The Invasion of Persia | Alexander the Great

In spring 334 BC, a young Macedonian king sets out to conquer the Persian Empire. Tristan Hughes and Dr Adrian Goldsworthy explore Alexander the Great’s early campaigns, from the daring crossing into Asia to incredible victories. They discuss Alexander's strategic genius, respect toward Persian royalty, and how these triumphs forged his path to legend. MORE The Persians Listen on Apple https://podcasts.apple.com/gh/podcast/the-persians/id1520403988?i=1000649998099 King Midas Listen on Apple https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/king-midas/id1520403988?i=1000611669744 Listen on Spotify https://open.spotify.com/episode/1lvx4539JhbpJxlsc2siAS?si=O5x5rexfTB-mwkWZOn1U-Q&nd=1&dlsi=b9e211c1fc55408a Presented by Tristan Hughes. Audio editor is Aidan Lonergan, the producer is Joseph Knight. The senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff. All music courtesy of Epidemic Sounds The Ancients is a History Hit podcast. Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe. You can take part in our listener survey here https://insights.historyhit.com/history-hit-podcast-always-on: https://insights.historyhit.com/history-hit-podcast-always-on Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

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• 0:00Tristan Hughes?

  Ever wondered why the Romans were defeated in the Teutoburg Forest? What secrets lie buried in prehistoric Ireland? Or what made Alexander truly great? With a subscription to History Hit, you can explore our ancient past alongside the world's leading historians and archaeologists. You'll also unlock hundreds of hours of original documentaries with a brand new release every single week, covering everything from the ancient world to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com/subscribe.

• 0:32Speaker 01

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• 1:32Tristan Hughes?

  It's spring, 334 B.C., 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 eastwards. The ships are full to the brim with soldiers and horses. Supplies of food, weapons, and armour are also not too far away, vital cargo for the campaign ahead.

• 2:11Tristan Hughes?

  The soldiers wear tunics, not armour. 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.

• 2:49Tristan Hughes?

  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 purpled 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.

• 3:17Tristan Hughes?

  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.

• 3:41Tristan Hughes?

  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 visiting 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,

• 4:27Tristan Hughes?

  with this beach being its westernmost fringe. This is the Persian Empire.

• 4:35Tristan Hughes?

  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 is soon to be Spear One 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

• 5:16Tristan Hughes?

  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

• 6:01Tristan Hughes?

  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.

• 6:43Tristan Hughes?

  I’m Tristan Hughes, your host, and this is Episode Two: The Invasion of Persia.

• 6:55Tristan Hughes?

  Adrian, welcome back. It's almost as if we've just finished recording the last episode.

• 6:59Speaker 02

  I know, it's just like being in the very same room.

• 7:01Tristan Hughes?

  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, 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?

• 7:25Speaker 02

  Yes. I mean, it's the war that Philip has already started because Philip had sent 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 on power, his control of the Macedonian throne. But eventually, this is the big project. This is how he can outdo his father. There's the story about the younger Alexander, hearing news of Philip's latest victory, looking depressed, and his friends ask him and saying, because 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.

• 8:09Tristan Hughes?

  And at the time, so this is spring 334 BC, when it all begins. And that's the beginning of the campaigning season, isn't it? So winter finishes and March or April time, that's normally when the army start rolling into action again.

• 8:21Speaker 02

  Yes, although Philip has broken the rules in recent years by organising a supply trade for his army and keeping some of the mercenaries being paid, some of the 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. Philip's 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

• 9:05Speaker 02

  need to pull the baggage train.

• 9:07Tristan Hughes?

  This also feels a 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 18 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 the nature of his army, maybe a rough idea of army size, if you divide it by 10 sometimes, or something like that. But you do get those military details in the surviving sources from now on.

• 9:46Speaker 02

  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 AD, 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

• 10:31Speaker 02

  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 seemed 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

• 11:15Speaker 02

  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, Chiraunia or anything like that.

• 11:42Tristan Hughes?

  And I must clarify also, he is good with the army sizes of Alexander's army.

• 11:46Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 11:47Tristan Hughes?

  Not so much with the Persians, but we'll get to that in time, won't we? So when he invades, when he crosses the Hellespont, Adrian, do we have a rough idea? I always think in my mind, it's around 40,000 troops he has, largely infantry, I guess that's about right.

• 12:02Speaker 02

  It's somewhere between 30 and 50,000. So 40,000 is probably a good rule of thumb. Half of it at most is Macedonian. Then you have, you have the units of the Pikephalex that are, and this is the core, the Macedonians with the sort of honorary Macedonians, 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, Cilirians, Paeonians, people like this, who've been part of Philip's army for a decade, sometimes two decades. These contingents where 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

• 12:47Speaker 02

  little bit hard to be precise about the total numbers, particularly if 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, 200 men, perhaps 300 men, depending on which 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 tradition of Herodotus is that Xerxes invades Europe with a million men, and even the sober modern reconstructions put in at 100,000, maybe more.

• 13:32Speaker 02

  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 Glataia when they face Xerxes. And it's got more cavalry, although not as high a proportion as you'll get in Persian and other eastern armies.

• 13:51Tristan Hughes?

  I mean, quite frankly, for the time, it is a pretty diverse army, as you say as well, you know, the pike phalanx heavy infantry, the hoplites of the Greeks, the light infantry of like the Agrianians, a particular tribe, a Thracian tribe, I believe. And then, you know, you've got the cavalry contingent as well. So 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 into, well, in the beach in north west Anatolia and then saying, I'm claiming this is my spear one land. So kind of harkening 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

• 14:35Tristan Hughes?

  to react, is Troy.

• 14:38Speaker 02

  It's certainly fitting for him and it's right, 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. So it is a big, and it's, that's become almost a stereotype of Greeks fighting Asians, Persians in the later tradition, though of course, you know, as Socrates himself points out, Homer doesn't call the Greeks Greeks, the Erycheans 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,

• 15:22Speaker 02

  his ambitions are clearly much broader than this. But it's, and you have the idea of them acting like the heroes and running around Alexander, 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 served before Philip. They've served his brothers and other kings. They are real veterans, middle aged and older men.

• 16:03Speaker 02

  And there's even that tradition that 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 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 divested. Other people are dealing with the main logistics of getting the army over the Dardanels at this point.

• 16:43Tristan Hughes?

  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. 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, Licimicus and so on, come later. There are a few though, still from the beginning. Perdicus, I always find fascinating because he actually runs a contingent from Thebes, from before Alexander crosses. So you do get a couple about Alexander's age. Perdicus, I don't know Crasrus is slightly older or not, but.

• 17:25Speaker 02

  They're they're getting sort of regimental commands.

• 17:28Tristan Hughes?

  Yeah.

• 17:28Speaker 02

  They might command a fanax unit, they might command a squadron of the companions. They don't tend to get the big independent or wing commands. They're they're sort of, they're like battalion command, regimental, that level.

• 17:41Tristan Hughes?

  Yeah.

• 17:41Speaker 02

  And again, you know, we think of them as the younger generation, but are they the same age as Alexander, five, 10 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's still at this point overwhelmingly Philip's army.

• 17:58Tristan Hughes?

  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, well, just looks like a menace at this time.

• 18:30Speaker 02

  It's the only practical way. 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 going to take a year or two 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 when the Spartans are asked to intervene, help the Ionian rebels and they ask, well, how far away is Persepolis from the sea? And it, three months, oh, yeah, we're not doing that. Sorry, Gov, you can forget. Again, it is vast. It is huge. It is very wealthy. So it's got the organisation, it's got the administration, it's got the manpower, but it can't mobilise that quickly.

• 19:11Speaker 02

  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 sort of 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 4th century B.C. A lot in Asia Minor. They've done a bit, they've sacked a few cities, they've kicked, you know, kicked down a few doors, made a nuisance of themselves, but they've never required a big royal army

• 19:56Speaker 02

  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 rebel fairly often. So you don't appoint one as sole authority and say he can tell everybody. So you've got basically 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.

• 20:40Speaker 02

  You've got 10, perhaps even 20,000 cavalry. You've got 20,000 or so infantry, a significant part of them Greek mercenaries fighting as hoplites. Again, comes back to the problem you talked about before. We get a terrific breakdown of Alexander's army, 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 is the diversity, the number of different ethnic groups within the cavalry is emphasized, but it's 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.

• 21:23Speaker 02

  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 there's always, oh yeah, our chaps are the ones you've got to worry about.

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• 23:57Tristan Hughes?

  I think you've highlighted two really important points. First off, I just wanted to extend on a little before we delve into this, this battle. The first is the fact that there are many Greeks 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, taken over their city state, seen 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 the satraps of these governors in the region. And as you highlighted there, you need to picture, let's say, let's imagine Anatolia, like most of Turkey today, ancient Asia Minor.

• 24:35Tristan Hughes?

  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, Hellespont, time Phrygia, near the Hellespont. 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 couple of exceptions, I don't know. But um, but, but, but I just wanted to mention those two points as well, because that it's really interesting to highlight that in that.

• 25:19Tristan Hughes?

  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.

• 25:27Speaker 02

  Or who are simply professionals. Um, they're serving for pay. The other thing, 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 almost into the Greek Dark Ages and that, that period and the, there's even the idea that

• 26:07Speaker 02

  some of the origins of hoplites and phalanx 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. Uh, so there's always been that element. And think back to Xerxes and Darius, you know, the earlier invasions, they come with Greek exiles. Every so 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 it's not considered dishonorable. Alexander tries, you know, he's trying to make this into a all the Greeks coming together

• 26:48Speaker 02

  under my leadership, fighting this. But that's the Greeks, there isn't Greece. There are, you are an Athenian, you're a Theban, you are from, you know, Bethone, 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.

• 27:04Tristan Hughes?

  So let's get to the Battle of the River Granicus. It's an interesting one, the details of this. And you will 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 going to 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.

• 27:42Speaker 02

  You get 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's happens in Homer's battles. You know, you have 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 that. 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.

• 28:26Speaker 02

  I need to bring you up support here. It's basically, I've set you up. This is, we're going to go that way and then I'm going to go at the ombus cephalus, probably at the head of the companion cavalry and I'm going to steamstroke. I'm going to 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'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

• 29:07Speaker 02

  from the sort of the big plan, the big scope where the enemy are, my initial order to attack, and then it's just me and what's going on around me.

• 29:15Tristan Hughes?

  The idea we get 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 like cavalry go across first and they're actually annihilated by the Persians. So the Persians can 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 the sense why he's aiming for that area and that will be something that repeats.

• 29:41Speaker 02

  Or are they aiming for him?

• 29:42Tristan Hughes?

  Ah.

• 29:43Speaker 02

  Because this is this very fancy looking guy and you know, this is a young king. You probably know there's no heir.

• 29:49Tristan Hughes?

  You know.

• 29:49Speaker 02

  But anyway, you kill the king of Macedon and A, you'll be famous. The great king in Persia is going to be rewarding you, but also that's it, war won.

• 29:57Tristan Hughes?

  So that all the big figures are on that area. And then I guess you can just imagine in the meantime, the, the pietmen, the infantry in the middle are going across the river against the Greek mercy. Well, well, against whoever's fighting on the Persian side in the middle. And then Parmenion's on the left with the Thessalians or whatever he's doing. 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 probably their best household troops to face him, we do hear some amazing stories, don't we?

• 30:28Speaker 02

  Yes, I mean, one thing just to throw in quickly. In any form of common sense or military sense, you don't put cavalry to defend a riverbank. And you don't make cavalry static. So the Persians are wrong footed. I can't help wondering if they expected Alexander to wait a bit and follow Phermanis, 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 river. And the strength will be with the horse, the horses love to climb. So you're coming up out of this, that's going to push them aside much quicker. You don't, you don't stand there and barge people. So they've, they've got it wrong from that point of view.

• 31:12Speaker 02

  They all seem to be clubbed 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 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 Philip's, the argument of Philip's 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 killed a wounded one man.

• 31:56Speaker 02

  The man's brother comes around behind and is ready to chop down with either an axe or a foul shroom 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, maybe knocks him unconscious. He's saved from being killed by Black Klytus. One of the, 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, the Tertanaros crats 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?

• 32:38Speaker 02

  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

• 32:48Tristan Hughes?

  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 then.

• 32:54Speaker 02

  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 Richtofen painting his aircraft red. You, 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 knights, 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 support, who then gets mugged by this Italian cavalryman who's been chasing him. You can never imagine Alexander doing, Alexander would never pretend to be anybody else. I've got to be, because again,

• 33:33Speaker 02

  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 going to win. I'm not frightened of anything. Gods are on my side. Might is on that. 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 21. 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.

• 34:14Speaker 02

  Perhaps later in his campaigns, Alexander starts to think that maybe it can, but at this stage, he is absolutely convinced he's going to be all right.

• 34:21Tristan Hughes?

  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, that 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. And 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. And the fact that quite a lot, 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,

• 35:06Tristan Hughes?

  kind of capturing them or reaching a deal with them or slaughtering them. And he says, 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 like a clear message to the Greek mercenaries, to the Greeks who have decided to defy him and join the Persians.

• 35:25Speaker 02

  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, 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 Bucephalus, is killed under him. So the fighting here is quite hard. Because again, these men do not die easily once they, they realise. 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 through other Greek mercenaries,

• 36:09Speaker 02

  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 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 could do it against are these Greek mercenaries. And Philip has emphasised 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 you. Alexander could only really do that with the infantry at

• 36:53Speaker 02

  Granicus, because he doesn't have the capacity to, to catch the rest.

• 36:58Tristan Hughes?

  Mention it quickly, but I also think it's 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 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.

• 37:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, and to anybody who's got the money, and let's face it, who's got the money? It's Persian. Alexander hasn't yet, because he's spent it all largely to fund this expedition. He and Philip, they're investing in this, but he hasn't got lots of cash.

• 37:54Tristan Hughes?

  I mean, there is that other thing, isn't it? That, you know, with Alexander, when he evades, he doesn't have the biggest resources in the world. And you get that fascinating story of this figure, Memelon of Rhodes, who I think he's still in the picture after Granicus, but he's almost like a foil to the barbarian Persian satraps, though. So you need to kind of take of a pinch of salt, because he's a Greek. But him almost advising what seems in hindsight, the better strategy of then 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 do something so destructive. But yeah.

• 38:36Speaker 02

  Exactly. It's fine when it's other people's property. And the point of view from the cities, Alexander's basically eaten up 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, don't 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

• 39:18Speaker 02

  the logic is actually protect their lands, meet the Macedonians early on and beat them.

• 39:25Speaker 02

  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 marshals, Marshal MacDonald, because of the Scottish ancestry, he tends in Anglophone sources to get quite a good write-up, rather more than perhaps is deserved, just because we like it. It's one of ours, you know, that. And 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 going to have to be making your decisions on, on the spot. You can't consult with the great king. It takes too long.

• 40:08Tristan Hughes?

  Yeah.

• 40:09Speaker 02

  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 them 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 join in.

• 40:27Tristan Hughes?

  And this is what defines the next part, isn't it? So from Granicus, if you think, let's say near Troy, so like Hesarlic, so northwest Anatolia, what he does is he follows the Aegean Sea coast down those, which are the Greek cities in Persian occupation at the time, and takes them one by one, goes all the way down, also goes inland to Sardis, obviously capital of the famous semi-mythologized King Cretesis and the like. So another rich area. Ephesus, the story of linking 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 all the way. Myliitis, 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

• 41:12Tristan Hughes?

  other cities to his side. So much so that you get to places like Halycanassus, which is another scene as this is one of the first big notable sieges that he faces. You've got Memnon of Rhodes there on the opposition and Halycanassus, which we mentioned in the last chat, as the home of that guy who was considering to defect to Philip. I don't think he's there at the moment, Pixodaros. 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 conquests down the seaboard.

• 41:39Speaker 02

  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 not, 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.

• 42:19Speaker 02

  I think you possibly can, so that the next one you come to 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, whatever I need. So it breaks down into lots of less famous, you know, we, all our attention's drawn to the Granicus. And that's important. Alexander could have lost the battle and his life, lost the war rather, 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 Halicarnassus. And having an army with the skill to mount a proper siege that pushes towards an assault.

• 43:01Speaker 02

  It isn't just, I'm going to blockade you and I wait for you to starve, because that can take months, years. You know, it takes how many years for the Athenian to take Potidaur 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 Halicarnassus will fall to him. 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, how do I come through this, still in power, still prosperous. But it's that's how the war is won. And this is, this is what makes the Macedonian, it marks the matter

• 43:46Speaker 02

  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.

• 43:53Tristan Hughes?

  And it keeps on going. So he takes that western seaboard of Anatolia. The Persian fleet is mega powerful and still there and thereabouts. And Memnon 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 Phoenicians and the Cypriots and so on, who are the like 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.

• 44:29Speaker 02

  The thing with fleets is they are incredibly expensive. These are warships that are galleys rowed by very large crews for their side. All those crews need to be paid, fed, whereas they're not doing anything. Alexander doesn't have the money to match the Persians. And it's not a Persian fleet. It's 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 of their bases, but often it's the home port, it's where the contingents of the fleet have come from. So once you've captured their homeland, they're going to change sides as well, as several

• 45:13Speaker 02

  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 around in some of the sieges around the harbors. 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 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's a logical thing to do within that.

• 45:57Speaker 02

  And it gradually succeeds, but it takes a long time.

• 46:00Tristan Hughes?

  After this, let's say, after Hadecanassus, he starts heading eastwards. And by this time, taking control of the old administrative centres of the Persians and either putting in Macedonians loyal 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 Hadecanassus is that there's almost this motherlike figure of Alexander, Queen Ada, who I think there's one that she cooks in 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 charge of these places that he takes over from the beginning. And then he heads eastwards. I always kind of picture it almost like a horseshoe shape because he doesn't then go

• 46:42Tristan Hughes?

  into 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 city high up. And so he kind of avoids those hillmen and he focuses in on like the Persian administrative centres, another one, Kilini, which is just a bit inland. And then he reaches a place, which I guess is not too far from Ankara today, or is it that kind of area? Gordium? Gordium? Home of the, once again, we've done Cretesis already, this is King Midas in Midas touch. And this is the story where we get the Gordian knot.

• 47:26Speaker 02

  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.

• 48:08Speaker 02

  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 slack it open, which always sounds very Alexander. But frankly, both of them, 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 going to cut it through. It's, again, it's so famous, we talk of it being used in press stories today, you know, the Gordian, 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

• 48:53Speaker 02

  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 waves are supposed to bow down to him and all this stuff. There's an interesting story about 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 Horises 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.

• 49:34Speaker 02

  He didn't need these boasts, given what he does, but he couldn't resist the, 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 in this?

• 49:59Speaker 01

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• 50:43Speaker 04

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• 51:44Tristan Hughes?

  But he is also visiting like the prime cities all in that area, isn't he? Avoiding the Highlands we mentioned earlier. So he's done Sardis, Ephesus, Helicarnassus, Chalini, as mentioned, another important 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? Oh.

• 52:05Speaker 02

  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 political diplomatic sense as well. These are the communities you need to come over to you. 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, 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 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 so 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, we were talking about earlier,

• 52:48Speaker 02

  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.

• 52:59Tristan Hughes?

  And Alexander, he doesn't stay there long. I mean, I do love, I think it's happened just before this. 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 over the winter or something like that, to spend time with their new wives.

• 53:17Speaker 02

  Yes. The idea to father children, basically to produce the next generation of soldiers, then you can come back and risk your life.

• 53:23Tristan Hughes?

  And they do, and they do, isn't it? They spend, they have that little time off and then they come back, knowing many of them will never ever see Macedonia again.

• 53:30Speaker 02

  Well, they probably, I mean, that's

• 53:32Tristan Hughes?

  Or maybe not knowing that.

• 53:33Speaker 02

  They don't know that. They think, because the way Philip's wars have been fought is you go off, you fight for a lot of the year, but you always come home.

• 53:39Tristan Hughes?

  Yes.

• 53:39Speaker 02

  And it's been practical because 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. They haven't been allowed to do it. Sorry.

• 53:53Tristan Hughes?

  Yeah, I should have said that, like, not realising

• 53:55Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 53:56Tristan Hughes?

  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 333 B.C. 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 ports. So his next stop is going towards, what is modern day Syria, southeast Turkey today, and Talia, I guess.

• 54:18Speaker 02

  Yes, yeah, basically, it's um, and it's again, it is the easiest way to go for particularly 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 moved. So you're building 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 them enough,

• 55:02Speaker 02

  but 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 has started 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

• 55:44Speaker 02

  armies are blundering around, blind, but you know that somewhere out there eventually 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 because I can't sit down. A, 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.

• 56:19Tristan Hughes?

  He knows that sooner or later Darius is going to be ready. And it's interesting, you mentioned, so. That ancient region known as Cilicia or Cilicia, 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 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 medic,

• 56:51Speaker 02

  Doctor.

• 56:51Tristan Hughes?

  The doctor to kill him and he doesn't.

• 56:53Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 56:53Tristan Hughes?

  So you're saying I'm.

• 56:54Speaker 02

  And Alexander shows you'll trust him by drinking the draught that he's, you know, it's again, it's that mixture of, again, Alexander the savage and Alexander the very kind, the very common, you know, I trust you, I, it's, it's, they're always both there.

• 57:07Tristan Hughes?

  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's 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 him?

• 57:33Speaker 02

  It's a shock to everybody, you know, he arrives, he suddenly finds that there's a depot, almost a hospital area where he finds Macedonian wounded and sick that are recovering and he overruns that man. But again, these are, you know, these are two boxes in a dark room. These are, they don't have all the advantages of modern intelligence gathering. They don't know where the other, the enemy is. They hope that as you get closer, you'll notice from reports, from signs, from the big plume of dust that the marching feet will throw up. But it's the whole, you know, Isus is a battle that largely occurs by accident. When Darius ends up behind Alexander.

• 58:09Tristan Hughes?

  Because he's fed up of waiting for Alexander.

• 58:10Speaker 02

  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, it'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 anyways. 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

• 58:55Speaker 02

  that the Persians are behind him, doesn't believe it at first, they have to go and check. They they go and then thinks, okay, well, I better do something about it. So turns around and marches towards 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 Issus, and it's basically another obstacle. As they've done it, Granicus will wait here, you can come to us, and you've got to go through the difficult ground to fight us.

• 59:25Tristan Hughes?

  To the Panaros, or River Issus, as you say, where where he is. And it's so fascinating. You always have to look at a map to see the idea of how he kind of, once again, a horseshit kind of goes round Alexander to end up in like in Cilicia, and that when Alexander coming back up the Syrian coastline to deal with Darius after Darius supposedly like 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 100,000 men. It's between 50 and 100,000 is.

• 59:58Speaker 02

  Plausible. 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 300,000, a million, or how do you know? We, the human mind, we can cope in, that's a lot. But the odds, the odds are that nobody's 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.

• 1:00:41Tristan Hughes?

  Spear and shield.

• 1:00:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, basically, 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, 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.

• 1:01:24Speaker 02

  So that the phalanx begins, I think it's thirty two ranks deep, goes to sixteen, goes to eight.

• 1:01:29Tristan Hughes?

  Splits up, yeah.

• 1:01:30Speaker 02

  Which gives you again, an idea of just how there is, there is space between these units. They aren't just the solid walls of men 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 Paspeits first to break open and then goes back, mounts up and leads the companion cavalry through the

• 1:01:51Tristan Hughes?

  Here Paspeits, they're like the elite foot guards.

• 1:01:53Speaker 02

  Yes, they're the close, 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 equipment, which 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 routs. And Darius runs, which of course Alexander presents as, well, 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 to get

• 1:02:37Speaker 02

  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.

• 1:02:44Tristan Hughes?

  This is the big one for the Greek.

• 1:02:45Speaker 02

  And it's also, it's a big one for the Persian attempts to fight with infantry altogether because their own troops equipped in Greek style, with this, 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.

• 1:03:00Tristan Hughes?

  And it's a clear victory for Alexander. And bear in mind, this is late three, three, three B.C. 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.

• 1:03:15Speaker 02

  But it's still two years. You know, we look at a nice chronological chart and we think historical, 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 Akeem and King of this dynasty that's been there for centuries, the great conquerors, the great superpower. 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.

• 1:03:57Tristan Hughes?

  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 is yeah, immortalized in the house of the faun at Pompeii, that floor mosaic. Or was it, 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, the 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

• 1:04:39Tristan Hughes?

  the written sources, but then you have that mosaic surviving as well.

• 1:04:44Speaker 02

  Well, and it's the main colored representation of Alexander. So all the theories about what color his hair was and this sort of thing. That's what we've got to go on other than the descriptions. So and it's, 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 Colin Farrell.

• 1:04:59Tristan Hughes?

  An Irish accent.

• 1:05:00Speaker 02

  Uh, yes, exactly. What, you know, Burton before, there was a Welshman originally. So it's actually, he's shown there with sort of mid colored hair now again fading and it's a copy of an original, earlier original, but it's might be that Mediterranean. Well, it wasn't really black hair. It was, so it was light.

• 1:05:15Tristan Hughes?

  Shall we finish this episode? We've done really well in this, doing Granicus and Issus and the early campaign of Alexander in Anatolia. The last great story attached to Issus, which is the immediate aftermath where Darius has fled east, but he's left his baggage behind, which isn't just baggage.

• 1:05:34Speaker 02

  That seemed a rude way of talking about it. We're getting into a chariot film country now. Sorry. I spoiled your.

• 1:05:41Tristan Hughes?

  The baggage which is not just objects.

• 1:05:44Speaker 02

  Right, okay, sorry, yeah.

• 1:05:46Tristan Hughes?

  Take it away, Adrian, go on, take it away.

• 1:05:49Speaker 02

  Well, you have the, the women of the royal household, 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 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.

• 1:06:12Tristan Hughes?

  His wife and his mum.

• 1:06:13Speaker 02

  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, everyone's an Alexander in the army and this sort of thing. 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 royalty. So it's putting himself on an equal with, and if anything, as a superior, because I can deign 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 as a result of a miscarriage. So there's all the theories, you know, was he quite as honorable as, as the man?

• 1:06:57Speaker 02

  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 won a victory in his 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 Punic War. And then the great, he doesn't touch the Spanish, Inberian 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 comes, 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.

• 1:07:42Tristan Hughes?

  The Chevalier Alexander and also, you know, another of those stories that links the closeness of Alexander with Hefesjin, you know, that companion, almost certainly love her as well, saying when they misidentify, they think Hefesjin's Alexander and Alexander going like, Hefesjin is just as much Alexander as I am. So it's, it's an interesting one. But that is the aftermath of this is, 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.

• 1:08:21Speaker 02

  That's the thing with Alexander. He does something spectacular and it's not the end. There's just more to come. It's why it's such a huge story.

• 1:08:28Tristan Hughes?

  Just the beginning. Adrian, thank you so much for taking the time to come back on the show for episode two.

• 1:08:34Speaker 02

  Thanks for having me.

• 1:08:40Tristan Hughes?

  That was episode two of our special series about Alexander the Great with the one and only Dr Adrian Goldsworthy. I hope you enjoyed the episode. In the next episode, we will be continuing the story. We'll explore how Alexander goes from south eastern Turkey today. He goes down the coastline of the Mediterranean, big sieges at places like Tyre and Gaza, his venture to Egypt and 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.

• 1:09:23Tristan Hughes?

  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 your podcasts. That really helps us and you'll be doing us a big favour. If you'd also be kind enough to leave us a rating as well, well, we'd really appreciate that. Don't forget, you can also sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries with a new release every week. Sign up at historyhit.com/subscribe.

• 1:09:56Speaker 01

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