The Invasion of Persia | Alexander the Great

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It's spring, three hundred and thirty four BC, and a fleet of ships sail across the small stretch of water that divides Europe from Asia. The ancient Hellespont, the modern-day Dardanelles in Turkey. The sun beams brightly, and the waters are calm. A gentle and favorable breeze helps the vessels eastward. The ships are full to the brim with soldiers and horses. Supplies of food, weapons and armour are also not too far away, vital to cargo for the campaign ahead.

The soldiers wear tunics, not armor. They're not expecting any attack. For many, this would have been the first time they had ever been on board a ship. They're anxious to reach dry land as soon as possible. The horses likewise are eager for a return to terra firma, and the freedom to stretch their legs and graze once more. Thankfully, the voyage is short.

Soon enough, thousands of men and mounts will disembark onto Asian soil, ready to follow their leader on his most daring campaign to date. Their leader is a young king. Standing at the prow of his own ship. Early in his twenties, he oozes with confidence. He is dressed in splendid royal armour, a purple cloak, and a lion-shaped helmet topped by a crest, with white plumes protruding out either side. His eyes are intensely focused on the coastline that's fast approaching. Asia.

This is a king who has already sent shockwaves across his kingdom, winning battles, destroying one of the great cities of Greece, and purging political enemies. A warlord who is not to be underestimated. His name is Alexander, King Alexander III of Macedon. Soon enough, Alexander's ship nears its own special landing site. A deserted stretch of sandy coastline, some distance from where the rest of his invasion force is headed. But close to a site, this young king has dreamed about

known for years. The fabled city of Troy, where great Homeric heroes like Achilles, Odysseus and Hector battled all those centuries before. Alexander knew the stories off by heart. His heart swells at the thought that he is following in the footsteps of his heroic ancestor Achilles. But this time, his enemy isn't one powerful city. It is a superpower that dominates much of the known world, with this beach being its westernmost fringe. This is the Persian Empire.

Taking an iron-tipped spear, the young king launches it from the prow of his ship into the sandy beach. A bold, symbolic statement. Alexander is claiming the Persian Empire as his soon to be a Spear-1 territory. This isn't to be a quick raid across the sea. This is a campaign of conquest. Conquering any part of the Persian Empire won't be easy. Dozens of fortified cities and thousands of enemy soldiers will stand in Alexander's way.

ready to resist and crush this young upstart invader before he gets anywhere near the Persian heartlands, hundreds of kilometres further east. Already, enemy forces are massing nearby, intent on driving Alexander and his army back to the sea. But for Alexander, there is no going back. The invasion of Persia has begun.

Welcome to episode two of this special series about the life and legend of Alexander the Great, one of history's most formidable commanders. In the last episode, we covered the early years. Of Alexander, the vital role played by his father, King Philip II of Macedon, the influence of his mother Olympias, and Alexander's succession to the kingship following his father's murder, and how he brutally consolidated his.

Position. Now we turn to the main event Alexander's invasion of the mighty Persian Empire, an empire far far greater in size than his own kingdom. In this episode, we'll explore the early challenges that Alexander quickly faced and how he ultimately came to confront the Persian King of Kings on the battlefield, Darius III. Joining me once again is Dr. Adrian Goldsworthy, author of Philip and Alexander, Kings and Conquerors.

I'm Tristan Hughes, your host, and this is Episode 2 The Invasion of Persia.

Adrian, welcome back. It's almost as if we've just finished recording the last episode. I know, it's just like being in the very same room. Time flies when you're having fun. So this is episode two of our Alexander the Great series, and where we left it last time Alexander has just become king and he's done some early military campaigning in Europe, I guess, you know, Bulgaria up to the Danube and then punishing the city state of Thebes.

And now he's looking east. Now he's looking towards the Persian Empire, isn't he? Yes. I mean it's the war that Philip has already started, because Philip had sent uh an advance guard, really, to Asia Minor. several years before, and was planning to join them, but now Alexander has had to wait till he's secured his control in on power, his control of the Macedonian throne. But eventually this is the big project. This is

How he can outdo his father, you know. There's the story about the younger Alexander hearing news of Philip's latest victory. looking depressed and his friends ask him and saying'cause he's leaving me so little to do This is the one big thing that Philip had only just started and hasn't done, the challenge of facing Persia, the superpower of the world then. And beating them. So this is the great event, the great adventure.

And at the time so this is spring three three four BC when it all begins. And that that's the beginning of the campaigning season, isn't it? So winter finishes and March or April time, that's normally when the armies start rolling into action again.

Yes, although Philip has broken the rules in recent years by organizing a supply train for his army and keeping Some of them mercenaries being paid, some of them Macedonians that will be willing to serve throughout so even though he campaigns with fewer soldiers in winter, he has kept on fighting all the year round, which means

It's very hard to face him. People think they'll get a bit of rest, relief. Phillips up their throats all the time, and particularly when he's blockaded or besieged towns. He can keep that up throughout the year. And that's been fairly rare beforehand. But it's still much, much easier to keep an army in the field going when the grass is there, and you can graze your not so much cavalry horses that matters, it's all the transport animals. You took to pull the baggage.

This also fills the time where we now have quite a rich amount of sources surviving, or at least like for the military details, I'm sure I've got here a trusty copy of Arian's Anabasis, which actually I was gifted to be by one of my best friends when I was eighteen years old. Of all things. So this has been by my side for a long, long time. But so obviously we can't take everything here like as you know completely accurate.

But we do get a nice sense throughout Alexander's campaigns, don't we, of uh the nature of his army, maybe a rough idea of army size if you divide it by ten sometimes or something like that, but you do get those military details in the surviving sources from now on. We do. I mean Arian was himself a military man. He's Greek by heritage, Greek from Asia Minor, but he's also a Roman senator.

governs the province of Cappadocia, which is in eastern Turkey, under the Emperor Hadrian, commands an army, wrote about that. So he understood military theory, he understood military practice. At one fascinating point where he's talking about Alexander bridging a major river,

And he says, I don't know how they did this, but this is how the army does it now. And curiously enough, that's the only detailed record we have of the army in the second century A D. The Romans of how they did it. So he's throwing this in. So

There is he is a knowledgeable sober man relying particularly on Ptolemy, one of Alexander's generals, who wrote his own account in the immediate aftermath of Alexander's death. But obviously with the political agenda, this is the man who's founded his dynasty based around Egypt. So Arian gives you loads of detail. It's quite sober, it seems quite precise. It's sometimes frustrating about the numbers that he doesn't always tell you, he just assumes you know

And assumes some practices, so he'll he'll mention that there was a daily order of march for the army, and the units of the phalanx seem to have changed over and taken their turn in front. Presumably in front you don't get so much dust. in your face. But again, it's a throwaway line. He just mentions this. And we don't so there's a lot

Sometimes you have to wonder whether he's actually thinking, well, this is how our army would do it today in the second century AD. Alexander was great, therefore he must have done it that way.

But still by ancient standards, as long as you're aware of that great distance in time separating when he's writing, just because it's ancient doesn't mean it's actually close to the events, but it does give you For most of Alexander's campaigns you can get a fairly clear idea of where he is, what he's doing, some sense of why.

And even the battles, you have a clearer sense than you do of, say, Kyronea or anything like that. And I must clarify also, he he is good for the army sizes of Alexander's army. not so much with the Persians, but we'll get to that in time, won't we? Um so when he invades

When he crosses the Hedespont, uh Adrian, uh do we have a rough idea? I always think in my mind it's around forty thousand troops he has, largely infantry, I guess that's about right. It's it's be somewhere between thirty and fifty thousand, so forty thousand's probably a good rule of thumb. Half of it at most is Macedonian. Then you have you have the units of the Pike Phalanx.

That are and this is the core, the Macedonians with the sort of honorary Macedonians, the th the thessalian cavalry, who always the Macedonian cavalry tend to be on the right, the Thessalian cavalry doing the same thing in similar numbers on the left. you get some other favoured contingents, Illyrians, Paeonians, people like this, who've been part of Philip's army for a decade, sometimes two decades.

These contingents where they're they're very much part of the team. Everybody knows what they're doing. But you're also adding in then people who've come from all the Greek allies, this great league that Alexander's formed. So it's a little bit hard to be precise.

about the total numbers, particularly as we're not quite sure whether you're including some of the troops that are already in Asia Minor and not there. And of course, the tendency in all periods of history, particularly in the ancient world, is your source knows that a unit is supposed to be of a certain size.

two hundred men, perhaps three hundred men, depending on which s sort of companion cavalry it is, and then assumes that they are always at full strength and everybody's present all the time, which as the campaign goes on gets less and less likely. But broadly speaking it's not a vast army. The the tradition of Herodotus is that Xerxes invades Europe with a million men, and even the sober modern reconstructions put it at a hundred thousand, maybe more.

This is not an army on that scale, but it's still a very big army. This is the same sort of size as the biggest Greek army that's ever happened before, which is the Battle of Clataya when they face That's better. And it's got more cavalry, although not as high a proportion as you get in Persian and other Eastern armies. I mean, quite frankly, for the time it is a pretty diverse army, as you say as well. You know, the the pike phalanx heavy infantry.

the hoplites of the Greeks, the light infantry of like the Agrianians, a particular tribe, uh Thracian tribe, I believe, and then, you know, you've got the cavalry contingent as well. So they're they're very different lots of these different elements to Alexander's army, which all have their own qualities and will help Alexander in time.

So that's what he crosses into Asia with. There's that famous story of him throwing his spear at into well, in the beach, uh in northwest Anatolia, and then saying, I'm claiming this is my spear one land, so kind of hearkening to the future of him conquering the whole of the Persian Empire. And I guess it's quite fitting that his first place of visit, whilst the Persians are starting to react, is Troy.

It's certainly fitting for him, and it's very it it clearly is a big deal to him, and it might be partly, you know, the tourist in all of us. You can't go past somewhere like that with something you've been you've been reading the Iliad or hearing it since you were tiny, and your ancestor Achilles is the great hero, so you can't you can't not go there, you know. It's So it is a big f and it it's that's become

almost a a stereotype of Greeks fighting Asians Persians in the later tradition, though of course, you know, Siddhus himself points out, Homer doesn't call the Greeks Greeks. Uh you know, they're Achaeans and there are all these other names, but it's it's not

So it's a bit of tourism, it's a bit of theatre, and it's a bit of though, you know, again, his ambitions are clearly much broader than But it's and you have the idea of them acting like the heroes, you know, running around Alexander and his friends. You have as well, there are a group of Macedonian aristocrats of a similar age to Alexander, who are with the army, who are friends of his, people he's perhaps grown up with, perhaps been educated with, perhaps not.

they are not yet holding senior command positions within the army. Everybody else are Philip's men. Or in the case of Parmenio, you know, they're old enough they'd served before Philip. They've served his brothers and other kings. They are real veterans, middle aged and older men. And there's even that tradition It only comes to us through a Roman source that Alexander deliberately chose for his army not young men, but the mature.

And that this is quite by modern standards a fairly elderly army. It's it's men who are in their thirties and more, really tough, because if they've lasted that long, they're you know they're hard as nails. But with this very young king and prince. So this is spectacular and it's for that audience of your friends, and it's for posterity that he's clearly uh interested in of his own satisfaction.

But whether it impresses the rest of the army who cross elsewhere and don't go you know, he's he's been diverted other people are dealing with the main logistics of getting the army over the Darden Mountains at this point. Which of course must have been another big feat, you know, getting forty thousand troops and then beasts and then all the servants and

And the siege machinery, because this is another big part of Alexander's army. He has got up-to-date siege machinery because his dad Philip's been very big on getting torsion catapults and all of that. That's modern stuff. for them. Uh I would do a quick shout out on the the subordinates because yes, the majority are Philip's men, and the majority of people we link with Alexander like Ptolemy, Lysimachus and so on, come later.

There are a few though still from the beginning. Perdiccas I always find fascinating'cause he actually runs a contingent. Uh from Thebes, from before Alexander crosses. So you do get a couple about Alexander's age. Herdicus. I don't know if Craterus is slightly older or not, but they're they're getting sort of regimental commands. They might command a phalanx unit, they might command a squadron of the companions.

they don't tend to get the big independent or wing commands. Then they're they're sort of They're like battalion commander, regimental, that level. Yeah. And again, you know, we think of them as the younger generation, but are they the same age as Alexander, five, ten years older? And of course they've got all these connections with the older generation because it's the same families that are coming through. But it it's still at this point overwhelmingly Philip's army.

It's not long before they're tested for the first time, isn't it? And given that the Persian Empire is still the superpower, and their king, Darius the Third, who we will meet in time, Is hundreds of miles to the east in Babylon or Susa or Persepolis or wherever. So the task first of all you've got this

young, arrogant, ambitious king who's invaded the western fringes of the Persian Empire. It's not down to the king to deal with that. He gives it to the people in the region. It's their job to just get rid of this what just looks like a menace at this time.

It's the only practical way. The the Persian Empire is very large, very strong, but it can't draw on that power quickly. So a problem like this is something that If the king wants to muster an army from all over his empire it's gonna take a gyor. to do that. You can't just do it in months and then march it a long way. It's like the old story of, you know, when the Spartans are asked to intervene help the Ionian rebels and they they ask, Well, how far away is Sephis from the

from the sea and at three months, oh yeah, we're not doing that. Sorry, Carl, if you can forget. Again, it is vast. It is huge. It is very wealthy. So it's got the organization, it's got the administration, it's got the manpower, but it can't mobilize that quickly. So Darius doesn't have unless he happened to be in Asia Minor, there is no way that he's going to meet Alexander in that first year and no expectation. This is the sort of problem your satraps can deal with.

Remember recent history. Philip sent an advance guard, they've pushed forward, quite a few local cities have defected to them or been conquered, but in the the sort of the the lull when Philip's dead and Alexander's busy in Europe, they've been pushed back to a tiny enclave. So it already looks like this is a bit of a damp squib. You think back to King Aegis of Sparta, others who've campaigned in uh fourth century BC. a lot in Asia Minor.

They've done a bit, they've sacked a few cities, they've kicked her you know, kicked down a few doors, made a nuisance of themselves, but they've never required a big royal army to deal with. Oh, for goodness sake, the Greeks are back again. Yeah. Oh, they'll be off again. And they go again. So There's no particular reason to think this is going to be that different.

But your satraps take it seriously. The problem is that they are as Persian Great King, you don't want your satraps to get too organized because one of the other

truths of history is that the ones on the fringes tend to repel fairly often. So you don't appoint one as sole authority and say he can tell everybody. So you've got basic a committee in charge, which is always a bit difficult, particularly when you need snap decisions in a military situation, but they are you basically get the troops they have in their household, what they can raise locally, and it's still pretty impressive.

And you've got ten, perhaps even twenty thousand cavalry. You've got twenty thousand or so infantry, a significant part of them Greek mercenaries fighting as hoplites. Again, it comes back to the problem you talked about before. We get a terrific breakdown of Alexander's army and particularly the Macedonian bits of it.

We don't get the same for the Persians. The sources are vague, some of the numbers are wildly inflated. The emphasis here on the diversity, the number of different ethnic groups within the cavalry is is is emphasized. But it's a A strongly cavalry force. Alexander, by Greek standards, has got a lot of horsemen. By Persian standards, this is nothing.

But traditionally the Greeks have had much, much better infantry than the Persians. Now the Persians have hired their own Greeks, so that's their the pick of their army on foot, at least as far as our Greek based sources are telling us, in that it's always oh yeah, our chaps are the ones you've got to bury.

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Crusades. Subscribe to Gone Medieval from History Hit wherever you get your podcasts. I think you've highlighted two really important points uh first off that I just want to to extend on a little before we delve into this this battle. The first is the fact that There were many Greek mentions.

who are fighting on the Persian side and you'll see this throughout because not all Greeks are happy now that the Macedonians have become supreme, taking over their city state, seeing what they've done to the Thebans, for instance, and not happy. So you will see that again and again. Greeks going and fighting on the Persian side. This is the first case of it.

Secondly, this whole idea of of the satraps of these governors in the region. And as you highlighted there, you need to picture, let's say, let's imagine Anatolia, that like most of Turkey today, ancient Asia Minor. Think of it divided up almost as a pizza, but not in kind of not in like equal slices, like geographic size. So you've got ancient regions like Lydia, Caria, Ionia, Phrygia, Cappadocia further east.

Uh Hellispon time Phrygia near the Hellispon. Each of those regions is an administrative area ruled by a different satrap. And it's like, as you say, then it's all of them coming together with their own household troops to create this first army to oppose Alexander. So you're not going to get troops from further than

let's say modern day Syria, are you in the fighting, maybe a a couple of exceptions, I don't know. But um but but but I just want to mention those two points as well because it that it's it's really interesting to highlight that in that That is what you need to get in your mind straight away with what Alexander is facing. It's these groups and also Greeks who do not like Alexander. Or who are simply professionals. Um they're serving for pay.

The other thing you as soon as you learn anything about the Greek city states, you learn about the instability, the stasis, the revolutions that occur everywhere, and very frequently there are always losers. in these, whether it's an aristocracy that takes over or gets their rivals get thrown out, whether it turns into a democracy, whether it becomes a tyranny.

There are always losers who go elsewhere. And the best thing, the easiest thing for many of them to do is to sell their spear. And there's been a long tradition of mercenary service that goes back You know, almost into the Greek Dark Ages and th and that that period and the there's even the idea that

Some of the origins of hoplites and phannites fighting may have come from organized groups of Greek mercenaries who say, oh, this was a good way of doing it and bring it home with them. Work out this is how you work as a group. So there's always been that element. And think back to Xerxes and and Darius, you know, the earlier invasions, they come with Greek exiles. Every so there's there's always these people around. But yes, it's certainly been magnified by

Philip as well, not just Alexander, but Philip and his campaigns. There will be more losers out there. So that tradition is there and um it's not considered dishonorable. Alexander tries you know, he's trying to make this into a all the Greeks coming together under my leadership, fighting this, but that The Greeks there isn't Greece. There are you are an Athenian, you are a Theban, you are from you know Methone, any of these cities.

So it's again, it's not up to him to say he's in charge and you've got to follow him.

So let's get to the Bass of the River Granicus. Um it's an interesting one, the details of this, uh and you'll see it again and again. We get the like the deployment of Alexander's army, he approaches this very small river, so not a big obstacle. They can get troops across, and it's not going to be there's no massive current, and then that Persian army, lots of cavalry and the Greek mercenaries, are opposing it.

And then when we get to the battle itself, there's a funny anecdote and one of many that will follow of Alexander versus Parmenion, isn't it? Parmenion urging caution. Alexander deciding, No, screw this, we're gonna attack straight away. And then it all focuses in on Alexander, doesn't it? Like the narrative follows Alexander as we go through the battle.

Deployment, initial moves, and then the camera pans in and it's all Alexander, particularly in this case where you get great detail about the blows he strikes, the ones he suffers. So it's which

In a sense you could say that's what happens in Homer's battles, you know, you have the the sort of the broad sweep and you talk about all these numbers and then suddenly it's named heroes doing their thing. So there's an element of that. The other thing is Alexander's perception of a battle is going to be like It goes back to something we talked about a bit in the first episode. Alexander trusts his subordinate commanders in the rest of the army to do their thing.

He doesn't have to supervise. He's not the battlefield manager, the sort of Julius Caesar, Duke of Wellington type, galloping around from here there and everywhere, right, you do this now, I need to bring you up to support here. It's basically I've set you up.

This is we're gonna go that way, and then I'm gonna go at the he on Bcephalus, probably at the head of the companion cavalry, and I'm gonna steamstroke and I'm gonna fight at your head and show that I'm as brave as the rest of you and expect you to live up to me as I will live up to your expectations. Once you're doing that, you really are going to be focusing on the people coming through the dust trying to kill you.

And he has no sense at all of what's happening in the wider battle and no way of influencing it, even if he did know what was happening. So it it's It's integral to his style of command. So in a sense, Alexander's experience of the battle, which is what the sources tend to focus on, would actually be this progression from the sort of the big plan, the big scope where the enemy are.

Just me and what's going on around me. I th the idea we get uh in regards to the larger battle, and then this is basically it, we can focus in on like the stories of Alexander, is that I think light cavalry go across first and they're actually annihilated by the Persians, so the Persians kind of get first blood. Then Alexander who's on the right wing with his companions, he charges across the river, he is actually fighting where all of the governors are on the Persian side.

So you can get a sense why it's aiming for that area and that will be something that repeats it. Or are they aiming for him? Ah. Because this is this very fancy looking guy, and you know.

This is a young king. You probably know there's no heir. You know there's a king. But anyway, you kill the king of Macedon, and A, you'll be famous, the great king in Persia's gonna be rewarding you, but also that's it, war one. So that all the big figures on that area And then I guess you can just imagine in the meantime. The the pipemen, the infantry in the middle are going across the river against the Greek Merce well well against whoever's fight on the Persian side in the middle.

And then Parmeneon's on the left with the Thessalians or whatever and he's doing that. We don't hear much about that at all. What we hear about is what Alexander's doing on the right. And you know As you correctly say, if they know that Alexander's there and they've positioned themselves with properly their best household troops to face him, we do hear some amazing stories, don't we?

Yes, I mean one thing just to to throw in quickly, in any form of common sense or military sense you don't put cavalry to defend a river. And you don't make cavalry status. So the Persians are wrong footed. I I'm I can't help wondering if they expected Alexander to wait a bit and follow Parmenius but maybe attack tomorrow. Because you don't normally even a little river like that's a bit of an obstacle, a bit of a problem, but cavalry, their strength is their mobility.

You put them all standing on the bank of a a river and the emph the the strength will be with the horse the horses love to climb. So you're coming up out of this, that's gonna push them aside much quicker. You c you don't that you don't stand there and barge people. So they've they've got it wrong from that point of view.

They all seem to be plugged in one place. They all charge at Alexander. And then you have Alexander steaming forward, running through a man with his ice and his spear, breaks that, calls for another one. One of his friends says, Look, I'm sorry, I'm really.

I'm really busy at the moment, I can't spare it to you. Somebody else, interestingly enough, the same man who is supposed to have broken the deal to get Alexander back from exile self imposed exile when he's gone off in a strop after Phillips the argument of Phillips' wedding feast. is there who gives Alexander a spear by this time. So you have him fighting. He then as soon as he's got that steams off again at another batch of Persians who look distinguished. While he's fighting there.

somebody comes up around him. He's he's killed or wounded one man. The man's brother comes around behind and is ready to chop down with either a an axe or a false or some sort of heavy blow, slices off one of the side plumes of Alexander's helmet, perhaps depending on the version, knocks him off his horse.

not some unconscious, he's saved from being killed by Black Clitus, one of the um again, one of Philip's men who's been set beside him, whose sister was Alexander's nurse at one point. He is quicker off the mark and chops off the Persian satrap's arm. touch an aristocrat's arm before he can strike that fatal blow. But had that worked, Alexander could have been dead or crippled in this first battle. And it comes back to that point. If that happens, isn't the war over?

Because there's no obvious successor. Certainly no one is going to be sufficiently secure to think I can be fighting in Asia for months, years And not worry about what's happening back in Mass. And Alexander's so distinguishable as well with his big plume, I guess, that people can recognise him straight away. So he is a walking target even though Yes, that's but that's the point. His own men can see him, so can the enemy.

And it's basically saying, you know, it's a bit like the the First World War, the Baron von Richtoffen painting his aircraft red. You s you know who I am. You can find me. Try it if you want to, but I'm better than you. And, you know, medieval nights, samurai, all this emphasis on advertising yourself. I mean

There's a a nice story where Pyrrhus later on, who's been acting like Alexander, changes clothes with one of his subordinates, who then gets mugged by this Italian cavalryman who's been chasing him. You could never imagine Alexander doing Alexander would never pretend to be anybody else. I've got to be because again, he's trying to assert himself, not just, you know, you've thrown the spear into Asia. I'm claiming Asia. I'm claiming all of the Persian Empire by conquest.

You've got to prove to the Persians that I'm gonna win. I'm not friend of anything, the gods are on my side, might is on that s everything is on my side. You're also to the Macedonians, your companions, proving that you follow me, I really am your king. I'm the best sort of Macedonian king. I will do everything you expect of me and more, and I'm not afraid of anything.

And it probably helps that he's, you know, he's only twenty one. It's a lot easier. There's all sorts still going on in your head in your sort of late teens, early twenties, lots of testosterone flooding around and you don't believe It can happen to you.

Perhaps later in his campaigns Alexander starts to think that maybe it can, but at this stage he is absolutely convinced he's gonna be all right. He thinks he's destined for big, big things and it proves so and I think just wrapping up Granicus it very much feels that

Like the top dogs in the Persian army, many of them fall on the field, and the army kind of disperses from there. They chase them away from the riverbank, the whole army gets across. There are not too many casualties on the Macedonian side, uh at least according to to Arian and the like. Uh then you get this other story which I'll mention briefly.

And it kind of goes back to this idea of, you know, Alexander attacking straight away, catching the Persians off foot, in the fact that quite a lot Of several thousand Greek infantrymen, the mercenaries, had not formed up yet on the Persian side. And so the Greeks kind of get there and then they realise that the Macedonians are across and they've already won the battle.

And then Alexander has the choice of either, you know, kind of letting them, you know, kind of capturing them or reaching a deal with them, or slaughtering them. And it says he he sends a message and then he just kind of surrounds them and he kills quite a few thousand of them and enslaves the rest. sending a like a clear message to the Greek mercenaries, to the Greeks who have decided to defy him and join the Persians.

It fits in with this, you know, his his story as he's telling it I am leading the combined armies of all the Greeks coming to seek revenge, therefore if you're a Greek you can't be on the other side. It's a message to them. I mean you've got the difficulty from the mercenaries' point of view. If they surrender at the drop of a hat, then

They're not going to get the next job, are they? And even Alexander might think, Can I trust these people? So it's it's a bit tough for them, but Alexander by this time he's changed horses because he gets a second mount, it's not Buscephalus, is killed under him. So the fighting here is quite hard.'Cause again these men do not die easily once they they realize, but nevertheless

It's it's a very clear message, do not oppose me. You need to be my friend and you need to back me. Both to other Greek mercenaries, but more generally. You can't catch most of the Persian cavalry that have run away.

Partly another reason is because all the Persian commanders seem to have concentrated in one spot so there's nobody left to try and control the rest. So you end up with a stampede away, or people thinking, Well, I'm not you know, what's the point? There's nobody s watching what I'm doing. I might as well get out of here.

If Alexander wants to inflict a lot of casualties on the enemy, the only people he can do it against are these Greek mercenaries. And Philip has emphasized in his campaigns the pursuit. Something that's been quite rare in Greek warfare up until that point is that you beat the enemy, then you chase them down with your cavalry, with your infantry, and kill as many as you can, so you don't have to fight them next month or next year, and so they're frightened of.

Alexander can only really do that with the infantry at Granicus because he doesn't have the capacity to to catch the rest. Mention it quickly, but I also think it's um the proximity of the river Granicus to Greece. is probably also something in his mind, because you will see later, as we'll get to later, his attitude to defeated Greek mercenaries does change on occasions, puts them in a faraway place like Afghanistan as garrison troops.

Why? Because that's really far away from where they could potentially cause trouble um back in Greece. If he lets them go or whatever, you know, if they're still alive. In the Granicus in Anatolia. What's to stop them as we know in the future going to the south of the Peloponnese, creating a mercenary camp, and then offering their services to Persians or anti Macedonian figures who gain prominence there in the future.

So I feel that's probably another reasoning in the And to anybody who's got the money, and let's face it, who's got the money? It's Persia. Yes. Exactly. Alexander hasn't yet, because he's spent it all.

largely to fund this expedition. He and Philip, they're they're investing in this, but he hasn't got lots of cash. I mean there is that other thing, isn't it? That you know, with Alexander, when he invades, he doesn't have the biggest resources in the world.

And you get that fascinating story of this figure, Memnon of Rhodes, who I think will he's still in the picture after Granicus, but he's almost like a foil to the the barbarian Persian satraps though, so you need to kind of take off a pinch of salt'cause he's a Greek.

But him almost advising what seems in hindsight the better strategy of them not engaging Alexander and just kind of burning the fields, stopping him getting any resources whatsoever, and so he ultimately has to retreat. Now Seems like a good idea.

Until you realise that the satraps, you know, this is their land. So actually you can actually see why they would want to engage and not and not do something so destructive. But yeah. Exactly. It's fine when it's other people's property. And the point of view from the cities, Alexander's Basically not most of his supplies to get where he is.

He is going to need local cities to give him food, particularly when the campaigning season ends and it comes into the winter to survive over that. So he needs communities to join him, which means he's got to frighten them but also persuade them it's worth their while. So if your great king is telling you we'll burn everything, and you know you can you'll make it somehow through the winter, we'll not worry about it too much.

then you might think, well, we're better off with Alexander and once he's won that battle, so again There is some strategic sense in this, and again, we know it's Alexander and you don't want to fight Alexander, but the logic is actually protect their lands, meet the the Macedonians early on and beat them.

But with Memnon saying again, he gets credit because he's a Greek. He's a Greek in the Persian camp, and he tends to get a good press. It's a little bit like with Napoleon's Marshalls, Marshal Macdonald. because of the Scottish ancestry. He tends in Anglophone sources to get quite a good write up rather more than perhaps i i is deserved, just because we like it. It's one of ours, you know. That's there is that sort of intrinsic sense that oh yeah, we're the we're best at everything.

It would make sense, but it's a very difficult thing to impose on anybody, to get them to destroy their own crops because you will suffer as the local community and Again, this is something you're gonna have to be making your decisions on on the spot. You can't consult with the great king, it takes too long. Yeah.

So they begin to do it after Granicus, largely because they haven't got a field army anymore so they they can't oppose him in the field, so it comes down to let's hold as many strongholds, as many cities as we can, and let's try and deprive him of food. But

The fact that he's won has given a boost. It's meant that cities are thinking, actually, yeah, let's let's let's join him. And th this is what defines the next part, isn't it? So from Granicus, if you think let's say near Troy, so like His Salix or northwest Anatolia

What he does is he follows the Aegean Sea coast down those which are the Greek cities uh in Persian occupation at the time, and takes them one by one, goes all the way down, also goes in Antisardis, obviously capital of the famous city. uh m semi-mythologized uh King Croesus and the like, so another rich area. Ephesus.

the story of Lincoln to the Temple of Artemis, of course, you know, with the the legend of his birth on the day that that temple was destroyed, so he offers to help rebuild the temple. And and there is resistance, although the way my letters there are like little garrisons and they try to hold out, but Alexander ultimately does beat them and you see little contingents going out here, there and everywhere trying to get other cities to his side.

So much so that you get to places like Halicanassus, which is now the scene as this is one of the first big, notable sieges that he faces. You got Memnon of Rhodes there on the opposition and Halikanassis, which we mentioned in the last chat as the home of um that guy who was considering to defect to Philip. I don't think he's there at the moment, Pixadaris. But you get that siege, don't you? Which is another kind of big step.

A few months after Granicus, after Alexander's done more conquest down the seaboard, It's again the contrast between Alexander's army and the earlier Greek armies that have come. Alexander's army, created by Philip, being honed by Alexander himself, has that siege capacity. You talked about the catapults, the engineers. It's no it's not just the technology, it's the men who know how to use it.

And the ability to organise and to keep fighting. So yes, you win the battle, that's great. But if the cities then just close their gates and you can't get any of them, you're going to starve in the long run anyway. And also you're not holding any ground. But Philip's war and the way Alexander continues it, you just keep fighting. You always attack something, and you turn up and if

A city comes over to you, great. If it doesn't, you capture it think you possibly can, so that the next one you come to, i then has that to bear in mind when it makes its decision, when you turn up outside its gates and say, Let me in and also give me this much wheat, this much barley, these clothes for my men, that whatever I need.

So it breaks down into lots of less famous you know, we'd all our attention's drawn to the Granicus, and that's important. Alexander could have lost the battle and his life could have lost the war, right? at the Granicus. But he wins the war not just by winning that battle, but by taking all of these great places and small places. And by taking the time when it comes to someone like Halakonas,

And having an army with the skill to mount a proper siege that pushes towards an assault. It isn't just I'm gonna blockade you and I wait for you to starve because that can take months, years. You know, it takes How many years for the Athenians to take Potidire at the start of the um the Peloponnesian War? Eight three three or four years. Alexander's not doing that. Even a big place like Haliconassus will fall to hell.

And that then is something that everybody's got to bear in mind. So it's a mixture of sometimes where there are Persian garrisons, often of mercenary troops, but that will fight. Or the locals trying to make that calculation, what's best for me short term but particularly long term. You know, how do I come through this? Still in power, still prosper? But it's that's how

the war is won. And this is this is what makes the Macedonian. It marks them out as new. There hasn't been anything like this. An army that's really good at battles but really good at sieges and just doesn't stop.

It keeps on going. And it keeps on going. So he he takes that western seaboard of Anatolia. The Persian fleet. is mega powerful and still there and thereabouts. And Memlon of Rhodes is still there and thereabouts. So actually they go into the Aegean for a bit and start causing chaos. And Alexander realizes that his own fleet's not up to that, so he decides, well, I'm going to focus on the land war.

and take away the ports of like the the Phoenicians and the Cypriots and so on, who are the like the the best sailors for the Persian fleet. So he has to kind of, although he takes those cities, he has to kind of leave that fleet and let it be a menace. Whilst he keeps going eastwards. The thing with fleets is they are incredibly expensive.

You know, th these are warships that are galleys rowed by very large crews for their side. All those crews need to be paid, fed, otherwise they're not doing anything. Alexander doesn't have the money to match the Persians, and it's not a Persian fleet. A fleet of all the Persian subjects and allies that live along the coast. The Persians are, you know, landlubbers, they're landlocked in the middle of there. They don't do this. So it's a combination of A Alexander decides well.

I'll have to do more damage and capture more here than they can do in the Aegean in the meantime, until I've taken their cities, which A deprives them their bases, but often it's the home port, it's where the contingents in the fleet have come from. So once you've captured their homeland, they're going to change sides as well, as several do. It's incredibly bold. It's probably the only thing realistically that could have worked, because he couldn't and the other thing is

The strengths of his army would not be so useful if he fought at sea. I mean there's a little bit of fighting round in some of the sieges around the harbours. But Alexander himself is not an experienced sailor. You can't charge on horseback on a galley, you know, any of these things. So a lot of what you're good at.

you lose and you're relying more on allies like the Athenians, who are always too big for their boots, and you don't want them to get too sort of obsessed with, well, we're really winning this war. So it it lots of things come together, but it is risky, but again, the whole expedition is risky. Again, we know it's going to succeed, but it it's it's it's a logical thing to do within that and it gradually succeeds, but it takes a long time.

After this, let's say after Adachanassis, he starts heading eastwards, and by this time Taking control of the like the old administrative centres of the Persians and either putting in Macedonians lower to him if the people in charge have switched over. I think he's already leaving it in charge of that local, kind of leaving the administration in place. Or to allies, the famous story with Halicanassus is that there's almost this mother like figure of Alexander, Queen Ada.

Who I think there's one that she cooks in bus biscuits or cakes and sends them to him when he's on campaign later. And he reinstates her as queen. So he puts allies in in charge of these places that he takes over from the beginning. And then he heads eastwards. I I always kind of picture it almost like a horseshoe shape because he doesn't then go into the the difficult highland areas, which are, as we'll see time and time again elsewhere.

They're home to what they think are more backward people, but they're warlike. They're hillmen, they're tribesmen, and they live in these kind of strongholds up in the mountains. If you visit Termesus today, it's a beautiful, beautiful surviving him city high up. And so he kind of avoids those Hillmen and he focuses in on like the the Persian administrative centres, another one Kelini, which is just a bit inland. And then he reaches a place where he

Which I guess it's not too far from Anchara today, or is it that that kind of area? Gordium. Gordium. Home of the once again, we've done Croesus already. This is King Midas and Midas touch. And this is the story where we get the Gordian knot. And it's again it's so famous.

But it's only famous because of Alexander and what he does. Before this, nobody's talked about, oh yeah, there's this terrific puzzle. And it was supposed to be the yoke on a wagon that was fastened with this very complex knot. And Again only told in the context of Alexander going along and visiting it that if you were able to unravel this lot untie it somehow or other, then you were destined for greatness to rule Asia, to do all these sort of things.

We don't know how much of this prophecy is really already there and how much but there is clearly a sacred wagon within this combat that is of some significance and has stories associated with it and royal associations. And then you get the two versions of Alexander coming up that when he's faced with it, either he works out that actually you can take the yoke out and then undo the knot sort of that way, or you just grab your very sharp, well honed sword and slash it open.

Uh which always sounds a very Alexander but frankly both of them the the either the working out, seeing, oh, there's another way of looking at this, I can do it that way or the I can't be bothered with this, I'm just gonna cut it through. It it's again it's so famous we talk of you know it'll be used in press stories today, you know, the Gaudio some insoluble problem for politicians faced with.

We only know about it because of Alexander. So that makes it hard to know if it really was such a big deal at the time or has turned into a big story because he goes to this and he decides to make it that and gets his He has with him all these historians and effectively it's press corps who are pitching his version of this expedition and are writing it up. So you've, you know, you've had another point where the the waves are supposed to bow down to him and all this stuff.

There's an interesting story about the the Roman Emperor Augustus that he realized how Alexander's policy in this way backfired because he had such flattering historians talking about him. That people said they don't believe anything. So that was why he went to the Horace's and the Virgils and the people like this, who did their thing, but did it with great artistic merit, rather than just boasting, because it made Alexander ridiculous. He didn't need

These boasts given what he does, but he couldn't resist the making he was obviously flattered by some of this stuff that was being churned out. And of course, with the advantage that it was people would be reading this so far away they wouldn't really know, you know, oh, was this really an Asian tradition that people believed?

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But he is also visiting like the the prime cities all in that area, isn't he? And avoiding the highlands we mentioned earlier. So he's done Sardis, Ephesus, Heliconassus, uh Kelini as mentioned another important uh capital of the Persians in Anatolia. And now Gordium, you know, home of Midas. So he's kind of picking those places in his route to go, isn't it? It's also that's where the best land is, it's where the best stores of food are as a result. It's politically. It makes

They're the ones that have been persuaded to join the Persian Empire, but the Persian Empire works by allowing people to run their own affairs and just making it clear you better up you better be our friend because you don't want to be our enemy. Alexander's doing the same thing. None of these people have any particular feeling of um loyalty to the Persians for any other reason, other than they're a dynasty that have done well.

If they can do well under Alexander, then the so it it's it's a combination of it's the way the ground forces you to move, but it also makes sense and it's then tied in with what we were talking about earlier, you want to deprive the Persian run fleet of its bases and win the war at sea on land. So it all comes together and makes makes sense for this to work. Uh and Alexander he doesn't stay there long. I mean I do love I think it's happened just before this.

the the only time that he allows some of his Macedonian troops to go back to Macedonia and I think they're just the newlyweds, aren't they? Or they've just been married. The younger so they're allowed to go back to Macedonia of the winter or something like that.

to spend time with their new wives. Yes. Maybe if you have the idea to father children. To father to produce the next generation of soldiers, then you can come back and risk your life. And they do, and they do, isn't it? They spent they have that little time off and then they come back. Well they probably

I mean that's Or maybe not knowing that. They don't know that. They think because the way Phillips wars have been fought is you go off, you fight for a lot of the year but you always come home. Yes. And it's been practical'cause it's never been that far. This is the last time really that's practical.

And from then on, but they don't know. I mean, it's why they get so fed up in India that they haven't been allowed to do. Sorry. But yeah, y I should have said that better, like not realising that for many of them it's the last time they'll ever be back home for a period of time.

So from Gordium, it's now three hundred and thirty three BC, so he's been campaigning for a year. He's done quite a lot. He's taken a lot of the Persian western territories in the Mediterranean. But continuing that thing of taking the port, so his next stop is going towards what is modern day Syria, southeast Turkey today, and Talia.

Yes, yeah, basically. It's um and it's again it is the easiest way to go for particularly for an army you want to feed, but you've kept busy. There have been very few long rest periods in this time. Even if some of the army's been inactive, the rest has been moving. So you build me up but there's also one thing one problem he's got all the way through is he's got to feed his army, and not just the men, but keep the animals, particularly the cavalry horses, fit enough to do their job.

And you have instead of the hot springs, you have Alexander getting ill, you have the You can't stop in one place. He's got to keep moving, because even these communities, now they've come over to you as friends. You can't strip them of everything they've got and let the people starve. You've got to take um enough, but to l enough leave enough for them as well. So there's an emphasis on you've got to keep moving.

And keep on progressing. And you're also waiting to see, because what's been going on in the background is that. Darius has finally been getting the the sort of the the muscles of the empire moving. Moving things over these vast distances, bringing together a big army, getting the funds, getting it he's got once he's done that, he's got to supply it. Now he controls this big empire administration. It's it's

There's a way to do that, but it doesn't mean it's easy. So you have this big army is starting to come towards you, but You don't have detailed intelligence. You know, there's no satellite images to tell you what somebody's doing, what where they are.

There is a sense both armies are blundering around blind, but you know that somewhere out there eventually you can't just keep marching around the Persian Empire, taking these cities, and not expect them to, you know, argue the great king is going to turn up at some point, or his army is going to turn up at some point. But again, we know this is going on. Alexander is existing and this could happen at any time. But I can't stop. I've got to keep going,'cause I can't sit down, eh,

I've got to keep this momentum. I've got to convince people that wherever I come I will win. So you might as well give in to me straight away rather than first rather than last. Avoid the suffering.

But also at some point I'm going to meet something bigger than this. He knows that sooner or later Darius is going to be ready. And it's interesting you mentioned so That ancient region known as Silicia or Silicia, that southeastern Turkey, if you're picturing the Mediterranean, think of the eastern Mediterranean, where Cyprus is.

north and east of that, in that top east corner uh of the Mediterranean, and that border area is Cilicia. It's famous for its fertile lands, but as you say, they can't stay there too long.

That's also as you mentioned where Alexander falls ill for a brief amount of time, and I think there's a story that Darius or someone tries to bribe the um the medic uh the doctor to kill him and he doesn't. Yeah. So we're saying I'm Alexander shows he'll trust him by drinking the draught that he's you know, it's again it's that mixture of Get Alexander the Savage and Alexander the very kind, the very common you know, I trust you, I it it's it's they're always both there.

And Darius by this time, you know, he's gathered an army, he's come west, and he's a bit to the south in Syria I think there's a story that he's actually prepared a big plane for his large army where he wants Alexander to come and fight him, but Alexander is delayed because he's ill and he then starts marching south towards present day Lebanon. But then Darius appears out of nowhere, doesn't he, behind?

It's a shock to everybody. You know, he he arrives he suddenly finds that there's a A depot almost, a hospital area where he finds Macedonian wounded and sick. That are recovering.

And he overruns that map. But again, these are you know, these are two boxes in a dark room. These are n they don't have all the the advantages of modern intelligence gathering. They don't know what the other the enemy is. They hope that as they get closer you'll notice from reports from from signs from the big plume of dust that uh the marching feet will throw up, but it The whole ca you know, ISIS is a battle that largely occurs by accident.

when Darius ends up behind Alexander. Because he's fed up of waiting for Alexander to the end. Yeah, well he can't again he can't stay in one place. No ancient army can. It becomes a nightmare to feed yourself. And also this is something that again was

That's a very good book on Marathon by Jim Lacey, where he points out another thing with an army like this, what do you do with all the waste that everybody's producing? Because it's they might not know why, but they're going to realise that if you live around a lot of animal and human manure you're going to get sick. And it's not very pleasant anyway, so you can't

stay in one place. The other thing is he doesn't know where Alexander is. So if he just waits for him, Alexander might be off to goodness knows where, hundreds of miles away, and you'll never catch him before the summer ends. So it's it's A clumsy campaign, and then Alexander finds out from reports that the Persians are behind him, doesn't believe it at first, they have to go and check. They they go with it, well I better do something about it, so turns around and marches towards the wheel.

Darius, who realizes he's there and takes up a sort of again, he's chosen his ground. It's not quite the perfect spot he wanted earlier, but it's good enough. It's behind this small river, the Isus. And it's basically another obstacle as they've done it. Granicus, we'll wait here, you can come to us and you've got to go through the difficult ground to fight us.

So the Pinaris or River Isis, as you say, where where he is and it it's so a fascinating You almost have to look at a map to see the idea of how he kind of once again a horse shoe kind of goes round Alexander to end up in like in Cilicia in that way and Alexander coming back up the Syrian coastline to deal with Darius after Darius supposedly died, kills all his injured, wounded men.

And then you get the first big battle between Alexander and Darius himself. And I know the ancient sources once again say Darius has a massive army, maybe over a hundred thousand men. It's between fifty and a hundred thousand, is it? Plausible. I mean with any of those plausible figures we can't prove it. It was probably bigger than Alexander's.

You're always going to count the enemy twice, but it's a bit like when you see one of these big demonstrations through the centre of London or Paris or wherever, and you get figures in the press there were three hundred thousand, a million, or how do you know? We c the human mind, we can cope with that a lot.

But the odds the odds are that nobody sat down and counted everybody. You know, Darius might have some idea, but it's probably going to be rough. He doesn't need to as long as the various bits that are supplying them have got enough for everybody.

It's an army that includes more of these Greek mercenary hoplites, it includes Persian troops that have been trained and equipped to fight in more of a close order style like that. Spear and shield. Yeah, basically. Uh rather than the archery on which they've relied in the past. And lots of cavalry. This isn't particularly great cavalry country, so he tends to focus them, but most of the Persian ones are on the right.

uh near the sea, because again he's to the north of Alexander. Alexander fairly standard, sort of you've got the Thessalians are over on the left, with Parmenio facing the Persian cavalry, keep them busy, basically,

Macedonian infantry, the heart of it in the centre, they go through, and again we only know about this because it's described in a later source arguing about the details in somebody else. Polybius talks about how The Macedonians manoeuvre they advance over this long plain, changing formation as the foot the plain widens. So that the phalanx begins I think it's thirty two ranks deep, goes to sixteen, goes to eight splits before it fights.

Gives you again an idea of just how there is space between these units. They aren't just the solid walls of man you tend to get. imagined, and then the Macedonians attack, Alexander leads a charge, There is a nice theory that he probably leads this charge on foot with the um aspects

First to break open and then goes back, mounts up and leads the companion cavalry through the gate. The Hippaspis, they're like the elite foot guards, yeah. They're the the close they're they're always between the main phalanx and the cavalry and they're they're more prestigious. They're the ones that there's all sorts of arguments about

Their particular uh equipment which we we don't need to worry about breaks through. There are some problems. There are some bits where the Persians do quite well, where the Macedonian formation breaks up, but basically they're better at this close in fighting. Alexander's leading them again.

There's more fighting and eventually the Persian army collapses and routes, and Darius runs, which of course Alexander presents as well look I'm the king who fights with his men, this is the great king, so he calls himself, but he legs it and lets his men get killed. So it's a moral victory, but he isn't

captured. The pursuit, though pretty bloody, doesn't you know, there's enough Persians get away. But it's this is the last time you'll see large numbers of Greek mercenary infantry. There'll be some later, but there's never as many anymore. This is the big one for the Greek. And it's also it's it's a big one for

for the Persian attempts to fight with infantry altogether because their own troops equipped in Greek style with a sort of they suffer badly as well and don't get away and they never really reappear. Next time they fight, it's going to be very much Persian cavalry that it's all about. And it's a clear victory for Alexander. And bear in mind, so this is late 333 BC.

So it's less than two years after he's crossed the Hellespont that he's won the first the victory against the satraps, then all these sieges. And then, you know, actually defeating the King of Kings. But it's still two years. It you know, we look at a nice chronological chart and we think it historically oh, that's not very long. But two years of our life, you know, that's quite a long time.

Lots of things you've worried about, you've done, you've been very busy up until this point. But it's still, yes, you've beaten the King of Kings in a battle, but He's still got most of his empire, he's still got most of his money, he's still got most of his manpower, he still has the dignity of being the Achaemenid king of this dynasty that's been there for centuries, the great conquerors, the great superpowers. So Every time Alexander wins, it's great. But he can't afford even one loss.

He's always basically he's got to prove himself every time. Darius can cope with the loss. It's not great, but he can cope with it. Babylon is still very far away at this stage. One other thing that I'll highlight here is, of course, you know, that flight of Darius at Issus. Yeah, immortalized in the house of the fawn at Pompeii.

that floor mosaic or was it up no it was a floor it was a floor mosaic because that's why the horse's bum looks really big if you look at it like a painting today. But the proportions were right if it was on the floor. And that is a beautiful mosaic obviously from Roman times. But it shows Alexander on the left with his companions, you see that the straight swords and the spears.

And then Darius and his charioteer. Darius looking scared, charioteer with the whip up, causing chaos in his own ranks and he's trying to flee. But I just love that, you know, you have the written sources, but then you have that. Yeah. Mosaic surviving as well. Well and it's the main coloured representation of Alexander. So all the theories about what colour his hair was and this this sort of thing. That's what we've got to go on, other than the descriptions. So and it

You know, the all this he tends to be a peroxide blonde whenever Hollywood gets their hands on him, whether it's Richard Burton or Collins. Uh yes, exactly, Burton before there was a Welshman originally, so It's actually he's shown there with sort of mid coloured hair, now again mm fading and it's a copy of a an original earlier original. But it might be that Mediterranean well, it wasn't really black hair. It was so it was light.

Shall we finish this episode? We've done really well in this, doing Granicus and Issus and and the early campaign of Alexander in Anatolia. The last great story attached to Issus, which is the immediate aftermath where Darius fled East. But he's left his baggage behind. Which isn't just getting into country now. Sorry, I I spoiled your

The baggage which is not just objects. Oh right, okay. Sorry, yeah. Take it away, Adrian. Go on, take it away. Well you have the the women of the royal house because again when the great king goes on campaign, everybody comes with him, the whole court.

comes with him because the empire, the heart of the empire, is where the great king is, and in the same way he doesn't have a single capital, he's got several. When he goes off on campaign in intense, just as Xerxes has done, this is now the heart of the Empire. So Alexander captures his sister, the wife his wife and his mum. And his mum, yeah.

And treats them you have first of all the great bit of story where they think Hephaestion is actually Alexander because he's taller. And then the oh it doesn't matter, you know uh Everyone's an Alexander in the army and this or the but then he treats them he doesn't abuse them, doesn't rape them, doesn't execute them, any of these things. He treats them as royals. So it's putting himself on an equal.

with and if anything, as a superior, because I condain to treat you well, but I'm treating you with respect because you were royal. later on, Statira, one of them will There's a story of her dying in as a result of a miscarriage pregnancy. So there's all the theories, you know, was he quite as honourable as as the man? But the basic the way the story is told, and the majority of sources show him as treating them with great respect.

With dignity, not touching them, not harming them in any way, protecting them from an army that's just one of victory and is running riot. And doing all of this, and this will then become a A great example to emulate of later commanders, Scipio Africanus, for instance, in the Punit War, and then the Great Sandy doesn't touch the Spanish Imberian princesses and nobility that he captures at New Carthage.

But treats them as Alexander does with respect, doesn't touch them and this sort of thing. And you'll get it later on. So it becomes one of the great Alexander moments that can be reborn in the medieval period in the chivalric way as showing this is the man who respects. Ladies and treats them properly. The chivalric Alexander and also, you know, another of those stories that links the closeness of Alexander with Herfacian, you know, that companion, almost certainly lover as well.

saying when they misidentify, they think Hephaistian's Alexander and Alexander going like Hephaistian is just as much Alexander as I am. So it's it's an interesting one. But that is the aftermath of Isis, isn't it? We've only done a year and a half, but packed a lot into it.

The next episode, we're going to explore the road to Babylon and ultimately the road to Afghanistan, because this is another really fascinating period in Alexander's story, finishing with the Mediterranean and then going deep into the Middle East.

That's the thing with Alexander. He does something spectacular and it's not the end. There's just more to come, always why it's such a huge story. Just the beginning. Adrian, thank you so much for taking the time to come back on the show for episode two. Thanks for having me. That was episode two of our special series about

The episode. In the next episode, we will be continuing the story. We'll explore how Alexander goes from southeastern Turkey today. He goes down the coastline of the Mediterranean, big sieges at places like Tyre and Gaza. his venture to Egypt, and a an oracle in the desert west of Egypt, before finally him continuing eastwards and the great rematch between Alexander and the Persian king Darius III on the plains of Gaugamela, the biggest battle of Alexander's career.

That is all to come in episode three. In the meantime, thank you for listening to this episode of the Ancients. Please follow the show on Spotify or wherever you get to your podcasts. That really helps us and you'll be doing us a big favor.

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