The Ancients - Alexander the Great | Rise to Power

Episode Date: February 5, 2026

NEW SERIES! Journey through the early life of Alexander the Great, from his education under Aristotle to his first military experiences and rise to Macedonian kingship.In this first episode, charting Alexander's incredible early life, Tristan Hughes and Dr Adrian Goldsworthy explore Alexander's formative years, the Battles that built the world's most formidable military leader and the immediate challenges following his father's assassination.MOREThe Rise of Hannibal with Adrian GoldsworthyListen on AppleListen on SpotifyDarius the Great, Persian King of KingsListen on AppleListen on SpotifyPresented by Tristan Hughes. Audio editor is Aidan Lonergan and the producer is Joseph Knight. The senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff.All music courtesy of Epidemic SoundsThe Ancients is a History Hit podcast.Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe. You can take part in our listener survey here: https://insights.historyhit.com/history-hit-podcast-always-on Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Just visit historyhit.com slash subscribe. Hello and welcome to this brand new series All About one of the most formidable military commanders of all time, Alexander the Great. Now, many of you might know that I have a particular interest in this area of ancient history, the tale of Alexander, but also that of what happened following his death, the chaos that followed his early demise. And one of the things that really drew me to this area of ancient history is the stories, is the fact that we have so many amazing tales surviving from the age of Alexander concerning Alexander himself, but also, this is what I really love, concerning the figures that surrounded him, that made Alexander the conqueror, the legendary figure that so many of us know of today. Now, also, I must mention that a lot of you have been clamoring for us to do an episode, to do a series, a deep delve into the story of Alexander, and that is what we're now going to give you.

You can imagine that when the team gave the green light for this project, I was very, very excited. But I couldn't have done it alone, and so we have, for this series, we've got a special guest. we have the one and only the fantastic Dr Adrian Goldsworthy who will be joining us for this series from beginning to end covering the whole life of Alexander my producer Joseph and I we headed over to Adrian's house about a month or so ago and we recorded this entire series in our day we did so much we delved into so much detail that we have split it up into four separate episodes that I'm delighted we are now sharing with you. I know I say a lot. I really do hope you enjoy, but with this one I really do. I hope that by the end of the series, you will be just as fascinated by Alexander and his story and the story of those that surrounded him as I am. Now, without further ado, let's get into it. This is episode one. It's the evening on the 21st of July 356 BC.

and a wonder of the world is aflame. Amidst a great forest of marbled columns, a blazing inferno is spreading through the colorful fabrics and wooden supports that adorned the inside of this mighty temple, gutting the building of its beauty. Soon enough, the flames have climbed up to the roof, an orange glow illuminates the darkening sky above. Situated at the city of Ephesus in Asia Minor, east of the Aegean Sea, this stunning temple is renowned for its size and splendor. Its construction harks back 200 years to the time of the legendary King Cresus, a monarch famed for his countless riches. But now, it is engulfed in fire,

victim to a deliberate act of arson by a man seeking to immortalize his name. The arsonist watches from the shadows as the fire destroys this ancient wonder, captivated by the terrible sight. Herostratus is his name. Immortal infamy would be his legacy, herostratic fame. The goddess Artemis, the temple's divine protector, has not been able to save her sacred house. Herostratus picked his knight well, so the legend goes.

Because Artemis is absent. That evening, she is hundreds of kilometers away, watching the birth of a royal prince. A boy favored by the gods, destined for greatness, destined to be Greece's greatest ever conqueror. The boy's name was Alexandros. Alexander. He will become one of the biggest names in history, the king who conquered the superpowers. power of the time, the leader who built one of the largest empires the world had yet seen, the warlord, whose story has been told and retold for over two millennia, whose tale has

become entwined with mythology, whose legend has been embraced everywhere from Iceland to Iran, inspiring titanic figures throughout history, for better or for worse. Alexander and rise to power, all the way through to his early death in Babylon, battered, bruised and belighted by Megalomania, will be taking you through his action-packed story over four episodes. In this first episode, we'll explore Alexander's earlier years, his rise to the kingship, the crucial achievements of his father, King Philip II of Macedon, and so much more. Welcome to our brand-new miniseries about the life and legend.

of Alexander the Great. This is episode one. Alexander the Great, The Rise to Power. Adrian, what a pleasure to have you back on the podcast. Thanks for inviting me. No problem at all. Thank you for agreeing to do this series with us.

So you're going to be a regular guest, our guest, for this new series on Alexander the Great. We're going to cover his story in four episodes from his beginnings to his ultimate demise. in Babylon aged 32. And the very fact that we can fit four whole episodes in for the story of Alexander, and maybe even that's not enough, it's testament to how much material there is surviving about this figure. It is in some ways, and yet there are other large gaps in his life. Compared to people in the ancient world, we know quite a lot about him, but we don't know so

much about his society, what Macedonian royal court life was like, in a way that, say for the late 1st century BC, Rome, we've got Cicero, we've got Caesar, we've got lots of traditions that give you a bit more of an idea of how people thought about marriage, childhood, education. So with Alexander, you have to guess, and although we have lots of information about him, the thing we've always got to bear in mind is almost none of its contemporaries. Or even written in the lifetime of somebody who knew Alexander. So in most cases, you're dealing with stuff written down four centuries later for the fullest account, the Aryan and the Plutarch.

They're writing under Hadrian, early part of the second century AD. So more than 450 years after Alexander's death. So it's a little bit like talking about Henry the 8th now, as if without the contemporary sources. What's the tradition? So you've got to be careful in using it because Alexander had come to mean so many things to so many different people. It's the Romans who dub in the great and think in those terms. So it's great in some ways, but it isn't straightforward.

So much of his story is mythologised, and it's actually trying to figure out who was the real Alexander, what's the fact, what's the fiction. And especially for stuff which is not directly associated with his conquest of Persian and so on, like his early life. I mean, the first episode we're doing, recovering from his birth all the way to him taking the throne and more. And that's more than 20 years. And that's more than two thirds of his life already. It's, I mean, it's not that unusual for the ancient world that we don't know much about anyone until they become famous. They're suddenly in the limelight, they're on the political, the military stage. But it's worse for Alexander because we don't know much about society.

Now, the big problem is we talk about the Greeks, which is meaningless. There wasn't a Greece. There are lots of Greek communities who see themselves as Helene's their common language. The Macedonians are on the fringes of that. There's an ancestor of Alexander namesake. Alexander I want to compete in the Olympic Games, we're told by Herodotus, and there's a debate over whether or not he's a Greek. And eventually he gets in because his family claimed to be descended from exiles from Argos

in the Peloponnese, big rival of Sparta, and therefore the royal family are officially declared Greek, and he's allowed to compete. But that suggests that they're not sure. Later on, by Alexander's father Phillips day, he's putting chariot teams into it and it's no problem at all because you're big and powerful enough, you can't be ignored. But a lot of what we think when we say the Greeks think this about how children develop, about families, about romance, this sort of thing, actually relies on a

relatively small pool of information all focused around Athens and the elite of Athens. And then we generalize from that and say, oh, well, this is what they'd be doing. But there's not much basis for that. It's just we don't have anything else. So you don't have context to fill in with, well, this is what would be normal for an aristocrat for a royal prince at this stage of their life. So that's the other big problem is that we're trying to understand something where until Alexander comes along, we hear very little about Macedonia. Even Philip, who is the man who sets up the Macedonian kingdom, begins the war against Asia, that Alexander will lead and will take him all the way to India. There are large parts of Philip's life. We don't know.

where he was or what he was doing. We can't pin it down. That's never the case with Alexander, but Philip doesn't get that attention, which means even comparing Alexander to his father, who's better documented in other Macedonian kings, is a problem. And that's, without any story, understanding history, you need that context, that sense of just how unusual is this. And clearly, in a lot of respects, Alexander's story is incredibly unusual. He becomes the the ultimate hero, the ultimate conqueror, plenty of Roman emperors, whenever any of them even vaguely looks eastwards towards Asia, the poets start talking about Alexander and how this, you know,

whether it's Gaius Caesar, whether it's Crassus, Mark Antony, Augustus himself, Trajan, Julian, later on in the fourth century, everyone starts saying, oh yeah, this is going to be the new Alexander. You know, we'll get to India, we'll do all the things Alexander did, and of course they don't. So that, again, it's like anyone who becomes so. famous. How do you get to the real Alexander, the real Napoleon, any of these people? Partly because they were making their own myth as they went along as well very consciously,

which doesn't help. I feel even in this first episode where we're exploring his early years, will still be exploring certain stories that have become mythologized over the time, whether it's his birth or the taming of Busephalus, his horse, or so on and so forth. But let's set the scene first off. So Alexander, he is born in 3506.6,000. BC, July, it's normally said either the 20th or the 21st of July. And Macedon at that time, you've already hinted out beforehand, it's been very much on the periphery of the Greek world. But what's happening at that time? It feels like that power balance is starting to shift. The golden age of Athens and Sparta has gone, and there's an opportunity here for Macedon.

It's very much so. Southern Greece is where the quintessential Greeks, as we remember them. That's where they've developed. It's the land of city-states. And it's the land of city-states. the land of Athens, Sparta, and then Thebes, the other great raffle. Corinth as well, but Corinth falls away. The Athenians and the Spartans have led the resistance against the Persian Empire, when the big invasion, first of all 90, but then you get the big one under Xerxes in 480 BC, Thermopylae and the Andesan 300 Spartans and all of that. The Athenians have helped them win at Salamis, the Spartans of Plataia, the land battle.

But after that, it's quite scary, but in barely a generation, the Athenians and the Spartans are at each other's throats. And not only that, but after their golden moment of standing up to the great evil empire from the east, they both want Persian gold to help fund their war against their fellow Greek neighbors. And the Spartans end up victorious at the end of the big Peloponnesian war, as we call it. But their dominance lasts a few decades. They get hammered by the Thebans in battle, their populations declining, their societies in all sorts of difficulties.

Thebes is again dominant for a decade or so, but then the Thebans, their main leaders, die. And there, Philip is born into that period of dominance, Alexander's father, Philip second of Macedon. He is even a hostage in Thebes for a while in his teenage years, something again, unimaginable for Alexander. But when Philip returns and becomes probably regent in 359, when his older brother, one brother's been king and got murdered, the second gets defeated by the Illyrians and killed in battle with most of his army. And the Illyrians in the Balkans. There's sort of, yeah, Albania, that area and to the north.

You've got, think of it this way. You've got southern Greece, which the Greeks consider, this is real civilization, this is us. Fringe peoples, the Thessalians are a bit less Greek, but they're still Greek. The Macedonians, yeah, we're not sure about them. Then you get to the Thracians, the Illyrians, the Ilyans, people like that. These are true barbarians. Those are people whose language sounds like gibberish, who are just not as good as you, not inclined towards civilization and all the sort of the themes you'd have with the Cyclops

in the Odyssey that they, in the Cyclopsies, they don't have a city, they don't have laws, they don't farm, they pastoralists and they live in villages are scattered and they're generally angry and violent. And this irrational fear that if they actually did ever band together all of them, that they would be able to like wipe through, you know, sweep away Greece, but because they're so uncivilized and barbaric, that would never happen. It's the sort of thank goodness because otherwise they are ferocious and they're cruel and they're savage and yes, you sometimes say, well, yeah, they're not really disciplined, but they still scare

you. And you don't want that organization. So Macedonia is in between. And it's in some way, it's a bulwark against that forces of chaos beyond there. But also Philip takes over a Macedonian kingdom that is being preyed upon by the Thebans, by Thracians, by Elyrians, it's got divisions within the royal family, it's really weak. And Macedonia as a kingdom has had periods when it's been strong, but they've tended to be brief. The royal family has convinced everybody that only someone of the blood can rule, but they tend to have a lot of children, and there's no real clear principle of the oldest succeeds or clear succession. So basically anybody from that royal family can become king if enough people will back him. Nearly all the Macedonian kings we know about divinely.

and quite a few get killed in battle, but even more get killed by other Macedonians, get murdered, get assassinated. So Philip inherits this weak, fragile kingdom that's often the victim. And he is starting at this stage to turn it round. And he's won some victories, he's defeated the Illyrians, the Thracians, he's got rid of challengers from within his own family, he's defying the Athenians that have always had a keen interest in that area, because the big advantage with this part of the world is that compared to southern Greece, the resources are greater.

You've got gold mines, silver mines. You've also got timber. Lots of wood, yes. Lots of wood. And you need that. You think of the great monuments we see in Greece now. You forget how much timber was needed to build them for roof beams,

but also for the scaffolding to get up, but particularly to keep them. And then you think of Athens, whose power rested on its fleet, of wooden ships built from timber that's primarily coming from this area. So Macedonia is potentially rich, which is why everybody's after it all the time and trying to get in on the action. Philip by 356 is turning things round, but he's only been ruler three years, possibly king for only two.

He may have been, say, regent at first. And he's still young. He's only in his 20s. And given how many other Macedonians have done well for a bit and then got killed as rulers, Alexander's born into a kingdom that is stronger than it was. and he's going to get stronger, but obviously in 356, not everybody knew

this was going to happen. It's also really interesting. You mentioned those military victories that he's already won against the Illyrians. He's slowly turning things around. What I also find fascinating about these early years

is how quickly Philip goes on the polygamy train. All his marriages, maybe accept the last one, which I no doubt will get to, you can see a clear political motive behind them. They're princesses with nearby people's.

I think there's an Illyrian princess there, first of all, after he defeats them. There's a Scythian, there's a Thessalian, one or two Thessalians. And then when we get to Alexander's mother, she's a Meloshen, this is Olympias. And Melosha, I always see Melosha, which is in, like,

northwest Greece, southern Albania today, as very similar to Macedonia in that Epirus region, which is how the Greeks further south view it almost, once again, there's a peripheral zone. They're not fully barbarian, but they are different. They're on the fringes, tiger. Yes, it's almost a sort of smaller version of Macedonia, because it isn't quite as big

or as well populated, it doesn't quite have the resources, but it's more Greek than what's beyond, and they think of themselves as Greek. You know, Olympias comes from a family that claims descend from Achilles, the great hero of, well, hero perhaps is that it's a more complex thing there, but the main figure of the Iliad and one of the great heroes of the Trojan epic, the greatest warrior of all. So they're buying into that sense. of Greek identity, of a shared culture that goes back a long way. But yes, they're not quite, I mean, the big thing that both Epirus and Macedonia really lacks are cities. This is a culture of villages. And cities in southern Greece, they give you all the political developments,

but they also have intimately linked with those, the military developments, the hoplite, the classic Greek warrior, and the ability to build these warships. It comes from this civic identity, the fact that you have an obligation to the state, the more you're willing to fight and risk your life for the state, the greater political rights you have. And that therefore you serve voluntarily, yes, you might be given a stipend if you send away for a period and the state might look after you. But basically, you're doing this as a citizen. That's not really a thing. You're much more a clan member, a tribe. It's more like Highland Scotland. It's that sort of sense. So there's a link, there are clearly older links between the Melossians and the Macedonians and the Pyros and whether they should be, should they be part of Macedonia, should they be part of the Pyros?

It's a little bit like that those divisions where you have these clearly distinct groups and they can be absorbed by others, but they do seem to have a very strong sense of identity that at least in theory is based on kinship. And leadership of noblemen princes who are your fellow tribesmen, fellow clansmen, it's no coincidence that the armies of Philip and Alexander, they are the heteroi. We could translate it as companions. And the feminine version of the word you get, cortisans, the hetira, this. But it's that sense of you're not quite a citizen. It's a different idea, but you are like being a McDonald's of the McDonald's. It's that sense that there is some kinship, some connection, that they are your leaders because

their family has always been, but they have obligations to you. You're not subject so much. You're not people who can just be ordered around. They have to live up to a certain style of behaviour. It's a sort of reciprocal thing. They have obligations to you in the same way you have to them. But it is very much a hierarchy, which you don't have in the same way further south. So Philip Merries Olympias, and I think that's. around 3, 5, 7 BC. He has third or fourth marriage already by this time, once again, shoring up Macedon's borders.

And Alexander is born not too long after that. Very interesting. You mentioned there, of course, Olympias, the royal family, the Iacids, they claim descent from Achilles. Of course, Phillips family, the Argiads, claim descent from Heracles. So once again, you've got that for Alexander later on. He's got Heracles and Achilles in his blood, that idea.

If we go to the birth of Alexander itself very briefly, I find this fascinating that it almost is a symbol of everything to come, how much of his story becomes mythologized, because there's this great story that the day of his birth is also the day that the great temple at Ephesus, the temple of Artemis, is burned down, supposedly because Artemis is away watching the birth of Alexander. And so she's not taking care of heretarchus. Yeah, basically. And it's Herostratus who burns down the temple and then we get the word, Stratic fame where he's remembered, where someone is remembered for something infamous. Yes.

But just that their name survives. But it's fascinating. You get that fantastic myth, you know, for Alexander's, even for his birth. Yes, and the stories, you know, that Philip dreams of Olympus's wound being struck by lightning. Another dream, he puts a seal on it with the symbol of a lion on, and this whole idea that the world will be disturbed by the, you know, it's, you get a few, I mean, Augustus will have a few stories invented about him and his precocious youth. The Romans don't do it as much, though, it will come on. But there, again, a theme throughout Plutarch's lives of Greeks and Romans

is the foreshadowing. There's this little boy who suddenly either something happens that makes you think, oh, yeah, watch that one, you know, he's going to be, he's going to do big things. How much of it is much, much later is very hard to say. Obviously, people later on thought it is staggering. And again, it comes back to a problem with Alexander, because we know that this prince is going to be Alexander the Great, and we know what he's going to do and how successful is it, it's quite hard to go back and understand the story when people didn't know it was going to happen. You know, the Persians who went to fight Alexander the Great and meet him in battle, they didn't think they were fighting Alexander the Great, you know, one of the most famous commanders in history. They just thought it was some foreign general who was causing trouble. and had annoyed them. So all this mythology that develops, and of course in Alexander's case, because of his later propaganda, but particularly the visit to Siwa and the Oracle of Jupiter, Zeus Ammon that we'll talk about later, he's thinking, you know, there's this sense of you couldn't have done all this unless you were divine. And because we're dealing with a

polytheistic society, you have the Heracles-type figures who are fathered by a god, but then they become semi-divine, but they're a human who just does all these spectacular things. And they have descendants, you know, the Spartan kings claim to be, descendants of Heracles as well, because Heracles and the sons of Heracles basically get everywhere, pretty much in the ancient world, and so many people will lay a claim to this as part of their own story. So, we tend to think of, you know, very simply there's God and there's human beings. We think in that monotheistic way, you've got to try and get into this mindset of people looking around and thinking, wow, look at all this things that this fellow is doing and then has done.

It can't have been just that he's just some ordinary kid from, you know, exactly from Begina who just does the, you know, yeah, exactly. So it's understandable. And because you have so many of the stories, the myths that are the common culture within the Greek world that involve Zeus going around, having affairs with various women, fathering different people. And it's natural, in a sense, to do that. It's always hard to know how much anybody really believed it even at the time, or whether they can, whether it's sort of exclusive. I suspect, because most people do seem to understand that Alexander is Philip's son. And yet they can also believe this as well. So I think sometimes these things can coexist for the same audience.

So of course, Alexander is, so he is the son of Philip and Olympias. He also does have a sister, which we should mention, shouldn't we? And her name is Cleopatra. She, I don't want to say the original Cleopatra, because I think it's a Macedonian royal name, and they probably would have been Cleopatra's before. But I always see it as almost like the first Cleopatra, because she's interesting to remember that Alexander does have a sister, a full sister. It's, of course, one of the problems is because, again, we know the end of the story.

is always going to be Cleopatra the Seventh, the famous Cleopatra, and she's become, in the popular imagination, quintessentially Egyptian, rather than this is a Greek name, it's distinguished in her ancestry, it's that sort of sense, a word like that anyway. And it is, yes, it does seem to be quite a common name. It's obviously a fairly aristocratic royal boast, but they do crop up. There are others. We know depressingly little about her.

In the same way that we know, we don't know much about Olympias. And I mean, she gets some more attention and the rest of Philip's wives. What we can say is that this isn't a succession. This isn't Henry the 8th. Oh, you know, I've got sick of this one. She's not giving me a male heir, divorce her, have another one, excuse, so on. Philip, the second, is polygamous. It looks as if the Macedonian royal family has a long tradition of this,

that they take more than one wife and that the air could be the air from any of those wives. It's difficult. It doesn't seem to be that all Macedonians do this, or even the Aristotelians. do this, it just seems to be the royal family. And it may be a mark of their peculiarity. But again, until Philip comes along, we don't have a lot of evidence for the royal family, so this is guesswork. But it looks as if the seven or eight wives that he has coexist. It must have made for some interesting domestic situations. But the other striking thing is that we don't know so much about them. The sources are only really interested in them when they do

something with or to produce a male heir, male political figure. So Olympias, there's a little bit about, but far less than we'd like. Most of them we know next to nothing about beyond the name. We don't know when they die. We don't know if there are other pregnancies where the child doesn't reach maturity. There are other children. There is the line and you have the Illyrian who's several of whose the daughter and granddaughter both appear to fight in battle. So they seem to take this Illyrian martial tradition.

Yeah. So you presume that's happening back in Phillips Day as well with this one. but we don't know. It's guesswork. So when you come to Alexander's sister Cleopatra, it isn't really surprising how little we know about her. But as a historian, it's deeply frustrating because you feel, you know, this is surely an important relationship with Alexander. And also after Alexander's death, once again, where she actually starts playing a more visible role. Then we know about her. But until then. She just vanishes, pops up again. And it's deeply, deeply frustrated.

Just mentioned some of those other figures that come to my head. So I believe he might actually have an older half-brother Alexander. I can't tell if we

know for sure whether he was older or younger but his name's Aridaeus and he's a product of another of these wives of Thessalian. He has another younger half-sister

Thessaloniki and he's got a cousin called a Mintas who's also quite a might be another potential thorn in his side when it comes succession as we'll get down the line.

He's got the royal blood. Yes, that's all the matters. A hideous, I think we generally assume, is older, but is considered in some shape or form incapable, whether it's through physical lameness, mental deficiency, personality issues. We don't know. He isn't, we know, he has briefly made Macedonian king after Alexander's death, but he's clearly a puppet. He's puppet, yeah.

And there is the tradition that Olympias poisoned him as a youth disorder. So you get that the wicked stepmother type thing. Again, it seems unlikely, but you never quite know. So again, it comes back to when you're trying to write about an Alexander the Great, for all we know about him, so many of the things that would be important for a biography of a modern political figure or military leader, we just don't know. And these family and personal connections are abysmally recorded. We just get little glimpses and we know somebody's around, but next to nothing about them. And sometimes we only know somebody's around because later on they appear after his death and do something. And that's how we know there existed. Well, we set the scene nicely of what Macedon looks like when Alexander is born and the closest people in his family at that time. Let's look through his early years before he really emerges on the political scene. Because this is always a time with so many big figures from ancient history, we have frustratingly little.

And I feel it's the same with Alexander. I mean, if we focus on education, first of all, the big name that comes to the forefront for so many people is Aristotle. But it's not just Aristotle that we have information about. No, I mean, you hear about his tutor a connection of Olympias, who basically puts him through this rigorous Spartan-style training and all this stuff. What do you call, a good breakfast is a night march and a good dinner is an early breakfast. And it's funny that his name's Leonidac's as well, isn't it? Well, that's, but again, you know, the lion element of that,

it feeds into this whole sense of Alexander the lion, the symbolism. But other things, he is clearly raised as, as far as we can tell, every Macedonia aristocrat and prince would be raised to learn how to fight, to learn to be fit, to be physically strong. There isn't the tradition of the gymnasium in quite the same way in Macedonia. It's not as obsessive because in part that's a place where people who are equals can compete and show off their bodies, their prowess. If you're the prince, you're not supposed to have an equal. So Alexander later on will refuse to take part in races, gymnastic competition, because he says, well, I'll only compete if I can compete against other kings.

And it's this idea, if you think back to Homer, the heroes just compete with each other. You can't just have any old fish and chips who joins in and says, oh, I'm good at running, I'll do this. You've got to be somebody of note to make it worthwhile. But there's clearly an awful lot of physical training as well as the, again, you've mentioned Aristotle. We know about him, but he is clearly a highly literate individual within that Greek tradition, which might be in part Philip making a special emphasis, Macedonia's, becoming more important. I've got connections with a lot of the Southern Greek states. I want to dominate them, but probably reflects. Philip also seems to be very easy in the company. And of course,

has spent several years in Thebes, so has a sense of the aristocratic culture within the cities as well. So there's a lot going on, but it is this big problem. As I said earlier, if you look at the Caesar or a Cicero, you have an idea of what a Roman would be doing at that age. age. We just don't with the Macedonians. So there's one tradition that you couldn't sit at a banquet until you've killed a boar, wild boar. Only mentioned once in all ancient literature that there is this tradition, but people assume, well, he must have done that then. That's assuming the source is right. That's assuming you don't get a bit of a bit of a helping hand because you're royal and basically they're going to tell you to, yes, just you can't recline. And that story is also in the context of a

Macedonia nobubon who doesn't do it. And so he's not allowed to recline, Cassander. which is later. It's just very difficult to know, but he's clearly being raised to rule to lead men in battle. As time goes on, he gets marked out as the air, but that's not necessarily going to be the truth. A, because nobody knows if he's going to survive that long. And also, Philip's got all these wives, might well take more, there might be more children. Philip is not expecting to die as he does so early. The Macedonian royal family, like a lot of people around at this time, if they don't get killed, they tend to live to a really ripe old age. You get lots of active men in their 70s and 80s. Again, we'll see it with the funeral games after Alexander's death. These people have been Phillips officers are still fighting for power, going strong, these sort of angry geriatrics that are charging around. So it's, again, complicated.

It is very much. And it also feels because throughout those decades, 350s and 340s, Philip the second, he's always campaigning somewhere here, there and everywhere. it makes sense that Olympias is overseeing his earlier education, or at least giving it to one of her kinsmen, this Milosh and Leonidas. But then, of course, I guess we should talk about Aristotle, shouldn't we? Because when does he come into the story? And how much of the story does he cover, I guess? It's when Alexander's about 13, this is the sort of age. So again, given the philosophical tradition Aristotle represents, it's not primary school stuff. So there is a logic to this. Alexander is removed to be tutored by Aristotle. We then, whether it's in our imagination,

in lots of biographies, history books or on screen, we assume all his chums, all his contemporaries, Feistian and Ptolemy and all the others are there as well. No evidence for any of that. Oh, interesting. Maybe not a shred that anyone else is educated. So whether this is a sort of Oxford Cambridge tutorial thing where it's just Alexander being grilled,

or whether it seems to make more sense that others might be involved, we don't know. Aristotle isn't quite the Aristotle yet. He's already made some name. He's been at the Academy in Athens under Plato, but Plato has died. Aristotle doesn't get the job, doesn't succeed him, so one's off. He's from the sort of northern Greek communities around the dark nels of Black Sea, that sort of Asia. Stegiro. Yeah, it's that are on the fringes of the Persian Empire much of their time. These, these various tyrants, they tend not to be too democratic. They tend to have, but his interests are clearly developing and this. But with Alexander, it's bringing two of the great figures of the ancient world together, so we're bound to get excited about this. We know very

little about what was actually taught. The big theme is that Alexander, when he goes off on his expedition, will take scholars with him, including relative of Aristotle's. There will be the interest in the natural world. It's a bit like Napoleon, in part consciously emulating, but going off to Egypt with all the Samoan and this idea that this military exhibition can also be a learning which is quite common in exploration in a lot of periods when you're going somewhere where you don't have much knowledge. However, what the ancient sources emphasize as far as they do is that Aristotle develops Alexander's existing interest in Homer, the Iliad and particularly Achilles and presents him with this annotated text manuscript of the Iliad. Now,

whether that is the complete with just my notes on or selections that I consider particularly important, or this is what it means. Even though the Iliad deals with these heroic warriors, this earlier, this old-fashioned culture, it has inspired generations of people in southern Greek states. People feel they can plan their life around it. It's standards of behavior, not necessarily the strict code of how you actually fight a battle, how you do things, but this sense of what it means to be distinguished, to be good, to be one of the good men, to be an aristocrat, essentially. Obviously, that's even more attractive a message for Prince. But there is clearly that sense of how should I behave. It is a, we tend to see it as a story, but this is very much moral examples

for life, how you should behave, how you should do things, but with a different type of morality to the modern one, because it is much more to do with honour, with reputation, with glory. But again, the reason perhaps they emphasize this that Alexander sleeps with this copy of the Iliad under his pillow is of course this is what Alexander goes on to do in terms of it is very much the, well, if Achilles were around today, this is what he'd be doing. We hack his way through any problem.

How else do you solve it? But it shows, doesn't it? I mean, what we get glimpses of this education, it's clearly he's raised, you know, as a Macedonian aristocrat, as a prince, with all the things that are expected of a future leader. I mean, Casey does be the successor of Philip. And as you say, Philip seems to be nowhere near his death at the time. He's still actively campaigning, which leads us to the next story, which is about when

Alexander's around 12 or 13 years old. So about the same time he's being tuted by Aristotle, he's evidently got a bit of, he's got some balls, shall he say? It's a fascinating story. Like, he actually is in like the same place as Philip as his dad, which feels it must have been a bit of a rarity. And it's at this time when Macedon, he's at this time when Macedon. John is now in control of Thessaly, the region to the south.

And Thessaly has got a rich history for cavalrymen, and the Thessalian horses are well-renowned. And there's a story that this Thessalian horse owner. Is it Philonicus? He brings this incredible black stallion with a white mark on the top of his head or something like that, some distinguishable mark, and offers it to Philip. And Philip and his companions try to ride this horse, and they all fail. and Alexander is watching this and then he basically sees his dad give up and I can't say it word for word

but I think it's like you know he kind of basically he doesn't lambast his dad but he kind of says like oh what a pity I mean how can you give up to you've given away this you're basically giving up this incredible animal and there's a bit of back and forth

and then Phillips just like you think you can do better and Alexander's like yes and I think they almost kind of make a wager isn't it so like Phillips just like very well what will you offer me if you don't ride him says I'll pay for the horse,

which is quite funny for a 12, 13 year old, but I guess he is a prince, so he does have the money. But the fascinating part of the story, isn't it? This famous mythologized story is that he'd recognize that this horse was scared of its own shadow, the movement of its own shadow. So he moves the horse towards where the sun is so he can't see the shadow anymore,

and then he's able to calm the horse down and rides it away. And that is the story, he calls it, Busephalus, the Stalin Busephalus, and that is the story of how Alexander obtains his famous horse and Philip's saying something like, you know, Macedon is too small for you. You're evidently destined for even greater things. So it's a wonderful story.

I guess you've got to figure what's true, what's not. It's one of those stories you want to be true, or I always do. It's partly it's the cost, the man's asking too much money. Let's say, well, nobody can ride it. Why should we pay for this? It's interesting the way it's presented in that you will find horses will get spooked by all things. Just the shadow seems unusual

because you'd think surely you must have seen lots of shadows before and hasn't gone crazy. On the other hand, it is something about horses. They like or they dislike you, and they can take very strong opinion for no apparent reason. I like the way in Plutarch who gives us the fullest description. Alexander's describes sort of going up very carefully and talking to it and smoothing his neck,

and it's all the things you would do. with a real horse. And then, but we think of all the westerns we've watched over the years, the scene of somebody breaking a horse and they get the, the young inexperienced guys given this terrible, ferocious animal. And that's when you're trying to do it even with stirrups. This is bearback. So this is a challenge.

But on the other hand, that's how you're taught to ride. And the riding is a big, big deal for a Macedonian aristocrats. So I like it that, in a sense, the horse and the boy like, just like each other and get on and then get to try. teacher and also the sense that he rides with a bit of caution first and then feels when he's got the confidence really gives me Cephalus his head. So it's a great story. I'd love it to be true. The cynical historian in me suspect this is a lovely romantic, at best embellished. On the other hand, clearly Alexander has a great affection for this horse. You found a city named after it in

India, which you don't do very often. And it comes back to that. Sometimes we forget from our modern perspective, but in the ancient world, particularly for people like the Macedonians, they are living much closer to the natural world. And Alexander will spend a lot of his life on horseback or around horses. So they have that extra connection affection as well. They're probably not as sentimental as we might be when we tend to think of everything as almost a pet, but there is still that bond that you can get and Busephalus will follow Alexander almost to the end of his campaigns when eventually the horse dies. So I'd love it to be true. But I do like the details. The details actually they fit. If you spend time around horses, that the way Alexander is presented as doing this

would actually be recommended by somebody training someone today. It's really nice, isn't it? And the 2004 epic Alexander, I know they do that whole scene. And they basically do it word for word from Poulart. And I think it's probably one of the best scenes out there because of just, it doesn't actually need to be taken away from the text because it is so detailed and do it. And if anyone ever goes up to Edinburgh, once in a while when I go up to see my old university city, I always make a small pilgrimage to the little courtyard just off the top of Royal Mile where there is a statue and it's Alexander Taming Busephalus. Oh, right, gosh.

So there is a statue just off the Royal Mar of Alexander Taming Bufels. But let's move on then. So we've covered Alexander and we've gone up to his teenage years. So let's get to around 339 BC because this feels the time when Alexander, he's first on the military scene. This is when Philip decides, right, it's time for you to come out of the Royal Capital, dealing with ambassadors or whatever he's been doing, and actually come and deal with stuff on the scene. Do some fighting with me, right? I mean, he's had brief experience, his campaign against the Trap of the Mighty in 340, where he's about 16, and he's left in charge

of a region while Phillips away campaigning. He's a governor, that's the first thing he does, is it? I mean, presumably there are some older, wiser heads around him, but he's supposed to win a victory, founder city, the first Alexandria, which again shows that precocious confidence. But it becomes the big war will be the struggle with the alliance of some of the southern Greek states led eventually by Athens and Thebes. So two of the big cities, the Spartans stay out of it. They don't like being second fiddle to anybody. They've got problems of their own. Other cities join, but it's not Philip fighting the Greeks because quite a few Greek cities are fighting on Philip's side as well. And it's come out of the conference.

context of earlier interventions in the south that Phillips carried out. But it leads to the Battle of Chironaya in 338 when Alexander's about 18. And he figures fairly prominently that Philip has outmaneuvered the Greeks to get there. And then they find each other in this valley where the two armies stare at each other for a while before the battle finally happens because they know that you can lose this war in an hour or so in the battle. You might win it, but you might lose it as well. It's a big role. of the dice and both sides are cautious. Unfortunately, the source is for in our abysmal. It reflects that the difference, if it was one of Alexander's battles with him in charge, we'd have some

clearer idea of what was going on. You've got about 30,000 men, 30 to maybe 40,000 on the allied side. Phillips got about 30,000 infantry, a couple of thousand cavalry, Macedonians, Thessalians, probably. The other side may not have quite as many cavalry, but have more infantry. They probably the cavalry aren't as good, but the Thebans did have a cavalry tradition, so they're a bit better at it and say the Athenians that tend to be more skirmishing their role. We get a few stories about it. Plutarch, curiously enough, came from the area. So he remembers some traditions, and he talks about Alexander's tree, which you could still

see in his day, centuries later, which was supposed to be where Alexander pitched his tent, marking that spot, but the river, the stream there got its name because it was died in blood during the battle and this sort of thing. But again, you know, you've got shot over here in Oxford from the Civil War siege. People live there. It doesn't necessarily mean that. Some of these traditions can be right. Some of them can get a bit garbled as time passes. The story is that Alexander leads the charge against the Theban's sacred band, the elite force of the Thebes. This is the elite force of the Greeks fighting. But again, other than this occasion, we hear and virtually nothing about them, which rather means that the books and various documentaries

and things done about the sacred vander are stretching that little bit of butter over a huge bit of bread, because we don't know very much beyond this. He breaks their ranks. The assumption tends to be with scholars that he's doing this on horseback, he's leading a cavalry charge, doesn't say that in the ancient sources. You have to be very careful because the tactics that Alexander uses against the Persians, A, are probably not quite as uniform as people make them out. They tend to make it a system. But also, you're fighting the Persians who are mainly cavalry. You're fighting a Greek army that's mainly ranks and ranks of hoplites and a phalanx. That's spear and shield, isn't it? Yeah. So heavy infantry, close order, tough nuts. They

will grind through most things. Are you going to fight the same way? Are you going to use the same tactics? Cavalry charge against solid infantry tends not to work historically against the front. So it might be that here he's fighting on foot, at least at that stage of the battle. A battle is, again, in these vague descriptions, goes on a long time and is hard for, whatever those, you know, what does long mean in those circumstances? So it might be that it's a bit less simple. So people tend to jump to thinking, oh, this is just Alexander doing Alexander and doing it spectacularly well. There might be more to it, but the clear thing is that he fights with great distinction and is praised for, for his role in the battle. Philip is still commander. Philip wins, but Alexander does his bit and is

showing himself to be an able soldier officer. He's not yet a general. But the fact that Philip gives him so much authority in that battle, you know, commanding one of the wings against, you know, what is the elite infantry of the opposition. And this is something that you'll see later on in this key to Alexander success is that dividing up of authority to other chief figures in the army so that they can basically have independence, you know, free strategic thinking on other parts of the line so that the king, in this case, Philip, can focus on his part and just rely on Alexander. The fact that he gives that independence to Alexander, yes, it may also be like, you know, a sharp learning curve. But I feel Philip, he probably was risky, but maybe not that risky.

He does it because he can see that there's clear, you know, qualities of Alexander as a leader in battle, even at that young age. It's two things really. One is that perception. You're looking at this lad and thinking, yeah, he knows what he's doing. And if he gets killed, well, he didn't know what he was doing. If he fails, he didn't know what he. He's got, if he is ever going to be Macedonian king or even a prominent subordinate for me, he has got to live up to the standards of the Macedonians that they expect traditionally,

but also they expect now. Because remember, Philip's been around for nearly two decades, fighting war after war, winning, There are a few defeats, but there are far more victories. He has created this new army. The men within it are his men, Philip's men. And he trusts them. So there's trust in two ways. He's got the trust of, okay, I've got lots of people. They're in organized units. They know their commanders. They know that, again, each one can deal with his section of the line and not worry about the flanks because they trust the people there to be doing their job in the same way that I can focus on my bit because of this. So it's the army that's been created. And again, if If Alexander is going to play any role in this, he's got to prove himself to them. But it comes back to this sense of companions. We're all in this together. This is the tribe going to war, each in our appropriate place, but we've got to live up to the expectations of everybody else. So if you're going to lead us, you've got to show that you deserve to lead us, and you've got to go first.

So it comes from both, and it's a reflection of the army he's created. It's the sort of thing that would have been a risk 20 years before in the early days, but by this time it's becoming more and more manageable. And in the end, if Alexander had got killed at Chirona, we'd probably never hear of him. He's not yet Alexander the Great. This isn't the make or break if Alexander dies, the whole thing falls apart. So it makes sense. It's a logical thing and it's a test that you'd have.

He can't just stay back in his tent and sort of say, did it go well and hold the spun, bring on the sponge for people afterwards. It's a bit like, again, a successful sports team bringing in the young player. You've been winning for years. It's a lot easier to do. It's quite hard for them. It's intimidating. But if you're Alexander, you probably don't understand what intimidated

me. But it makes you realise because, you know, I know there are scholarly papers debating did he fight on horseback or was it? And looking at the bones and the skeletons they have surviving to say, oh, does that mean that he was, it was a saw cut from a horse or from foot? All of that in the life, larger scheme of things doesn't actually seem to really matter that match. What matters in Alexander's

case is the fact he was there and he was leading from the front, you know, and he shows what he can do. This is a baptism of fire, but it's, yes, okay, it's not the making or breaking of Alexander's Alexander's the Great, but it's still important in his development as the first major pitch battle. It's a start and it shows him just what war can be like on this scale. And you could fail, but it doesn't. But it's like anything else when you're aiming at the top, you've got to keep on succeeding. Everything is a new test. You pass that one, there'll be another one to do more. And it is part of this relationship as well. You are going to lead. It's not a Macedonian professional army that has to obey. They go because they're your companions. We're all in this

together. That's the heart of the army and it will be right the way through. So you've got to earn their trust because these people are, you know, they've been campaigning longer than you've been alive in some cases. So it all comes together, but it's a big, big deal. So following Kyrina, Philip's Macedonian Empire, it stretches from modern-day Bulgaria to the Adriatic Sea, Thessaly, and now Greek cities like Corinth, Athens and Thieves are under his control, not Sparta, but doesn't really matter too much, to be fair at this moment in time. And he forms something called the League of Corinth, which is just very roughly, because I know we can't go into too many details about it.

But it's this idea that the Greeks retain their autonomy to quite a degree, but they agree to send troops to Philip in the future. And he at this time has now got eyes on the biggest prize of all, which is the big superpower to his east. Where is he looking next? He's looking at Persia, the big, achachaqueminate empire. And, A, it's big, it's wealthy, it's powerful. And you want to test yourself against somebody powerful,

particularly somebody powerful who's got money. So if you're going to fight anybody, you want someone who's going to be profitable. Again, it's a modern name, the League of Corinth. It's an alliance. It's an agreement to work together and accept Philip as your hegemon, as your leader. But he isn't going to run your day-to-day affairs. You're still independent cities. It's just that you're part of this bigger struggle.

The curious thing about all of this, in that Alexander will take through, is that you're saying you're doing this as revenge for the invasion by Xerxes in 480, 470, BC, and in particular for his desecration of the temples on the Acropolis in Athens, when he burns down Athens. This is revenge. The Persians attacked us, you know, best part of 150 years ago, but now they're for it. We've played the long game. Exactly. I mean, there've been these pan-Helenic figures, these Greek writers coming out with pamphlets arguing that Greek should stop fighting each other, we should be friends with each other. If we grouped together, we could conquer the world, which means Persia, let's go and make these barbarians our slaves and live off the fat of the land

as proper Greek gentlemen. Various people, anyone who's become prominent in the last few decades has been approached by these people saying, can you could be the leader to do this. So people have been coming to Philip to say this. It's all a bit thin in that not just 150 years have passed,

but at the time, the Macedonians were part of the Persian Empire, and Alexander I fought with the Persian army and acted as ambassador for Xerxes. He did claim to change that. He did claim to warn me the Athenians before. for Plataia and then afterwards when the Persians are retreating, he attacks them. But it's, you know, it's distinctly iffy. And the Thebans, of course, had started off fighting the

Persians, but had joined the Persians at Medeis as it was called. So, and, you know, in the end, when you think of the monument from Delphi, there's not much more than, a bit a little bit over 30 Greek cities accounted as having stayed the course and fought the Persian. So claiming suddenly that everyone's part of this. But it's a marvelous pretext. It's a great rallying cry. You've got former enemies, you've just defeated people. The best way to unite them is to jointly go and fight and hate somebody else and profit from it and win. And that's the way.

So it's Philip, you know, there's this rather wry comment from the Roman historian, Justin, later on that Philip made war like a merchant that basically he gets the profits from one campaign and invests it in the next one to make the big of profits. And gets a wife at the end of every war. And there's, but there's an element of truth into it. Phillips created this empire that really needs warfare, needs victory, and expansion. You could argue Napoleon was in a similar boat. He couldn't really stop this idea that he could have stopped and had peace with all the European nations.

The economy has been based around rewarding your followers, bringing in plunder, plenty resources, and being able to give land to rule people who fight for you. The main reason they're loyal to you is because of all the victories. So it's difficult for anyone like this to stop, which of course will be a problem for Alexander. as well. He really wants to highlight that point because, you know, this is 338 BC, Alexander. He's seeing his dad so victorious all around the place and now he's there. And he would have been hearing about, you know, this preparation to invade Persia. And also the fact, I remember talking to Professor Lloyd Llewellyn Jones about this, the Macedonian court where he would have been growing up,

he would have seen Persian ambassadors. There's a lot of Persian culture that has influenced Macedonian culture. So it's not as if Persia is unknown to these Macedonians and the people, you especially the governors of Persia on the western fringes in across the Aegean in what is um you know anatole today ancient Asia minor so that's all happening and there's also that story isn't it when philips and greese he goes to Olympia and the building of the circular the Philippe a on and inside a statues and it shows philip it shows Olympias it shows Alexander so that's all happening and it doesn't look like philips on death door is nearing his death at all at this time with hindsight like we know it's only two years. But then we get this important event for the young Alexander

where, you know, it doesn't look good for him because Philip goes home and before invading Persia, he decides to marry again and this time the only of his marriages to actually a Macedonian noblewoman. And sometimes people say, well, he did it for love. But I think it's clearly another political one, I think Elizabeth Carney and lots of other scholars said it already as well, that, you know, it's the factions within the Macedonian nobility, and he's appealing to that by marrying this lady called Euridiki, Euridic. Or becomes Cleopatra Dioritki. But this becomes a problem for Alexander. Well, it's, again, the thing you have to remember about the Macedonian royal family is you're most likely to be killed by a relative, or at least they've inspired the murder, even if they don't wield the blade or the poison.

So there is clearly a lot more domestic politics going on. on. You've got these big clan heads that you've brought within a closer relationship to you and you've got control over them. But everybody has to look and think, well, that's fine for the moment, but what's the future? And everybody wants to be on the winning side. They want to benefit from this. So you've got to keep everybody happy. Philip is only in his 40s. He's going off to fight this great war. Might be marvellously successful. He might get killed. it might just go on for a long time with modest results. Previous Greek expeditions to Asia have not been that spectacularly.

The Spartans have sort of marched around, burnt things down, plundered a bit, come home eventually. It's not been that big a deal. And it's all very well fighting in Thracians, even fighting the Southern Greeks. Perjure is a different matter. It's big. So it's one of those odd. You get the criticism for Alexander that he goes off to fight a war without leaving an air. Philip seems to be trying to sort of, you know, belt and braces, make sure that he is fully covered.

though even then, yes, it turns out that a new wife is pregnant very quickly, nobody knew that was going to happen, nobody knew that child would survive. It's because, again, it's hindsight is our big problem. We know what this will provoke. And it clearly does you have the wedding feast story of, you know, the bride's drunken uncle talking about how we might at last get a legitimate, a fully Macedonian. In Alexander's face, he's dead.

That's the thing. But, I mean, they're all plastered to the eyeballs. This is the culture of the Macedonian royal family, is you get drunk a lot, and you have these big parties from which all the decent women are excluded. This is just for the men. So this is, you know, a rugby club booze up where tempers flare. It's staggeringly timeless. You then get Philip Trorn between, well, do I back my son or do I back my sort of Philip,

the new father-in-law effectively? And who's also drunk and doesn't know what's going on. And with all these situations, with hindsight, what somebody thinks they've heard and what certainly being said can be very. very different things. So it ends up with Alexander stomping off and going into sort of voluntary ex-up. He sent it to X-A and his mum Olympias also goes into X-Al as well. And eventually being summoned back later on and told. But again, because we know what's going to happen, we don't know what was planned at the time. It's not at all clear what was going to happen to Alexander

when Philip does go off to fight the Asian war. Is he to go with him? Is he to stay in Macedonia as region there? We just don't know. there is no good indication. I think, if you also look to that story mentioned earlier at Olympia, where Philip puts a statue of Alexander with him, and he's very clear that Philip still very much sees Alexander as, you know, the most likely,

if not that, you know, the person who's going to succeed him. And also maybe you're right, you know, he's the moment they're drunk. Alexander goes into exile because, you know, what this new uncle has said, you know, find legitimate sons, but it's the he's the moment they're drunk. the fact that he is then recalled not long after suggests that those bridges are mended very quickly.

And then you do get that story of the Pixodaris affair, which we should also mention, which is, I find this one fascinating, because it happens once Alexander's back in the fold. And then he hears that this Persian-aligned governor, place called Halicannasis, which will revisit in time, Pixaris, has seen Phillips' growing power and is deciding, oh, and I'm also hearing about Phillips' rumours. is wanting to invade the Persian Empire. I actually might throw my lot with Philip. And so they're negotiating. And what reaches Alexander is that Alexander's elder brother, Aridaeus, who he mentioned

earlier, might have had some mental incapacity. The idea is that he would marry the daughter of Pixodaris or something like that. So it's going to be a marriage alliance between the two. And it seems that Alexander just gets really jealous. And he goes to Pixar and says, said, why are you marrying your daughter to this guy?

My older half-brow? You should be marrying me because I'm going to be the next heir. And so Pixar thinks, that's great. Let's do that. And then Philip hears about this and he's just like, you absolute idiot. Why did you get involved in this? I didn't suggest marrying his

daughter to you because you are more valuable. You're going to be the king. You're not going to marry just this lonely governor's daughter and yet your jealousy, almost your insecurity, paranoia that by some way I'm now preferring this other child of mind to you,

has made you mingle in this and ultimately causes the whole arrangement to fall flat. I just find that story fascinating in the context. It is, I mean, it's a reminder of the thing you mentioned earlier that the Macedonians are part of that broader Persian world. So it's not so unimaginable, the useful connection. But that sense, yes, and then Alexander who just can't read the political situation. And you do find this with Alexander, even when he's more mature, there's a sense that sometimes he can empathize various,

strongly, particularly with his soldiers, particularly with his men. And other times, he's just got no idea what anybody else is thinking and really puts their backs up. And I think that's, it's here, when you think Philip wasn't really married until his early 20s, he's after he becomes Regent King, that he starts marrying. So there's no, as far as we can tell particular pressure on Alexander to marry at this point. It does seem to be again, you know, a half-hood and this, he's become very prickly, clearly, at this point. But there's an element of, he knows that, well, I'm the only adult, physically, mentally capable male air that Philip's got.

So I've got bargaining power from that point of view, but I don't want to be sidelined. He is clearly neurotic, really, about being pushed aside for somebody else, but there isn't anybody else in the, you know, and it's, it seems to intriguing. It's an odd story. It doesn't fit with the Alexander, the always knows what's right. always does the best thing, always spectacularly ambitious. You know, almost, it would be easier in that mode to think of a story where Alexander rejects the proposed bride because, oh, she's not good enough for me.

So it's an odd thing altogether, and particularly then shows no hurry at all to marry. Subsequently, so it's just very strange, but it does suggest this insecurity at that point, which perhaps, again, we don't know enough about how the politics is working within the Macedonian settlement. And again, Philip is in his 40s. If he lives on for 30 years, is he going to want 45-year-old, 50-year-old Alexander to succeed him? And what's come along with that? So there is an element of you need to make sure you're important

and stay important from the beginning. But it still just does seem a big misjudgment. It's also fascinating that this happens, you know, just before, which is, you know, Philip does not live for 30 more years. He lives only barely a few more months because he is assassinated. at the wedding of his daughter, Alexander's sister, to Olympias's brother, the new King of Milosha, yeah, King of Papyrus.

It's all very close family stuff. But he is, I mean, it's this idea, it's a jilted lover, isn't it? One of his... Not quite. It's supposed, the tradition, which partly goes back to Aristotle, so you'd think Aristotle would know,

is that this chap, Paul Zanias has been a favourite and lover of the king in the past, but the king's moved on. And that's some time ago. More recently, he has been insulted. Yes. And then this leads to him being gang raped by the slaves. It's a really nasty, really brutal story.

It's, you know, a soap opera take it to a higher level. And when he asked for recompense, you know, I should. It's not that you're still my lover and it's this, we used to be, I used to matter to you. You should protect me. There should still be an obligation on your part that you, you continue. to want me to succeed, want me to be successful, be my mentor protector. Again, the whole issue of these sort of relationships in Greek society, we sometimes emphasize the sex and forget the mentoring element. And the long-term connection, even when you're adults and you don't still have a physical

relationship, seems a big deal. And Philip, well, Philip makes him one of his bodyguards. They've got these close bodyguards that actually stand next to the Macedonian king at all times, which in this case means that you can be there with a dagger to stab him. Nobody can stop you. Philip considers that to be an honour rather than punishing Attalus, the man who's responsible for all of this, and that is brooding. It comes back to this sense of honour for a Greek aristocrat.

So it's not really passion or love in the same sense. It's about status. I have been someone, I should be treated better than this, and you should treat me better than this. You have failed me as the friend, mentor, protector, you should be because we used to be intimate. So it's a slightly different thing. But again, the suspicion at the time and subsequently is that it isn't just this crime of passion or this personal grudge that he's got.

It's who is behind it. Why are their horses? He's running to get away. He gets killed before he can get to the world. What's been going on? Who is behind it? And obviously, Alexander's name gets mentioned. Olympias's name gets mentioned.

Alexander will promote the tradition that it's the Persians that have done it. which has a logic to it, because if you've got this Macedonian king on your borders who sent a small expeditionary force to your territory and is promising to go more, knocking him off is actually the cheapest solution to, rather than fighting a war. So it's a reasonable thing, which doesn't necessarily mean they were responsible, but they would certainly have been quite happy to hear the news. And you see the bribing of close lieutenants to people in the time of Alexander, before the time of Alexander and afterwards.

From the origins of the Persian state, the Cyrus, when he's going in all his conquests, he persuades somebody to defect. And the same with Darius I, it's how they do things. It's what they're doing in Greece when they come in the four 90s and the 480s. It's saying, join us, here have some money, I can make you the most prominent about it. So it's a well-proven strategy and very successful one. So it's perfectly logical. On the other hand, the timing proves to be perfect for Alexander. And it's the whole sort of, you know, who does this benefit in any, familiar from all the murder mysteries we've read, that you can't help thinking Alexander does very well out of this. And the fact that, you know, you can see clear benefit for Alexander

is why his name and his mother's name Olympias keeps going up, doesn't it? Even though I don't, I don't believe it, but you can see why that through. I think also physically what's so good for Alexander at that time, although it's very clear that he's the clear air at this time, is he's on the scene. He is at the theatre where Philip is publicly assassinated. And it's amazing, isn't it? You see, because the succession is not official, you see clear members of the nobility, prominent members of the nobility, kind of seeing that Alexander's there and we're straight away basically bringing his hand up saying, this is the new king, trying to make sure that Alexander doesn't think that they're going to be a problem for him. You want to back a winner because if you're, if you put the new king in your debt, then he's going to favor you.

So you want to work out who the new king's going to be. So there's very quickly, and you get these deaths that follow with actually people who've, but they're all, it's a sort of horse trading. You're looking around and thinking, okay, which way is the wind blowing right and going for him? And then it's all out because you don't want to make any mistakes. And you don't want, you want him to feel suitably grateful and not thinking, and will not, not to admit what he knows that you've actually calculated. this is the best thing for you to do.

But, I mean, the other striking thing, of course, is that at this big feast, Philip has summoned representatives from all the Southern Greek states. So you've got all these people are watching and suddenly Philip, the man who's turned Macedonia into the local great power,

gone. He's the man who's led all these armies to victory, who's won campaign after campaign. Then there's the thought you've got to, you've not just got the audience of the Macedonians to deal with and convince, yes, I'm the rightful king, support me. I will keep on the, you know,

all the good things that have happened with Philippine chart, you've got all the other allies that you've coerced into this league you've created. Now they're thinking, well, okay, suddenly we've got this kid of sort of 21-ish coming along, 20-21. What do we do? But it's not just that. You are trying to work out, is he going to succeed? There's no point being friends with someone who's going to fail.

And okay, he's done well at Chirona. He's got boundless self-confidence, but that insecurity that his recent sort of poor decision, over the marriage proposal have highlighted. So is he going to win? Is Alexander worth befriending? Should I be frightened of Alexander? Is he someone I don't want to make an enemy? Is he someone I can afford to make an enemy? And there might be a better friend. Or it might be, is this when Macedonia goes futt, collapses into chaos, infighting, civil war, which it's done so many times. One advantage that Alexander has is that Philip has killed off most of the wider Macedonian royal family in his early fact that a lot of those lines have come to an abrupt and violent end

that were around to he doesn't face the challenges that Philip faced when he was in this precarious position as a new king. We'll just highlight some of the notable murders that that purge that does happen because it feels important just to mention briefly and then we'll explore those first years of Alexander's reign before we wrap up this episode. But we mentioned earlier that uncle of Philip's newest queen Attalus who at that wedding feast said, you know, may you have legitimate sons. He wasn't present there at the time. He was actually with the Macedonian advance force that had already crossed over into Anatolia with the man who will be one of Alexander's key subordinates Parmenian. And the message gets over to them and Parmenian saying you've got to pick a side now. Do you pick Alexander or do you pick Attalus? You can't have both. And he, although I think he's got a relation to Atlas, a marriage one, he decides to sacrifice Atlas, kills Atlas. Sorry, I'll go through them quickly. There's also because at this time the Macedonian royal family, you have certain parts of the nobility which have smaller links to the royal line. And there's another family, a Linkestian family, a Lindkestis is a region.

And two of those brothers are said to have been involved in the conspiracy against Philip. So that's a nice excuse to get rid of a potential threat there. The third brother is actually, he's very clever. He's on the scene when Alexander's there and he kind of saves himself for a period of time by saying, I'm supporting Alexander. but we'll mention that perhaps the most horrible one, which is the last wife of Philip, that Macedonian young nobleman, who by this time has had two children with Philip,

infant children. Supposedly, it is the wicked stepmother Olympias, who, they're pulled over a boiling hot bronze vessel and scorched to death, apparently. And apparently even Alexander is just horrified at the nature of the killing. How much we can believe that is not, we don't know,

but I just wants to highlight briefly, you know, as you mentioned, there are gruesome murders. There is that purge as soon as Alexander becomes king. In one way, as horrible as it is to say, it is kind of necessary for him to do. But, you know, this is not bloodless. It's probably similar things have happened at the point of succession with Macedonian kings before. Within this elite, this aristocracy, everybody's related to everybody else. There's been so much intermarriage that lots of people have got a little bit of a connection, somewhere or other. It's striking, I suspect again, it's the nature because we're dealing with Alexander that we hear about the execution murder of the Cleopatra, the final wife.

Normally we just hear about the men getting killed before, and we don't always hear about all of them. So whether this is all the more shocking because you didn't normally kill the women, or whether you normally did, but in the same way you don't tell, the sources don't bother to tell us when they die, what happens to them anyway, you just didn't talk about it. it. So it raises all those sorts of questions, but it's clearly a purge that is necessary to assert his power and is not by any means out of the normal terms of what Macedonians are doing, whether that last bit is. It's certainly something Alexander doesn't want associated with his name. Whether this really is Olympias has, for whatever reason, come to loathe this woman and her poor children. the children are not a threat at this state. They won't be a threat for 15, 16, 20 years or so at best.

So they didn't need to die. And it does add that real unpleasantness. But again, remember all of these people. We talk about them as names. We talk about their political ambitions, the balance is, the balance of power, this sort of thing. They are human beings. So there is emotion involved in all of this.

And it comes back to, in the end, yes, the soap opera exaggerates things, but this is a very highly charged group of people with their ambitions, their fears are magnified because life is so dangerous. And what they've just done to somebody else could happen to them. So you can't reject it out of hand and just say this is all just sensationalist. It might be true. It might not be clearly the last wife and the children vanish. So the probability is they are executed. Atalus clearly goes. And again, it comes down to this, well, who you, as you said, who's Palmeni are going to back. And he doesn't have enough support.

And that the decision you make on the day and what you say straight away can at least make you safe or get you killed very quickly. But everybody's gambling. Because again, we know this is Alexander the Great. The rest of the world, his contemporaries don't know that. Maybe people are thinking, oh yeah, this kid's got talent. Has he got the luck? Is he going to last?

Nobody knows. Well, almost as the very last chapter of this episode is a taster of the military stuff that is to come when he invades the Persian Empire, let's get to him like at what the Dardanelles at the Hellespont about to invade Persia. And what people seem to forget is it's not straight away. There are two years between 336 and 334 BC where he is still in Europe and he has to consolidate his rule. And talk us through, I know they're quite a bit, but we'll in a few minutes. Let's, let's, let's, let's, talk through these different campaigns, because they're still really important to it to mention. As you said earlier, Philip's built up this empire, really. He's become this great regional power, and he's done that in a couple of decades, and he's done it through victory, military force, backed by a lot of very savvy diplomacy. But you've made the Thracians, the Illyrians, the Southern Greeks, convinced that it's better to be your friend than your enemy. They know Philip, they don't know Alexander. Yes, you know, he's a promising young prince, but that's all he is.

and they know from the past that Philip is the exception. Macedonian kings don't tend to last as long, don't tend to be so successful. So very quickly, the Illyrians, the Thracians, groups within them start thinking, we don't need to be friends to the Macedonians anymore. Let's assert ourselves. Because again, you come back to this sense of pride in your safety. You want to be considered strong, independent, that at the very least people have to be nice to you, even if you're their ally.

They have to respect you. Now you think, well, maybe we don't have to treat them that way at all. We can assert ourselves. We can become dominant. So they start to break away. Alexander has to prove that he is going to be another Philip, that he is. He can do all the things his father. He's still got his father's army. Will that army be as successful under him? Nobody knows that. You've got to prove it to the army. You've got to prove it everybody else watching. And Alexander does this in a succession of campaigns. First of all, it's very much mountain warfare where he's fighting the Thracians, the earlier it. You have this one in case where they're holding a pass, they're rolling wagons.

It's the cart, the batting the carts. But again, it's the drill. Now, he's got the advantage of he has this superbly trained, very confident, very well-practiced team. But again, he's got to convince them that he deserves to be their captain, their general, their commander. So this is part of a gradual process. Again, we tend to flick a switch and say, oh, it's Alexander the Great.

He's wonderful at everything. He's genius as a leader as a tactician, therefore everybody realizes this and accepts him. This is how he starts. to prove himself, and it takes years because the army he commands overwhelmingly all the offices of Phillips men, and nearly all of them are significantly older than he is, far more experienced. When he manages to reassert his control, his dominance over those northern tribes, by this time Thieves, one of the big cities of Greece, has broken away nearly and he goes there and say, you know, the Thetans are thinking, well, we've been famous far longer than the Macedonians, we can do this.

He goes there, he besieges Thieves, he storms the city. and then he abolishes thieves. There are a lot of people killed, but the idea of going to a Greek city state as big as this and saying, that's it, it's gone, is shocking for Greeks. When you think,

after the Peloponnesian War, the Spartans beat the Athenians, yes, they tear down the long walls to the harbor at the Pereus, they weaken Athens, they don't destroy it. Because partly when you do that, there's the danger of what happens

for that land, the vacuum, all that everyone reasserts themselves. But it's Alexander shows that he's done something even Philip hasn't done. If you oppose him, you are dead. And that political extinction, being a citizen, being a Theban, is what matters to you more than anything else. And suddenly there is no thieves. And Alexander has done this and he's done it really quickly. And that is terrifying.

It's why from then on, it's a long, long time before there's any more resistance trouble in southern Greece. You've got people like Demosthenes and Athens saying, I hope he dies in it. Asia and, you know, whoopee, I think I've heard a rumor that he has, but the Athenians aren't listening. And actually, it's a spare of thought for the Athenians. They almost join the Thebans and they don't. And Demosthenes of all the figures, actually, you know, when there are later rumors of Alexander's death, he will actually be someone's voicing caution against it until it's

clear that he's died, because it's that prolonged and something that will just get deeper and deeper as we explore more on Alexander's career. Something so key to Alexander's story is people fear him. You know, so that kind of, that infamous reputation of Alexander, it spreads far and wide the further he goes. But it builds up gradually. That's our danger is that we think everybody should realize you don't mess with Alexander. But there's no reason to believe that at first. And things like the atrocity, really, at Thebes show that actually maybe we've got to think, you know, this is.

Because again, Philip seems to have been the exception. He's been the Macedonian whose turn Macedonia around, but it will just revert. the chaos. There's no reason to believe this kid can do the same thing. And you're forgetting that Philip was once a kid when he started doing. He was a similar age when he becomes king. So it's a gradual thing, but it accumulates. It's like the snowball rolling down the hill to turn into the album. And in the end, you then start, he becomes the Alexander, we expect. But it takes time. And he's got to prove it through spectacular success after spectacular success and a mixture of appalling ruthlessness and great generosity.

You know, you have the story at Thebes of this noble woman who is mistreated, raped by a Thracian officer serving under Alexander's army, and then afterwards he wants her money and a treasure. She says they're buried at the bottom of a well. She sort of gets him to the well, pushes him in, and then throws stones down to kill him. And Alexander rewards her and shows off, you know,

this is a virtuous woman who has done what someone did, and that man went beyond what I want my men to do. So it's, it's again, and you'll find this thread through the Persian Wars of these gestures of great magnanimity, great kindness, great chivalry almost. It'll be interpreted or reinterpreted in the later ages, along with the savagery, along with the kill of all, and burn down their house, you know, it's that. So that's why he's all the more scary. But it comes back to this idea of, you want Alexander to be your friend,

because he could be a really nice friend and he is an appalling enemy. This is what's all to come, isn't to Adrian, in the following episodes? And my other little point there to mention is there's the story that he meets the bizarre philosopher Diogenes, also when he's down, who lives in a pot.

He's not too impressed with Alexander when Alexander goes to see this weird man. Basically, Diogenes just says, you're in my sunlight, that's the way. But why I also want to bring that one up just at the end, not only is it a fun story to end this episode on, And it's also the fact that throughout the campaigns that we'll explore in the next episode, there are also these bizarre stories of him meeting these intellectuals of Faroehield

and these different characters interacts with where you have these more out of the military, out of the destructive side of Alexander that adds another string to his bow as a character. I feel we've now got to the Hellespon, haven't we? Because the next step for Alexander, having gone from the Danube River to Thieves, he's now going to do what Philip was beginning. He's now going to invade the Persian Empire. And that's the next step. Adrian, such a pleasure to have you on the show. I'll see you very shortly for the next one. It's been fun, thanks.

Well, there you go. There was episode one of our brand new Alexander the Great mini-series with myself and Dr Adrian Goldsworthy. In the next episode, we'll delve into Alexander the great invasion of the Persian Empire and great early battles like the Battle of the River Granicus. And finally, his first great clash against the Persian King of Kings. at the River Isis, King Darias the 3rd. That's all to come in episode two. In the meantime, thank you so much for listening to this episode, and I really do hope you enjoyed. Please follow the show on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

That really helps, and you'll be doing us a big favour. Make sure that you follow the podcast as well so that you don't miss out when we release new episodes, including the follow-up ones to this mini-series on Alexander the Great. If you'd also be kind enough to leave us a rating as well, well we'd really appreciate that. Finally, don't forget, you can also sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries with a new release every week. Sign up at historyhit.com slash subscribe. That is all from me. I'll see you in the next episode.