no? It's not having children.

In fact, it has the world's lowest fertility rate at 0.8. Okay? It's a woman who refused to have children. And not only that, but South Korean culture is becoming more and more anti-family. They hate kids. There are lots of restaurants, lots of places that refuse to let kids in. Okay? So this is a very weird state of affairs, right?

What's driving the low fertility rate? Do you think? usually why are young women refused to have children because yeah right inequality right if you feel that if you're just a normal person the rich have all the resources it's very hard for you to advance so I have children okay now North Korea doesn't have this problem right because it's poor therefore it has equality and because it has equality people there are united right They're not divided, they're united.

And what else? They're obedient, right? They listen to what the government tells them to do. And last thing is, they're hungry. They will work very hard for very little. Okay? You understand? So, it is possible that in 20 years time,

North Korea overtakes South Korea because its people are willing to work harder than South Korean people. Okay? Doesn't make sense. So, evidence for this is that right now, North Korea is sending weapons and soldiers to the war in Ukraine. Doesn't make sense. So when you do that, you make a lot of money for yourself, right?

And so with this money, you can upgrade your military. And then what you can do is threaten South Korea. Okay? North Korea can say to South Korea, our military is now strong. than your military and what will self-create do in response you think North Korea is like we're gonna come to invade you what South Korea do in response someone wants to attack you right so how do you get this person not to attack you exactly you understand all right give them money so North Korea doesn't even have to attack sub Korea

North Korea just has to threaten your attacks sub Korea and South Korea will give them a lot money not to attack you understand and by doing that right north of it becomes richer and more military advance subcrieu becomes poorer you understand and because North Korea the army is fighting in other places like Ukraine it's developing all this experience and expertise that will allow it to eventually overwhelm South Korea doesn't make sense so in this thought experiment it's possible that North Korea can eventually conquer South Korea.

Doesn't make sense. And this gives us an understanding of why Macedonia, Macedon, was able to conquer all of Greece, even though Macedon was by far one of the poorest places in Greece at that time. Does that make sense? Because the people are hungry, united, and obedient. All right?

Any questions so far about this? Okay? So I want to remember these two thought experiments because they will help us explain a lot of history. And I would refer to these two thought experiments some more as we go along in the course, okay? All right, but does this make sense to you so far? Great.

All right. So now let's focus specifically on both the second of Massonon. How is he able to conquer all of Greece, given that his nation, Macedon, was poor, weak, and divided. All right. So, King Philip, okay? He was born in 383 BC, okay? And I want to talk about the world of Greece and Macedon at the time of his birth.

Okay, so around this time, there are three major powers in Greece, okay? There's Athens. Remember that even though Athens lost the Pelican War, it's still very wealthy and it still has the best navy in all of Greece, okay? So it's still a major power. Then you have Sparta, which for most of Greek history was considered the best military, right? And then you have, sorry, try to use another, okay, so the map, okay?

So this is Sparta. Here, to the south, this is Athens, and then to the north it's a place called Thebes. And what's interesting is at this time, Thieves has become the most dominant military in Greece, primarily because Sparta and Athens decimated each other during the palisement of war, okay? So because of the war, Thebes has became the dominant power in Greece at this time. Okay, and then to the far north is Macedon, okay? The kingdom Macedon. Now, Macedon is very poor, we can divide it.

So let me explain why it is. First of all, it has a geography problem. The nation is divided between agricultural farmland to the south and mountains to the north, okay? So most of its land can't even grow crops. And where it can grow crops, its farmers are just peasants, okay? Now, the problem is that there are lots of tribes in the mountains. And the way they make their living usually is by coming and raiding your farmland. And there's nothing that you can do about it because if you go chase them, they go back to the mountains, okay?

So that's the first problem. The economy is very divided, and it's very, and, um, the people don't have that many resources, okay? That's the first problem. Second problem is Macedon is completely surrounded by hostile powers. So you have the kingdom of Freyce over here, and that's a long-term enemy.

And you have Illyria over here, okay? And these are warlike mountainous people who live in fortresses. It's almost impossible to invade them, and it's easy for them to come and attack So they're a huge problem. To the south, it's a place called Fisili. And they have one of the best militaries in Greece.

They're known for their cavalry, the horsemen. And then of course, you also have thieves, Athens, and Sparta, which also want to play a role in controlling Macedon. And over here, of course, across the sea is called Persia. And for some of its history, Macedon was actually Macedon was actually a province of Persia. Persia actually conquered or subjugated Macedon. So Macedon is always being threatened by a more superior power.

And it keeps on losing these wars. The third problem it has is that it's a kingdom. It has a king. And the king has many, many wives. And why would this be a problem? Exactly, okay? There are a lot of sons, and they fight. sons and they fight over who will be king. And the thing is that these sons are always

supported by another foreign power, okay? Because the foreign powers want Macedon to be always in conflict. So for most of its history, Macedon was poor, weak, and divided. And then Philip, the second, changes all that. So he's born in 3D3. and then from 369 to 365 for about five years, he's a hostage in Thebes. The reason why is Macedon lost a war to Thebes, and to ensure that Macedon does not rebel against Thebes, Macedon had to send hostages.

And so Philip was a hostage in Thebes. But he's a prince, so he treated very, very nicely in Thebes. And he did whatever he wants. The thing that he wants to do is he wants to understand why Thieves is the dominant military power in Greece at this time. And he learns from the best Thieb in generals. They become his mentors. Okay?

So what makes Thebes so effective is the idea of the sacred band of Thebes. This is the secret to the power of Thebes. These are 300 soldiers who spend everyday training to be the best soldiers they can. And in many ways, they're like special forces, okay? And this is modeled of Sparta, right? The difference is this. The difference is in Sparta, only citizens, only aristocrats can be soldiers. But in Thebes, these 300 people,

for volunteers, there were commoners, who wanted to be soldiers. And so the first thing Philip learned in Thebes is anyone can be a soldier, not just the rich, okay? With proper training, anyone can learn to be a great soldier. That's the first thing he learned. Second thing he learned is when you have an elite group of soldiers, it's really about how to use them effectively. Okay, so the traditional warfare in Greece at this time is called the phallax, right?

The hop-light phallax, okay? So remember it is like a moving wall. They move together slowly and try to crush the enemy, okay? The innovation that Thebans did was, say, we're going to do a slant, okay? The reason why is when you do a slant, you can put the 300 sacred band first. against the best soldiers of the enemy. Okay? And we know that in a fair fight,

these 300 will always destroy the first soldiers of the enemy. When you do that, there's a massive psychological effect, right? And so what happens is the phallax breaks formation. And the phallus bricks formation, and people start running away, they're all dead. Okay? So that is the major

innovation of thieves at this time. Okay? And from the best generals of Thebes, Philip understood the importance of discipline in an army. And this is new, because in Greece, remember, the Sparans had discipline, but most armies, like the Athenians, they were citizen soldiers.

They did this for fun, they did this as a civic duty, they did this part-time, okay? So they were really trained. when they weren't fighting. Now when you train you dealt discipline. With discipline, you have three major strengths, okay? The first major strength that you have is the idea of mobility, speed. And what this means is your army can march much faster than other armies. Okay? So maybe this is important because maybe you want to attack a city, right?

If you get there really fast, you're able to siege a city and destroy it, the city cannot ask for reinforcements, okay? Because reinforcements will come too slowly. Does that make sense? Okay? So this is a major innovation, the idea of mobility, okay?

Second is the idea of coordination. Coordination. So different military units are able to work together, and this is really important. So in Greece at this time, there are maybe two different land forces, right? There's a phalanx and there's a cavalry. And they do the own thing, okay?

But with discipline, you can actually get them to work together. And if you get them to work together, you create something called the anvil and hammer strategy, okay? Anvil and hammer. Okay, so the idea of an anvil is you put something in place, okay? And the hammer is you just knock that thing apart. So in this attack, the cavalry becomes the hammer. The anvil is a phalanx.

So with discipline, the phalanx is able to lock the other enemy army in place, okay? And then what happens is the cavalry sees this, and they stream in from the back and destroy the enemy. Doesn't make sense. It's called the anvil and hammer strategy. And the Thebans used it, but felt to start to use it as well. You can use this with discipline, okay? If every soldier knows his or her role in the army.

And with coronation, you can also have the idea of flexibility. So remember the Greek thought using the hotbed like flanks and that's it. But what Philip understood is, hey, if I have coronation, I can change my strategy and tactics according to the enemy, right? So he had different units, he had archers, he had shield bearers, okay? People whose job was to hold shields. He had phalanx and he had cavalry. And in response to different enemies, he would change his strategy using these different units.

Does that make sense? And so as over time, this army, if you have these three things, mobility, coordination, and flexibility, you'll be invincible. No one could beat you, okay? the very idea that an army could do this at that time was unheard of. Okay, doesn't make sense, right? So that's what he learned in Thebes. It is possible for you to transform your army in a way that makes it highly disciplined,

and once you have discipline, it will become invincible. So he became resolved to take all this education and transform the Macedonian army. He got his chance in 359. The reason why is his brother died and the brother's son, his nephew was too young. So he became region, okay? He became the sort of placeholder before the son can become of age, okay? But once he became Regent, he basically became the fact of king for his entire life.

And as regent, he was determined to transform the Macedonian military. And at this time, the Massadonian military was getting destroyed by everyone, okay? Illyria attacked and destroyed the army. Therese attacked and destroy the army. The Massian army was a complete joke. And he became determined to transform it. And what he recognized is, if I want to transform the army, I need to turn it into a meritocracy.

Okay? Meritocracy. So traditionally, because in Macedon, you have a nobility, it's always the, like all this is, this is are made by social status, okay? So a person arises according to his social status as opposed to his merit.

And Philip was determined to change that. And the thing that he did that was extremely controversial was he made the cavalry, which was full nobility, equal to the infantry, which was made of commoner's peasants. So in this new system, as long as you perform well in battle, you'll be promoted, okay? And one of the people he promoted very heavily and who would become his most successful general, his name is Parmonion, Parmenion, okay? I want you remember this guy, Parmenian, okay? Because he would basically become Philip's partner in war and his greatest general. Even though Parmenian, he was not, he was born into the lower nobility, okay? He certainly had some money, but Philip treated him as a partner.

And he allowed Parmerep, Parmenian to lead armies on his own. He was not afraid that Parmenian would rebel, okay? He trusted Parmenian. So, Philip was a tremendous, he had tremendous understanding and judgment of people. He knew who to trust, and he knew how to use people effectively. The other thing that he did was very important was he needed to make the army loyal to him.

And what he understood is, if you want the army loyal to you, you need to do three things, okay? The first thing is you need to fight with them. You understand? He was not in the back, watching the battle. He was in the front, leaning in the battle. He was training with him every day. He trained harder than everyone else.

In fact, in one battle, Philip lost an eye. And he had many battle wounds and scars. And so because of that, his soldiers were finessexed. genetically loyal to him. Okay? And also because Philip was fighting with his soldiers every day, he did not want to risk the lives of his soldiers. You understand?

He was very strategic. He would not put his soldiers in harm's way. And so his soldiers became even more loyal to him. Second thing that he did was he ate and drank with them. Okay? These common soldiers, he would spend his time, just eating and drinking with them. And that's told the soldiers,

hey, we're equals, we're friends, and I'm willing to listen to your complaints. Okay, here's your opportunity to complain about commander. Here's an opportunity to complete about me. I'm willing to listen to you. Okay, doesn't make sense. The third thing was he was an accent communicator. He would give speeches explaining his vision, right?

He wanted to make Macedon great. He wanted Macedon to conquer our voice. Greece and then conquer Persia. He wanted glory for his country. But not only that, but he praised people like Parmenian. He used his speeches to praise soldiers that were good examples. And obviously that made Parmenian feel really good, right? That made him even more loyal to Philip. Okay. So Philip, over time, was able to build a strong, loyal, unified, disciplined army using these strategies. So the other thing that Philip did was he started to, while he was starting to build

his army, his enemies were still attacking him, right? And what he did that was kind of intuitive was he basically negotiated, you understand? He used diplomacy. He understood that having the best military is just a, sorry, let me rephrase it. Having smart diplomacy is just as good as having the world's best military, right? Does that make sense?

Because remember, at this time, it's basically Game of Thrones. Every nation is at each other's throat, okay? They hate each other, okay? So Sparta hates Thebes, Thibbethes, hates Athens. They really didn't get along, okay? So what Philip could do was use diplomacy to build alliances against other enemies. So he was using diplomacy a lot in order to buy time for him to train up his army.

He would also marry the princesses of other nations, okay, as part of his diplomacy. So Philip was known as a great strategist, but much more importantly, he was known also as a point of someone who knew how to negotiate and deceive his enemies. So after he started to build his army, he started to make his move, okay? The first thing he did was he basically secured his northern frontier. He got into these wars with his enemies to the north and he secured his northern frontier. That's important, okay? Because he wants to move into the south eventually, but he needs to make sure that he's not attacked.

from behind, okay? So that's the first thing he does. Second thing that he does is in 347, he invades a city called Enfipolis, and he conquers it. This is important because Enfipolis has gold mines. Okay? Now he has resources, he has money.

And with these resources, he can pay his soldiers, right? Because his soldiers are training every day. They're not farming. They're training every day. So he can not pay them. you can now buy the loyalty of the nobility and he can stir national settlement in Macedon by building projects, by building roles, okay? He can improve the economy, okay? And the last thing that he does with the money is he starts bribing everyone, okay?

He basically starts bribing the nobility of Athens, other nations to support him, okay? So he's being very strategic and very clever. In 356, his son in here, Exximate Great, is born to his wife, Olympias. And the last major event is, in 338 BCE, it's the battle of Turania. Turania. This is the last battle between Philip and the people who oppose him. So in Turanilla, the two nations that opposed him are Thieves and Athens. But at this time, the problem is the great generals of thieves have all died, okay?

And Athens felt basically brought their aristocras to support him, so Athens didn't really pull out a great army. And this battle of Cherenia, Philip was sacked him with his like modern, highly disciplined, loyal army, destroyed everyone, okay? He crushed thieves, he crushed Athens, and he united all of Greece. So he destroyed the entire army of Athens, and he almost destroyed thieves. But what happened was, when it was clear that thieves was about to lose the battle, the sacred ban of thieves, okay? Stood in the way. They basically sacrificed themselves so the other army, the other soldiers of thieves could escape. Okay?

And so the Sacred Band of Thieves was forever destroyed. The irony of course is it's the Sacred Ben of Thebes that taught Philip how to build a great army. In his last act, he destroyed the Sacred Band of Thieves and now he united all of Greece. Now that he unite all of Greece, his ambition now is to take his army and conquer Persia. So what he did was he sent his great general Parmenion into Persia. Remember in Anatolia at this time, which is today Turkey, there are lots of Greek colonies that are under Persian rule.

And for the longest time, they want to be free of Persian rule, okay? So Parmonian went over with a vanguard, about 10,000 men, to begin the invasion, okay? And Philip was about to go over. lead invasion, but his daughter was about to get married. So he had to attend the wedding. At the wedding, he had one bodyguard because at the wedding there'd be lots of Greek diplomats, right? So he wanted to appear approachable.

So he didn't have his entire bodyguard in place. He had one barter guard, okay? His bodyguard took his sword and stabbed him in the rib, killing him. And then his bodyguard was killed by the other. body guards. So Philip was assassinated before he could launch his invasion of Persia. And when he died, it was like 3-3-7, okay? So Philip was really in the prime of his life. He had in like 30, 40 years of military conquest to go. Okay, he died very young. And his son, Alexander, who was like 1819 at this time, he now became king.

It was Alexander who would lead his army into Persia and conquer all Persia and move all the way to India, or like the, or Pakistan, really. Okay? So for the longest time, historians do not know what happened. How is it possible for this great man to Philip II to be assassinated in the prime life? Now, there are three explanations. There are three major explanations. The first explanation is it was Persia.

Persia knew that Philip was about to invade, and so they hired the bodyguard to kill him, okay? That's the first explanation. Second explanation is it was personal. So the story is very complicated, but apparently the body god and Philip were lovers. They were homosexual lovers, and then Philip found someone else, and the body god became very jealous. And so it's a very complicated story, okay?

It was personal. And then there's one more explanation. The other explanation was, it was the mother of Exander, Olympias, and Alexander, okay? Right? So these are the three explanations. So if you want to, and like honestly, we'll never ever know what happened, okay?

But if you want to evaluate a murder, you always look at two things. Look at opportunity. Who had the opportunity? Who had the chance to come? You look at motive. Okay? Do you understand?

So if you look at these two things, let's evaluate all three possibilities. Persia, okay, it had the motive, but it didn't have the opportunity. You understand? How could it access Phillips' inner court? Right? And Phillips's not a dumb guy.

You wouldn't know exactly who to trust and who not to trust. And usually if Persia was afraid of Philip, What they could do was basically give Sparta and Athens all the money to attack Philip, right? So I don't think it's Persia. I think most people agree it wasn't at Persia, okay? Second possibility is it was personal.

And that's kind of strange, right? Because Philip, he's very good at inspiring loyalty from other. He's also good at reading people, right? So, I don't think it was personal. I mean, it could be, but I don't think it is, okay? And this leaves us the possibility of Olympias and Alexander. And here, it makes sense because they both have both the motive

and the opportunity, okay? So let me first explain motive. The motive is very easy to understand. If Philip were to die, Alexander would become king, right? And this is at the height of the glory of Macedon. They have the world's greatest military. They conquered all of Greece.

Persia is an easy target, okay? And maybe they were afraid that if Philip goes to Persia, it'll be too late. The other problem is Philip is an excellent judge of character. And what's clear about Alexander, from a very early age, is he was a very violent young man. He couldn't really control his emotions.

You're Philip, right? You're kind of like, do I really want this guy to be the here to my empire? Could he manage the empire? Plus, remember, Philip has a lot of wives, right? So over time, he could have new sons. Okay? Does that make sense? So the motive is very clear.

And the opportunity makes sense because they're all one family, right? The bodyguard is in constant communication with Olympias. Okay? And what gives evidence? What provides evidence for this line of thinking is, after the death of film's bodyguard named Passenius, Olympias actually made a monument to him. Okay?

And next class, when we look at the life of Alexander, we will see a lot of evidence that suggests he wanted his father dead. Maybe he didn't participate in the killing of his father, in the plotting of this assassination, but he clearly won his father dead. And next class, we will discuss this. So that doesn't make sense to you. And again, what we will understand is this pattern of a great man emerging, who creates a revolution.

that transforms the world, it will repeat itself in this way many times, including with Muhammad and with Ganga Khan, with Napoleon, with Julius Caesar, okay? But they all have this sort of similar personality, and they're all working within a similar social context. Okay? Does that make sense? Any questions so far about this? That's right. Hostage. That's right. That's a great question. Okay. So the question, why did they treat Philip so well, and why give them so much knowledge and the answer is first of all no one thinks Macedon will ever be a threat you understand no one takes Macedon seriously it's like today no one would take South North Korea seriously right you

understand everyone thinks in East Asia the major powers are China and Japan and everyone thinks North Korea is a complete joke okay this place will collapse in five years time so no one during this time ever thought Macedon could ever challenge Sparta or Athens or thieves? No one did. Okay, so it was just overconfidence. Second thing is if you're the Thebans, you want, you want your enemies are Sparta in Athens, okay? So you want to build allies. The best way to build allies is by building strong relationships with weaker nations who then rely on you. And the best way to do that is by indoctrinating the future leaders of that nation, like Philip.

So basically, they wanted to treat him nice, so Philip would be thankful to Thieves. They didn't realize Philip had other intentions, okay? And it's impossible because Philip is one of these individuals, these men who we call great men of history. They stand outside of history. there are many ways not human, okay? They don't behave, normal humans behave, right? Normally, if you're a prince, you just want to have a good time, right? You just want to enjoy your wealth, you want to promote your friends, right?

And you want personal glory. But Philip wanted to change the world. And so you can't possibly predict that, right? Okay, doesn't make sense? All right. Okay, great question, though. Okay, any more questions? Oh, great, great question, okay, the phalanx.

All right, okay, so Philip not only learned military strategy from Thebes, but he was also a military innovator. Okay, so he made a lot of changes to the phalanx. So the phalanx, it's very strong, but there are a lot of issues with it, okay? The first major issue with it is it's not very mobile because everyone's carrying heavy armor. So the first thing that Philip did was he made, he lightened the load, okay? So he had his soldiers wear less armor. Then the question then is, well, if you wear less armor, then how do you protect yourself? And the answer is two things, okay? The first thing he did was he made the spear very long.

It became a pike, okay? So it became very hard to reach the phalanx. because the spear was in the way, okay? The pike was in the way. And the other thing that he did was he added a new unit called shield bearers. So the shear bearers were on the flanks, on the sides to protect the phalanx.

So that's how he improved the phalanx. And so when the Macedonian phalanx came into contact with the Greek phalanx, the Macedonian phalanx proved superior because of these invasions, okay? Remember, they were lighter, they could move around faster, and they had longer spears, okay? So they could maintain distance from you a lot longer.

And also they have these shield bearers who are mobile and could adapt to situations, okay? So if one part of the facts was being threatened, then the shield bearers could converge on that and like basically leak the dam. Does that make sense? Right? So what made Philip so, such a genius was he was very flexible, okay?

He was always looking at, what happened at battles and making adjustments in order to become stronger. And that's why his soldiers were so loyal to him because he was such a great general. And he put the lives of his men first and foremost. And what we will discover next class is Alexander is a complete opposite. He's always risking the lives of his men. Does that make sense? Okay.

Any more questions? But that's a great question. Yeah. Sorry. So I obviously don't have enough time to go into all the details. There's a lot of changes, okay? But the phalanx is a major innovation. You have the shield bearers in place.

Excuse me? Above you. Okay, well, they have helmets and they have shields as well. Okay, do you understand? That's right. Yeah, so the shield bearers were really the secret sauce of the Macedon army, okay? Because the shield bearers were meant to resolve any issues that might arise in battle. arise in battle.

But yeah, do you understand how this works? Okay? But you have the flexibility because these are extremely disciplined and loyal men, okay? And what we'll discover is, when we get to Alexander is, even though Alexander was bold and aggressive, he would make mistakes, but the loyalty and discipline of the Mastod army would compensate

for a lot of his strategic mistakes, okay? Does that make sense? Great, any more questions? Okay, so what was this interesting for you? Okay, and this is clear, right? Because again, the thing about this class that's different is we build on all this knowledge, okay? We will see how military strategy changes over time, and we'll see how the Greeks, the Macedon's, will influence Greek culture, okay? So in next class, we will do the Greek, the Greeks, the Macedon's, will influence Greek culture, okay?

So next class, we will do xan nucleate.