Timesuck with Dan Cummins - 210 - Alexander the Great!

Starting point is 00:00:00 Alexander the Great, Alexander the Third, king of the ancient state of Macedon, aka Macedonia, often heralded as one of history's greatest military commanders. But he wasn't only that, he was also a scholar, a lover of literature and the arts a deeply religious man, and someone who had thousands and thousands of people killed. undefeated and battle he unleashed his army on country's great and small to forge an empire that stretched over three continents, from Greece to India as far south as Egypt. He did all this in a little more than a decade after taking power at the age of 20 until his untimely death at the age of just 32.

Starting point is 00:00:35 Alexander the Great was so great at destroying his opponents, his military tactics and strategies are still being studied in military academies today. But his conquests aren't all that make Alexander a fascinating person. His parents, Philip and Olympias had their own fascinating lives. Alexander's close friends from childhood, including his best friend, hefistian would become Alexander's generals

Starting point is 00:00:56 and trusted advisors. And together they would battle a variety, a formidable and fascinating opponents on battlefields and exotic lands. They'd only heard whispers about before actually seeing them for themselves. In a culture that valued war over all else, Alexander prevailed by being the best at conquering. He did whatever was necessary to win, and sometimes did things that maybe weren't so necessary. Cities were sometimes completely destroyed, priceless artifacts obliterated, all according

Starting point is 00:01:23 to Alexander's sometimes material will. So what made Alexander so great? What were Alexander's early influences? The people who formed him into the fearless leader who would become. How did Alexander and his father turn Macedonia from a tiny tribal kingdom into the world's most powerful empire? All this and more in today's ancient bloody.

Starting point is 00:01:43 This actually isn't Spata, it's Macedonia, but it makes me think of Hollywood spata edition of Time Suck Happy Monday and Hail Nimrod, Midsack. Welcome to the cult of the curious big show for you today. I'm Dan Kelman's professional potster, Midsack Ryler. Nimrod's caddy, Lucifina's full body masseuse and you are listening to Time Suck. Hail Nimrod, don't leave Lucifina good boy boat jangles and where have you been, Triple M? Big time sucker updates, addressing a variety of opinions regarding last week's riot suck. Skip it if you're done with that discussion.

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Starting point is 00:03:02 is we dumb and now also incredible feats, a little quick hits of interesting and inspirational topics Monday through Friday. And that's it, and that's it, quick announcements today. Let's get into some very exciting, you know, little chapter of history right now. [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ Establishing fact from fiction, in a story like that of Alexander the Great's not easy.

Starting point is 00:03:28 In some instances, not even possible. How do we tell the history of Alexander's life pulling apart the myths and legends and reconstructing an accurate narrative? Well, we don't. Thanks for listening, everybody. Come on, JK! Now, we do our best. We do our best with the most accurate sources known to exist. Come on, JK!

Starting point is 00:03:45 Now, we do our best. We do our best with the most accurate sources known to exist. The bulk of the ancient narratives written about Alexander's life were written between 30 BCE and the third century CE, hundreds of years. After his death in 323 BCE, long time for the telephone game to be played. Long time for the proverbial fishing tail to go from catching like a eight inch two pound rainbow trout to hook and a trout that didn't hop into the net it stood up walked out of the fucking lake spit the hook

Starting point is 00:04:14 into your face and slapped you off the dock before throwing its six foot two hundred and fifty pound fish frame back into the water. The earliest known proper biographical account of Alexander's life was written by the Greek historian, Diodorus, died in 30 BCE, and his account like a L.I.S. accounts, I mean, there's probably a decent amount of exaggeration in it because they wanted to make him look even greater than he was. We also have histories written by other historians, including Roman historians, who did base their writings on accounts written shortly after Alexander's death, but these were accounts penned by those who fought alongside Alexander on his campaign.

Starting point is 00:04:47 So of course, they were biased. They wanted to write glowing reviews, so they didn't get killed. Also these narratives were mingled with the propaganda of various Greek and Roman states ruled by emperors that would use Alexander's image to cement their own power. So they would be particularly biased. The authors had an obvious agenda to make Alexander's exploits, you know, bigger and better. Their empires rulers wanted to hitch their wagons to the brightest star in history. They wanted to please the rulers to increase the odds that their heads remained on their

Starting point is 00:05:13 necks. The better Alexander looked, the better their rulers looked. The five oldest and most often quoted surviving accounts of Alexander's life were written by three Greek historians, Aryan, Plutarch, Diodorus, and two Roman historians, Quintis, Courteus, Rufus, and Justin. And these men didn't just write about a man. They wrote about a god. Alexander is remembered as a man who shit literally didn't stink by Plutarch, who reported that a most agreeable odor exuded from Alexander's skin, and that his breath and body all over

Starting point is 00:05:44 was so fragrant as to perfume the clothes which he wore Oh boy So maybe you didn't say his literal shit didn't stink, but he might as well have In addition to these five main sources there is the metsypidomy a late Latin work with an anonymous author that narrates Alexander's campaigns from her Kainia to India No one knows exactly when it was written. I mean, I know for sure it wasn't written in 1989. I do know that.

Starting point is 00:06:09 I know it was not written in like May of 2003, but I don't exactly when it, we know it was written a long time ago. It's not exactly when. In order to get a more accurate picture of Alexander, later historians began to interpret sources, not just for his successors and fans, but also from the lands of the people he conquered.

Starting point is 00:06:27 These accounts help provide a bit of balance to Alexander's exploits. Still, most of the info will be sharing does come from the pro Alexander crowd. So, working with that knowledge, let's do our best to get to no Alexander. Just who was this God-like meat sack? Plutarch, who will hear a lot from this episode, the Greek historian who died in 119 CE, describes Alexander's appearance as, The outward appearance of Alexander is best represented by the statues of him, which Lysipos made, and it was by this artist alone that Alexander himself thought it fit that

Starting point is 00:07:00 he should be modeled. For those peculiarities, which many of his successors and friends afterwards tried to imitate, namely the poise of the neck, which was bent slightly to the left, and the melting glance of his eyes, this artist accurately observed. Apeleys, however, in painting him as a wielder of the thunderbolts, did not reproduce his complexion, but made it too dark and swarthy, whereas he was of a fair color as they say and his fairness passed into rudiness on his breast particularly and in his face. Ancient authors recorded the Alexander was so pleased with portraits of himself created by Lysipos that he forbade any other sculptors from crafting his image.

Starting point is 00:07:36 I get it. Make sense, you know? One sculptor was creating statues of me that were all tall and regal with like washboard abs and broad shoulders and chisel jawed full head of hair, a thick ass stash or a beard, depending on the time of year and a big old granite dick point towards the heavens nearly popped me in the chin. All some other fucker, you know, it was painting me all slouched over with the receding

Starting point is 00:07:58 hairline, a little baby chin with a fat shame gun, you know, and a little chicken legs topped off by a little sad boy, micro pinwin, drooping down towards the dirt. I'm going to hire old chisel jaw rock cock all day long. That other dude can go work on getting gravel ready to pour a top to road. I've just traveled upon to return home victorious, fresh from another conquest. Spartans prepare for glory. Alexander was in a Spartan. I know that.

Starting point is 00:08:24 I just, I just can't get quotes from Zack Snyder's 2006 movie, 300 out of my head this week. I kept thinking about work on the research. Great movie, by the way, if you like a stylized, period piece action flick. Lindsey loved all the muscle sick pack dudes swinging their swords around. She would throw in a hail loose afina if she were here.

Starting point is 00:08:42 Another description reported that Alexander exhibited heterocromia, a condition in which your eyes are each a different color. One of his eyes was dark, the other was light. British historian Peter Green provides a less than glowing description of Alexander's appearance based on a thorough review of statues, coins and descriptions from some ancient documents. He wrote, physically Alexander was not pre-possessing. Even by Macedonian standards, he was very short. Though stocky and tough, his beard was scanty, and he stood out against his hersute Macedonian barons by going clean-shaven. His neck was in some way twisted, so that he appeared to be gazing upward at an angle. His eyes, one blue, one brown,

Starting point is 00:09:22 revealed a dewy feminine quality. He had a high complexion and a harsh voice. Okay, nothing was flattering description. He used a lot of big academic terms. I had to look up a few to get a handle on somebody who's saying, uh, to acknowledge the wall of the dude had some muscles. He was basically a short pink face to feminine looking fellow with a wisp, wispy beard if he tried to grow one in an annoying voice.

Starting point is 00:09:47 Overall, the Macedonians were a big people. Thanks, Largy to their lands, plentiful meat and grain. The men were tall, robust and dark skinned. They had thick cropped hair and wore beards. Most of the men looked like that, not Alexander. He was at best average height, perhaps only five foot two. His hair was blonde and tussled. It was said that he wore it long to resemble a lion's mane. To go back to Alexander Biographer Peter Green again, apparently Alex's teeth were sharply

Starting point is 00:10:11 pointed, quote, like pegs. And his voice in addition to being harsh was high pitched. And he was quote, given to scurry in about in a fast and nervous manner, what the shit? Alexander would for sure have Peter Green killed if he could. Good God, this guy's not paying a picture of a badass warrior king. Apparently, Alexander was a short pink face, a feminine-looking wispy bear to do with an annoying, high-pitched voice, with sharp little peg fangs, who was fond of scurrying.

Starting point is 00:10:39 He sounds like more like some kind of gremlin of a conqueror. It is I, Alexander! Bob is for me! Bob Lauer! Servant! Bring me an apple box to stand on, like more like some kind of Gremlin, the conqueror. It is I, Alexander, Bobby Farmy, bow lower, servant, bring me an apple box to stand on so I can tell her about my kneeling conquered subjects. No wonder Alex became such a great conqueror, probably had a huge chip on his shoulder,

Starting point is 00:10:57 bit of an Napoleon complex. What kind of person was Alexander? Like many, if not most of us, if not really all of us, almost, almost all of us, he was complicated. Some of the strongest personality traits mirrored those of his parents. His mother, as you'll soon learn, was incredibly ambitious. She instilled a sense that Alexander have been destined for greatness.

Starting point is 00:11:16 She got that tiny peg-fanged helium-voice, Gremlin of hers to believe in himself. It was probably not an easy task. Plutarch wrote how Alexander's ambition kept his spirit serious and lofty in advance of his years. Alexander also watched his father, a king who was a giant badass in his own right, lead successful military campaigns year after year. This was highly influential in his development. He watched his dad win over and over again and basically ignore serious battle wounds.

Starting point is 00:11:43 His dad was ambitious, successful, tough as shit. Alexander has worked cut out from him if he wanted to one up his dad, which he did since he was super competitive. Alexander's dad came from a long line of rulers, the Argiad dynasty, a bloodline that went back half a millennia, or a millennium to the initial founding of the Greek state of Macedonia and roughly 800 BCE. Alexander's lineage reminds me of the ancestry of one of the other great conquerors we've covered.

Starting point is 00:12:07 Perhaps the greatest Genghis Khan, Genghis Khan also born to a ruler who was the son of another ruler, noted rulers, not born to a lineage as long and as accomplished as Alexander's, but Genghis' father and grandfather were respected in powerful chiefs. I don't know what the percentages of how many really successful people were raised by

Starting point is 00:12:26 other successful people in the same line of work, but it feels like it's got to be pretty high, which would make sense. I would think it would be a little easier for you to figure out how to become a successful conqueror and leader if your dad was already a successful conqueror and leader, just like it would be a little easier to become successful in real estate or construction or in running a restaurant. If you're raised by someone who not only also did those things, but did them very, very well, you're essentially born into an apprenticeship to begin as a birth. If you're interested in jumping into the family business, you get to learn by watching as soon

Starting point is 00:12:57 as your brain is able to absorb that type of knowledge. Alexander's father helped immensely in regards to pushing Alexander and becoming the greatest conqueror the world has ever seen. As I said, Alex wanted to outdo his father and his dad was a living legend. His dad was the most ambitious and powerful and successful conquering king Macedonia had ever seen prior to his son. Alexander's relationship with his dad was complex. At times, he openly worried that his successful father would leave him no great or brilliant

Starting point is 00:13:24 achievement to be displayed to the world. While at other times, he downplayed his father's successes to his buddies and often acted like essentially this dad was overrated. According to Plutarch, some of Alexander's other traits were a violent temper and a rash impulsive nature. Also during the last few years of Alexander's life, he began to exhibit signs of megalomania and paranoia, not surprised. I don't think a calm, stable person full of a lot of inner peace and a sunny disposition sets out to bring the world to its fucking knees.

Starting point is 00:13:54 The bend nations to their will. Right, I'd be shocked to hear him describe as being a super laid back dude. He just hope you'd be an okay king, you know, make people happy. Alexander was also stubborn, didn't respond well to orders from anyone, including his father of the King, but complicated and meekured as he was, he also could be open to reason debate, get a calmer side, a side that was perceptive, logical and calculating. He was very intelligent, very well educated. He was also, and I think this may have been the trait that allowed him to be successful

Starting point is 00:14:20 in battle more than any other single trait intensely curious about the world. Hail, Nimrod. He had an unquenchable thirst for knowledge. He especially loved philosophy with an avid reader and his curiosity combined with a solid natural intellect, it gave him the ability to outsmart his opponents to understand warfare in an intellectual way. Not all of his opponents were able to grasp his knowledge of philosophy allowed him to understand his troops and get them to fight harder for him than they might for a lesser leader. He understood human

Starting point is 00:14:48 nature and knew how to manipulate it. He also, according to some historians, apparently showed great self-restraint when it came to pleasures of the body, although he may have had submissions with alcohol from time to time. I read this as, he didn't spend all his time chasing his dick, which aided him in a quest for greatness. And this also must have went a long ways in helping him to achieve greatness. I can't tell you how many other comics I've worked with over the years, who complain all the time about their career,

Starting point is 00:15:12 not be one they want it to be, and then they just try and get laid all the time, instead of actually working on their craft. Not chasing your dick all the time can actually be really good for your ambitious pursuits. Now let's see what kind of world Alexander would operate in. I shouldn't be unfair to the ladies there. Not chasing your push all the time. be really good for your ambitious pursuits. Now let's see what kind of world Alexander would operate in. I shouldn't be unfair to the ladies there.

Starting point is 00:15:26 Not chasing your push all the time. Also another way to focus on your ambitions. Unsurprisingly, why don't people say that more? Ah, look at her chasing her push around. We gotta get that term out there, that little phrase out there. You'll let me stop chasing your push around, Becky. Maybe fucking get that raise you wanted.

Starting point is 00:15:43 Unsurprisingly, the world looks very different in Alexander's time than it does now for starters. There weren't nearly as many Starbucks. It was impossible to find a good taco truck or pick up strong Wi-Fi signal so you could stream some sweet shows. On 356 BCE, when Alexander was born, Greece was not a unified nation, but rather a loose collection of kingdoms and city states, each of which had their own patron deity, social structure, currency, and government. Macedonia was a kingdom on the northern edge of this collection. The Macedonian spoke Greek, but I don't want to say barely, but they spoke like a hillbilly dialect. They spoke a regional dialect that would have taken a second from someone from like Athens

Starting point is 00:16:19 or Sparta to understand them. I think about it like technically I speak the same language as someone down in Louisiana who has a thick cage and accent, but it takes me a bit to figure out what the fuck they are talking about. And I know most people down there on the Bayou, not cage and by the way. And some people are occasions don't have that thick, but you know I'm talking, if you're from there, you know exactly I'm talking about. You run into that real thick cage and I'm like, what, are you sure there's English?

Starting point is 00:16:41 And the Macedonians, they were considered Greek-ish by a lot of the other Greeks living in the more cultured city states, like Athens and Thebes. These people considered the Macedonians to be rural hill folk, Greek like, Greek carnies. People on the edge of being barbarians. But not barbarians. They were still considered Greek, bonded by a common tongue and common gods, crazy, crazy gods.

Starting point is 00:17:01 Check out SukWins 162 to learn more about Greece's crazy gods. There were definitely considered Greek by the time Alexander became a ruler because his dad had kicked the shit out of a lot of the other Greek people. Alexander was born into a world full of fighting. The city states and kingdoms of Greece around him sometimes they allied with each other, sometimes they fought, they disagreed on a lot with each other. One of the things he didn't disagree on was a dislike of any foreigners who did not speak Greek. People referred to as barbarians. For the Greeks, there were the kingdoms of Greece, and then there was the rest of the world,

Starting point is 00:17:31 and the rest of the world wasn't shit. They were barbaric. The Greeks had more culture than most of the world at the time. They knew it, and they were pretty arrogant about it. Greek culture at this time encompassed every aspect of civilization from literature to philosophy, science, architecture, the arts, mathematics, astronomy, law, medicine, war, and so on. The Greeks were proud of their intellectual achievements and they looked down on non-Greaks,

Starting point is 00:17:53 especially the Persians. They really hated their Persian neighbors who they'd been fighting for centuries. Good old tribalism. We meet Saks still up to root for a team, or a race, or a nation, love to tell ourselves that we're the best, whether it's true or not, a quality that seems to be hardwired into our human DNA. Alexander was born at the perfect time for a Macedonian military mastermind to make a name for themselves. The rest of the Hoidy-Toyty-Upady Greeks down south to had long looked down on the

Starting point is 00:18:19 Macedonians weren't doing as well as they had been in centuries past. The resources had recently been exhausted from the Peloponnesian war, fought from 431 to 404 BCE between Athens and Sparta and various allies joining in on each side. Most Greek city states were divided and depleted, and they set the stage for a takeover by John Snow in the night's watch. Oh, wait, no. Fell into a modern show. Show again, there's nothing to do with Alexander.

Starting point is 00:18:43 This is not Game of Thrones. This is the Macedonians, and their leaders were gaining strength and consolidating their power. Let's describe how Macedonia fit with the rest of the Greece, with the rest of Greece, and a little more detail here.

Starting point is 00:18:57 The Macedonian kingdom had emerged at the dawn of the seventh century BCE, located in the northeast of the Greek peninsula, just north of Greece proper. The people of Macedon were not thought to have had any culture by the northeast of the Greek peninsula, just north of Greece proper. The people of Macedonia were not thought to have had any culture by the rest of Greece. They were seen as a land good mostly for raw materials and for little else. Greece at the time was divided into three broad regions, the coastal plain, open to cultural influences from the wider world, and several Greek style cities had emerged

Starting point is 00:19:22 around the coastline of the Aegean seas, such as Athens and Rhodes. Inside of from these was a fertile plain, where cities like Thebes and Sparta flourished. Beyond this plain was a mountainous region. Here Macedonian hill tribes jellously maintained their autonomy. The Macedonians had to constantly deal with aggressive neighbors, especially from the north and the west, from once the war like, a peonians, Thrac rations, a learians repeatedly raided them. The thracians, they had some tough ass dudes. Spartacus, most famous Roman gladiator of them all, he was a theration.

Starting point is 00:19:53 Are you not entertained? Now I'm referring to a third movie. It doesn't have shit to do with today's tale gladiator. God Russell Crowe is good. Uh, five, 12 B.C. The Macedonians along with their thracian neighbors to the north came under the loose control of the Persian Empire. The domination lasted on and off well into the fifth century when the Greek fifth century BCE, when the Greek Persian Wars enabled them to reestablish full independence. And it would

Starting point is 00:20:18 lead to Alexander being raised to hate Macedonius foreign oppressors, the Persian from an early age, from birth. During the fourth century, Macedonia began to develop from being a comparatively loose confederation of tribes in city states to be in a unified kingdom. And by 400 or so, BCE again, 50, 60 years before the birth of Alexander, with Greece on the decline, Macedonia was now poised to be the most powerful kingdom in the ancient world. It was a time of brutal violence, of the strong take what they want and the loser eats shit, even within your own family. Alexander would be born into the perfect kingdom and at the perfect time to give his brilliant military mind a chance to shine. Let's learn more about this perfect place and time and about how his daddy set

Starting point is 00:20:58 the stage for his conquering by diving into today's be glad we are no longer living in a world full of so much sort and blood time suck timeline. Boots soldier were marching down a time suck timeline. Three 57 BCE Alexander's father King Philip II of Macedonia and his mother Olympias are married. Olympias will be one of seven of Philip's wives by the time Alexander is born. And Olympias was not born in Macedonia. She was born in the kingdom of a pirates, a gross, I know. And this would cause some problem for Alexander when it came to royal succession.

Starting point is 00:21:40 He'd worry several times that his throne would be taken away from him before he had the chance to sit on it. He said gross because she was not a Macedonian and that meant something to Macedonian people. I couldn't tell a Macedonian from a Milossian, the tribe based in a pyrus, if my life depended on it, but people living in Macedonia could and they didn't like it. Olympia was a daughter of Neapolitanists, the first king of the Milossians and a pyrth lay to the west of Macedon and slightly south. The Melossian ruling dynasty claimed to be descended

Starting point is 00:22:08 from the mythological Melossus, one of the three sons of Neapolomus, son of Achilles, who slew Prium at the fall of Troy. Neapolomus, I think is what I said there. Classic ancient Greek shit, right? Trace your lineage to a hero or a god or both. Alexander would take his name from his Malossian uncle, King of a Pyrus during the first few years of his reign

Starting point is 00:22:29 in several years before it. Alexander the first, dude's mom may not have been Macedonian, but he did have the blood of kings in his veins on both sides of the family tree. And when he was born, the kingdom of a Pyrus was nearly as powerful as the kingdom of Macedonia. Wasn't some little shit hope.

Starting point is 00:22:45 So that's his mom, daughter of the King of the neighboring states, and his father, King of the state, he was born into. Though history would remember Philip the second of Macedon, now, or history remembers now, Philip is primarily his Alexander's father, he was no slacker himself, was a legend in his own time. He was an accomplished King and military commander who would share his leadership skills with the son.

Starting point is 00:23:04 Though it was Alexander who would eventually triple the size of Macedonia, Macedonia's transformation and expansion began with Philip. Philip molded an ineffective, undisciplined army into a formidable, efficient military force, eventually subduing the territories around Macedonia as well as subjugating most of Greece. Macedonia occupied an interesting position in the ancient world. Unlike many Greek states, Macedonia, like Appiris, was a monarchy. This made Macedonia seem backwards and primitive to many of these southern democracy-loving Greeks, like the people of Athens.

Starting point is 00:23:34 The royal family of the barbaric land was the Argyads. It traced their roots to both the Isle of Argos and Heracles, son of Zeus himself, powerful God of the sky, lightning and thunder, ruler of all the gods at Mount Olympus, son of the king and queen of the Titans. Born around 383 B.C. Philip was the youngest of three sons of Amintus III. His older brother per Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- fighting, that name always throws me. I want to say Prudicus, because I have a junior high brain. I'm like, no, people keep saying Prudicus. He was killed by fighting the Illyrians along the northern Macedonian border since the oldest Argiad brother Alexander II

Starting point is 00:24:13 was also dead. Philip was made regent for his nephew, Amintus IV, who was the son of Prudicus III, and then Philip succeeded in taking the kingdom for himself in 359 BC. Don't worry about those names. Not that important, but I wanted to throw them out there. Philip was at one point during his youth held hostage for three years in the Greek city

Starting point is 00:24:31 state of Thieves where he was exposed to Greek culture, military tactics, formations, and philosophy. Had this not happened, neither he nor his son would likely ever have etched their names into the history books. There he both learned a great deal and also came to resent the arrogance of Greek city states like thieves and Athens, pushing what everyone else around. So his first move when he ascended to the throne at 23 and 359 BCE was to transform the formerly rag tag Macedonian army into a well-oiled fighting machine so he could fuck up those southerners.

Starting point is 00:25:04 His major enemies were the Elyrians whom he would eventually defeat in 359 BCE and the Athenians who had access to gold and silver mines, and who also briefly claimed the Macedonian throne. After his ascension to the throne, while much of Greece to the south was embroiled in a series of civil wars, Philip had time to develop his initial comparatively weak army into a proper fighting force. He more than doubled its size from 10,000 troops to 24,000, grew its cavalry from 600 to

Starting point is 00:25:31 3500. He created a core of engineers to develop siege weaponry, namely towers and catapults. He provided uniforms that required and required an oath of allegiance to the king in a way that was new in Macedonia. Previously, each soldier might have felt himself allied to his hometown or to his province, but Philip made sure that everyone he recruited into his army felt allegiance only to him. Next, he restructured the traditional Greek failanks, the traditional ancient Greek fighting unit, right? A group of heavily armed infantry formed in ranks and files close and deep,

Starting point is 00:26:02 with shields joined, long spears overlapping formation at the time that were eight men deep moving as a unit. And again, I think of the 300 tonight, we dying in hell. Sure. Our butter fucking killed that shit. King Leonidas battling the Persians like none had battling before. The real United is died about 125 years before Alexander was born. So he surely knew of him and his mythic fight as the leader of the 300 Spartans who died

Starting point is 00:26:27 during the Second Persian War defending a pass from the hated Persian army. Anyways, Philip restructured the traditional Greek failings, decided to provide each individual unit with its own commander, which allowed for better communication. He also changed the principal failings weaponry from hop light spears to the Sarissa in 18 to 20 foot long pike A weapon that could easily reach over the much shorter spears of the opposition's hop lights In military lingo, this allowed his men to give extra pokey bad bad hurts to enemy soldiers before taking too many Uchi no-nose and crying and dying or something like that in addition to being provided with Sarissa's nose and crying and dying or something like that. In addition to being provided with services, aka,

Starting point is 00:27:05 Sarissa Pikes, soldiers were given new and improved helmets, a redesign shield, a smaller double edged sword called a Ziphos for hand-to-hand combat. After his reorganization of the army, he remade the capital city of Pella, inviting poets, writers, and philosophers getting some culture up in that shit, suck it, Athens. We have poets now as well, you snooty fox, to assure that his neighbors would not attack him. He invited their sons to Pella smart, who wants to attack the city their son is studying in.

Starting point is 00:27:35 That little move not new to Philip, it was a well established move in the ancient world, right? You have sons would travel to other countries, ostensibly to be quote, educated, but also to serve as hostages to maintain peaceful relations between countries. So of course, Philip knew about this. It had happened to him when he was younger on three fifty seven B C Philip capture the Athenian quality at arm Fippelists acquiring his gold and silver mines. He returned the mines to the city state temporarily only to recapture them later from their Philip C's northern Greek cities of Poetitia and Pidna and 356 BCE and 352 BCE the Macedonian army paired up with the the

Starting point is 00:28:13 salient cavalry to crush the Fossians and their commander on a Marcus at the Battle of Crocus field. The Fossians were allies of Sparta and Athens. Athens waged a war constantly against Macedonia until 346 BCE as well, probably pissed off about those mines. This constant warfare weakened the Southern Greek city states, fighting too many people too often. And Philip was able to capture the cities of Crenitis and 355 BCE, which he renamed Philippi. Muthoney and 354 BCE, which he raised to the ground. And Olyntis and 348 BCE, expanded Macedonius, ground, and Olympus in 3ft 48 BZ. The expanded Macedonius hold on Greece to a level never before seen. A project his son would continue beyond anyone's wildest dreams.

Starting point is 00:28:52 Philip didn't escape these battles. Some serious personal scars, lost one of his eyes, broke a shoulder that never fully healed, right? Also ended up with a crippled leg before he finally died. And think about how much injury sucked back then. Right? You probably got injured way more often because there was so much casual violence back then. And if you're actually fighting in battle if you're a soldier, it's hand-to-hand combat.

Starting point is 00:29:14 And you're definitely picking up wounds. And there are no surgeons to fix you. No opioids, no pain, no physical therapists, no rehab, no chiropractors, no, no, no yoga instructors. I mean, there were ancient Greek surgeons, right? The famous Greek doctor, Hippocrates, lived at that time, you know, roughly at the same time as Philip, but while they could set like a basic broken bone,

Starting point is 00:29:36 they had a very crude understanding of anatomy compared to today. You weren't gonna get any pins inserted for a complex fracture. You weren't getting antibiotics when shit got infected. It's terrible. During this conquest of Greece, despite his body getting all fucked up, Philip found the time to get married seven times.

Starting point is 00:29:52 The most famous of these marriages was to Olympias, who would become Alexander's mother. We met her briefly. While historians disagree on how Philip and Olympias met, the most widely accepted story is that they met on Samothrays, a beautiful and mountainous island in the Eugenie between Macedonia and Troy. I keep I kept getting distracted doing the research and checking out current Greek island cities and towns. My god Is that a beautiful country like that island of Samathorace?

Starting point is 00:30:17 Gorgeous. When Philip saw the young Olympias a red-haired woman with intoxicating beauty in a fiery tempered haelus of phena It was lust. I mean, love at first sight. Historian Plutarch would write about the encounter after Philip has been initiated on semathrace along with Olympias. He fell passionately in love with her. And although he was only a young adult and she was an orphan, he went right ahead and betrothed himself to her.

Starting point is 00:30:41 She wasn't some like childhood orphan, by the way. She was an adult, but her dad had died and her mom had died. Wasn't the common for kings to marry more than once, especially because many of the marriages were for alliances. Olympus was Philip's second wife. At the time of their marriage, Olympus was about 18, Philip was about 28. He still had both eyes, decent shoulder,

Starting point is 00:31:00 didn't drag one of his legs yet. So she's probably pretty pumped. The mis-surrounding dogs down to the Great began before his birth with a night before his parents wedding. Plutarch wrote, on the night before they were to be locked into the bridal chamber together, the bride had a dream in which following a clap of thunder, her womb was struck by a thunderbolt. It started a vigorous fire which then burst into flames and spread all over the place before dying down. Meanwhile, Philip had a dream that night where he was pressing a seal on his wife's to a womb and that the emblem on the seal was the figure of a lion. These two dreams they

Starting point is 00:31:34 believe signifying that their son would become a mighty warrior. And I have to wonder, did they actually have those fucking dreams? Or do they make it that shit up? They come up with that story to make people think that their son was just, you know, this mightiest shit. Their marriage wasn't without as struggles, which is not surprising since he was already married. And when he married her, he would then get married, you know, five more times after her. Guessing, Lindsey would be a little annoyed with me if I brought a wife to the table and then just kept getting more wives. Guessing. Philip had appeared, ended up getting creeped out by his young wife who is devotee to the cult of Dionysus, God of wine, fertility and drama.

Starting point is 00:32:06 He's rumored to have a stomp visiting her bed chamber after he stumbled into her room one night and claims he saw Olympias quote, sleeping with snakes. As in literally have it snakes in the bed possibly having sex with them somehow. Not sure this happened. Gonna say didn't happen. Seems like some myth building. Part of Alexander's legend is that he It was the son of Zeus that would become his legend and what did Zeus like to do is we learned in the Greek God's Suck

Starting point is 00:32:31 He liked to take the form of various animals and then in that animal form He liked to have sex with human women and impregnate them which seems really fucking creepy and unnecessary Seems like he could have just taken the form of a regular dude just to hand some dude not a snake nope Maybe he was super kinky maybe just wanted to get some of that snake on lady act shown How does that work anyway? I can't recall Prior to what I'm about to say ever seen a snake's dick I googled snake dick cuz I was like hey, I just they even have dicks and And it led to me finding the snakes do a dick. They have two dicks. They have two penises

Starting point is 00:33:05 called a hemipenis, super creepy looking. The little weans look even more disturbing than you would probably imagine. And then when I was looking at the image, you know, kind of page of little snake dicks, there was also a picture of a dude sticking his human wean directly in front of what looks like a large bow constrictors head, which seems like a terrible idea, maybe not the best way to impress your friends, maybe not the best king to have seems dangerous. And I'm done now with all this snake dick talk. I'm just trying to say I think the story of Olympia's sleep was snakes was part of the legend building surrounding Alexander being the sun is doose.

Starting point is 00:33:37 Highly doubt it happened. Olympia's gave birth to her snake god future king baby Alexander on July 20th or 21st, 356 BCE. His proper name was Alexander the third of Macedon. Why the third because he had two uncles named Alexander. His mom's bro Alexander the first and his dad's bro Alexander the second. His family went real heavy on the name Alexander. It's custom for someone who would go down as a hero in the ancient world. His birth was heralded by a bunch of heavenly signs. At the time of Alexander's birth, Philip was away in battle at Patidia. Just after he took the city, he received three messages, the first that Parmenio, his general, had defeated

Starting point is 00:34:14 the Elyrians in a great battle. Two, his racehorse had wanted the Olympic Games, and three, his wife had given birth to Alexander. And Philip interpreted all this happening at the same time as an obvious omen that meant his son would clearly become an invincible conqueror. I get it. My son Kyler is also destined for greatness. Lot of omens. On January 9th, 2006, date of his birth, skateboard, legend Tony Hawk got married in Fiji. And not done. Bald Eagle flew high that day in Fiji and not done bald eagle flew high that

Starting point is 00:34:46 day in the air and screeched and still not done. There was some wolves somewhere, howling and stuff. So pretty fucking cool. And when my daughter, man, row was born on January 12, 2008, Johnny Grant, former honorary mayor of Hollywood, showbiz, he died. So how can that be a coincidence? And pretty sure bald Eagle screech again. And the wolves were around, you know, somewhere, you get it, you know, coincidence or symbols

Starting point is 00:35:11 of destinies of great import. There were other great signs and wonders associated with Alexander's birth, including a bright star gleaming over Macedonia the night, that night and miraculous destruction of the temple of Artemis at Ephesus. According to Plutarch, all the Etrensoothsayers who happened to beat Ephesus looked at the ruin of the temple, ran around town beating their faces, literally beating them, crying that the day had brought forth something that would be fatal and destructive to all of Asia. I'm gonna say bullshit. But okay, that was written. Pretty cool. I also noticed that Plutarch didn't say anything about Eagles or wolves, so yeah, maybe my stuff's cooler.

Starting point is 00:35:48 Now, after Alexander's arrival, his mother's primary objective in life was to make him king. That's not myth-making, that's true there. Olympia's doded on young Alexander, telling him constantly that he had a noble lineage, that he was descended from Achilles. He was made to think Achilles was one of Zanzesters. And maybe sometimes he took him aside and whispered in his ear stuff like You're real down at the zoos. I love that don't tell your friends Zoos he's snakefuck me. He's like he's snakefuck me. I thought you got here. Just keep quiet about The zoo stuff probably added years after his death Most of it. He did towards end of his life think he was descended from zoos His dad did claim descent from Achilles was likely told that also is a tall tale.

Starting point is 00:36:27 The stories the stories had a powerful effect on young Alexander started to believe that he was descended from heroes from gods. I wonder if it's too late to tell my kids that batman is the real dad Alexander believe the story so much he carried a homers Iliate around wherever he went inspired by tales of mythic bravery. And on a serious note, in addition to his father setting the stage for future conquering by being a great conqueror himself, his mother also played a huge role in who he would become by constantly telling him he was incredible. That the blood of heroes flowed through his veins, the blood of gods, he was destined for greatness. Not a terrible parenting model here. This is maybe an exaggerated version of this, but give us, give us some confidence. Right? If you want your kids to accomplish great things, make them believe they are destined or

Starting point is 00:37:12 at least worthy of greatness. As far as Alexander's childhood, we don't know a lot of specific details and important dates. Not a lot of recorded information about his youth, aside from several tales of procosciousness. He allegedly interviewed visiting dignitaries one time about the boundaries and strengths of Persia when he was just seven years old. During his childhood, he did become friends with Cassander who had grown up to marry Alexander's half sister

Starting point is 00:37:35 and eventually ruled the kingdom Alexander created. He was also friends with Ptolemy, ancestor of Cleopatra, founder of the Ptolemaic dynasty, last great dynasty of Egypt, so much incest, if you recall that suck in that dynasty. His friends with, have, ah, have feisty in, described by historians as by far the dearest

Starting point is 00:37:54 of all of the king's friends. He had been brought up with Alexander and shared all of his secrets. And these men would become generals in Alexander's army. So pretty cool. Kick an ass and conquer in the world with your childhood buddies.

Starting point is 00:38:07 Callistines, another friend was Aristotle's great nephew and came to the Macedonian court with the philosopher. He would become Alexander's official historian as he said about conquering Asia. He wrote an account of Alexander's expedition up to the time of his own execution. Sadly that work and all of his other works have perished. His account of Alexander's expedition was preserved long enough to be mined as a direct or indirect source for some of the other ancient historical writers I mentioned earlier. And he would be executed for plotting to have his old buddy, Alexander assassinated. So maybe not as good of a friend as the other guys, maybe more of a friend of me. Alexander, like these other

Starting point is 00:38:43 young Greek dudes, was taught to fight and ride, even got some experience enduring hardships, like forced marches, marches, his childhood to toughen him up. His dad hired Lysimicus, one of his generals and a man who would become a Thracian king to teach Alexander reading, writing, and the leader. Even though most of his life was spent on military endeavors, he also grew to have a deep love of writing,

Starting point is 00:39:04 a music had a variety of amazing tutors. Alexander was raised from birth as the heir to his father's throne, but another possible heir, a younger half brother named Philip, did show up. Philip Jr.'s mom was a commoner and is doubtful he would have ever become king, but he did have a claim to the throne or did until Alexander's momy took care of him. Some evidence exists that Olympias poisoned this kid with the drug that eventually, quote, addled his wits. So he would never be a threat to Alexander becoming king.

Starting point is 00:39:32 According to Plutarch, Philip Jr.'s mind became ruined when he was poisoned by Olympias. Thanks, mom. Thanks for giving my half-brother brain damage. So don't have to worry about him challenging my throne. Crazy world back then. Even with Philip Jr. gone, Olympia's didn't still feel 100% secure in her son's claim for the crown because she was from neighboring a pirus. The king was pressured to marry a true Macedonian and provide the country with a more pure blooded air as we'll cause a big stir in Greek politics down the line. Sometimes in 346 BC, the age

Starting point is 00:40:04 of nine or 10, Alexander would get a horse that like him would become famous. Busephalus, one of the most famous horses in history, not a lot of famous horses. Other than ol' Busephalus, I can only think of C. Biscuit and Mr. Ed. Busephalus would go down in history

Starting point is 00:40:19 because the story of their first encounter would become legendary. Initially, Busephalus was brought to Macedon and presented to King Philip. The horse was expensive and stood taller than a normal Macedonian horse and looked like a prized stallion, but it appeared to be too wild to ride. Busefilis reared up against anyone who tried to ride him, so Philip ordered that the horse be sent away. According to either Pleetor Plutarch or maybe just according to me, Philip said, no, thank you. I'm a king. Not a fucking rodeo clown. You ass hat. Go turn that bucket and stop and asshole into some glue. Then as the attendance tried to lead, Buseflus away

Starting point is 00:40:56 Alexander Rose from his seat, shouting that the attendance were just spineless, that he could tame this horse. According to Plutarch, not according to me, this is real, Alexander exclaimed, what an excellent horse do they lose for want of a dress and boldness to manage him? And his father, Philip replied, do you reproach those who are older than yourself as if you were better able to manage him than they? Alexander then declared that he'd pay for the horse

Starting point is 00:41:21 if he was unable to tame him. And then amid wild laughter, Alexander approached the horse calmly. He had realized something the others hadn't, that the horse was simply too hot-blooded, too horny to ride, easy satsperilla, oh, easy, easy. So with a gentle hand, he grabbed the horse's supple penis and he began to truly tame a wild stallion, the only way he knew how, by firmly, steadily, rhythmically jerking it off, while also making solid intents and most importantly, dominating eye contact.

Starting point is 00:41:55 Wait, that's insane. That never happened. No, he realized the horse was afraid of his own shadow. That's right. Okay. Turning Busef was toward the sun, so his shadow was behind him. Alexander took the reins and mounted him. The laughter of the crowd turned to cheers as Alexander comfortably wrote off. When Alexander returned to the arena with Busefeles and dismounted Philip said, Oh my son, look the out to kingdom equal to and worthy of thyself for Macedonia is too little for thee.

Starting point is 00:42:19 And again, did that really happen? I don't know. Maybe more legend, Billy. Maybe did. It does appear to be true that Busefilis and Alexander did become inseparable. They would ride into every battle from the conquest of the Greek city states and Thebes, through the battle of Gagamila in Assyria and on into India. Around 343 BCE, Philip hired a tutor for Alexander, the philosopher Aristotle.

Starting point is 00:42:40 I've heard of him. And he'd hold his post for seven years. Aristotle's teachings would have a large impact on Alexander, who would spread Aristotle's philosophy around the known world as he conquered New Lands. Let's talk about Aristotle for a second. Ancient dude deserving of the suck of his own someday. Aristotle was one of the founders of Western philosophy

Starting point is 00:43:00 along with Socrates and Plato. Plato was Aristotle's mentor, Socrates's Plato's mentor, each one recording and reconsidering the teachings of the one who came before him. Aristotle was born in 384 BCE and Stagira, Greece on the border of Macedonia, making him around 40 at the time he took on his famous student. Aristotle's father was the physician to the Macedonian king, but he died when Aristotle was just 10 years old and Aristotle was sent to Athens to study at Plato's Academy. It appears Aristotle thought he would take over the academy after Plato's death. And then when the position was given to Plato's nephew, Aristotle was like, well, fuck it then. He left Athens to conduct experiments and study on his own in the islands of the Greek archipelago.

Starting point is 00:43:38 Now, he was a philosopher. He also pioneered systematic scientific examination, literally every area of human knowledge from biology and medicine to arts and cultures and was known as the man who knew everything. Then later simply as the philosopher. How cool is that? This dude was essentially seen by his peers as the smartest man alive, pretty impressive title. I'm pretty sure I'm not even considered the smartest person in my own house, or possibly

Starting point is 00:44:03 even in the top three. There's only four of us. Maybe not having the top four. Uh, well, wait a minute. That's bad math. I have been the top four because I'm alive. I live there. I'm definitely smarter than Penny Pooper and Ginger Bell.

Starting point is 00:44:13 Doodles can't even speak English. Ha! I can. Not always well, but, you know, I goodbye. Aristotle who held a low opinion of non-Greek barbarians generally and Persians specifically encouraged Alexander's conquest of their empires. And with most, if not all Greeks, Aristotle would have been brought

Starting point is 00:44:29 up hearing stories of the Battle of Marathon, of 490 BCE, the Persian invasion of 480 BCE, the Greek triumph over the Persian forces at Salamis, and, oh my, Plutia, there we go. Hatred, the Persians was baked deeply into Greek culture as the two had been rivals for centuries, rather than discourage him from warfare. Aristotle gave Alexander philosophical justification for it.

Starting point is 00:44:53 So many things had to happen for this guy to become the world's greatest military conquerer. His dad was a great conquerer, right? He was born into the lineage of kings. His mother constantly told him he was destined for amazing things. He was taught by possibly the greatest mind the world had ever known up to that point. Aristotle was philosophically pro-war on the grounds that it provided opportunity for greatness and the application of one's personal excellence to difficult, practical situations.

Starting point is 00:45:18 Aristotle believed that the final purpose for human existence was happiness, and that this happiness could be realized by maintaining a virtuous life. By associating with virtuous comrades, who sought the same ends, the soul was enriched, and one's excellence sharpened and honed, and warfare provided many opportunities for an individual to expand upon and prove not only self-worth, but greatness. Okay, interesting way to look at that. To enrich yourself by literally butchering others, not so enriching for those people, but whatever. Aristotle had such a profound impact on Alexander

Starting point is 00:45:48 that Alexander would carry Aristotle's works with him on his campaigns and introduce his philosophy to the East when Alexander conquered the Persian Empire. Through Alexander, Aristotle's works were spread through the known world of the time, influencing other philosophies, and according to many historians,

Starting point is 00:46:02 providing a foundation for the development of Jewish, Christian, and Muslim ideology in theology. Young Alexander was a prince with a damn good teacher surrounded by the sons of other powerful men as friends and coddled by an insanely supportive mom, willing to hurt other kids to keep his path to the throne clear. But as a teen, he still wasn't fully embraced by his own countrymen. Saul, him as a product of Olympia, center, home country, again, of the Pirus. Still considered by many to be a foreigner and not a true Macedonian.

Starting point is 00:46:30 Why do people get weird about she like that? Silly mindless tribalism. Why does some people seem to care more about where someone is born, who their parents are, and the strength of their character? Reminds me of a xenophobic people today, and I don't just people just weird and territorial,

Starting point is 00:46:44 territorial, you know? So and so is not a people just weird and territorial, territorial, you know. So and so is not a true blank or a real blank like me. I was born and raised in blank. I grew up in a town where a lot of people have and had this attitude. I was and will always be considered a local by some because I was born in Riggins. My family goes several generations deep in Riggins on my mom's side, three generations on my dad's side at least spent some time in Riggins, graduated high school there. Now, I love riggins. And I go there many times a year every year

Starting point is 00:47:08 to visit family, but always have thought it's weird. How someone else could move there when they're say 25, lived there a lot longer than I ever did. It's still be considered an outsider, because they didn't go to school there. They weren't born there. I don't know, the whole born and raised crowd. If that's your biggest badge of honor,

Starting point is 00:47:22 it might be time to reevaluate your life. Alexander had to deal with his shit and it helped motivate him to wage more war than he may have otherwise waged. He felt he had to remove any doubt that he wasn't worthy of his father's crown and he did that by becoming the best in what his countrymen valued the most war. When Alexander was only 16 and 340 BCE, Philip appointing him as Regent of the kingdom while Philip embarked on a foreign campaign. During his short time in charge, while one-eyed King Daddy was away getting some new battle scars, Alexander successfully quelled a Thracian rebellion, and one of Macedonia's northern territories. And after his first military victory, he founded his first city, calling it Alexander Appalachus. No ego there. The location of this city, likely a small city unknown, thought to

Starting point is 00:48:05 that a later Thracian raid may have wiped it from the map. When Philip returned home and learned of his young son's achievement, he was impressed. He was proud. From this point on, Pop Phil brought Alexander along on other important military expeditions. Alexander's first great military success, fighting alongside dad, came into the battle of Kerania in August of 338, 338 BCE. Here in this ancient city in Eastern Greece, in a, Biosha, Northwest of Athens, the Athenians,

Starting point is 00:48:34 Thebans and a small number of their allies positioned themselves to defend a Macedonian attack. The Athenians with 10,000 infantry, 600 cavalry. Yeah, cavalry. We're on their left. Their allies were in the center and the Thebans with 800 cavalry and 12,000 infantry, 600 cavalry. Yeah, cavalry were on their left, their allies were in the center, and the Thebans with 800 cavalry and 12,000 infantry, including 300 members of the sacred band

Starting point is 00:48:51 waited on the far right. Who was a sacred band, you may wonder. I wondered that. The sacred band was 150 pairs of male lovers chosen for being elite fighters. They were legendary warriors who preferred a glorious death to a dishonorable defeated life. And I guess there was an advantage these guys had where they weren't worried about heading home to their loved ones because they were fighting with their loved ones. They were fighting to save their

Starting point is 00:49:11 loved ones life because their loved ones was right beside them. Across from Athenians were the Macedonians with 30,000 infantry, 3,000 cavalry, over 55,000 dudes with pikes and swords and horses getting ready to slash each other apart. The scale of these ancient hand-to-hand battles always blows my mind. Face to face fighting. No mention of archers in this battle. The Greeks did employ archers in battles around this time. Alexander would employ archers in some battles. But they never favored them, never leaned on them. The most of the fighting was done by the infantry, the hoplites, the failings. What a rough way to fight, staring your enemy in the eye with nothing but something sharp

Starting point is 00:49:52 in your hand to kill them with. Facing the opposing army, Philip was off to the right, facing the Siemens, was his 18-year-old son, Alexander. These leaders fought alongside with their men. They didn't stand back and just like direct traffic from the hill. They were fighting themselves. At around sunrise, the two armies ready themselves for battle. Philip ordered Alexander to lead one wing while Philip himself led the other. The battle was fierce and bloody and victory was uncertain until Alexander was the first

Starting point is 00:50:15 to break through the enemy's front lines. Alexander's men followed leaving dozens of slayed men in their wake until the opposing side had to give up their ground and retreat. And only 18 Alexander helped turn the tide of battle in the decisive Macedonian victory. After this fateful battle, the rest of the Greeks were no longer a military or political threat to the Macedonians. After decades of fighting with the Greeks, Philip could now turn his military ambitions away from Greece and eastward to Persia, where his son would soon make his name. In 337 BCE, Adelis, a close friend of commandor of the Macedonian army, convinced Alexander's

Starting point is 00:50:49 father Philip II to marry his niece, Cleopatra, Eurydice. Eurydice, a woman from Macedonia to provide a more suitable heir to the Macedonian throne. At this wedding, Alexander watched the festivities with a, you know, a fair amount of anger. It wasn't pumped about someone trying to openly replace him. Alexander started, especially after he's kicking some ass in some battles, Alexander started to complain loudly at the wedding to the point that his dad, Philip, actually stood up and went to attack him, drawing his sword. Luckily for both of them, his dad, Philip, was too drunk to fight and the two made it to

Starting point is 00:51:22 the wedding unscathed. All right, and you thought you'd seen some fucking dramatic weddings. You guys almost got a fucking sword fight. Uh, after the wedding, Alexander took his mom Olympias back to her home with a pirus. And then he went and stayed among the Elyrians himself after Philip arranged a reconciliation through an envoy, uh, demarcates of Corinth. Alexander and Olympias were allowed to return to Pella because of this father son blow out. Philip ended up exiling many of of Alexander's friends thinking they were bad influences.

Starting point is 00:51:48 They convinced Alexander to speak out against his dad. He wasn't having it. Alexander's best friend, Hefistian, was one of the few who was spared. And let's hear a little more about Hefistian this fella. He has a big role in today's episode. Hefistian son of Amintus was raised in the mass-donning capital of Pella and according to most sources was born in 356 BC BCE same year as Alexander. He was from an aristocratic family and like Alexander took lessons from Aristotle. If I see in his friendship with Alexander would eventually

Starting point is 00:52:16 enable him to be appointed second in command. Wasn't a fighter himself but did demonstrate a talent for battlefield organization. Alexander would leave much of the campaign's logistics to a feisty in the supply, the transportation of equipment, bridge building, establishment and planning of new settlements. Another of Alexander's officers, craterists, are resented how close a feisty in was to Alexander and the two had to be separated a more than one occasion. At one point in India, they drew sword. We're about to fight when Alexander intervened, reprimanding them both. Later Plutarch said the king brought the two together,

Starting point is 00:52:47 made them friends, but gave each a warning that he would kill them after they were found to be quarreling again. That's a stern warning. That's not like a, come on, you guys, knock it off. You don't get, you know, second portion of dinner tonight. Now it's more like, knock it off, you guys. I'll fucking kill you, for real, not for real. One more time. I'll fucking kill you. And the end creators would return to Macedonia

Starting point is 00:53:08 eventually dying in 321 BCE during the successor wars after Alexander's death. Some historians believe that the relationship between Alexander and a feisty and was more romantic than Platonic. Well, it's impossible to put modern terms for sexuality like gay or homosexual on the historical figures who lived at a time with much more different conceptions of gender and gender and sexuality it's interesting to note that early in Alexander's life Philip and Olympias worried about their sons apparent lack of heterosexual interests. The Greek scholar, Thea Frastis says that he, they fear that Alexander might be turning into a Guinness or a womanish man. Olympia is even so far as to procure a Thessaly and Cortezon named

Starting point is 00:53:48 Kalexena to help develop Alexander's manly nature. This effort was apparently unsuccessful. Plutarch wrote that Alexander did not know any woman before he married other than Barcene, a Persian novel woman with whom Alexander is rumored to have had an affair with in 333 BCE when he was 23. So it wasn't a big ladies man. And possibly not interested in ladies at all other than for political reasons. We don't know for sure if the two were lovers, but throughout his life, if I see in remain close to Alexander serving both as a valuable

Starting point is 00:54:16 advisor and a friend and his talent for logistics will be one of the factors that would enable Alexander to conquer the Persian Empire. Just another piece of the puzzle that had to go right for him to accomplish, what he accomplished. Back now to 335 BCE. That year at the wedding banquet of Olympias' brother, Alexander, who was marrying Olympias' daughter, Cleopatra, Philip was assassinated by one of his personal bodyguards, the disgruntled paucenius, who had been rebuked by Philip

Starting point is 00:54:41 after he'd asked for retribution against Adelis, dude who had Philip marry his sister so he could kick Alexander out of the line for the throne. Fucking Adelis! Always cause the problems! Typical Adelis! Uh, Pesanias trying to flee but was killed, suspicion immediately fell in Olympus. Some believed had encouraged Pesanias to seek revenge and kill Philip. There was even reason to believe that she had provided the horses for Pesanias' escape. Despite this suspicion, Alexander ascended to the throne anyway. Immediately afterward, his mom Olympias had her former husband's new wife, Cleopatra,

Starting point is 00:55:15 killed, and had a child she'd had with Philip also killed. She wasn't gonna fuck around and let some kid live who could someday take her son's power and with it her power. She was finally the king's mother and no one else could claim the Macedonian throne Crazy how often this sort of shit happened in ancient times First prize in the game of thrones is the crown second prize is death Imagine this type of thing in modern terms Right, we have a real heated presidential election coming up in America no matter who wins no matter who loses There's gonna be a lot of tears.

Starting point is 00:55:46 So many people believe that the fate of the country rests with the outcome that the stakes could not be higher. Oh, they could be a lot higher. They could be way fucking higher. Imagine if whoever lost was literally executed and many of their most trusted advisors, many of the people who are the loudest public supporters also executed. They're children executed, their wives executed.

Starting point is 00:56:07 That is what life was like often in ancient times. This is so random, but I think about all the caretens alive right now, male and female caretens. It's just people who are outraged all the time. People who complain all the time, just, oh my God, how could this be happening? People who go to ask to speak to the manager real quick. People who just can't let a terrible customer service be happening, people who go to ask to speak to the manager real quick, people who, you

Starting point is 00:56:25 know, just can't let a terrible customer service interaction go and reduces them to tears. Imagine like Karen's living in ancient Greece dealing with this, this level of atrocity. Are you serious? Are you serious? Cleopatra was killed and her child was killed. Fucking what? Because they were Phillips wife and child, oh my God. That is not okay.

Starting point is 00:56:48 I am not gonna stand by and act like all this is okay. It's not okay, Becky. Excuse me, Mr. Hoplite, Bodyguard or whatever dude. I'd like to speak to your king like right, fucking now. He is going to get an earful, hey, get your fucking hands off of me. What are you doing with that sword? Are you crazy? Ow! That's really sharp, you asshole. I demand to get an earphone. Hey, get your fucking hands off of me. What are you doing? That's sword. Are you crazy? Ow! That's really sharp. You asshole. I demand to speak with your general. Ow! In your king. Stop. You're gonna pay for this.

Starting point is 00:57:12 I will have you fight. Oh my god. I'm bleeding so much. Who's gonna pay to replace this dress? Are you fucking serious? That's so entertaining to me. Just think about some easily outraged person getting thrown back into ancient times. Oh man. My frustration and heightened emotional and you know, with the heightened emotional and divisive climate of 2020, it really kind of eases up when I think about things like that. It really kind of puts it all into a nice historical perspective.

Starting point is 00:57:40 All right, now the fellow of this dead, we are really going to get into Alexander the Great's military conquest after a quick sponsor break. Thank you for listening to our sponsors. Now let's check out what Alexander unleashed looked like. So now after his dad's dead, after Philip's death, several towns and territories under Macedonia control try to break free.

Starting point is 00:57:59 While young Alexander is busy whipping the northern kingdoms of Thrace and Illyria back into line, the Greek leaders of Thebes, here are rumors that Alexander might have been killed in battle. They decide that it's their time to regain their independence from Macedonia. The assembly of Thebes appeals to a variety of other Greek city states for help. They get sympathy and understanding, but not much actual help. Athens does send some weapons to Thebes. Maybe with a little best of luck, kind of note. I hope he's dead, too.

Starting point is 00:58:24 But that's it. When Alexander, who is not dead, learns of this. He marches into Thebes from Thr with a little best of luck, kind of note. I hope he's dead too. But that's it. When Alexander, who is not dead, learns of this, he marches into Thebes from Thrace with his army. Alexander has 30,000 infantry, 3,000 horsemen with him. Thebes only manages to ascend about 7,000 hoplites and about 1,000 horsemen. So, advantage, Alexander. The strength of Alexander's army

Starting point is 00:58:41 approaches the number of the entire population of the residents of Thebes. Alexander suggests that Thebes turn over the two main instigators of their rebellion to him and he'll leave everyone else alone. Now, he just wants to have a calm and reasonable discussion with these two guys. Assum politely not to do that again, maybe Heather heads off, maybe have them torn limb from limb, you know, by horses or something. If Thebes gives him these two men though, no more harm to the city will come. And the inhabitants of The Thebes, they really fuck things up.

Starting point is 00:59:07 They decide to resist. And they attack the Macedonians who beat them back easily. Then three days after the initial attack, some soldiers from the failings of one of Alexander's generals, Praducas, rakes into the Palisade on the south side of Thebes before another skirmish between the two armies is expected to start, catching them off guard. The Thebes rush to defend the walls and close the gate, but they're, you know, too late and they can't do so before the entire Macedonian army enters the city. When this happens, most of the Thiban detachments, most of their army, they're located outside

Starting point is 00:59:35 the city, not good. So now it's only defenseless civilians inside. And Macedonian soldiers run through the streets of Thibs, just causing fucking mayhem. The Thiban hoplites now, you know, have no city to defend. Those who don't flee are going to be killed in the chaos that the city's capture. Alexander the science, he's going to, you know, send the rest of the cities of Greece a message via Thebes. Anyone who crosses Macedonia will not only be defeated, but their people will be fucking

Starting point is 01:00:00 obliterated. Very Genghis Khan of him, or I guess since Gengus came later, will over a millennium later. In fact, it would be very Alexander of Gengus to do the same to many of the cities he would sack. In Thebes, Alexander's army kills 6,000 citizens, captures 30,000 more before burning the city to the ground. That is a message. Anyone who crosses Macedonia will be obliterated. According to the Greek historian, Diodorus of Sicily, all the city was pillaged. Elsewhere, boys and girls were dragged into captivity as they wailed pitiously the names of their mothers. In the end, when night finally intervened, the houses had been plundered, and children and women and aged persons who had fled into

Starting point is 01:00:39 the temples were torn from sanctuary and subjected to outrage without limit. Eh. What time traveling Karen think? Are you fucking serious? Oh my God. That's like, what? No limit to the outrage is happening right now. Becky, look at this.

Starting point is 01:00:57 Look what's happening to the children. Look what these soldiers are doing to these women. Oh my God. No, Becky, I will knock you in my car and go home and have a vodka soda. I'm going to find out who thinks they're in fucking charge of this shit show. I'll have their job by, hey, what do you get your hands off me? Put that sorted. I'll ruin your life. Only 500 Macedonian soldiers will be killed in all this fighting, dominant victory for Alexander. And not the last time Alexander would use cruel tactics to send a message to those who opposed him. When this hold over

Starting point is 01:01:24 Greece now temporarily secure, Alexander begins assembling a multi-cultural Greek army for a new purpose to invade Asia, to attack the Persians. He'd been raised to hate. Though the Greeks and Macedonians were themselves fragmented, cultured, they could all get behind, fucking up some Persians. Before crossing the Hellesbond, a straight and turkey that marks the boundary between Europe and Asia, Alexander decided to first visit the Oracle at Delphi. And when I first heard this, I thought, how weird to visit an Oracle, right? It might be Delphi.

Starting point is 01:01:52 It's one of the few words I didn't put up a demonstration guide for. I thought I had it, but now I question it. Well, I thought how weird though, right? To have them visit an Oracle to make an important decision that I remembered how many palm readers are still around today, right? And how many people visit, you know, minister, rabbi, Imam, priests, et cetera, to get spiritual advice. And I thought, oh, okay, it's same shit.

Starting point is 01:02:09 In some ways, we've changed so much over the last few millennia in other ways. Nah, not so much. Unfortunately, the Oracle is closed and the day deliveries from the Oracle are forbidden, even for Alexander. He calls for the Oracle priestess, Pithia, to appear, but she refuses.

Starting point is 01:02:24 She doesn't understand who the fuck she's talking to. Alexander drags her out to the temple. Let's her choose to either answer his questions or, you know, die. So she chooses to talk. He wants to know what did the gods say about his expedition to Asia, realizing any bad news would probably get her killed, I have to imagine. She of course tells him that he will be invincible. I mean, what else is she supposed to say in that situation?

Starting point is 01:02:48 I wouldn't try to, you're too short, your face is too pink and womanly, your voice is too high for anyone really abroad to take you seriously. Just go home, silly logos. From Delphi Alex Crosses, you have a spot to Aja Minor, be where before touching Aja's soil, he throws a spear into the ground, claiming Asia as a reward to him from the gods. Fuck yeah! That's some boss ass shit throwing a spear into the ground to claim a continent.

Starting point is 01:03:13 It's pretty sick. I've never done anything remotely that cool in my life. I wish I could pull off something like that now. Just claim my neighbor's yard. I throw in a big ass war spear in the lawn. Time to move, Jim. Nothing personal, dude. It's just a conquest thing, which George is now mind, Jim. Hey, what are you doing? Hey, don't go back into garage. It's not working on your butt again and ignore me. Come on, you see the spear.

Starting point is 01:03:38 Alexander then chose to visit the tomb of his hero and supposed to ancestor Achilles, Troy, small village at the time with with him at Troy, of course, is Hephaestian who lay a wreath at the tomb of Achilles friend, Patroclus, symbolically comparing Alexander and Hephaestian's friendship to a relationship to Achilles and Patroclus. I think I say it apparently a lot of the other officers didn't care for this. We're jealous. Check it. You know, these guys were likely lovers and addition friends hard for you know Some other general to compete for Alexander's attention when he's you know fucking one of the other generals

Starting point is 01:04:09 It's gonna be tough to overcome Alexander's overly protective mother apparently also resented this relationship. Of course she did She killed for her baby boy, and if anyone's gonna fuck her baby boy, it's gonna be her wait what? I don't think it was that kind of jealous. I don't think It's gonna be her. Wait, what? I don't think it was that kind of jealous. I don't think, as we learned long ago in the Cleopatra suck about the Greek Talamis, they did love some incest.

Starting point is 01:04:31 Who knows? When Alexander took off on his nearly decade-long military campaign, a man named Antie and Tipeter was named a region of Macedon and would rule in his place. He would rule with Alex's mom, breathing down his neck and up his ass, but he would rule in Alexander's place. And 334 BCE, Alexander sets his sights on conquering the important city of Stardust and Lydia, which now lies in modern-day Western Turkey. He leads his army up towards the gate to the Citadel, surveys the triple walls, steep slopes that surround the city. He then gives praise to Zeus to science create a shrine for the Greek god before he can find a site for the shrine, his sudden summer thunderstorm appears overhead.

Starting point is 01:05:07 The storm lashes the city with rain. A thunderbolt strikes the ground near the palace of the Lydian kings. Alexander believes this meant that Zeus himself had chosen this site for his shrine. And he orders the shrine to be built on that spot. And then he's able to take the city without bloodshed. The city surrenders, seeing the size of his his army and he tributes us all to Zeus. Well, pop a snake gave him this victory. Hey, I'll pop a snake.

Starting point is 01:05:29 Alexander then decides to stay and start us for a few days while he makes arrangements to take Lydia into the rapidly growing Macedonian empire. He didn't want to take the existing Persian administrative system and incorporated into Macedon. So instead of appointing a, uh, seetrap, a governor to have powers over the civil, judicial and military administrations, Alexander appoints three different men for these tasks, increasing Macedonian presence in the daily lives of Lerians. This has the double effect of not only giving, uh, giving one Macedonian general too much power, uh, so they'd be less likely to rebel against him as well.

Starting point is 01:05:59 He limits his own general's power and Lerian's autonomy in one move. He's wise, conquered in many ways. Alexander announces that Lydians would no longer be bound by the judicial system and laws of the Persians, nor would they be to be forced to accept those of Macedon. Instead, the old laws of the Lydian kings were to be reintroduced presumably under native judges and systems of administration. So also smart. Give the Lydians who had been conquered previously by the Persians, give them back their traditions,

Starting point is 01:06:24 give them more freedom than they had while the Persians ruled them, and that will make them more loyal to him. Three days after leaving Sardis, Alexander arrives in Ephesus, or he also does not have to fight, he is received with open arms, he immediately expels the pro-Persian oligarchy and installs a democratic government, the people who had been under the rule of the oligarchy, used their new freedom to pay the oligarchs back by dragging them from their homes and temples and stoning them to death in the streets. I can stoned! That's something you know, thank God doesn't happen very often anymore. I can stoned to death. That seems like a terrible, terrible way to go most of the time.

Starting point is 01:06:59 I mean, what are you hopeful when you get in stone to death? Do you just hope for like a real heavy stone to hit you quick so that either die right away or you end up two days to feel all the stones that follow? What is terrible thing to hope for, right? Would suck for it to take forever. Like you know, a ton of painful blows that don't lead quickly to death. Just annoyed in your final moment.

Starting point is 01:07:17 Just come on, you guys, there's suck. Can anyone throw a decent fucking stone? You idiots, come on, the head. I will hold still, hit me in the head Remind me to never get stoned to death being viewed as much less ruthless ruler than the Persians helped Alexander a ton as he marched across Asia Minor a lot of silly cities were more than happy just to render to get out from under the thumb of who they viewed as Persian oppressors Alexander stayed in Ephesus Ephesus, excuse me for a little while and offered sacrifices to Artemis, Greek goddess of

Starting point is 01:07:47 the hunt, wilderness, wild animals, moon, and chastity. Gotta pay some gods some tribute, right? Even if you don't believe in him. Gotta convince the soldiers fighting for you, that you are fighting for the glory of Greece, which includes their gods. It's likely that he frequently visited the studio of Appelis and Ephesus, who became the only painter allowed to paint Alexander. We know of at least one painting made especially for the temple of Artemis, in which Alexander

Starting point is 01:08:10 was represented, holding a thunderbolt, associating himself with Zeus again, oh, pop a snake. Sun agrees is most powerful and arguably horneous god. Next still in 334 BCE, Alexander moves his forces to the city of Balbek. Conquer it, rename it Heliopolis, meaning city of the sun. Definitely a better name than Balbek. Sounds too close to Balsek, for me. Welcome to Balbek. I'm sorry, what? You say Balsek? It's Balbek. It sounds like Balsek. How does Heliopolis sound a sit? Balbek was an ancient Phoenician city located in modern day Lebanon, North Bay, Root, inhabited as early as 9,000 BC,

Starting point is 01:08:51 one of the world's oldest cities. Baalbeck grew into an important pilgrimage site in ancient world for the worship of the Sky God, Baal. And his consort, Asarti, the Phoenician queen of heaven. Center of the city was an enormous temple to Baal, and Asarti, Alexander checked another person city office to conquer list Also how cool for him and his men to see strange new lands while they're doing this stuff, right? How different traveling like that must have been when you didn't have the internet

Starting point is 01:09:15 Didn't have travel brochures or documentaries or commercials or any any kind of images of all the places in the world You know and for many places you didn't have books just whispers and rumors of what may places in the world. You know, and for many places, you didn't have books, just whispers and rumors of what may lay down the road. The only equivalent the human race might ever possibly have for something like this again is space exploration, right far in the future. It didn't take long for the Persians to take notice of the young Alexander's aggression. After Alexander took the town of Balsac, the Persian king, Derysus, or no, I'm sorry, Derias.

Starting point is 01:09:46 I wrote this so carefully and I still fucked it up. Derias III, not super happy about some up pretty Greek pushing deep into his territory and taking a shit. He began planning a little showdown. When I first read derias, it spilled D-A-R-R-I-U-S, like derias, which reminded me of Derral, which made me think of a king who is not regal.

Starting point is 01:10:07 Imagine King Darryl. Let's picture some dude with a mullet, not a retro cool mullet, you know, like just an old ass mullet drinking Bud Light out of an I love Teddy's beer coosier something. We're in a poison tour tank top, zebra stripe hammer pants, scuffed up white converse high tops, not retro cool again, you know, a guy who says like, fuck yeah, bro, noise. He says noise a lot. I just felt compared to share that. I just kept picturing the whole time I was reading about Darius, just noise.

Starting point is 01:10:34 On 333 BCE, the 22 or 23 year old Alexander moved on to Sidon and ancient Phoenician port, city of Sedonia, in present day Lebanon, along with the city of Tyre. Sidon was the most powerful city state of ancient Phoenicia. First place to randomly manufacture purple dye, you might think who gives it shit. Well purple dye made Tyre famous and was so rare and expensive that the color purple would become a symbol of royalty for centuries and centuries to come. Fun fact, that's how the color purple became a symbol of royalty, from being manufactured attire and being super expensive and rare.

Starting point is 01:11:08 The city itself was immensely prosperous, full of skilled navigators and shipbuilders who grew wealthy on maritime trade, having heard of Alexander's exploits and his campaign to topple, Darius, the Setonians surrendered to him without a fight. As a show of their loyalty, they even disposed their king, stratten the seconds because Stten was deris is friend which is right to take this laying down on the number fifth three three uh... three thirty three bc

Starting point is 01:11:31 Alexander and king deris king derro would go to battle f**k out bro noise uh... the battle is this was Alexander the great second battle against the Persian army and the first direct engagement with king deris uh... near the village of isis in what is now southern turkey second battle against the Persian army and the first direct engagement with King Darius near the village of Isis in what is now southern Turkey. When Alexander learned of Darius' presence in the agricultural rich land surrounding Isis, he quickly moved southward from Gordium through the Solissian gates to the port town of Isis. Although the battle itself would be further south on a narrow plane between the Mediterranean Sea and a monast mountains, the port served as a

Starting point is 01:12:04 base camp for Alexander's forces and he left his sick and wounded there to recover. Later as derives marched his troops to meet Alexander at the river Peneres, the, I want to say Penerer brother. The Persian king stopped at the Greek base camp where he tortured and executed the recuperating Macedonian soldiers, cutting off the right hands of those who were allowed to live. Fucking Darryl! Classic Shady-S Darryl move, North. How fucked up does it make me, if my very first thought

Starting point is 01:12:30 when I read that was, I wonder how many of those guys who got to live had to relearn how to jerk off with their weekends. Like I didn't think like, oh no, it's gonna be so much harder for them to fight after that. Or oh my God, what kind of work will they be able to find? How can they provide for their families? Now I just thought, ah, sucks.

Starting point is 01:12:44 For someone not left handed, you know, you have to take a while to work out a new kind of smooth stroke. After learning of this, the mass-donate army especially wanted to fuck off the Persians. Historians have estimated that Darius had an army of between 300,000 and 600,000 soldiers as well as 30,000 additional Greek mercenaries. Though other, more recent historians say he probably had more like 25,000 to 100,000 soldiers with 10,000 Greek mercenaries. A little bit of a number of discrepancy there. Those big numbers, that's what you get when the initial historians are trying to make

Starting point is 01:13:15 your victories as big and bold as possible to further your legend. Alexander had roughly 40,000 soldiers, 5,850 of which were cavalry. Derai's decided to move on Alexander's army, hoping to separate them from the base at Isis. Alexander had marched south from Isis towards Syria, but when he heard about Derai's being in Isis, he turned around. Derai's moved further south into the narrow strip of land west of the Emanus Mountains, unintentionally putting his forces at a disadvantage by reducing their mobility. The two armies met at the river Peneres. Peneres, brand, they got some fucking sammies. They had some chicken soup.

Starting point is 01:13:49 Oh no, they didn't do that. The weather was rainy and cold. Unfortunately for Darius, he'd ignore the advice of Tarritamus, one of his trusted Greek mercenary generals who told Darius to divide his forces and allow Tarritamus to fight alone against Alexander, who was heading up the right flank himself. Darius ignored this suggestion, primarily because he didn't really believe that this young

Starting point is 01:14:08 upstart, little hooligan Alexander could actually beat him. After being ignored, Derias made the mistake of tossing out a few ill-chosen comments about his Persian leader. Derias turns out to spoke Greek and perfectly understood the comments was offended and immediately had his general executed. It ended up being a mistake as Derias would then lose one of his most capable generals. So bad moment for Daryl. And worse for his now Greek, dead, Greek general.

Starting point is 01:14:33 Despite the advantage of numbers, Darius and his men were soon on the defensive, unable to maneuver as they would have liked. Darius's left flank was, left flank was hampered by the river valley, mounds on his left, sea on his right. Alexander on the other hand had plenty of room to maneuver his trusted fail-anks formations. His right flank extended to the mountains, his left to the sea. He had three battalions on the right, four to the left with heavy infantry in the middle. After viewing Alexander's formation, Gerai's moved his cavalry to attack Alexander's

Starting point is 01:14:57 right with hopes of breaking through his right flank. Although hampered by the river bank and stockades erected by Gerai's, Alexander and his cavalry moved quickly through Gerai's left flank, attempts to drive Alexander back failed. Alexander and his forces turned toward the Persian center where they spotted Darius. Although Darius' brother attempt to block Alexander's charge, he failed. Darius fled the battle at first in his chariot, then on horseback, despite a serious ty wound Alexander chased him until nightfall on his horse and then

Starting point is 01:15:25 returned empty handed. So that's pretty sweet. One ancient leader chasing another on horseback, like something out of a movie, give them nothing but take from them everything. A little more 300 Gerard Butler right there. Meanwhile, Alexander's left flank under the leadership of Parmenium was having problems with the rise as rights when the Persian forces saw their bitch ass king Darrell flee noise. They fled too. Many were trampled to death in a mass panicked exit. In all according to some ancient sources, the Persons lost 100,000 foot soldiers in 10,000 cavalry while Alexander lost only 1200 dudes total.

Starting point is 01:16:00 That's probably a little bit of exaggeration. Modern historians estimate that the rise lost around 20,000. Now Alexander around 20,000. Now Alexander around 7,000 seems more realistic. But a crushing defeat for the Persians either way. The Persians left so quickly that most of their possessions were left behind for the Macedonian army to plunder. Darius' tent was full of splendid furniture gold and silver

Starting point is 01:16:17 that was reserved for Alexander. And there was more than that Darius' mother, wife, and two daughters were found in Darius' tent. And Alexander promised them that they would come to know harm. They would be provided with everything they were used to receiving from Derias. Oh man, two bad phones didn't work back then. Alex could have called up a old Derias, you know, told him about it, taking his family. Hey, Darrell, I got your fucking mom, bro.

Starting point is 01:16:41 Noice. What? What? No, bro. Now I have your mom. I have your wife too, and your daughter's noise. Dude, stop saying that. It's not noise, it's fucked up. You should be pissed.

Starting point is 01:16:54 Noise, it's got to be material, hanging up, noise. Oh, sorry. I get a little more absurd than I expect you to. After being captured by her son's enemy, enemy, drys his mother, Sissa Gambas, feared for her and her daughter-in-laws and her son's enemy, enemy derives his mother, Sissa Gambis feared for her and her daughter-in-law's and her granddaughter's safety. And as Alexander and his feisty entered the tent, she threw herself before the taller and

Starting point is 01:17:12 more handsome a feisty and begging for her life. She mistakenly assumed the feisty and was the Macedonian king, not Alexander. And Alex was pissed. He stomped a tiny feet. He ran through and raved with his little high-pitched lady voice. Goddamn it, that's a king! I I'm so son me. I want some respect. No, I actually didn't mind. When you realized your mistake,

Starting point is 01:17:31 Cicagambus was incredibly embarrassed and Alexander remarked that the error had a big deal because the Fistion was also in Alexander. Pretty sweet, and those dudes loved each other. Although Derai has tried to ransom for the return of his family, promising Alexander half of his kingdom, Alexander was like, nope. Instead, Alexander challenged him to fight again, and they would fight again a second time at Gagamila two years later. After Isis of Faustien would be placed in charge of Alexander's naval reinforcements. On 332 BC, Alexander Conkers, the Levant, the land along the eastern shores of the Mediterranean, modern day, Turkey, Syria, Lebanon.

Starting point is 01:18:06 And a wider sense of term can be used to encompass the entire coastline from Greece to Egypt, the Levant, part of a, or the Levant, Levant. That's one of those words that I can never feel right. It's part of a fertile crescent home to some of ancient Mediterranean trade centers such as Ugrite, Tire, Son, making his way into the event. Alexander arrived with the city of Tyre and demanded their surrender and they did immediately. Hey, buddy, so that's you. We love you guys.

Starting point is 01:18:31 Big fans. Following Sidon's lead, the tyrants acknowledge Alexander's greatness and present him with gifts. Pleased with their submission, Alexander said he would present a sacrifice in honor of their God and their temple. Then things got pretty tense. The Tyrians, not tyrians, whatever I said earlier, the Tyrians explained how it would be, it would be sacrilegious for a foreigner

Starting point is 01:18:53 to present a sacrifice in their temple. And Alexander was like, excuse me. I mean, excuse me. As a male king of tire promised to compromise. What if tire becomes Alexander's ally, they respect him as king and all that, but he does his sacrifices, you know, just like a little ways over there,

Starting point is 01:19:10 just do it over there in the mainland and the old temple, just not here. And Alexander was like, fuck that! Oh, excuse me, fuck that! As angry Alexander sent on voice to say this was unacceptable, not acceptable that the Tyrians had to surrender,

Starting point is 01:19:25 and then Asmelc made a really bad choice. He had Alexander's on voice murdered. And Alexander, not happy, and he ordered his soldiers to seize the city, how he did it, pretty badass. He dismantled much of the nearby mainland city of Ushu. He used the debris, rock, fell trees, not city to create a land bridge

Starting point is 01:19:44 between Tyre and the mainland. Over the years, this would actually lead to heavy sedimentation that would permanently link the island to the mainland, which is why, though Tyre was an island in Alexander's time, just off the coast, it is no longer an island today. He'd literally change some local geography, substantially, to suit his military and vicious needs.

Starting point is 01:20:02 After a siege of seven months, Alexander used his manmade causeway where a much of the current city of Tyre now stands to batter down the walls of ancient Tyre and take the city. Tyre's 30,000 inhabitants were then either massacred or sold in slavery and the city was destroyed by Alexander in his rage at their having defied him for so long. Another example of just fucking sending a message other cities don't, don't fuck with me. Take my demand seriously. The fall of Tyre would lead to the rise of the city state of Carthage, as many of the survivors of the siege were able to escape Alexander's wrath by either bribery or stealth, would settle in Carthage, which had been a small colony

Starting point is 01:20:39 of Tyre previously. Carthage would grow to then become the center of the Carthage, Carthage Ginny and Empire, a major commercial and maritime power that dominated the Western Mediterranean until the mid-3rd century BCE. The Romans would take the ruin tire as a colony in 64 BCE. When Pompeii annexed the whole of Phoenicia to the Roman Empire, tire was rebuilt under the Romans who ironically then destroyed the city of Carthage. The surviving tyranians had built up leading Rome to triumph over Carthage as the biggest power in the Mediterranean world. Okay, back to Alexander by 332 BCE, Alexander had made it to Africa. In February, he visited the Oasis, Siva, in the Libyan desert where he consulted the Oracle of Amon. Nobody knows exactly what Alexander asked or what the God replied, but afterwards,

Starting point is 01:21:23 Alexander started to think of himself as the son of a man and the master of the universe, like he's he-man, master of the universe. I'm guessing another oracle told this guy exactly what he wanted to hear. And again, what else was he going to say? On 332, Alexander conquered city after city. He didn't have a single method of concrete. Sometimes he left cities to their own devices. Sometimes he destroyed them. Sometimes he massacred the people. Sometimes he left the cities to their own devices. Sometimes he destroyed them.

Starting point is 01:21:45 Sometimes he masquered the people. Sometimes he just raised him to the ground. Sometimes when he was really pissed, he had people brutally tortured. Good example of this occurred during the capture of Gaza in 332 after a two-month siege in which some 10,000 in the city were killed. Betis, Gaza's Persian governor, was brought before him. Though threatened with death, stubborn-ass Bet baddest remains silent and would not bow to Alexander.

Starting point is 01:22:07 And Alexander really, really did not like this. So he had heated spikes nailed through baddest's ankles. That alone sounds pretty painful. And it was just the warm-up. Then this poor bastard was tied to a chariot and Alexander's horses dragged him around the city to slowly die while Alexander watched and gloated. Yeah. 331 Alexander found the city of Alexandria and Egypt. Alexandria would go on to become one of the world's intellectual capitals. But Alexander would not live long enough to see it flourish. Alexander did design the plan for the

Starting point is 01:22:41 city and then most of Alexandria's development would be carried out by his commander, did design the plan for the city and then most of Alexandria's development would be carried out by his commander. Cleomenes and then the full expansion of the Alexandria would happen under the rule of Alexander's general, Tullamy and the rule of the Tullamaic dynasty that would follow and with the death of Cleopatra after, you know, as I said earlier, a lot of years of incest. I'm not kidding about that by the way. Listen to the Cleopatra suck. If you're not, you don't know what I'm talking about.

Starting point is 01:23:04 On October 1st, 331 B.C. the the battle of Gogomila was fought the second and final meeting of Alexander the Great of Macedon and Darryl, King Darius III of Persia, noise. Gogomila was a village on the banks of the river Bumatus. I couldn't find a pronunciation for that river. The side of the battle is thought to be Tel Gamel in northern Iraq the hill that looks like a camel derives who'd learned his lesson at the battle of Isis, brought together men from all over his empire this time, even Indian mercenaries to take down Alexander. Estimates of his army vary from 50,000 to 100,000

Starting point is 01:23:37 to almost a million soldiers, along with 15 elephants, excuse me, although they would actually never get used. He also had 200-sized chariots, chose Gagamila, which keeps making me want to say Gargamel, by the way, that evil wizard from the Smurfs. He chose it specifically because the land was wide open. So Darius could use his chariots and deploy his cavalry more effectively than he'd been able to it isis. He even had the ground leveled. Like he really did a lot of prep. He placed obstacles, he placed book and booby traps

Starting point is 01:24:08 to impede the advances of Alexander's forces. He wasn't fucking around this time. Just no way bro, you bring that shit. Still piss about you taking my mom, dude. You took my wife and family, bro. Alexander made camps several miles from deris. His estimated 40,000 men would only take their weapons to battle nothing else No, no side cherries nothing like that

Starting point is 01:24:29 Alexander went on a scouting trip before the battle luckily while on the scouting trip he came upon an advanced party sent out by deris While some of the party did flee and escape others were captured and reported on deris as numbers the presence of the booby traps obstacles etc The night before the battle was set to begin, Alexander held a council with his generals, Parminio, the commander of Alexander's left flank, suggested that a large size of derisest forces called for them to sneak attack at night. But Alexander was like, nope. He thought that would mean they would steal the victory.

Starting point is 01:24:57 He didn't just wanna win. He wanted to win a decisive and bold and memorable fashion. He wanted to continue to build his legend. He was very cognizant of his legend. He also thought the battle would just, you know, go his way, whether he thought it day or night. It had to because an earlier eclipse of the moon that he saw was obviously a sign of his victory. This dude loved to read into everything. Everything was a sign. Everything was an omen cracks me up. Hey Alexander, did you see that the the family of there was a family of raccoons Eating some garbage and our camp last night. Of course I saw them. It was a sign

Starting point is 01:25:31 Assigned that I am destined to one day dine with the gods on mountain Olympus. Oh Oh, yeah, okay. Ha ha. Shit. I see that now. First I thought I was like just random garbage eating raccoons, you know But I get it. Hey one more thing Uh, looks like we got some mice in the grain looks like some mice have gotten in the I've cost the mice have gotten to the great I know Those mice eating our grain are an obvious Omen that I will feast upon the blood of the Persians tomorrow in battle that I shall go down as the greatest military mind the world has ever seen Okay, okay. Okay, shit, I thought we just had a mouse problem.

Starting point is 01:26:08 That's great news. On the day of the battle, Alexander reportedly overslept on purpose. Boom, he's not worried. He really did sleep extra on purpose. He wanted to make sure his men were well fed and well rested. Derise his men on the other hand, they've been awake all night. They were panicked. They were waiting for a night attack that never came then with the two armies met on the battlefield

Starting point is 01:26:27 Alexander called out to a weary individual Persian soldiers by name speaking of their bravery and other battles I just did with smart You know Stroke and the regas asked them to turn and fight for a worthy leader fight for Macedonia As he spoke an eagle flew overhead and towards derives, obviously Zeus or Papa snake clear cut, almond for victory. He really did think that. The battle began Alexander and his companion cavalry took position on the right flank while Parminio held the left flank, stationed in the middle with a well-trained Macedonian phalanx with more light infantry and archers

Starting point is 01:27:00 on either side. Right, about time he started fucking around some arrows. Alexander also plays infantry at angles on the ends of both the right and left flanks to protect against the possible flank you maneuver by the Persians. As the battle began Alexander and his cavalry immediately moved to the right at an oblique angle following derisers orders the Persians under the leadership of Bessus moved to their left countering Alexander in an attempt to outflank him, but Alexander kept pushing him to the left further and further until the Persian army was on terrain that had not been cleared. There was a gap between the Persian left flank and the rest of the army. Seeing an opening, Alexander formed his men into a wedge, quickly charged, moving to the left into the clearing, now heading straight for Darius.

Starting point is 01:27:38 Darius sent his size chariots towards the Macedonian center, a move that failed to have the effect he hoped. As the chariots approached, the failanks merely opened open ranks allowed for the chariots to pass through the infantry that immediately attacked the chariots, dragging the Persian riders into hand to hand combat, killing them easily. Back on the right, Alexander spying, Derai's actually threw a spear at him and apparently missed by inches. Just like it is, this derai's realized that victory was hopeless and he fled.

Starting point is 01:28:03 I just bitch, yeah, ster all, take it off again. He wouldn't get far. He would be tracked down by his own man and executed for being a fleeing coward. Noice. Oh, wait, that's not nice. After this victory, Alexander was without question. Now the ruler of the former Persian Empire's land in Asia. He had done what no Greek before him had done and vanquished their primary enemy.

Starting point is 01:28:24 After the final defeat of Derrius III, Alexander's best buddy, Bill Horse, uh, Eusefilus was horse-napped while he was on way, uh, away on excursion. It was a big mistake upon returning and learning of the theft of his favorite horse, his, his childhood pet, Alexander promised to fell every tree, lay the entire countryside to waste and slaughter every inhabitant in the region. Unless this horse was returned, like he was going to fucking obliterate the entire area. Everybody would die. The horse was then luckily returned, lucky for thousands and thousands of peasants who

Starting point is 01:28:57 didn't have shit to do with taking it. He imagine how nervous everybody was. The horse was returned along with the plea for mercy. Now Alexander could move into North Africa, adding more lands to his already sizeable Macedonian empire. In 331 BCE, he conquered Egypt, what areas weren't already conquered without much resistance. Following year in 330, Alexander conquers

Starting point is 01:29:15 one of the oldest cities in the world, Susa, located in present day Iran. Susa surrenders without contest, and then Alexander, he decides to sack it anyway. I guess he was just getting tired of no one putting up a fight. Want to do a let his men and adults and some more want and bloodlust. I don't know, maybe somebody looked at him funny, somebody made fun of his height or voice. Or just because of the symbolic city, he just wanted to fucking punch him in the gut.

Starting point is 01:29:37 After defeating the Persian Emperor, sacking a few major cities, declaring himself King of Persia, Alexander found himself in Persepolis. Persepolis was known to the Persians as parsa, which meant city of the Persians. The Greek name Persepolis meant the same thing. Persepolis housed the greatest treasure of literature and works of art from across the archa- archa- oh man. Archie- Mao, man, arch-

Starting point is 01:30:00 I have doing so well in these words, and then this one my brain is just like, nope. A kimadid. I think it's a Kima did, a Kima did empire. A C H A E M E N I D a Kima did empire, I think. Alexander would burn it to the ground. The reason why it's a bit complicated goes back a century or so in Greek history. Before Alexander defeated the Persian Empire, once and for all Greek city states

Starting point is 01:30:22 had fought the Persian Empire off and on for centuries. Zerksis, the first son of derives to first, had invaded Greece in 480 BCE, burning villages, cities and temples, including the great Parthenon of Athens. The 480 BCE invasion of the Persian Wars was long remembered by the Greeks and when Alexander arrived in Persepolis, he wanted some payback, some old time payback. And also he was drunk. Historians seriously, historians know that Alexander's men were drunk when they decided to store the city,

Starting point is 01:30:49 and it played likely a substantial role in how far they took things. One of the greatest cities in the ancient world was destroyed, mostly because some dudes got drunk and worked up. Just fuck these guys, bro, come on dude, dude, listen, hey dude, listen, the fucking ruin our shit man you guys ruin our shit and fuck them you know come on bro burn them all burn

Starting point is 01:31:12 them some you know you fuck them who care dude get a little bit of burn them oh now it's the greater writer perceptualist it was among the most impressive cities in the world when he left it was a ruin whose spot will be known for generations to come as the place of the 40 columns referencing the only remaining palace columns left standing in the sand amongst the ruins Persepolis sacked plundered Alexander's men plundered home slotted families took an abundance of silver and gold Initially Alexander spared the royal palace not because he wanted to save it

Starting point is 01:31:42 No, because he wanted it raised completely to the ground, instead of being plundered. The master had been an entire day plundering, killing the men, killing many of the children, dragging many of the women out of their houses, making them sexual slaves. Then Alexander subred up, supposedly regretted his actions the next morning, and would continue to regret them

Starting point is 01:31:58 for the rest of his life. That was an epic hangover. Oh my God. Oh, my head is fucking killing me. I got so fucked up last night. I can't, what do we do? What, what? We burned the whole thing to the ground? Fuck! No, man, Persepolis was so cool!

Starting point is 01:32:20 Is gone? I did all of that? Man, I did not think we were that drunk. The destruction of Persepolis was an immense loss of the accumulated learning, art, and culture of ancient Persia that could not be replaced. The religious works of early Zowastrianism, oldest continuously practiced monotheistic religion in the world, written on goat skin parchment, destroyed along with artworks, tapestries, other priceless

Starting point is 01:32:45 cultural artifacts the administrative record of the city written in cuneiform tablets of clay were luckily hard baked by the fire buried under some rubble they luckily survived the present day provided archaeologists with some information on how the Persian Empire operated and what the people valued Nearly everything else destroyed that day by Alexander's army, by drunken army. 333 BCE when Alexander was 25 or 26, trouble was a brewing within his own command. A plot to assassinate Alexander was formed to take control of the Macedonian army, and it was his buddy and probable lover, a feistyun who brought it to his attention. A feistyun along with craters called out Philatis.

Starting point is 01:33:25 It's a suspected ringleader of the plot convinced Alexander that Philatis and the other conspirators should be tortured and executed, including Parmenio, Philatis's father, longtime commander, dating back to the days of Philip. After their executions, Alexander rewarded a feistyun by splitting the command of his personal cavalry between him and another general clitus. In 329 BCE, Alexander got back to conquering, reminding Bactria, province of the Persian empire, people who were supposed to recognize him now as emperor, who was boss. Guess who?

Starting point is 01:33:56 Not Tony Danza, Alexander. When Bactria rebelled, Alexander and his army quickly marched to suppress it, 30,000 Bactrians had taken refuge in a citadel situated high above a sheer cliff called the rock of Saga, Saga, Dianna, Saga, Dianna. I think, I think I had it. Alexander sent a message to Erimazis could not find anybody saying this to his name.

Starting point is 01:34:19 The commander of the fortress, calling him to surrender. And Erimazis replied sarcastically, asking if Alexander could fly because he would need winged soldiers to defeat him. And Alexander was like, seriously, his mother fuckers laughed at me. He wasn't about to let some dude up on a cliff show him up. He was the son of Zeus and Ammon and Philip.

Starting point is 01:34:37 Had a lot of important dads. He asked for the best cliff climbers amongst his army, promising the first man to reach the top of the cliff a generous reward. 300 men volunteered and these dudes just climbed up this cliff, like old-school cliff climbing at night by the following morning, after losing only 30 men, they reached the top, the backdreins immediately surrendered, were taken as captives. And although I couldn't find out what happened to their leader, and Amassis, and any of the sources, I am guessing he had his ass tossed off of the cliff. Maybe while Alexander said some cool shit like who needs to fly now, motherfucker. According to Plutarch, one of the captives taken in the siege was a young woman

Starting point is 01:35:13 Roxanne. Now I have the police song stuck in my head. Roxanne. I apologize for that. With whom Alexander fell in love while the army and captives sat around drinking Alexander saw the young, beautiful Roxanne dancing She must have been so happy she'd spent a lot of her free time. I'm guessing dancing as a kid really came in handy When her city was sacked Because Alexander's army were called the battle elsewhere a marriage between Alexander and Roxanne would have to wait And for leaving bacteria Alexander wins a decisive battle against the Scytheans and the mad nomadic people who originally lived in what is now Southern Siberia. Their culture flourished from around 900 BCE to around 200 BCE,

Starting point is 01:35:50 by which time they'd extended their influence all over Central Asia from China to the Northern Black Sea. The Scytheans made a center from the same ancient people as the Mongols, similar cultures, similar fighting styles. After this victory, Alexandria once again found the city, names after himself, Alexandria Cate. Following year in 328 BCE, when some city and cities

Starting point is 01:36:08 have perched a revolt, he sends another message. He destroys at least one of the cities to keep others in line. Resistance in the Psyropolus, the largest of the towns, irritated him so much that after he captured it, he ordered it to be destroyed and the people slain. Of the 15,000 men defending the town, 8,000 were killed outright.

Starting point is 01:36:24 Citizens of another town took refuge in a fortress and then were also massacred after surrounding when they ran out of water. So many massacres, time traveling Karen would be disgusted. Are you fucking serious? Oh my god. What is going on with all of the massacres? It's not okay. I will never support this empire.

Starting point is 01:36:42 I will never be back until the mass curing comes to a stop. I want to talk to your manager. I want to talk to your manager about all of the mass curing. Get your hands off me. The next year, 327 BCE, Alexander continues to be as ruthless as ever. And the SWAT Valley of Pakistan, after beating down opposition from a people called the, he he he, oh boy, as a seniors, think of got it,

Starting point is 01:37:06 Alexander agreed to release a group of mercenaries who had fought with them with the siege of Masaga. The mercenaries left the camp several miles away with their families. And then Alexander was like, Jekke, you thought you could fight me and live? Oh, shit. He and his army slaughtered their entire camp, 7,000 mercenaries, mercenaries killed their families either killed or taken to slaves. He and his army slaughtered their entire camp, 7,000 mercenaries killed.

Starting point is 01:37:25 Their families either killed or taken to slaves. The same year Alexander Mary's Roxanne, I have the police thing in my head, I will not share it. His sweet little cliff dancer, his story in his debate over whether it was a political alliance or the product of real love, probably political alliance. Mary and someone from a conquered land, you know, something Alexander's father had done on a number of occasions. A lot of ancient conquerors would do it.

Starting point is 01:37:47 And Alexander, who'd always been fasting with Persian culture, would have found uniting the two cultures desirable. Also unlikely that Alexander would have taken advantage of Roxanne without marriage, another violation of his policies. So maybe it was romantic. After this marriage, Alexander would insist that many of his commanders would take, should take Persian wives, which they didn't like. They didn't care for this.

Starting point is 01:38:06 Their wives back in Macedonia cared for it less. Little is known of Roxanne following her marriage until Alexander's death in 323 BCE. Some historians indicate she may have traveled with him into India, may have been at his side in Babylon. It does seem that Roxanne was pregnant with Alexander's child at the time of his death, or was somebody's child. By 326 CE orE, Alexander and his men have been away from their homes now

Starting point is 01:38:29 for almost a decade. Think about that. Many of his men had wives and children back home. Families they hadn't seen in nearly 10 years. They didn't know if they were alive or dead. It's not like they could drop a letter in the mail. I mean, Alexander could send word back to Macedonia from time to time. He'd let them know what Lanzied Conqueror, that he was still alive all dead. It's not like they could drop a letter in the mail. I mean, Alexander, you know, could send word back to Macedonia from time to time. We let them know what

Starting point is 01:38:46 Lanzied conquered that he was still alive all that. But it's not like he was gathering letters from his soldiers, most of whom were likely illiterate anyways, despite all the conquering morale getting pretty low, because they're homesick. It just want to go home. And Alexander will tell them, tough shit! Uh huh, I mean tough shit. On 334 BCE, they traveled to India. It's in India that he would achieve what many would call his last major victory in the Battle of Highdazspees in modern Pakistan.

Starting point is 01:39:14 He and his soldiers are now roughly 6,000 kilometers, over 3700 miles from home. And Highdazspees, he meets a formidable opponent in King Porus. And his military savvy will be challenged as never before by an unforgiving climate in a new foe. The elephant. He had seen elephants in that one battle, but they didn't fight him. Actually, maybe not even something, but yeah, they were in that one battle, but they

Starting point is 01:39:33 never fought him. Can you imagine, by the way, seeing one of those creatures for the first time in battle, and you're not used to seeing a creature larger than a horse? It would come across like some type of Lord of the Rings monster. Alexander's initial march went relatively unchallenged. He'd gathered a number of additional allies along the way. So he had a nice, sizable army when he met King Poros. He didn't expect to fight.

Starting point is 01:39:52 He expected this guy to surrender, but the proud King refused to pay tribute. Told Alexander if he wanted his kingdom, he didn't have to take it from him. Poros was confident. He believed his greatest defense lay in the Jalum River over a mile wide deep and fast. The monsoon season would make it even bigger. And porous hoped that Alexander would have to wait for the end of the monsoon season or simply abandon his quest and just go home. Clearly, he didn't know who Alexander was. A dude who'd once built a land bridge to an island kingdom just so he could destroy it for offending him. Porous station, his army along the river

Starting point is 01:40:22 waited to defend his kingdom if necessary, while exact numbers vary. Estimates place porist is having 20,000 to 50,000 infantry over 2,000 cavalry, upwards of 200 elephants and more than 300 chariots. While the elephants were new, Alexander had faced again armies that had outnumbered him before and one. It wasn't too worried about the elephants apparently. He was confident.

Starting point is 01:40:43 He could kick these guys asses. His Macedonian army crosses the river in a futile attempt to delay Alexander Poros sends his son to meet him in the water with 3,000 cavalry, 120 chariots. At least meet him at the water's edge. The attempt is a disaster. Alexander kills his son, destroys the cavalry and the chariots, only a few survivors flee back to Poros.

Starting point is 01:41:00 When the battle officially begins with Poros, King Poros himself rides out into battle, riding atop a war elephant. That's pretty bad ass. Despite suffering several serious wounds, despite his army fleeing from the battle, King porous fights on, still sitting on that elephant, refusing to admit defeat and surrender. Alexander soldiers earn all of this guy. The thing is pretty cool that he just won't give up up so Alexander rides out into the battle approaches the proud defeated king

Starting point is 01:41:28 asked him how he wants to be treated porous response he still wants to be treated as king and apparently Alexander respected his wish he told porous he would remain king if he was a legend to Alexander he let him live and rule basically as a governor this dude really impressed him how cool is that he had so much respect for how hard Poros Foddy's like, okay, yeah, fuck it.

Starting point is 01:41:47 And now you can still run things here. I mean, you work for me, but you can, you know, tell your people you're running things. Good job, buddy. That's a cool ass elephant. Roughly 12,000 Indian soldiers, 80 elephants died in the battle compared to only 1,000 Macedonians. After a high-dass piece, Alexander continues on towards the Indian Ocean. Sadly, this final march would be without his trusty steed.

Starting point is 01:42:07 Busefilus at 30 years old passes away after the Battle of Highdaz P's river there. And morning, Alexander found a city in his beloved horse's memory and names it, Busefila. It's got to love his animals, right? He would also found another city after his favorite dog, a paredus, praise both jangles, our good boy, both jangles, overjoyed at this news. Alexander's march to the ocean, not a happy one. His army really, really wants to go home. And they finally prevail over his wishes.

Starting point is 01:42:34 At first, Alexander is so annoyed by his army's reluctance. He shuts himself up in his tent and pouts. But finally, after the appeals of his generals and seeing that his men are extremely upset, he changes his mind and he and his mastone army head back towards Babylon on their way back home degrees. And then Alexander's good fortune seems to fall apart. The year looked like it was starting off well, 324 BCE, when he married both a daughter and the niece of Darius in a political dual marriage in Susa, noise, two brides one day.

Starting point is 01:43:04 Darius's daughter,ides, one day. Derys' daughter, actually, the nightmare. Derys' daughter, Statera, would later be killed by his previous bride, Roxanna, after Alexander's death. Not long afterwards, Alexander and his troops spend the summer and fall of 324 at Ekibatana, where after a night of heavy drinking, Ha Fistin develops a high fever. Uh-oh. Alexander would remain by his good friend's side until he shows signs of recovery. He starts to look like he's gonna get better,

Starting point is 01:43:28 then unfortunately quickly takes a turn for the worst relapses and dies. And the king spends the next two days sobbing in tears, grieving for the death of his friend, grieving for the death of his lover, besides cutting off his own hair, he orders the mains and tails of all of his army's horses to be cut off as well.

Starting point is 01:43:44 A state of mourning is declared, sacrifices are made, sacred fires are lit. Alexander even executed. Hefistian's doctor and paling the dude on a stake for not saving his lover, that poor bastard. Hefistian's body would eventually be sent to Babylon where a giant funeral pyre would be built. Alexander also sent an envoy ahead to see what to request. Hefistian be declared a God.

Starting point is 01:44:06 Love this dude. Upon his recovery from a Feistion's death, Alexander returns to plans for expanding his empire, but he would never realize these plans. Roughly eight months after his best friend's death on either June 10th or 11th, 323 BCE, Alexander of Macedonia, son of Philip, son of Zeus dies in Babylon at the age of 32 after 10 days of high fever. There have been lots of theories throughout the years regarding exactly what killed him, possibilities ranged from poisoning, to malaria, to meningitis, to bacterial infection, to drinking contaminated water to other theories. Two weeks before his death, Alexander entertained his fleet Admiral Nierkis and his friend, Medius of Larissa, with a long

Starting point is 01:44:42 bout of drinking afterwards. He got his fever and he just never recovered. According to Plutarch, when Alexander was asked who should succeed him, he said the strongest. And his empire was divided between four of his generals, Cassandra, Tallah me, Antigonus, and Salukus. These men would go down in history as the Diyataki or successors. Plutarch and Aryan would claim that Alexander, though, passed his ranges to one, to Praduckas. Praduckas was also Alexander's friend, his bodyguard, fellow cavalrymen, and would make sense considering Alexander's habit. Everywarding knows he was

Starting point is 01:45:13 closest to with favors. It makes sense that he would choose Praduckas over the others. Praduckas would not be able to extend or to take the throne. He would die two years later in 321 BCE. Alexander's successors would turn out not to be so loyal to take the throne, he would die two years later in 321 BCE. Alexander's successors would turn out not to be so loyal to Alexander's memory, and just as brutal as Alexander himself at times. His longtime comrade Cassander would order the execution of Alexander's wife Roxanna, and Alexander's son and Alexander's mother Olympias to consolidate his power as the new king of Macedonia.

Starting point is 01:45:43 A title he would later lose to end Tignis, just like Olympias, killed to clear the path for her son to be the king. One of her sons' generals has her killed to clear his own path to the throne. Some real life game of throne shit. Tollamy steals Alexander's corpse as it's in route to Macedon, takes it away to Egypt and hopes of securing the prophecy that the land in which he was laid to rest will be prosperous and prosperous and unconquerable. There he would find, as I said earlier, the, or found the Tala mech dynasty in the Egypt that would last until 30 BCE, ending with the death of his descendant, Cleopatra VII.

Starting point is 01:46:18 Salukus went on to found the salucid empire comprising Mesopotamia and Anatolia and parts of India. And it would be the last remaining of the Diyataki after the incessant 40 years of war between them and their heirs. He came to be known as salusis Nikitor, unconquered. None of his generals possess Alexander's intelligence, understanding or military genius, but they did found dynasties which with exceptions ruled their respective regions until the coming of Rome. The wars of the Diadachee, also known as the wars of Alexander's successors, would last from 322 BCE to 275 BCE as the successors and their air quarreled over pieces of what

Starting point is 01:47:00 was once Alexander's vast empire, an empire that really only lasted a few years at its height. Their influence over the regions they controlled created what historians referred to as the Hellenistic period characterized by the way Greek thought and culture would spread to the east and west and meld with indigenous cultures. According to historian, diadorus, Alexander wanted to create a unified empire

Starting point is 01:47:21 between former enemies, which was why he encouraged people of the near east to marry with Europeans. I love that. Team Meat sack mixed it all up. He wanted a new culture that would be embraced by all and though he wouldn't create this himself through the Hellenization of their empires, the Diatiki would contribute to Alexander's dream of cultural unity. Even as such, unity can never be fully realized. After the death of Alexander the Great, when the tide of Athenian popular opinion turned against Macedonia, Aristotle was charged with impiety

Starting point is 01:47:49 owing to his earlier association with Alexander and the Macedonian court with the unjust execution of Socrates in mind, Aristotle fleed to Athens. He tried to avoid the fate of his mentor's mentor, and he did, he would die of natural causes a year later in 322 BCE. And this seems like his good place

Starting point is 01:48:07 is any two bounce out of today's time suck timeline. Good job, soldier. You made it back, barely. What a life we just covered today. Man, dude kicked a lot of ass. Never lost a battle. He did let King Porus live after the battle of Hadespees. That's the closest he came to losing.

Starting point is 01:48:34 Unreal. Only the homesickness of his army and his own early death kept him from continued conquest. Now to sum up, how great was Alexander? Did greatness in the ancient world require becoming a ruthless monster? It's two questions, I guess. Well, to answer the first question, he was pretty fucking great. If you define greatness through conquering, everything Alexander accomplished. He accomplished by the time he was 32.

Starting point is 01:48:56 He ruled a territory. However brief, this span three continents and covered nearly two million square miles, five million square kilometers. Not only was he the king of his native Macedonia, he was also ruler of all the Greeks, the king of Persia, even an Egyptian Pharaoh. He believed it was a God among men and sort of a lot of other people in his lifetime. He founded dozens of cities. He conquered much of what was his known world, ruled over a sizeable percentage of said

Starting point is 01:49:21 known world. He brought Greek culture and the Hellenistic age to Asia. The great empire He built with spread Greek philosophy art and literature all over. He created a Greek speaking network of trade and military power that dominated the Mediterranean and the Near East for three centuries. Historian Elizabeth Karni and Alexander Scholar from Clemson University in South Carolina says It's hard to imagine another human being whose personal choices had an impact on more people's lives for many centuries than Alexander. Because other decisions Alexander made hundreds of thousands of people died, any number of political entities disappeared or were replaced, and perhaps most importantly, he helped launch

Starting point is 01:49:59 this vast cultural enterprise that combined aspects of the Greek and Macedonian world with aspects of the various worlds he conquered. Now, for a second question, what's the a monster? You know, did you have to be a monster to accomplish what he accomplished? Well, the answer to this question depends on who you ask. To the families of the people Alexander conquered and the soldiers he killed, yeah, probably seen as a monster. But Alexander did live by the values and ethics of his time.

Starting point is 01:50:22 The rulers he tortured, they were men who would have done the same to him. Yes, he killed many civilians, so did his enemies. It was just the way of the world at that time. He killed thousands of people, including the times his own soldiers, his advisors, and his contemporaries committed similar crimes. Like many of history's great figures, he was a mixed bag. He could be a murderous, rage-filled paranoid, religious fanatic, but again, so could many of the men of that time. So I guess my answer is yes, he was a monster, but not a monster atypical for his time. And I think he did have to become

Starting point is 01:50:53 somewhat of a monster to pull off what he pulled off. In a time when war meant systematically destroying your enemy, root and stem, Alexander, he was the best at it. It's interesting to think of how the world might look had he not existed. This to me really illustrates just how great he was, how important. This is all hypothetical, of course. A lot of my speculation here, but without Alexander, very likely that the Persian Empire would have been able to keep going for quite some time, possibly a real long time. If it would have been able to maintain its trading routes, the world today might be a lot more Persian than it is, especially if the Persian Empire had been expanded into Europe and would possibly could become the most influential empire on that continent

Starting point is 01:51:33 over subsequent centuries instead of Rome. Think about that. The Greek cultural influence that helps shape and define much of the Western world would have been greatly curved. Aristotle's philosophy would not have spread in the same way. The way the world actually thought could have shifted, probably would have been greatly curved. Aristotle's philosophy would not have spread in the same way. The way the world actually thought could have shifted, probably would have shifted. Alexander's triumph marked what some historians argue

Starting point is 01:51:51 was the first time the Western world took a place of global dominance had it not other nations like the colonial powers of Britain, Spain, France, and Portugal, would they ever have even existed? How differently would the Western hemisphere look now? Who would have colonized or settled it? The whole world might look very, very different today.

Starting point is 01:52:10 If you just made one man, Alexander the Great, disappear from it. Not only did his conquering greatly shaped the world his legacy and legend inspired and affected many other future conquers who would also greatly shape the world like Julius Caesar and Napoleon, Bonaparte, many others, who may not have ever done what they did, had he not existed to inspire them. Crazy to think about how much one person can influence this gigantic world of ours.

Starting point is 01:52:33 Interesting to think about how maybe someone right now, alive right now, might influence tomorrow that way. All right, now let's look at some takeaways, some Alexander the Great's fascinating and bloody life. Noice! Number one, Alexander won every battle he participated in while leading his men from the front lines. After inheriting the Macedonian throne at 20, when most people today are college sophomores,

Starting point is 01:53:03 at that age, Alexander would spend over a decade kicking so much fucking ass on one battlefield after another. Number two, Alexander the Great may have been even probably was gay. He was not known for being sexually interested in women, and though he did eventually marry a few times and have a child, it may have all been simply for political reasons. He certainly wasn't kicking out heirs left and right, like that other conqueror we've covered, historical horn dog, gang is con. The loss of his best friend, hefistine, and possibly his lover, hefistian, excuse me, was one of the darkest days of his life, and Alexander was deep and mourning for weeks, even petitioning religious authorities to have

Starting point is 01:53:38 a feisty and declared in a mortal god. Number three, Alexander had a horse, heusepilus, that he wrote in the nearly every battle after he used his quick thinking to tame this horse that no one else could ride He named a city he conquered after you sefilus After the horse died at 30 like so many of us mere mortals today this dude loved his pet Why does that make me like him even more than I would if I didn't know that praiseable jangles and praise penny pooper and gingerbell I would have if I didn't know that. Praiseable jangles and praise Penny Pooper and Ginger Bell. Number four, deeply religious Alexander was inspired by Greek history and religion and saw himself

Starting point is 01:54:08 as a descendant of Zeus, oh, Papa Snake. He was encouraged in this regard by his mother, Olympia, she wanted desperately to be the mother of a king, but also in a deeper way he was influenced by nearly all of Greek culture, who believed that specific groups of Greeks were descendants of specific gods, which gave that group their attributes.

Starting point is 01:54:25 Of course, Alexander would claim to be the descendant of Zeus, King of the gods, which meant he'd be King of everything. He was no fool and not short on ambition. He also saw himself as the descendant of Achilles and Heracles. They'll probably not true, as we're not entirely sure those people even existed. This belief would give Alexander immeasurable confidence, which must have helped him succeed in battle. Number five, something new. Alexander was a charismatic orator.

Starting point is 01:54:52 Dude knew how to give a great speech to keep his men fighting. Alexander gave a famous speech in 324 BCE to stop a mutiny by his Macedonian troops not long before his death, men who were angered that he wanted to spend send some of them home, but not all of them, while also appearing to give special preference to his new Persian subjects and adopting many of their customs. Alexander first dealt ruthlessly with the ring leaders, he killed him,

Starting point is 01:55:16 before making a speech to his army in which he berated his troops for their disloyalty. And this is a pretty bad-ass speech here. He needs a little, little scoring. The speech, which I am about to deliver, will not be for the purpose of checking your start homeward for so far as I am concerned. You may depart wherever you wish, but because I wish you to know what kind of men you were originally and how you have been transformed since you came into our service.

Starting point is 01:55:46 In the first place, as is reasonable, I shall begin my speech from my father, Philip. For he found you vagabonds and destitute of means most of you clad in hides feeding a few sheep of the mountain size, for the protection of which you had to fight with small success against the Lerians, Trabalians and the Board of which you had to fight with small success against the Lerians, Traballians and the Board of Thracians. Instead of the hides, he gave you cloaks to wear, and from the mountains he led you down into the plains, and made you capable of fighting the neighboring barbarians,

Starting point is 01:56:15 so that you were no longer compelled to preserve yourself by trusting rather to the inaccessible strongholds than to your own valor. He made you colonists of cities, which he adorned with useful laws and customs and from being slaves and subjects he made you rulers over the very barbarians by whom you yourselves as well as your property were previously liable to be plundered and ravaged. He also added the greater part of Thrace to Macedonia and by seizing the most conveniently situated places on the sea coast, he spread abundance over the land from commerce and made the working of the mines a secure employment.

Starting point is 01:56:52 He made you rulers over the Thessalians, of whom you had preformally been in mortal fear and by humbling the nation of the Voseons he rendered the avenue into Greece broad and easy for you instead of being narrow and difficult. The Athenians and Thebans, who are always lying and waiting to attack Macedonia, he humbled to such a degree, I also then rendering him my personal aid in that campaign. Instead of paying tribute to the former and being vassals to the latter, those states in their turn, pure security to themselves by our assistance. He penetrated the Peloponnese, and after regulating its affairs was publicly declared commander

Starting point is 01:57:30 and chief of all the rest of Greece in the expedition against the Persian, adding this glory, not more to himself than to the commonwealth of the Macedonians. These were the advantages which accrue to you from my father Philip. Great indeed if you look at by themselves, but small of compared with those you have obtained from me. For though I inherited from my father only a few gold and silver goblets, and they were not even 60 talents in the treasury, and though I found myself charged with a debt of 500 talents owing to Philip, and I was obliged myself to borrow 80 talents in addition to these. I started from the country which could not decently support you. I'm forth with laid open to you, the passage to the hell in spawned, though at the time the Persians held the sovereignty of the sea, having overpowered the Viceries, a derrius,

Starting point is 01:58:17 Geryl with my cavalry. I added to your empire the whole of Ionia, the whole of Aelius, both Friija, something like that, and Lydia, and I took Miletus by siege. All the other places I gained by voluntary surrender, and I granted you the privilege of appropriating the wealth found in them, the riches of Egypt, and Serenea, which I acquired with fighting a battle have come to you. Syria, Palestine, and Mesopotamia are your property. Babylon, backdrop, social yours.

Starting point is 01:58:46 The wealth of the Lidians, the treasures of the Persians, and the riches of the Indians are yours, and so is the external sea you ungrateful mother fuckers! Or vice-raised, you are generals, you are captants. What then have I reserved to myself after all these labors accept the purple roll when this died in crown? I have appropriated nothing myself nor can anyone. One point out the treasures except these possessions of yours are the things which I am guarding on your behalf.

Starting point is 01:59:12 Individually however, I have no motive to guard them since I feed on the same fair as you do and I take only the same amount of sleep. Nay, I do not think that my fair is as good as those among you who live luxuriously and I know that I often set up at night to watch you, that you may be able to sleep you pieces of shit! Nice! Fuck yeah bro! Time suck, tough, five takeaways! Alexander the Great Sucked.

Starting point is 01:59:41 Had a lot of fun digging into a little different era of history, hope you did too. Thank you to the Bad Magic Productions team for all the help making Time Suck, Queen of Bad Magic, Lindsey Cummins, Reverend Dr. Joe Paisley, Scripps Keeper, Zach Flannery, Bidilixer, Logan and Kate Keith, running BadMagicMarch.com and the socials,

Starting point is 01:59:56 the Bad Magic Baroness and the Art Warlock. Thanks also to Sophie, now let's you into Evans for all her research. And to all those who've joined the Coltly Curious Private Facebook group, well over 20,000 members who continue to make time suck a community. Thank you. Try to be nice. Keep talking. Thanks, Liz Hernandez. And they're all seeing eyes for running the Colt of the Curious Facebook page. And thank you to all of our time suck trivia players. Next week on time suck Colt, Colt, Colt,

Starting point is 02:00:20 a manual David. Though this piece of shit hasn't gone down in the historical record like other Colt leaders. He's not your Jim Jones, not your David Kures this piece of shit hasn't gone down in the historical record like other cult leaders. He's not your Jim Jones, not your David Kuresh. He is just as big a pile of garbage as those guys. A manual David born in the late 1930s to relatively normal parents born as Charles Bruce Longo, and he would eventually be excommunicated by the LDS church and go full cult, cult, cult. A manual David created his own church, which was also a compound and a group of people including his wife Rachel and their seven children worshiped him as they got Sweet He renamed his followers biblical names forced him to undertake long journeys with no provisions seemingly for no reason other than it was what he wanted

Starting point is 02:00:56 Made them hand over their assets and encouraged them to commit small scams to raise money for the group and that's just a start of this tale Can't wait to tell it next week And now let's head on over to this week's way bigger than usual and rightfully so, Time Sucker Updates. Updates, get your time, sucker, updates. Keeping all the names anonymous today as we update last week's Riot Suck, most of you asked for that, and for those that didn't, I just don't want to risk stirring shit up for you. Hope you understand.

Starting point is 02:01:28 Here's the first message, a message of hope, change and progress from Utah. Hey, Dan Newlisner here. Love the podcast, love the emphasis on logic, plus comedy, I saw a cool Facebook post today that gave me a boost in humanity and relates to last week's episode about the LA riots. The founder of the Utah chapter of Black Lives Matter

Starting point is 02:01:46 met with the Utah president of the fraternal order of the police to have a conversation about how they each see things. This was on the Black Lives Matter Utah Facebook page posted September 10th. There's a link describing the conversation of also screen shot at it. If it's no longer there, I can email it to you.

Starting point is 02:02:01 Yes, I was able to find, I was not able to copy and paste, so I was able to pull it up and very, very cool. It just starts off with the head of Black Lives Matter versus the head of the fraternal order of the police, a lot of technical things. And then it just goes into some really cool information about the discussion they had. And it says, he, the head of the police, had some great ideas about mental health calls. He has a game changer idea for how to handle those calls. The idea I love the most is this one.

Starting point is 02:02:33 I have been asking for funding for police officers to have rubber bullets, guns in their cars. I have been told that my request would cost too much money. He said the police departments often retire old shotguns. Those shotguns can be repurposed as rubber bullet guns easily. This will save millions of dollars and every patrol officer could have less than lethal rubber bullet shotguns and their vehicles. I believe this will save lives. A very powerful part of this meeting is when he asked me about systemic racism and policing,

Starting point is 02:02:59 he wanted to know what we meant by that and how they can better understand it because police do not feel as though they are racist. I told them that they probably are not racists, but every person has implicit biases and every person is capable of committing a racially insensitive act. I told him about the Anderson Cooper doll study. Here's a link to that. And the study which proves racial biases are formed in children by the age of five. I told him why I believe those biases are formed and then I spoke about the endman study. I told him we need to have uncomfortable conversations about race and racial biases. I told him what I believe those biases are formed and then I spoke about the endman study. I told him we need to have uncomfortable conversations about race and racial biases. I told him what a cop just told me cop walked up to me the other day said something to the

Starting point is 02:03:32 effect of when you were a cop and all of your interactions with black and brown people are bad. You tend to treat black and brown people badly. Those interactions actually make biases stronger. I suggested the book white fragility. I also asked him for a list of a lot of things that the police have been trying to get past. I told him I would, you know, and it goes on to like, you know, a list of more things.

Starting point is 02:03:50 And then it says, I've been invited onto their podcast. The podcast will go on to every police officer who's a member of the fraternal order of police. This may be the most powerful thing I've ever done. I'm a proud, I am proud of this moment, a moment where I got to tell the police who we are and what we've accomplished and what we want to accomplish. All we do is change the world around here.

Starting point is 02:04:08 Welcome to the Black Lives Matter Utah. It's a good day. So I thought that was very cool. Thank you for sending that to me. They're talking, having deep conversations and going to have more conversations. That's what we have to have to make things better. That's fantastic. I love seeing those groups coming together. Next up, covering some spots I missed,

Starting point is 02:04:26 another anonymous message, hey Dan, just listen to the LA Ryan's time suck, and I think you did a good job overall with a pretty difficult topic, but I think there's some nuance you missed. Full disclosure, I'm a white woman from the South, not that that gives me any special insight, but I've been fortunate enough to have a black friend

Starting point is 02:04:41 who's educated me. First of all, systemic racism doesn't mean all cops are white supremacists. Systemic racism means that the policies and rules fortunate enough to have a black friend who's educated me. First of all, systemic racism doesn't mean all cops are white supremacists. Systemic racism means that the policies and rules the government or society have supported racism. How does that work? Like this, you start out in 1954 by saying

Starting point is 02:04:54 N word, N word, N word. By 1968, you can't say N word, that hurts you. So you start saying stuff like force busing, states rights. You get abstract. Now you start talking about cutting taxes. All these things you're talking about are totally economic things, but the byproduct of them is blacks get hurt worse than whites. We want to cut this as much more abstract than even the bushing thing and way more abstract

Starting point is 02:05:18 than the N-word. As white people, I think we need to be less concerned with intent, more concerned with effect. Nothing but love for you, man, but I don't think this was a racist beating, saying that was super tone deaf. Who cares if a beating was racist, why did anyone have to get beaten?

Starting point is 02:05:32 Nobody's going to come out and say, oh, I did that because I don't like black people. When it's super easy to make up some reasonable sounding bullshit, we need to stop excusing people for not meaning to be racist when their actions hurt people because they don't just hurt the people immediately involved. When video circulated online of a black person getting beaten or shot, it's traumatizing

Starting point is 02:05:48 to the people who watch it. Imagine if all the viral videos on the internet showed a Dan Cummins lookalike getting the shit beat out of him over and over again. What would that do to you emotionally? I'm not anti-cop. My dad is a retired police officer. I understand they have a hard, dangerous job, but if even a few dozen videos, but even if the few dozen videos,

Starting point is 02:06:05 I've seen a police officer as being violently protesters are the only ones, still too many. We need to change the way we train police officers to equip them to better handle situations without violence. So everyone goes home with the end of the day. It's not a few bad apple situation, but if it changes the policies and systems

Starting point is 02:06:20 that support the parts of law enforcement that aren't working, I highly recommend the book, How to Be Anti-Racist by Dr. Ibram Kendi. That book really changed the way I think about racism. Being anti-racist boils down to being a better meat sack to other meat sacks. We should all be able to get behind that. I refuse to apologize for the long email. Thanks for such an important topic.

Starting point is 02:06:37 Keep up with the good work. Hail to Safina. Well, thank you. Kicking out the content, I didn't have time, for example, this week to read the book you recommended, but I wanted to list it so that listeners who maybe have more time like currently have right now can hear that recommendation and read it themselves. Hopefully I will get to it. You're description of what if all the people who were beaten looked like me that was very powerful. That would definitely hit me differently emotionally and you're right.

Starting point is 02:07:03 The effect matters more than the intention. If the effect of our current law enforcement legal system and how taxes affect social programs, et cetera, is, you know, to continue to create socioeconomic disadvantages for people of color, then we can't just ignore that. I'm glad the current BLM movement is already creating policy changes in many places to try and balance the scoreboard a little bit. Thanks for making me think about all this in a little different way. Now a former anonymous police officer, a former police officer who's anonymous, not a former

Starting point is 02:07:31 anonymous police officer, that's a weird way to phrase that. He used to be a police officer, but he was anonymous when he didn't know. He shares another interesting perspective, writing, hey, Dan and crew, as a former deputy sheriff, I wanted to weigh in briefly on use of force against the suspect on PCP. My very first time using forces of the cop was against a person high on both meth and PCP. To give some quick background, we initially were rushing in to aid him in the county detox facility because we've been told he was attempting to hang himself. This man was approximately 5 foot 10 and probably a 110 pounds if that. 10 and probably 110 pounds if that. I'm six foot three and was about 265 pounds at the time. This was one of the longest and most difficult quote,

Starting point is 02:08:09 fights of my law enforcement career. It took eight deputies over 10 minutes to subdue this person so he could be transported to the hospital. Granted, because he hadn't committed a crime or hurt anyone, we avoided hitting and relied more on trying to overpower and subdue him. Due to his inability to feel pain and his meth strength as we called it, it was nearly impossible to make him do anything we wanted him to do. The only reason we eventually succeeded was due to his getting physically exhausted

Starting point is 02:08:33 before we did. Meth, PCP, even alcohol and high enough quantities all have this effect. I truly appreciate you factoring this into your thoughts when dissecting this subject. Keep it up. Yes, thank you for this message. It speaks to what I was saying about how violent certain arrest videos are, and how they can create such an emotional response of, how the fuck could anyone do that? It's just good to remember not even a video

Starting point is 02:08:55 of an instant always paints a picture of the entire truth. If you've never arrested someone high on meth or PCP or someone who really doesn't want to be arrested who's very strong, how can you possibly know, excuse me, how can you possibly know how dangerous it is? How much force it might take to subdue them? You can't know that. You can just listen to people who have been there and done that. And I think it's just good to, you know, think about this side of it.

Starting point is 02:09:20 Next an anonymous Minnesota sucker has some new stats for us. They write, hey, master sucker, Minnesota sucker. I've just got done listening to the American riot suck. It was great. It made me challenge my beliefs in a lot of ways. Pissed me off in moments. I especially was pissed off at your comment of how black on black crime is worse than police on a black crime.

Starting point is 02:09:39 This is incredibly ignorant. Let me tell you why. Crime primarily happens in the community. One happens to live in. So if most white people live in a white neighborhood, of course, white on white crime will go up. Same thing for black communities. I strongly feel this is an issue meant to distract from other more important issues. And not talking about this like you did other points was a bit unsettling. Sorry, this is a bit bitchy, but it's frustrating. I also

Starting point is 02:09:59 want to add, if I can, if I can, on or I also want to add, sorry, he wants to talk about whether or not police are an institution racist. A lot of this comes from the very history of the police, how they directly arose from slave patrols to groups paid by companies to suppress union protests to where they are now. Another reason is that historically, hate groups and white supremacist groups have made a point to infiltrate police departments. Here's a link to an article about that.

Starting point is 02:10:23 In the article, there's a document on the FBI's findings on this. With all this, I hope it's a bit easier to understand why people would think the foundations of the institution itself might be corrupt. One last thing is police unions and self-investigations. They may help with benefits and all that for our officers, but they also make it nearly impossible to arrest and charge police officers to a broken law. And even if they are being investigated through a, they're investigating through a biased lens by friends and co-workers.

Starting point is 02:10:49 One last thing I promise there's an Instagram page. I may or may not have created called Time Suck underscore fun underscore facts. It's exactly what it sounds like it's for. I'd love it if you could give it a shout out so more people can check it out. Anyways, love the show. Keep it up or whatever people say at the end of these. Well, thank you, anonymous. First I did check out the Instagram page, and it's very fun. For that time of stock, fun facts. Nice job and thank you. And I checked out the link to the FBI investigation.

Starting point is 02:11:12 Here's a quote from that little excerpt for everyone. It says, as revealed in an October 2006, FBI internal intelligence assessment, the agency raised the alarm over white supremacist groups, historical interest in infiltrating law enforcement communities, or recruiting law enforcement personnel. The effort that memo noted can lead to investigative breaches and can jeopardize the safety of law enforcement sources or personnel.

Starting point is 02:11:33 The memo also states that law enforcement had recently become aware of the term go-skins. Used among white supremacists to describe those who avoid overt displays of their beliefs to blend into society and covertly advance white supremacist causes. In at least one case, the FBI learned of a skinhead group encouraging ghost skins to seek employment in law enforcement agencies in order to warn crews of investigations. So yeah, that's obviously very concerning. It doesn't say how extensive it is. It doesn't appear to be that extensive, but it's, yeah, it's disturbing that they're trying

Starting point is 02:12:00 to do that. And I like most people, most of all good officers, obviously want these people to be found and removed from law enforcement. And they are being removed. A lot of racist law enforcement officers have been fired this year. I've read numerous articles in 2020 about incidents like that and it's fantastic.

Starting point is 02:12:15 Great the current protests have led to more investigations to getting rid of a lot more bad apples. As far as neighborhood crime goes, yes, most crime does go down to one's own neighborhood, which is why white on white crime is common in white neighborhoods. Black on black crime common in black neighborhoods. Excuse me. When I commented on black on black crime, I was just stating that per capita, there is more

Starting point is 02:12:34 of it. Do I think that's reflective of race? No. And I said that. It's reflective of poverty. And I brought it up out of concern, concerned that less law enforcement and especially crime-ridden neighborhoods could lead to more victims of crime

Starting point is 02:12:46 in those same neighborhoods. And I thought, and continue to think that would obviously be so tragic to take a bad situation, and despite the best intentions, make it worse by overly defunding the police. And I do know that the defund the police movement does not equate to eliminating the police.

Starting point is 02:13:01 I got a lot of emails about that. I would have had to record a 12-hour episode, minimum to even start to properly address all of my thoughts on this incredibly complicated topic. The topic of American racial injustice, how the criminal justice system has factored into that, how today's various social movements are operating, what they stand for, what they hope to attain, et cetera. It's huge topic. My primary concern with a call to define the police is just a safety of everyone. Will sending unarmed mental health professionals, kind of like street social workers instead of police, lead to more deaths and injuries if those social worker types are harmed in a

Starting point is 02:13:34 nation that's heavily armed. Can we afford to send police and mental health workers, et cetera, out on various emergency calls and in very many places? Is there a budget for it? I worry about rural places like where I grew up in my home county, Idaho County. There's a lot of domestic violence, uh, meth and opioid abuse, and barely enough police to handle the calls as they stand currently. They already can't afford to hire enough cops. How are they going to be able to hire, you know, mental health professionals, community outreach, ambassador types, etc. on top of that? Not against changing things up, not

Starting point is 02:14:02 at all. Glad we're going gonna try something new in many places to make things better for both citizens and law enforcement. I just worry if we're gonna do it the right way and you know, I'm allowed to worry about that. But I'm hopeful, I'm hopeful that the good changes are coming. I'm with you. I wanna make things better for all meat sacks.

Starting point is 02:14:19 Another anonymous meat sacks share some new insights from life in South Central LA. They write, hey, I just finished your episode on the rights. Thank you for highlighting the dark side of our history that has been large ignored. I wanted to give you some feedback as an Angelino. First, I think you did the episode of the service by leaving out key details about the growing tensions between the Korean and Black community. Black neighborhoods here, and pretty much were, excuse me, Black neighborhoods were and

Starting point is 02:14:42 pretty much are still food deserts. And the only food stores that uh... many african-americans had access to her career owned the korean took advantage of this charge insane prices for basic food leaving the black community resentful that was a huge contributor to racial tensions then latasha harlands was murdered by a korean shop owner which was caught on tape

Starting point is 02:15:00 the shop owner found guilty by the jury recommended a sense that was rejected by a white judge who didn't see her as a threat Gave her community service. This all happened right before Rodney King So two injustices back-to-back led to igniting the extreme race right many BIPOCs Field that the city waited to take action because the police wanted the Korean community to put the black community in its place Considering the Koreans were largely armed and militarized having served in the Korean army as a requirement prior to immigrating Just another perspective. Also I think it's important to note that the movement to defund the police is not the

Starting point is 02:15:29 same as the abolitionist movement. Defunding the police does not mean reducing the police for size. It means demilitarizing the police and reimagining public safety. Previously Los Angeles law enforcement, prior to the George Floyd rights, got about 43% of the city budget. Any settlements that are awarded to the police police misconduct as well as legal fees do not come out of that 43% or the police union will come out of the rest of the city's budget, which further slashes the budgets of other city services such as affordable housing,

Starting point is 02:15:55 youth community programs, job creation, training, et cetera, are may or recently reallocated funds due to the BLM movement, but still LAPD is receiving $3.1 billion while housing and community services get $163 million. Until we have another Andres Guarado, excuse me, Guadado, or Dejon Cazí, in which case it would be less than $163 million. Funding community services would help stop a lot of this crime before it starts. As you mentioned in your episode, we could provide the services needed to close the wealth gap, educational achievement gap, and provide affordable health care and housing.

Starting point is 02:16:27 Unfortunately, we work with a fixed amount of money, and when every other department in the city is working with less than 10% of the budget, we simply do not have the money to invest in real solutions for our communities. The only choice is to pull from the police budget, not a lot, but enough to help stop crime before it starts and share some of the responsibility for public safety. Anyways, I know this was long, but I just thought you would appreciate hearing a different perspective. I'm currently trying to pass a measure in LA County that would change our constitution

Starting point is 02:16:51 so that 10% of the budget will go to community services no matter who is elected into office. Currently it's considerably less than that. As always, thank you for your work and dedication to the truth. Thanks to the whole team for all of their work. I appreciate your acknowledging your privilege as a white man and for using your platform to speak out on this matter, a Chicana from Los Angeles. Well, well, thank you for sharing so much information

Starting point is 02:17:13 that we did not find. That was fantastic. And it just shows further how complex the problem of racism in America can be. Thank you also for sharing that budget info for laying that out very clearly. And yeah, that's not gonna cut it. We need more social programs that, you know,

Starting point is 02:17:31 throw more hands down to pull more people up. So more meat sacks are kicking off the race at the same starting line. Another message now, it was trading yet another perspective. An anonymous sack rides. Hopefully this link works. It's a link to the cause of the death of George Floyd since you seem so quick to link his death to the actions of the officers

Starting point is 02:17:49 although said actions were excessive the article states that medical examiner saw no cause of death linking to it as x that as fixation sorry uh... note at the end of the article the examiner says that a fluid were found dead anywhere else they would have said it was an overdose death. Out of all these videos lately showcasing police violence, none of them seemed to tell the entire story. I did read the article, and yeah, what you say is correct. Again, oftentimes a video, a painful video still does not show

Starting point is 02:18:18 the entire story. Even when it looks extremely clear-cut, and I wanted to include this as a general reminder to everyone, just to try to include this as a general reminder to everyone, to try not to always have a knee jerk emotional reaction to media, to instead first think, wait, wait, wait, wait, what else can I learn about this? What other facts do I need to assess here? What's the whole story? Where's the rest of the story?

Starting point is 02:18:39 And again, not saying what happened to George Floyd was at all okay, but there is more to the story than what appears at first glance. Another anonymous meat sack message from Compton this time, all I gotta say is that the topic of this episode was a slippery slope indeed. He did a good job when it came to the history of the rights. However, when you got close to the end

Starting point is 02:18:58 and spoke about the civil unrest, currently happened in America today and only gave it about 30, 40 minutes, pretty pathetic, blatantly stupid. I see you give other topics like the occult and dumb go stuff. More time yet, something is real and very much happening now. You give so little time to speak to the subject. You are seriously just cutting short, summarizing the bullshit happening on the streets currently. You shouldn't have taken this task on unless you were committed to seeing the whole thing through and giving it more time to thoroughly look into everything with more depth, but alas, that won't happen.

Starting point is 02:19:26 As a Compton resident, I'm not surprised that a white person wouldn't couldn't understand how police treat us unless you've been accustomed to watching it day in and day out. Next time you try and tack clinician, there's highly controversial trying to give more time into the subject, but hey, I'm just a listener. What do I know? I hope you see that maybe one day your content gets more time, depth, but until then, we should do best. Well, I wanted to include this message, but until then we should the best.

Starting point is 02:19:45 Well, I want to do include this message, but when it comes to really, really complex and polarizing issues like this one, I think we all need to put less pressure on each other to get things quote unquote, right. My goal was not to perfectly elucidate in under an hour or even two hours or fucking five hours if I had what's going on racially in America right now because that's fucking impossible. It's just an ongoing conversation. You know, I can't explain everything what's going on with law enforcement,

Starting point is 02:20:11 present a solution on how to fix everything. I'd be kidnapped. They put me in a think tank and you throw me food and force me to solve problems. I just wanted to start another angle to the conversation. I wanted to share some stats, and not hours and hours of mind numbing stats, so people tune them out and share my thoughts

Starting point is 02:20:27 and encourage anyone listening to not focus so much on just one aspect of the problem, but possibly other aspects, maybe bigger aspects of the problem that might be, you know, get any ignored. And yes, I do not know what it's like to be black or to live in Compton, all I can do is read articles, dig into stats, watch documentaries, try to explain the situation as I see it,

Starting point is 02:20:45 best hope I get a decent amount right. And I don't think, what do you know you're just a listener, I would love for you and others, you know, to share more of what it is like in places unlike the place I live in, you know, to who have lived lives in different perspectives. Let's keep this conversation going, let's educate each other.

Starting point is 02:21:02 The more we can talk, the better we'll all understand, the better job we can do of solving problems. Three more. Here's another perspective. Hale Suck Master's to Premium, a long time meets that. Huge fan of yours stand up from way back. I've listened to almost every episode of the Suck.

Starting point is 02:21:15 I wanted to reach out to the American Riots episode because you are one of the few people who gave this some kind of balanced approach. You mentioned in the episode that a good question to focus our efforts on might be the underlying reason for the higher crime rates in the African American community I think I can provide data that explains one big cause of the massive disparity in crime rates you identified Single-parent households are a huge factor. I know it sounds crazy but bear with me a 2019 Pew Research study found that 23% of all children in the US live in a single-parent household This means that roughly a fourth of all children in the US don't have two parents in the home.

Starting point is 02:21:46 For reference, the global average is 7%. Even our closest neighbor, Canada, 15% single parent households. Also, the US has a lot of kids with one parent. What's my point? My point is it's a bigger problem than we realize. Our recent Harvard study went into this in detail. The funding, the study found that when all other factors are controlled for, including

Starting point is 02:22:05 race, socioeconomic status, etc., the strongest predictor of a child's economic fortune is the fraction of single parents in the area where they grew up. Children of Mary parents have a much better shot of getting ahead in life, even if they are in areas where single parents are the norm. In the words of the researchers, the fraction of children living in single parent households is the strongest correlation of upward income mobility among all the variables we explored. Kids with two parents that are present and involved have a much higher rate of achievement statistically across all races. The same results are seen with a poor white kid in Appalachia, is with a single parent,

Starting point is 02:22:37 is with a poor black kid from a big city. Involve parents make better kids. Don't give me wrong. Some single parents are phenomenal. And as a married father or two, I realized that all of them are under pressures I cannot imagine. However, growing up with a single parent can and often does limit opportunity as a single parent has to juggle more things. It's hard to do everything alone. There are less opportunities for that incredibly important one-on-one time that children need. Kids who don't get that attention and nurturing are severely impacted as they get older

Starting point is 02:23:02 and limited in their success and opportunities. The lack of success and opportunity, as you noted, is what drives many into criminal activity. This makes single parent households a pretty good indicator or predictor for criminal activity, being arrested, et cetera, and while correlation is not causation,

Starting point is 02:23:15 the research suggests they are closely linked concepts. So we've established it one-fourth of the kids in the US don't have both parents and having both parents as the biggest predictor of success. Well, the numbers get more interesting if you dive even further. The Census Bureau releases data on the makeup of families across US and breaks that data down by lots of groups, including race in 1992. 94% of them African-Americans, segmented nuclear families were composed of an unmarried mother and children. Single-parent families roughly twice as prevalent in African-American

Starting point is 02:23:42 families as they are in other races. The gap continues to widen year over year. I know it's not the only thing I play and this is a massively complicated issue, but I had hoped you would bring it up and was surprised when it didn't come up. It needs to be a bigger part of the discussion. I know there are a lot of other problems, but I feel like the family is a great place to start.

Starting point is 02:23:58 How do we fix it? Be a good meat sack no matter what you race. If you decide to have kids be present, spend time with your kids. Be there for them. Thanks for your balanced approach. Sorry for the length of email. Keep being a kick ass dad.

Starting point is 02:24:10 Fucking love this message. As someone raised for many years in a single parent house, well, my parents got divorced on a seven, as a kid who could have easily ended up in prison for all of the angry criminal shit I did during my teens. Yeah, this makes sense. Things would have been better if both parents would have been more consistently involved in my life for my childhood. I think about this a lot with

Starting point is 02:24:27 my own kids now, especially since I've been divorced. It is hard for single parents, very hard, right? Compared to a dual parent households. Thanks for sharing another part of this gigantic fucking puzzle I never thought of. Another perspective now from an active police officer. So I'm listening to the 1992 Ryan's episode. As a law enforcement officer, I'm in no way, shape or form. I know way, I in no way shape or form, sorry, agree with the beating of Rodney King. You nailed it when it came to arresting someone

Starting point is 02:24:55 that doesn't want to be arrested. The adrenaline boost that people get when fighting the police is insane. The police also get an adrenaline boost because at the time it's survival instinct for the police. We get super jacked just like the suspect. We're training in condition to use force above the force of the suspect. We fight to neutralize the suspect as it could cost us our lives. We don't use equal force because like I said, we're trying to survive

Starting point is 02:25:18 and go home to our families. I don't know what had all happened with the King beating and it was likely way excessive. So don't get me wrong. I don't agree with it. But people don't understand what we go through as officers long before the times that have approached us up to this point. People have wanted to kill police officers. That being said, we are always on edge waiting to be attacked, pumping gas, buying a bag of chips, sitting in a parking lot, trying to do paperwork. Any and everyone that looks our way, we have to assume they could mean us harm.

Starting point is 02:25:44 Granted, that might not be the case, but we don't know that at the time. I know you support us, and God knows I appreciate that shit of 1000%. But as far as listeners go, they have no idea what we go through most don't. Yes, there are bad cops. It's like there are bad doctors, bad firefighters, bad nurses, all of the professions. Yes, we have guns, but we never want to or plan to use them. I could go on and on, but you get it. Love you, man. Thanks for what you do, Hill Nimrod. Well, thanks, man. Love you too. Yeah, I don't think many understand the psychological stress of having a job where so many people fucking hate you. We're a decent amount of people literally would like to kill you.

Starting point is 02:26:17 Uh, thank you for giving us a little glimpse, a little window into what's that like. That should also be part of the discussion. One more. I wanted to end on something that shows how important it is to talk about all this. A maternal meat sack writes, hi there, long time listener, first time caller. I'm a mom to three boys, a freshman in high school, sixth grader in his first year of middle school, and a toddler.

Starting point is 02:26:36 Yes, I'm crazy, obviously. I'm politically active and engaged. My kiddo's and I talk a lot about current events, the oldest especially. He went to a middle school in Vegas where we live, that was very culturally diverse. He was in the minority, we are white, we had a lot of conversations about privilege, stereotypes, racial inequality, a lot of what he saw first hand was hard for him to understand, fights, drug dealing, talk a treat, teen pregnancy, his middle school assistant principal was literally

Starting point is 02:27:00 jumped by a bunch of girls in the last day of seventh grade. Mind you, this was a good school, a magnet school, and he was an honorable student. Fast forward to the world we live in now, he barely has access to social media, but what he's seen is dark and confusing. Rides are bad, police brutality is bad, is it racist? What about this?

Starting point is 02:27:15 In certain violent and counter-hero? What about this guy? Do people hate me because I'm white? Holy shit, these are not the conversations I thought I'd be having. As knowledgeable as I am, I was not prepared. I'm very liberal, gun-owning, pre-existing condition having, formally single mom, that now owns a medium-sized business, thus I understand the importance of nuance.

Starting point is 02:27:33 Tribalism is a poison, so is feeling forced to choose a side when it's so much more complicated than that. There is truth to be found if you look hard enough and regardless of how the truth is received, we can all rest easier knowing it exists. With that all said, sorry not sorry for the lung message, I told my team to listen to your most recent episode on American rights. You do a better job than I ever could explaining that it's a complicated and hard and sad issue but not as bleak as it seems.

Starting point is 02:27:58 There are very real things we can focus on as a state and on the state and local level to affect positive change. So thank you. After listening to the whole back catalog of episodes, as you and yours coax me to sleep through a terrible battle with insomnia, this pod was made from sun. Yeah. You went and surprised me with the new way to open a dialogue with my teenage boy about incredibly important things, not necessarily what I was expecting from time suck, but I'll take it with gratitude. Thank you for that fucking message. Thanks for reminding us. This is a complex issue. And yes, we shouldn't have to pick fucking sides.

Starting point is 02:28:27 It drives me insane. That's not logical to be divided into these two polarized camps as fucking idiotic, and it infuriates me. Yeah, I have no answers. I currently have no additional insights for this, but I'm so glad we're talking about it. I'm thinking about it all the time. We have lots of talks at home with the kids all the time.

Starting point is 02:28:47 We're going to have more. We're going to vote based on conclusions. We come to conclusions that will have change as we evolve. We will donate based on the same type of, you know, thoughts and conclusions and evolving conclusions. I hope you all continue just to think, talk, learn, vote, try to be the change you want to see in the world. It's the best we can do. Stay safe everyone and hail fucking Nimrod.

Starting point is 02:29:09 Thanks, time suckers. I need a net. We all did. That's all for this week, Meat Sacks. Thanks for continuing to write and review this show. Don't try and conquer any con in this week. I'm pretty sure it's way harder now. It used to be, and it used to be really hard.

Starting point is 02:29:27 And keep on thinking and talking in second. Yeah, that was gonna go. Oh, noise! NICE! Ah! Oh! Nice!

Timesuck with Dan Cummins - 210 - Alexander the Great!

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