The Rest Is History - 117. Alexander the Great part 2

Episode Date: November 9, 2021

In the second part of our Alexander the Great special, we head to the limits of the known world, burning down palaces, storming mountain-top fortresses and battling elephants as we go. Might Alexander have kept his empire together had he lived? What killed him? Why is he in the Qur’an? *The Rest Is History Live Tour 2023*: Tom and Dominic are back on tour this autumn! See them live in London, New Zealand, and Australia! Buy your tickets here: restishistorypod.com Twitter:  @TheRestHistory @holland_tom @dcsandbrook Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Thank you for listening to The Rest Is History. For weekly bonus episodes, ad-free listening, early access to series, and membership of our much-loved chat community, go to therestishistory.com and join the club. That is therestishistory.com. No one was like him. Terrible were his crimes. But if you wish to blackguard the great king, think how mean, obscure and dull you are. Your labour's lowly and your merit's less. You talking to me?

Tom Lysambrook. Yeah, I was going to say that. That's Robert Lowell, his poem on alexander um we've talked about whether well he kind of is though isn't he because i think what he's saying is that alexander is like a he's the apex predator he's a kind of tyrannosaur and that people saying oh you know he did terrible things or he he's a a kind of evil man for conquering the world i mean you might as well blame a tyrannosaur for yes savaging flesh of a Triceratops. Well, it's absurd to blame a king in, you know,

the 4th century BC for trying to conquer other people. I mean, that's kind of the job to switch. Well, having said that, I mean, obviously, there were people who blamed him. So Demosthenes, when the news came that Alexander had died, said, surely the stench of his corpse would fill the world. Demosthenes is a terrible man, though, isn't he? I knew you'd be team Alexander.

A Ciceronian figure. Yeah, he is. So obviously we're talking Alexander the Great. This is the second part of our series on Alexander. In the first part, Dominic, you leading the way because you've written a top children's book on Alexander. Top, top children's book.. Top, top children's book. A top, top children's book.

Very good Christmas present, if I can say so. If you don't know what to buy your nephew or something or your niece, this is clearly the thing. But surely you don't need to wait for Christmas. You could buy one for yourself, buy one for your friends, and then buy one for all your relatives at Christmas. Well, I'm assuming that listeners all have a copy already, right? Because it'll have been out for two or three days. So there's no excuse. Well, they haven't had a day to listen to the previous ideal. All have a copy already, right? Because it'll have been out for two or three days. So there's no excuse. Well, they've had a day to listen to the previous podcast.

They have. So I'm sure they'll be rushing out. Anyway, so in the previous episode, we got Alexander to Egypt. He's founded Alexandria. He's had an audience with Amun in the oasis of Siwa. And now he is preparing to strike east and attack Darius III, King of Persia. So I think we said in the last episode,

didn't we, this was the point at which you could have stopped. I mean, a sensible thing. And in fact, his general Parmenian has said to him, basically, why don't you take the deal

that Darius is offering you, which is you take the western bit of the kingdom, the western thing. And in fact, his general Parmenion has said to him, basically, why don't you take the deal that Darius is offering you? Which is you take the Western bit of the kingdom, the Western fringe of the Persian empire. You're suddenly by far the richest man probably who's ever been in Greece. Why don't you take the deal? And Alexander says- But if you're mean, obscure and dull,

that's what you do. But if you're not, if you're Alexander, you go, let's go. Let's go. And so he does. He and his school friends and these other blokes who followed them, they set off from Memphis.

They go back up the coast of Phoenicia, and then they turn right. So they turn east. Now, Darius all this time has been amassing a new army, hasn't he? In Babylon, I think it is. He's got elephants. He's got more of his own family. And he's got chariots with sides. Yeah.

So he's got some distant cousin called Bessus. Bessus is a very bad man. He's a more of his own family. And he's got chariots with sides. Yeah. So he's got some distant cousin called Bessus. Bessus is a very bad man. He's a very bad... He's... Yeah, he's basically a sort of... Like a sort of Hollywood casting agency from the 1950s has been asked to supply a Persian. Bessus is the man they supply.

He's sort of black-bearded, dark-eyed... Twirling a moustache. Twirling a moustache, exactlying a moustache exactly he's a pantomime villain he's come from bactria with all this cavalry from bactria so bactria is bactria and sogdiana it's afghanistan and beyond yeah exactly it's sort of the fringes of iran turkmenistan afghanistan it's this kind of heartland of cavalry and horsemen and he's pitched up with all these sort of wild warriors and um derise has what seems a very good plan he's going to tempt alexander he's going to burn all the fields um and he's going to tempt alexander has to keep coming um scorched earth policy basically and he's decided where he wants to face him he wants to face him into players called place called galga

mila which i've been to have you i was going to askamela. Which I've been to. Have you? I was going to ask you, because I know you've been to kind of Iraq and Kurdistan. Yeah, so Gaugamela is also called Arbella. Yeah. Arbella is current day Erbil. I think it's about 30 miles south of where the battle was fought. So it's Kurdistan. A pleasant place?

No, it was awful. It was unbearably hot. Yeah, and dusty. The dust is going to be important. Yes, very, very dusty. So unbearably hot. Yeah. And dusty. The dust is going to be important. Yes. Very, very dusty. So that was very exciting. Yeah.

So I made our fixer. We were making a film out there. I made the fixer do a diversion just so I could see it. Did you? Oh, that's great. I'm very envious. And was there anything to see at all? No, nothing.

Absolutely nothing. Disappointing. No. So yes, the Macedonian army just keeps coming. They keep going and going and going and then the story goes that they arrive in i think october 331 and alexander goes to the top of this hill and looks out and he thinks oh god that is a very big persian army because the sources the greek sources claim that derise had a million men which i think is very unrealistic but some people we're unrealistic. But some people say they think he maybe had 100,000 and Alexander had about half that. And he's got chariots.

He's got elephants. He's got the whole works. And you can tell that Alexander is worried because he doesn't attack straight away. And he forms a camp and he takes a few days to kind of think about it. And then he decides, OK, we're going to attack. And then there's this extraordinary story, which I'm sure you will say is made up that he goes to sleep. And the next day, all his captains get ready and they've all got kind of,

you know, oiled up or whatever they do before battle. And he's still in bed and they can't have their breakfast until he wakes up and he still doesn't wake up. And eventually Parmenion goes into the tent and says, what's wrong with you? Yeah. How can you oversleep today of all days?

And Alexander says, well, it's because the one day where I'm'm not worried i know we're going to fight and we're going to win do you think he really said that tom i think that's absolutely bound to have happened it has it has the it has a slap of absolute authenticity something else very very plausible happens immediately afterwards you know they they get they get on his horse and he says to all his men uh he gets on bucephalus and he says you know we're about to win zeus is with us and then do you know what they see overhead in the sky an eagle the messenger of the gods of zeus a sign that they're going to win and i'm sure that absolutely happened because it's in the sources yeah yeah i'm sure i'm sure um anyway they win it's very dusty, isn't it? It's very dusty.

It's all confusion. The Persians all run away. And there's a big gap opens up in the Persian line. Yeah. And Alexander and his cavalry, straight in. Exactly so. Exactly. And this time, Darius doesn't run away.

Like a dagger thrust into the innards of Persian militarism, Dominic. Very good, Tom. You should try writing popular history books. i think you'd be a natural so this time darius is unlucky his men run away but he doesn't run away at first then he he runs away in a very confused way so it's not clear whether he's already a prisoner of bessus or whether bessus is or what's going on but anyway he's vanished and they can't catch up with up into media exactly so now Exactly. So now Alexander goes, he occupies Babylon. Is it not passing brave to be a king and ride in triumph through Persepolis? That's the next target.

Yeah. So he takes Babylon, he takes Susa, he fights another battle with some Persians, smashes them, and then he gets to Persepolis. This is the heartland, isn't it, of Persia, this beautiful city. I mean, at this point, the Greeks must be thinking, and the Macedonians must be thinking, you know, wow, this is on a scale that we've never seen before. And of course, they behave very badly. Well, this is one of the great moments in Alexander's career that people debate. Okay, so we have a question here from Joshua D. Terry. To what extent was Alexander's conquest of Persia actually intended as revenge for campaigns of Darius I and Xerxes in the 5th century BC?

So those are the kings. Darius sends expedition to Marathon. Xerxes led the great expedition that ends up burning Athens in 480 BC. We mentioned in the previous episode that Philip has been using this as a kind of justification to get the Greeks on board. Alexander turns up in Persepolis. Persepolis, of all the great Persian capitals, is the one that's most associated with the Achaemenid dynasty, the dynasty of Persian kings, to which Darius III belongs. In Babylon and in Susa, Alexander has behaved with exemplary forbearance. In fact, at Susa, he allows the Persian commander of the citadel there to stay in office.

So he's already accommodating himself to the local elites when he's... Absolutely. And due course, he's going to appoint, I think, a Persian as satrap of Babylon. So essentially, he's already, you know, he's a great general, isn't he? I mean, he's top general. But he's also a brilliant, brilliant political strategist. He clearly has this astonishing ability to read a situation politically as well as militarily. And he understands in a way that many, many of the Macedonians don't, that the only way that he can possibly hope to establish Macedonian rule over this vast empire that he's conquered is in a sense to get the Persians on board. I think that's absolutely right, Tom. Step into the platform heels of the great king himself.

I think he's more imaginative than some of his comrades. Vastly more imaginative. I mean, he's one of the most imaginative rulers who's ever lived so he sees straight away i think when he gets there this isn't now just a matter of like making ourselves very rich going back and buying a big farm in macedonia no this is he certainly thinks the machine is ripe for the taking i can i don't need to smash up the machine you decastrate it and you yeah i'll take it over i'll it over. I'll take it over. I'll do, you know, I'll take it over and get it to work for me. I can be the next Persian king.

I think that's basically what he thinks. And why wouldn't you be? It's a much better thing to be, as we've talked about in our Persian episode, it's a much better thing to be the leader of Persia than the leader of Macedonia. But ideally, be both. Well, exactly. He can be both. That's what he's thinking. He thinks he can be ruler of everything. And pharaoh of Egypt. And he ideally, it'd be both. Well, exactly. He can be both. That's what he's thinking.

He thinks he can be ruler of everything. And pharaoh of Egypt. And he can. Of course he is. And he's king of the world in Babylon. I mean, he takes over all these titles. Although, interestingly, he never actually takes over the title of king of kings. So that's a step too far.

A step too far. But he does take over the kind of the regional ones. So he treats Babylon and Susa as a persian king would treat babylon and susa yeah but then persepolis is different because persepolis is the dynastic capital of the eucalyptus so what's he going to do with it and he basically he ends up deciding he's going to burn it well this is the question because some sources the great story is that they're having a great sort of drinking and so this is what ties in with joshua terry's question about is it revenge for yeah the burning so some people

say he does this as policy he always meant to do it and he deliberately said i'm going to burn down this fantastic columned hall and all these wooden ceilings and stuff as revenge deliberate revenge for the destruction of the temples but then other sources say no they're having a great evening and this is the first point at which you realize that they've actually not come without female company. They've brought all their girlfriends with them and courtesans. Athenian prostitutes. Athenian prostitutes. Yeah.

So Ptolemy has this favorite called, what's she called? Teis. Is something like that? I don't know how you would pronounce it. And she says, they're all absolutely hammered. And she says. She's Athenian. Yeah, she's Athenian.

She says, you know, you've done a really good job, job Alexander but why don't you let me but lead us in burning down Persepolis and he says oh great idea and so they all get torches and they burn it down and historians have argued ever since is this did she really do this I think you don't think so no I don't I think she did I like that's a great story It is a great story. And the thing about Alexander is he attracts great stories, like Blotting Paper Soaks Up Ink. Clearly, he burns down Persepolis. But the question is, why does he do it? Yeah. And the interesting thing, though, Tom, is when you read the academic historians, they divide pretty much 50-50 on all the big questions. And it's clearly because some can't bring themselves to let go of the story they read when they were about nine well i i mean you know we don't know we don't know i mean you know got to toss a coin you could say he did it uh and clearly i i would suspect and this depends

on rating alexander but i would rate Alexander's political intelligence. Obviously, burning down Persepolis is going to play well with the Greeks back home. And Alexander is always looking back to Greece. There's been kind of stirrings, there's been kind of, you know, the Spartans are still playing awkward, the Athenians are restive. At some point, Alexander is going to send the Greeks back home. He needs to keep the Greeks onks on board so burning down persepolis he can pitch that as being revenge for athens yeah by xerxes i i deep down i think that probably makes sense and i think it's also telling persepolis is not the biggest city the biggest city is babylon and he doesn't hit the biggest city well persepolis yeah of course persepolis

is expendable it's a great you know you burn that down. It's a great political message, but you're not really losing that much. But also, you can frame it to the Persians that you're attacking the dynasty. Yeah, not Persia itself. Not Persia itself, because you're showing respect to Susa. And from this point on, having burnt down Persepolis, Alexander is going to go to great pains to show his respect for Persian customs. But what he does next, Tom, is interesting because he doesn't say, I'm going to now stay and rule. He says, Darius is still out there somewhere. He's fled with Bessus.

We don't know where. Let's go after him. And so they all go after him. They do. And by this point, Bessus has decided that he wants to be king. Yeah. And so he takes over, calls himself Artaxerxes IV. And Alexander finds Darius bleeding to death, doesn't he?

He's been kind of abandoned. That's right. He's been chained in a litter. They're charging on the road, the great highway that leads to Khorasan in the east. They know that Darius is ahead of them. And they stop one day and they see this sort of battered old litter or chariot or cart or something by a well and they go and look and inside is darius bleeding to death and he says uh to the guy who finds him who's called polystratus

he says tell alexander thank him for looking after my mum and my wife tell him i give him my right hand and then he dies and of course which again is entirely another story which because the genius of this is alexander can now cast himself um as the avenger of deris the third which then enables him to cast himself you know having burnt down persepolis he can now say i am the heir of the acumenids in the case it's basically five minutes alexander goes from we must hurry we must catch deris and kill him so like poor darius betrayed i would avenge him yeah i would avenge so they do capture besos well there's a long way to go because they they keep going don't they now this is another point this is really the point at which you say okay something very weird is going on because anybody

else would say that's it done i'm the new king of Persia. Great. Well, would you? You wouldn't chase him into Afghanistan. That's demented. Well, except that, you know, as we know in modern times, Afghanistan can be a womb of mighty warriors. It's so far away. If you've got a guy claiming to be the king of Persia,

and he's got all his pals up there, and they're amazingly proficient cavalry, and you've just conquered Persia, and you're claiming to be the Persian king, I don't think that you can afford to leave him up there. The reason I think this is odd, and the reason I think it is more contentious, is that this is about the point where you get the first reports of discontent among the

macedonian high command of course because nobody wants to go up there because it's after they first gone to afghanistan that um uh alexander discovers supposedly discovers the plot to kill him and philotas who is the son of parmenian his chief general is in on it and he says right we've got to kill philotas and parmenian and he does and i think that's the point because it's clear that at that point some people i think are thinking hold on i came for two years yeah get some money out of it i didn't think i'd be going thousands of miles and into afghanistan a place i've never heard of but i don't think that contradicts the fact that alexander has good strategic reasons for doing what he's doing. Because Alexander basically is having to start,

you know, he's no longer thinking as a Macedonian, purely he's starting to think as a Macedonian who's conquered Persia and who has to get the Persians on board, which is a different thing. And the rank and file don't have to bother with that. And you can entirely accept, particularly in this year of all years,

that, you know, soldiers from Europe do not want to go heading up into Afghanistan, which is a completely terrifying, mad place full of people who want to kill you and impossible places to capture but you can equally see that alexander's claim to rule persia depends on him eliminating a rival to that title it also requires him if he's going to be in a king of the persian empire he needs to lay claim to all the lands that were ruled by the Persians. Yeah. And it's also to back you up, actually, Tom. This is the point at which you get the first reports of him wearing Persian clothes.

So he wears a Persian purple cloak. He wears a Persian diadem. So it's tied onto your forehead by a white ribbon. And he starts to ask his men. He says, you have to greet me in the Persian way, proskinesis, which is basically blowing it. It's often described as sort of groveling on the ground and kissing the floor, but it's not quite that.

It's blowing them a kiss, isn't it? You get to blow them a kiss at dinner. Well, that's one way of putting it. What do you think they should? What do you think it is? No, I think it's more formal than that. I think it is a more formal gesture of submission. Yeah, they exchange kisses and stuff.

It's a formal gesture of submission. And he's travelled with a historian, a historian called Callisthenes. Who's Aristotle's nephew, right? Yeah, he's Aristotle's protégé. He's come as the expedition historian, which is yet more testimony to Alexander's educatedness. But ends up in the plot.

This pen-pushing historian refuses to do the kiss. And Alexander says, well, if you won't do it, I won't give you a kiss. And he says, oh, well, I can live with that. Alexander's absolutely outraged at this. Pen kills him. They rack him and then hang him, I think.

Some historians say they carry him around in a cage, which is harsh. Although I can think of some historians that don't. Yes. Yes. So anyway, they're going into Afghanistan, don't they? They capture Bessus.

So he's also tortured. He's tortured to death as well. We're now compressing years. I mean, this is the point to make rather than go through it blow by blow, this very, very complicated campaign. They are there for absolutely ages. They're there for about three years. And it's awful. And it is awful.

They're always either too cold or too hot. There are places, the Sogdian Rock. They're always scaling rocks. And the sources are so confused because in the different sources, they're scaling different rocks at different times. I have no idea who they are. And so there are certain themes, which is that Alexander starts killing his nearest and dearest.

So you mentioned Callisthenes. He's also Black Clitus. Yeah, who saved him at the Battle of the Granicus. Yeah, who saved him at the Granicus. He gets killed supposedly in a murderous brawl. In a drunken, yeah, drunken rage. Alexander is busy founding cities called Alexandria, left, right and centre,

all over Afghanistan. He marries the daughter of one of the Persian satraps. I think he's the guy who has the Sogdun rock. He's Oxiartes. Oxiartes and his daughter, Roxana. Now, this is strange, though, Tom, because she's not the obvious person to marry.

Is she? They're a better connected Persianian noblemen you know in the heartland yeah why does he go all the way out there and marry somebody from the wilds of afghanistan because he's desperate to to pacify it well that suggests exactly that he's in deep trouble actually that's what i always seem to suggest that he's in deep trouble in afghanistan never invade afghan. But he wins. He does. You see, I mean, you know, if, I don't know, Biden had married the daughter of Mueller or something.

Yes, exactly. I mean, it's that kind of scenario, I think. It's a great image. Joe Biden, that would be, if he'd flown into like Bagram Air Base or something. You see, that's the benefit of a classical education. Yeah. It's the obvious, obvious step to take.

He would, I never saw him scaling any rocks. Did you? No, no, no. Anyway, so it ends up kind of pacified. And the thing is that, you know, those foundations, those Greek foundations will endure. Yeah, we talked about this in our Afghanistan podcast. Much longer than Greek rule in Persia itself.

Yeah, it's incredible, isn't it? This Greek kingdom. So it is actually effective. It's mad on one level because never invade Afghanistan. But it does make strategic sense as well. I mean, he actually goes beyond Afghanistan. And that's Alexander, isn't it? He goes to Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. I mean, he actually goes beyond Afghanistan. And that's Alexander, isn't it? He goes to Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.

I mean, it's astonishing. At that point, what are they doing there? They're so far away from the tweets. It's really astonishing. And I guess that's the fascination of Alexander, is that you can cast it as either absolutely lunatic or absolutely solid strategic firm sense. And perhaps

it's both. I think there's a point here where he's tipping. He's got addicted, personally, to the routine of the conquest and stuff, and he just doesn't want to go back. I don't think so. I think that it's about having to make Persia secure.

But that does not explain what he does next tom invade india yeah well it does because india was part of the persian empire there's a this is clearly the point at which they have been on the road for what are we three two six so they have been on the road i mean i have to look it up. They've been there so long. Well, they invade in 334. Eight years. They are knackered. His men have been through the most hideous conditions of all kinds. Lots of them are dead. They've all got different weapons that they set out with, different armour.

They're not in their same clothes. They've accumulated this great baggage train of kind of hangers-on. And this is the point at which somebody says to him, They're in the same clothes. They've accumulated this great baggage train of kind of hangers-on. And this is the point at which somebody says to him, do you fancy coming to India, giving us a hand? And he says, great, yeah. No, it's not like that. It's not like that.

It is. They get a guy from Taxila who comes to the court and says, come and give us a hand. But the reason he's doing it is that the Indus is the line that marks the limits of Persian rule. And so if Alexander is laying claim to the spear one Persian empire, he is legitimately able to conquer it. But you know as well as I do that he just keeps going. So he goes down to Taxila, which is roughly modern day Islamabad.

There he meets the naked philosophers that we talked about in the last episode. The Gimli Sophists. He then goes to the river Jellum, the Hydaspes, as the Greeks call it, where he meets King Porus, who's basically in the Punjab. Well, meets. Well, he sends Porus a message, says, I'd like to meet you. And Porus says, great, I'd like to meet you too. I'll meet you on the banks of the Jellum.

I'll be bringing elephants and a massive army. In a monsoon. Yes, in a monsoon. Say goodbye to your life and alexander says great i'm up for it too he pitches up he crosses the river defeats the elephants in a monsoon it's amazing with his big spears tom with this is where the big spears come in and this is where the elephant medallions come in yeah and then he's very again you're the political nows porus is not killed and alexander says to porus you fought tremendously well you're obviously

a fine fellow why don't we become allies and you can become basically a glorified satrap and porus says great and so they become great pals so he basically incorporates porus's kingdom into his orbit as it were but then again he keeps going he still doesn't his men now at the point where they please can we go home no let's keep going into india because he thinks he keeps going. He still doesn't. His men now are at the point where they're like, please, can we go home? No, let's keep going into India because he thinks he's going to get to the end of the world. And although that seems laughable and mythological, why wouldn't he think that?

So you see, I think all of this is very mythologised. Of course it is. Of course, I mean, that's the nature of the sources. But this is, you know, his pothos, his yearning, his… Yeah. But why else does he keep going? Weeping salt tears because there are no fresh wells to conquer. That's Eric Bristow.

That's Eric Bristow. Only 27. Why does he keep going, Tom? Well, does he keep going? Well, actually, he turns around, doesn't he? They cross more rivers. They get to the river Hyphasis. And there there's this dreadful scene where his men,

who are in the monsoon, they've been attacked by lots of snakes they're very miserable and they've met Indians and they say is the end of the world there can we get because they think they're going to build ships and sail around back to Greece and the Indians say there's actually not the end of the world there's just a hell of a lot more India and there's more civilizations very fierce empires the others the rest of the macedonians say christ this is definitely time to go home and alexander says no great let's bring it on let's go and tackle them too i think that everything around this is we have no evidence for it that isn't centuries later we have centuries later but we know on the we know that those sources, so you mentioned the sources being written centuries later.

They are Arian, Quintus, Curtis, Rufus, Diodorus, Plutarch, and so on. We know that they are compiled from originals that are now lost. So Clytarchus, Callisthenes, Nearchus, Aristobulus, Ptolemy, some of whom were Alexander's mates and wrote accounts of what happened. But they haven't survived, have they? No, but we know that these secondary sources that we're using... But we have no idea what was in them. Because they quote them.

Because they say, so-and-so says this, so-and-so says this, I think this. No, I think that all this stuff is actually about Rome. All these stories are about Rome. I know you think that. But I think you're an outlier and historians of Alexander don't agree with you. And what I would further say is that I think it's also about constructing the myth of Alexander as a kind of Achilles figure who never knows when to stop. So you don't think that happened? So you, unlike all historians of Alexander, think that the mutiny didn't happen? I think there probably was a mutiny. I don't know. I mean, I don't know. I don't know. He's backing down already. No, what I think is that

Alexander reaches the Indus. He reaches the Hydaspes. He reaches the limits of what had been Persian rule. And that's where he turns back. And it seems to me a striking coincidence that he should turn back exactly at the point where Persian rule ends, unless there is significance in the fact that he's reached the limits of the Persian Empire. Okay. And so I also think that by the time that these stories come to be written, there's a lot of interest in the idea of kind of limitless empire, where the idea of as um someone who is pushing to the absolute ends of the earth he's becoming he's kind of starting to be transmuted into myth somebody who and and what what the mutiny does is to give alexander a reason to turn around and go back that doesn't make him look too bad well the stories that we have are that he cried that he was sulking and he does

behave very suicidally and self-destructively afterwards. So I think he genuinely did want to go on. Anyway, you know what? We are in danger of very Alexander-like behaviour because we should take a break now and then we should return and we've got the Desert March to talk about and his death and then reputation.

So see you in a minute. I'm Marina Hyde. And I'm Richard Osman. And together we host The Rest Is Entertainment. It's your weekly fix of entertainment news, reviews, splash of showbiz gossip. And on our Q&A, we pull back the curtain on entertainment and we tell you how it all works. We have just launched our Members Club. If you want ad-free listening, bonus episodes and early access to live tickets, head to therestisentertainment.com. That's therestisentertainment.com that's therestisentertainment.com so dominic on uh yesterday's episode we talked about um this thing that we're doing in leicester

square yeah the event of the season this sunday and we demonstrated our proficiency uh talking about cinema and history which which is the theme. And we hadn't even seen that film. Neither of us had seen. We were talking about Oliver Stone's Alexander. So just imagine what we'd be like talking about films we have seen. I mean, just extraordinary.

There's only one way to find out, isn't there? Because we will, we will be talking about films we have actually seen. I promise. And so we're doing that. That's this coming Sunday, the 14th of November at five o'clock, the Odeon Leicester Square.

And it's written here, genuinely looks like it's going to sell out. Genuinely looks. Genuinely. So we're not just lying when we say hurry, because there are very few tickets left. Yeah, there are not many tickets left, but there are some tickets left. So you do, if you listening to this very very few and they are so prized you would not believe so this is absolutely your last chance you have been warned i don't want to have to tell you again uh please end up giving money to touts yeah to encourage that do we yeah you definitely don't want okay

so i'm going to read something else a bit here it's look for podicon p-o-d-i-c-o-n on ticketmaster or just search for rest is history live is how you can get those gold dust tickets yeah we will see you there we cannot wait we're so excited aren't we tom we are yeah of course we are so see you then get your tickets and uh on with the show. Welcome back to The Rest Is History. Alexander, for whatever reason you care to think, has turned around in India. He's going to come home.

The journey home is more complicated than you might think because, Tom, he doesn't go back the way he came. He decides he's going to go back through a desert. A terrible desert that wiped out cyrus's army yeah the cyrus the great failed to cross so he says well i'm well he sends his fleet and on the coast and he and his men are going to march through the desert and this all goes horribly wrong doesn't it but he does he does better than cyrus well he managed it but he loses so he's got bragging rights, save a Cyrus. He loses colossal numbers of men.

Yeah, yeah. They've had this huge baggage train of women and children with them who are all killed in floods. They don't get on with the locals who they call the fish eaters, who they say stink so badly that they can't go near them

to ask them for food. He loses touch with his fleet. Finally, after all this dreadful march which does seem a deluded thing to do i mean i don't think you're talking about strategic sort of genius there's absolutely no strategic sense really in the march the only explanation people have said is maybe he was really keen on the arab spice trade quite a long way isn't it hopefully check it out this way well except that except that he's he's marching along parallel to his fleet that's the point isn't it? Hopefully he can check it out this way. Well, except that he's marching along parallel to his fleet. That's the point, isn't it?

So I think that's the... The claim is that actually he's really interested in the fleet and the fleet checking out ports and trade routes and stuff and that he's going to keep the fleet supplied from the land and that just goes horribly wrong. Anyway, he gets back. A series of mishaps happen once he... He established himself as a persian monarch doesn't he

basically well he he so he's married roxana he now marries um i think it's dry as his daughter isn't it yes to terra yeah terra uh and another one as well yeah um and uh he holds this kind of great wedding where lots of macedonians have to marry lots of persians a big symbol there are two big symbols of that and then there's he tried he messes with the army and tries to reform the army, sending some back and bringing in Persians and Afghans. And so this is kind of what inspires Sir William Woodthorpe Tarn. Yes. Who is the great enthusiast for the idea that Alexander is a kind of prince of peace,

who has a kind of United Nations approach. Champion of human rights. Champion of human rights, all that kind of prince of peace who has a kind of united nations champion of human rights champion of human rights all that kind of stuff um which generally i think people now don't totally buy into but he's the godfather of alexander studies isn't he because the key thing is that it's only the persians yeah alexander isn't really interested in other people's it's it's the persians and that's what alexander is all about that's why he's marrying what he's doing it's why he's wearing what he's wearing um he when he so when he gets back he um uh he promotes um one of his followers

i think to the rule of persia who has actually learned persian yeah i think he's yes and um i think that's really telling that's that's what this is all about and inevitably this there's a mutiny isn't there at oppis exactly and this is at oppis is where he basically gathers his men and he says i'm going to send a lot of you home now well done you're finished the quest is over and they cut up rough because they know they're being cut out of, basically, his new empire, and they're being supplanted by Persian replacements. And his court, he's got Persian secretaries.

This is where this eunuch, Bagoas, comes in, who's clearly at Alexander's side a great deal. And he's now dressing in Persian outfits. The troops don't like it. They're kind of Macedonian farmers and stuff, and they feel that he's betraying them to this sort of foppish, luxurious, the very people that they had always been brought up to despise, I suppose. Do you think?

Yeah, absolutely. Yes. And that makes sense. And I think that that's basically what's going on. The last sort of year of his life is very miserable because his great mate, Hephaestion, dies of fever. Alexander builds a monument to him, which still stands in Hamadan. You've been to Iran.

I have. Yes, I have. Have you seen it? Yes. Oh, I'm very envious. And then what do you think? People say Alexander in the last year of his life is planning a new expedition. It's to Arabia, isn't it? Arabia.

Arrian has this brilliant line, which is really too good to be true. He says, even if Alexander had added the islands of the Britons to Europe, he would have still gone on looking for unknown lands. I think that's true. He'd invaded Iceland. Yeah, Greenland or something. Greenland. So he's sitting there and he's planning this new expedition to Arabia.

It seems the ships are all ready. He's drinking a lot. It's getting hot. He's in Babylon. And then he dies. And the question, which lots of people have asked, is, is he murdered or does he die of disease? What do you think, Tom? We have absolutely no way of knowing.

I think we do have a way of knowing. Do we? I'm much more certain than you about lots of these things uh he falls ill on the 28th of may 323 at a party with supposedly it's a party held by medias of larissa one of his officers he doesn't die till the 11th of june even the accounts that slightly disagree with that say he still doesn't die after between 10 to 14 days and most historians i think say that there aren't poisons that people use in the ancient world that take that long. And if you were going to assassinate him, you'd do it quickly. And you'd

have a succession plan in mind. And this is a place that's well known for malaria and other diseases. And it just makes sense. He's exhausted. He's drinking too much. It's hot. It's unhealthy. He gets malaria or something like that that that makes sense that he dies in about two weeks fits the symptoms i still think that that all these descriptions are so late ah so overlaid i i just i just don't think you can you can derive a medical diagnosis from i think accounts written i'd like to three or four hundred years now once we finish this podcast you should be emailing all the historians of Alexandra

and leading universities across the world and telling them to desist forthwith. You've seen through their lies. You know, one of the reasons I haven't written a book on Alexandra is I just think

the temptation to tell the story like as though basically it's a kind of romance is so strong. And that's why it works so brilliantly as a children's book because you're basically it's a kind of romance yeah it's so strong and that's why it works so brilliantly as a children's book because you're not worrying about that kind of stuff yeah but i i think that um it's top killjoy tom holland it's it's it's a kind of narrow boundary between history and romance yeah it is that's what makes the story so exciting it is it is and so we It is. And so we have these stories that are written in the Roman period that we can treat

as history because they give us recognisable place names. They give us characters, they give us motivation and battles and all that kind of stuff that have the kind of semblance of reality. But Tom, you didn't say this about Thermopylae and Salamis. Well, no, because with Thermopylae and Salamis, we know that the guy who provides our main source spoke to people who fought with it. Clearly, he's elaborated it. Yes.

No question about that. But it's more rooted in the reality of what happened, I think, than stories written centuries and centuries after. The stories that are clearly based on sources, that the historians themselves say, I'm basing this on this guy. I've read this book. I mean, they're completely upfront and open about the fact that they're using sources. They are. But it's impossible.

It's impossible for us to judge between them. I mean, it's not to say one. It is impossible to judge. Yeah. One might be. One must be true. I mean, none of them might be one... I agree with you. It is impossible to judge. One must be true. I mean, none of them might be true. Yeah, you're right. That's the problem.

And it's exactly the same as with the Muslim conquests, the Arab conquests, that the difficulty in accepting these as kind of historical fact, detailed accounts of what actually happened, I think is profound. Okay. And I think the same is true with Alexander.

I think it's a brilliant story. You know, it makes for wonderful children's books. It makes for wonderful novels and so on. But I think that it's very difficult to know how you write it as history. Okay. So Thomas had his rant about, his rant about stories. Yeah, sorry.

And now... But the other, but the other, the other, you know, the other kind of intriguing thing, which I think highlights that, is the way in which,

even as these, these kind of histories in inverted commas are being written, you're also seeing the other way in which they can go, which has become romances and increasingly fantastical stories about Alexander, in which he is the son of Amun. Or he is actually, I mean, it kind of ends up weirdly in Persian traditions that he's a Persian, that he's the son of a Persian king or a son of a pharaoh.

You get stories about him going to the very ends of the earth. He goes in a submarine, doesn't he? He goes up in an air balloon lifted by birds very ends of the earth. You get stories about him. He goes in a submarine, doesn't he? He goes in a submarine, goes up in an air balloon, lifted by birds, kind of amazing stories. And you start to get Jewish, Christian, Muslim traditions. So the Jews are unsure what to do with him. You know, is he a kind of insane megalomaniac? They just end up thinking no, actually.

So a tradition arises that he goes to Jerusalem and he basically acknowledges the God who's worshipped in Jerusalem. In the Christian period, he gets kind of transmuted into a Christian, even though obviously he's born before Christ. And then he appears in the Quran, most amazingly of all. He's the horned one, or is he in the Quran? He's the dulcanane, the two-horned one, which can only be the horns of Amun. So there's the amazing thing that the details of this trip to Siwa, where he goes to the Oracle of Amun, has this kind of distorted echo in the Quran, which is the kind of, you know, so opposed to idolatry and paganism and all that kind of stuff

and there he is and and alexander in um in the quran he's you know it's his pothos he's going to the limits of the earth he's but let's talk about um talking about limits we've got lots of questions from the listeners about legacy and empire and so on so jonathan wild has a question was his empire too big to last because obviously obviously on his deathbed, according to the sources, which Tom believes are all made up, he famously says, they say, to whom will you leave your kingdom? Perdiccas, his regent, says to him, who ends up basically being his successor in some ways, says to him, who are you going to leave your kingdom to? And he says, Toi Cratistoi, to the strongest. And then it all falls apart. The lads the sort of the lads who've come with

him all turn on one another and they all fight and kill each other and it ends up with salukas is the guy who basically takes over persia and much of asia ptolemy egypt um his one of his generals antipater and his son cass, take Macedonia, don't they? I'm not sure I've missed somebody out. Well, you've got Antigonus. Antigonus, that's right. Antigonus, Antigonus the One-Eye. He takes Asia Minor, is that right?

No, he initially rules the Persian stretch, the eastern stretch. Right. And then Seleucus takes over from him. Okay, so it's a very Game of Thrones-style scenario, isn't it? The question it the question is could it have lasted tom do you think it could have lasted i think if alexandra had lived i think if he'd established a secure succession um i think it's perfectly possible not too large he would have had to say i mean he would have had to make the center of gravity in persia yeah and the thing is is that none of the uh none of his successors, none of the Macedonian lads want to do that.

So the capital of the Seleucid Empire ends up Antioch, which is on the Mediterranean coast. Actually, it's not Syria now, is it? I think it's this kind of weird chunk of Turkey, but it's basically Syria. It's Antakya in Turkey. Yeah. Egypt, of course, is Mediterranean.

Macedonia is Mediterranean. They don't want to be out east. Alexander did. And had Alexander ruled from Susa or Babylon or whatever, then, you know, with his prestige, with his political nous, I think he could have done it. But he surely would have faced revolts in Greece and so on, wouldn't he? Well, he might have done, but he might have kind of ended up, well, I'll cut Greece free. But also, I mean, he's got a massive, he's got a big force in Macedonia.

I think that the infrastructure of a Kaimanid rule is there and Alexander understands its value, which is why Pierre Brion calls him the last of the Achaemenids. He could have been, you know, it could have kind of ended up that the Achaemenids go and Alexander's dynasty basically takes its place. Yeah, rather like Egyptian, the way that Egyptians... A bit like the Egyptians, yes. A bit like the Ptolemies in Egypt. But the problem you have with that is that Alexander in all his lifetime has never really shown any interest, particularly... I know he's shown great strategic and political nous in dealing with elites and so on,

but he hasn't particularly shown an interest in just governing. He's shown a lot of interest in fighting. Again, I'm not sure that's true. I think he does i think he you know his his appointments of satraps his um his concern with um military organization with administrative organization i think it's but don't you think it's telling in the last year of his life he's already thinking about a new expedition i mean just take a break mate you know settle down found a dynasty do you need to go to arabia that's what i would see as the again you're

gonna say you don't you don't you don't believe any of it happens we don't it's all a dream we we don't we don't know okay let's um uh what about the so jerry and many others, says Sam, our backroom mogul. Sam says they've all asked where is his body? Well, we know where his body kind of ended up, don't we? It ended up in Alexandria. Where it gets visited by the future Emperor Augustus, who knocks off the tip of his nose. Supposedly.

Now, I don't believe that story, actually. I think that story is clearly invented. Well, you know the brilliant story. You know the brilliant theory about where his body is no which is that um don't tell me it's in salisbury no it's in venice because the the venetians arrive in alexandria looking for the body of saint mark because it was san marco yeah mark mark's body is meant to be buried there um And they go in and it's a time of chaos in Alexandria. And they look around and they find this body in a kind of great shrine. And so they assume it's St. Mark's body

and they remove it and they take it to Venice. And so Alexander's body is in San Marco. Do you believe that? I was about to say, you don't believe all these sources, but you believe that? It's such a good, It's such a great theory that I'd want to believe it. Now, there might be some people listening to this podcast who say, well, you've described somebody who fought a lot of battles and climbed rocks and behaved in sort of outlandish ways. But so what?

You know, is it anything more than a children's? Is it anything more than basically the Lord of the Rings without the ring for adults? And does Alexander matter, do you think? I mean, obviously, he inaugurates what we call the Hellenistic Age, the idea of this synthesis of East and West. But do you think that would have happened anyway? Or do you think it took Alexander and his conquests to do it? Well, there's a famous saying by a German historian in the 20s, Karl Becker, who said,

without Alexander the Great, no Islamic civilization. Yeah, and no Christianity, arguably, right? I mean... So he creates, he creates what becomes, you know, the koine, the common Greek language. But you could say that the culture

becomes a kind of koine. It's a melting pot in which Greek, Persian, Mesopotamian, Jewish influences all kind of mix and mingle. And that is the Petri dish from which Christianity, rabbinical Judaism, Islam will emerge. And those are absolutely seismic developments. Yeah. So I think Alexander does matter. Yeah. seismic developments yeah so i think i think alexander does matter yeah i think also he matters doesn't he because of the model that he presents to pompey to we mentioned augustus okay

so we've got a question from from gary hicks was alexander actually great and if so for what and in comparison to whom that takes us back to the as you said our very very first podcast where we talked about that um alexander it's again it seems to be the romans who call him the great um the earliest reference to him as great is in a play by a roman playwright called plautus uh in the early second century bc and he it seems to kind of derive from a desire to you know there are lots of Alexanders who were Macedonian kings. So he's Alexander who's the great. And the Romans have this, you know, the cognomen, which is a kind of like a descriptive word.

So the great is like a kind of Roman cognomen. And this is Pompey the Great who goes to the east and he conquers vast swathes of what had been Alexander's empire. And he brings back Alexander's cloak and sports it. I'm sure it definitely was Alexander's cloak. It's only like 300 years too late. And he adopts Alexander's hairstyle, this kind of Elvis quiff. Yes. And so that then beds down the idea of greatness.

And of course, the Romans have an ambivalent relationship to that because... Of their distrust of kings, right? The distrust of kings, yes. And actually, the question, you know, Rome is meant to be an empire without limits, according to Virgil. What does that mean? And so that's why there's this fascination with a king, a conqueror, who dreams of an empire without limits. And I think that's a huge part of what's going on with these stories about Alexander.

Didn't Caracalla, is it Caracalla, the son of Septimius Severus, didn't he model himself in Alexander as well? And he tried to set up his own phalanx and stuff. Isn't that right? Well, he invades Mesopotamia, as Alexander had done, and is killed while having a pee. That's right. He gets off his horse to go to the loo, and one of his men kills him. That would never have happened to Alexander. But they're always doing that. Crassus does it. Julius Caesar was preparing to do it before he gets assassinated. Mark Antony does it. Trajan does it. Caracalla does it. Julian the Apostate does it. They're all invading.

And it all goes wrong for all of them and it always goes wrong and so and so that again burnishes the the legend of alexander as someone who could actually do it uh this absolutely i'm so glad you've said this because this comprehensively proves that i was right when i said alexander would beat julius caesar and mary beard refused to answer uh when we had her on the podcast talking about classics. We had that crucial question, who would win a fight? Lots of people have asked us more iterations of this question. Who would win a fight? Genghis Khan, Julius Caesar, Augustus, Napoleon, or Alexander?

I think my answer to that would be that obviously Alexander would win in a fight, but Augustus would win the peace. Do you know what I think? Yeah, I think so. I mean, they seem to me the two poles, actually, of leadership. They're the two great figures, the two great paradigmatic leaders of the ancient world. But Alexander's empire doesn't last, and Augustus's does.

And that moment when Octavian, at that point, when he's in the tomb looking at the body of Alexander, I mean, that's surely one of the extraordinary moments in all of history. Cleopatra has, I think, just died, just killed herself. And Octavian goes down and he goes to see the tomb of Alexander and sort of stares at it. And I think he leaves flowers or something.

And then they say to him, the attendants say, would you like to see the tombs of the Ptolemies now? He says, no, I didn't come to see dead men. I came to see a god. I came to see a god. And yeah, do you think people will, for hundreds of years, will still talk of Alexander in this sort of aude? Not if they've been listening to you dissing the sources, obviously.

I think so. And I think the reason for that is in that poem that we began this episode with, the Robert Lowell one, that you can say, yeah, his crimes are terrible. But they're not crimes, are they? They're not crimes by the standards of the age, they're not. Even remotely crimes. But, well, I don't know.

I mean, people at the time didn't say he's a bad man, he's a bad king. Yes, I think they did. I mean, I think the scale of the slaughter at Tyre. That's the only instance, though. Yes, yes. But I think we live in an un-Alexandrian age. Right. People are hostile to the ideal of greatness that he embodies.

Yeah. People are suspicious of it. But the number of people who replied to this question, I think, indicates that his charisma still blazes bright. Absolutely, it does. We are fascinated by apex predators. We're more interested in, tend to be more interested in Siberian tigers or sharks

than we are in sheep. Yeah, I'm sure that's true. And I think that Alexander kind of satisfies that need. On which, no, we should end with... I know how I want to end, Tom. No, I want to end with Barry Grogan. Well, you can end with Barry. Is that the last question?

So Barry Grogan has said, I'm 31. Can I conquer a similar sized empire by my next birthday? I think there's tons of time, Barry. I don't, never give up hope. Just don't invade Afghanistan. No, well, I mean, you need an oracle. Maybe Egypt, maybe Egypt. Well, maybe if I read the final lines

of my children's history of Alexander the Great, then I think that will inspire Barry because this answers his question. So I say, it's great that I'm able to quote myself at the end of the podcast. Yes, yes, Alexander style modesty. So here we go. Historians argue about him to this

day some see him as a noble champion of universal brotherhood others as a selfish monster who cared only for fighting and killing how should we remember him screaming defiance on the field of gauga mila slashing decisively through the gordian knot bowing his head before the oracle of amon or sulking in his tent in the rains of India. All these images are true enough, but Tom Holland, perhaps we should remember him as he began as a boy who loved tales of gods and heroes and told his friends that he too will be remembered in poems and songs.

Now in this, at least, and this is a message to Barry, he was not so different from boys and girls everywhere. Did you write that? Yeah, I'm still going. You literally wrote that.

Few of us seriously think we are the children of Zeus. Few of us. But we all love stories, and we all love to picture ourselves as the heroes of our own adventures. And perhaps, inside all of us there is an inner alexander this is a terrifying glimpse into the sandbrook soul is this perhaps this is

what i tell my son every day perhaps inside all of us there is an inner alexander lifting his eyes to the horizon and dreaming of glory in the world beyond. Well, that's the way to end, isn't it? I didn't expect that reaction, I have to say, but I'll take it. No, it's brilliant. I haven't yet had the chance to read it, but I can't wait. Clearly, you could do with a laugh. I think that that may serve to change the entire attitude to Alexander.

I think an entire generation may grow up dreaming of becoming Alexander in a way that they used to back in the good old days of Mary Reynolds. Bad news for the people of Iran. Well, no, maybe good news because they can be integrated into a universal brotherhood of man. I look forward to it. So on that happy note, we will see you in a few days for remembrance day a much more solemn occasion but we've actually secretly recorded that one first and i'm sure and you've written a book on that as well haven't you on the first

world war yeah oddly it's funny how these things happen isn't it it's weird how they keep popping up uh do you have any inspirational messages for boys and girls in that book yeah there's a boy and girl inside out all of us tom beneath the layers of cynicism i know uh i know the listeners think of me as a much less cynical person than you clearly and a lovable uncle yeah well there are different kinds of uncles, aren't there? A lovable one. Encouraging boys and girls to invade Persia. Right.

On that note, see you next time. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Thanks for listening to The Rest is History. For bonus episodes, early access, ad-free listening, and access to our chat community, please sign up at restishistorypod.com. That's restishistorypod.com.