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- [00:01]
Sally Helm
This episode is brought to you by US Cellular. Some things are worth waiting for, like getting your diploma or finding the right partner. You know what's not worth waiting for? The cable guy. Fortunately, US Cellular's home Internet is so simple to install, you can do it yourself. And it's just $39.99 per month when bundled with a wireless plan with a three year price lock guarantee. US Cellular Home Internet made simple without the waiting terms apply. Visit uscellular.com for details.
- [00:30]
Rachel Kauser
Want to shop Walmart? Black Friday deals first Walmart plus members get early access to our hottest deals. Join now and get 50% off a one year annual membership. Shop Black Friday deals first with Walmart plus see terms@walmartplus.com the History Channel Original Podcast History this Week, November 14, 332 BCE hi, I'm Sally Helm. Memphis, the cosmopolitan capital of ancient Egypt. It's a bustling city, home to a wide range of different cultures. There are spice markets, temples, a vast palace orchard growing things like olives and dates. For about a decade now, Memphis has been under Persian rule, part of the largest empire in the world. But today, a new conqueror will rise to power. Alexander the great is just 24 years old, but he's already a legend in his time. In the last four years, he's been king of the Macedonians and much of ancient Greece, and he has recently invaded the Persian empire, which spans over 2 million square miles. Alexander has conquered city after city, and now he has come to Egypt, a place that in his mind, has an almost mythical status. The young conqueror is actually greeted in Memphis as a liberator because he's defeated the hated Persian king, Darius iii, and perhaps also because he's shown respect for Egyptian religious traditions. And today he receives an incredible honor, one that will change the way Egypt sees Alexander and the way Alexander sees himself. Here in Memphis, Alexander is declared Pharaoh of Egypt. One account describes the scene. A red and white crown is placed on Alexander's head, a crook and flail placed in his hands. As pharaoh, he's a political ruler, but he's also the closest thing to a divine being on earth. This moment seems to be a turning point in Alexander's inner life. And really, wouldn't it be a turning point for anyone to be declared not just a king, but practically a God? After this, Alexander will conquer more lands, take over more cities, cement his own legend, and perhaps begin to lose touch with the mere mortal men around him. Within a decade, the young Alexander will be dead. Today, Alexander the Great. How did his imperial goals intertwine with his other goal of becoming an almost divine being. And as he approached the edge of his known world, how did it all fall apart? The holiday season officially starts when you get that first card in the mail. Shutterfly makes it easy to add more meaning to the everyday with hundreds of holiday card designs that can be personalized in seconds with your favorite photos from this year. Select your greeting, customize the color, and even add little extras like personalized foil to make a holiday card that really shines. Enjoy 40% off with code smile40@shutterfly.com and send something meaningful this year. See site for more details. Hello everyone, my name is Wesley Levisay. From the History of the Second World War podcast, join me on a journey through the most destructive conflict in human history. A journey that will take us not just through the famous campaigns and cataclysmic battles, but also to the lesser, well known corners of the war that touched millions all over the world as we try and answer not just the questions of what and where, but how and why. You can find history of the Second World War on all major podcast platforms.
- [05:12]
Sally Helm
Or at historyofthesecondworldwar.com this episode is brought to you by Allstate. Some people just know they could save hundreds on car insurance by checking Allstate First. Like you know to check the date of the big game first before you accidentally buy tickets on your 20th wedding anniversary and have to spend the next 20 years of your marriage making up for it. Yeah, checking first is smart, so check Allstate first for a quote that could save you hundreds. You're in good hands with Allstate Savings. Vary terms apply. Allstate Fire and Casualty Insurance Company and.
- [05:44]
Rachel Kauser
Affiliates Northbrook, Illinois Alexander the Great becomes King of Macedonia at just 20 years old, and the early years of his life typically get the most attention.
- [05:56]
Wesley Levisay
He's just this young, sort of implausibly successful king who just zooms through and seems to have absolutely frictionless, almost conquest.
- [06:06]
Rachel Kauser
Rachel Kauser is a professor and author of a book about Alexander's later years. She told us Alexander's early life seems easy, but there is a lot of drama, starting from the moment he becomes king.
- [06:21]
Wesley Levisay
We know for sure that his father, Philip ii, King of Macedon, was stabbed right before Alexander's eyes.
- [06:31]
Rachel Kauser
Alexander's father, Philip, the King of Macedonia, is killed by one of his own bodyguards at his daughter's wedding celebration.
- [06:39]
Wesley Levisay
We know who the assassin was, but we don't know, rather like jfk, if he acted alone or whether he was the vehicle of somebody else's ambitions.
- [06:50]
Rachel Kauser
Somebody else being maybe Alexander. Philip had just married his seventh wife and their eventual son could have competed with Alexander for the Macedonian throne. Whether he engineered his rise to power or not, once he actually is king, Alexander's ambition is soon on full display. He invades the Persian Empire, then the largest empire in the world, and he starts to win battle after battle. But for Alexander, military victories are not enough. He has a desire to make himself something more than just a leader of men, something almost mythological. As a child, Alexander had been obsessed with ancient Greek mythology, particularly the story of Achilles which was retold in Homer's epic poem the Iliad. Achilles is a war hero with only one weak spot, his heel. Alexander learns the story from his tutor Aristotle. Yes, that Aristotle, who personally annotated a copy of the Iliad to help his student understand the meaning behind Achilles journey. Alexander is said to have slept with this book under his pillow for the rest of his life.
- [08:09]
Wesley Levisay
He also believed from the get go that he was descended from both. Achilles on his mother's side, Heracles on his father's side.
- [08:17]
Rachel Kauser
So when this 20 year old becomes king and starts conquering the world, maybe he thinks he can be a mythical hero too. One of Alexander's early mythical moments comes in 333bce. He's at Gordium, a major city in the Persian empire. Famously, Gordium is home to a knot like K N O T. And they.
- [08:44]
Wesley Levisay
Tell him that the story is that the person who can unravel this knot will be the true king of the Persian Empire.
- [08:53]
Rachel Kauser
Now because this happened over 2000 years ago, there are competing versions of what happens next.
- [08:58]
Wesley Levisay
In one of them he realizes that there's a pin holding the knot together and he pulls out the pin and the whole thing just miraculously unravels. I tend to believe story number two, which is he takes the sword and he just goes and slashes it. It's almost too good to be true either way. But it's clear that he needed to do it and he needed to show that he was going to be king by hook or by crooked.
- [09:31]
Rachel Kauser
Alexander is young, but he's learning how to rule. And he realizes that he can't just come into this foreign land, the Persian empire take over, and expect all of these new subjects to respect him. It's important that he builds up a mythos around himself and also that he does it in a way that reflects the local culture. The Persians have learned something similar. They often left local leaders in place after their own conquests. And when Alexander makes it to Egypt, he's insistent on being crowned their leader, crowned a pharaoh.
- [10:09]
Wesley Levisay
It's one of the first moments where we see his willingness to be not just a Macedonian king, but a king for all the people of his empire and to take on and embody in a fairly substantial and thoughtful way the roles that the conquered peoples of his empire expected their ruler to have.
- [10:34]
Rachel Kauser
In the ancient Greek world, rulers were generally not treated as gods. There was nearly always a sharp distinction between mortals and the divine. But in Egypt, the line is blurrier and Alexander seems curious to explore it. So soon after he is declared pharaoh, he goes to an oracle, a place where priests provide answers to life's biggest questions. For Alexander, that question right now is something like, am I actually an Egyptian God slash king?
- [11:10]
Wesley Levisay
Alexander takes time out of establishing his government in Egypt to make a trek way out into the Libyan desert to go to this oracle.
- [11:21]
Rachel Kauser
This is the Oracle of Siwa, said to be the only oracle able to communicate with the Egyptian God Amun. Amun is the chief God, equivalent to Zeus in ancient Greece. And Alexander makes it out to this.
- [11:34]
Wesley Levisay
Remote desert spot and supposedly there he's greeted by the priest. Hail, son of Amun. Which is the appropriate thing you would say to a pharaoh.
- [11:50]
Rachel Kauser
Yeah, any pharaoh would be greeted this way. You know, it's sort of like, your highness. And we don't actually know what answers Alexander got once he went inside the oracle. But this, Hail, son of Amun, he takes that very literally. He makes it into a thing.
- [12:06]
Wesley Levisay
His followers even kind of complain about it and make fun of him later on for doing so. But it is his first place where we really see him claiming to be in some way divine.
- [12:18]
Rachel Kauser
Alexander's next goal, the thing he feels he has to do to cement his power and his myth, is to finally capture the Persian king, Darius iii.
- [12:29]
Wesley Levisay
He was hoping, desperately hoping, that what he would do was capture Darius alive, have him submit, have him acknowledge, bow down and acknowledge Alexander as the new great king of Persia.
- [12:45]
Rachel Kauser
That would give him something close to divine status in the eyes of the Persian empire. The Persian kings weren't necessarily gods, but they were chosen by their gods to rule. So after he visits the oracle of Siwa, Alexander pursues Darius. He spends the next two years on the hunt, finally capturing Persepolis, the Persian capital. But Darius has already escaped.
- [13:14]
Wesley Levisay
He knows that Darius is somewhere going east and he's rushing to get him. And he sheds soldiers relentlessly in this really tough trek through the mountains and deserts of eastern Iran.
- [13:27]
Rachel Kauser
Some of Alexander's soldiers are beginning to question his leadership. Many of them already feel that he's losing touch with who he is, ignoring his Macedonian roots, He's embracing the religions of Egypt. He's wearing purple like a Persian king. Now they think, we just sacked the Persian capital. Haven't we already won? Do we really have to keep chasing Darius? So some soldiers call it quits. Others are simply too exhausted to continue. And Alexander has no problem leaving them in the dust.
- [14:04]
Wesley Levisay
He had an army of 30,000. He's down to about 3,000.
- [14:10]
Rachel Kauser
After weeks of continuous pursuit from Persepolis, Alexander spots Darius troops in the distance and they scatter.
- [14:21]
Wesley Levisay
The remnants of the Persian army just run away. And then there's supposedly this cart with grimy animal skins.
- [14:29]
Rachel Kauser
Darius had been transported in this humble cart. No one would suspect that a former king was inside. Alexander jumps onto the cart, pushing the skins aside.
- [14:42]
Wesley Levisay
Inside it is Darius, stabbed to death.
- [14:45]
Rachel Kauser
Apparently, when they saw Alexander's forces on the horizon, his soldiers had betrayed him, fearing that his presence endangered their own lives.
- [14:54]
Wesley Levisay
And that's the end of his hope of having that seamless transition of power that he was hoping for, that transfer.
- [15:03]
Rachel Kauser
This is a massive disappointment. Darius is dead, so now he can't submit. And Alexander can't further elevate himself as a divine figure in yet another empire.
- [15:16]
Wesley Levisay
So he keeps pushing forward against tremendous opposition from his troops. By this point, they are something on the order of 1,500 miles from home. They have been fighting for four years. They feel that they have spent a lot of time and suffered a lot. And especially after Darius death, they're ready to say, like this, is it enough already? They're ready to go home.
- [15:41]
Rachel Kauser
But Alexander says, we're not going home.
- [15:45]
Wesley Levisay
They're only about halfway through the Persian Empire and the whole Eastern Empire, Afghanistan, Central Asia, Pakistan, is still unconquered and still a threat. So he has good strategic reasons for what he's doing. But I think there is also part of him that just wanted to see what he could get, what he could do.
- [16:08]
Rachel Kauser
If you were to look at a world map from Alexander's time, you wouldn't recognize it. Europe, some of Asia, some of Africa. They're all one mass of land surrounded by an endless ocean. That's what Alexander thought was out there.
- [16:23]
Wesley Levisay
He was told by Aristotle that there is this ocean that surrounds the continents and is basically the end of the world.
- [16:32]
Rachel Kauser
And that is where Alexander wants to go.
- [16:36]
Wesley Levisay
Aristotle tells him that at the top of the Hindu Kush Mountains in Afghanistan, he's going to be able to see that ocean and it's going to be gray and it's going to be mysterious and it's going to be boundless and it's going to be full of months. And that is what he's trying to get to.
- [16:51]
Rachel Kauser
He's partly just interested to see this thing he's read about to like, prove a scientific hypothesis, confirm that this ocean exists. But as is often the case with Alexander, there's also a mythological component, one that goes back to the Iliad, which some say he still keeps under his pillow.
- [17:12]
Wesley Levisay
Ocean is a character. Okeanos is a character. He's the father of Thetis, the grandfather of Achilles. So it's both a kind of, you know, sort of scientific thing, but also a kind of mystical thing.
- [17:26]
Rachel Kauser
The Persian Empire is not enough. Alexander wants to expand his reach to the end of the world. But it is not at all clear that he can get his remaining soldiers to join him on this quest. Way to eat a tea. You listening to an app at PC Game Pass? Want new games on day one? Like Indiana Jones and the Great Circle? How about living out your SIMS Life with EA Play? We talking high quality PC games, all for one low monthly price? We got you. Learn more at Xbox.com PC Game Pass or click the banner Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. Available December 9, 2024. Game catalog varies by region and over time. Okay, that's the ad. You can go back to doing whatever you were doing now.
- [18:19]
Sally Helm
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- [18:52]
Rachel Kauser
Good things come to those who plan ahead.
- [18:54]
Wesley Levisay
Family vacay.
- [18:55]
Rachel Kauser
Reserve your ride as soon as you book your flights to all the planners. Now you can reserve your Uber ride.
- [19:01]
Wesley Levisay
Up to 90 days in advance.
- [19:03]
Rachel Kauser
See Uberat for details. Having sacked the Persian capital, Alexander the Great is looking east. He wants to expand his empire to the edge of the known world, bringing himself closer to the Greek heroes that he worships, whatever the cost. So he moves his troops deeper into the remains of the Persian empire, fighting battle after battle, losing more and more soldiers. The ones that do survive are exhausted. Some of them haven't been home in over six years. And the campaign isn't going all that well. Over A year after Darius death, Alexander's army's pace has slowed. At the end of 329bce, Alexander is forced to spend part of the winter in Maraconda, a city in present day Uzbekistan, while he waits for reinforcements to arrive. During this waiting period, Alexander organizes a banquet to honor the Greek God of wine, Dionysus.
- [20:10]
Wesley Levisay
There are two things that I think you should never have simultaneously at a feast. One of them is alcohol, and the second is weapons.
- [20:18]
Rachel Kauser
At this banquet, the drinks are flowing and many of Alexander's top officers are present, including Cleitus the Black Cleitus, who.
- [20:30]
Wesley Levisay
Is a Macedonian officer, a kind of bluff, hard drinking guy who's a generation older than Alexander, about the age of his father.
- [20:39]
Rachel Kauser
Cleitus had been a cavalry officer under Alexander's father, Philip, and he's been with Alexander since the beginning. They have a special bond.
- [20:49]
Wesley Levisay
Cleitus had once saved his life in battle by cutting off the arm of somebody who was about to attack this rather impetuous young king. So he's somebody to whom he owes his life. He's forever indebted.
- [21:02]
Rachel Kauser
But now Cleitus, patience is beginning to wear thin. At this banquet, he's listening to Alexander's supporters go on and on about how Alexander is a greater warrior than Philip ever was, how he's the son of Zeus and the son of Amun, and it seems that Cleitus has had enough.
- [21:24]
Wesley Levisay
So Cleitus gets really drunk and he starts this tirade against Alexander.
- [21:32]
Rachel Kauser
He says, basically, Alexander calling yourself a God is blasphemy. And he doesn't stop there.
- [21:40]
Wesley Levisay
He says that he doesn't live up to his father, that his father fought men like Macedonians and Greeks, and he is fighting Persians, which is like fighting women, the ultimate insult for a Macedonian soldier.
- [21:57]
Rachel Kauser
So Cleitus is blatantly insulting the Persians and by extension insulting Alexander the Great, whose guards can see that things might get out of hand.
- [22:08]
Wesley Levisay
Alexander is getting really angry, but he's trying to control himself. And his bodyguards have carefully tried to move away all the swords and all the spears and everything. And he looks around for his sword and realizes it's not there, and he panics and he lunges at Cleitus. His bodyguards all grab him the way that you could imagine, like a college drinking party. You're trying to prevent your friend from doing something that they are going to regret.
- [22:41]
Rachel Kauser
The next morning, Alexander is freaking out. He's quite drunk, and he doesn't really understand why his own men are holding him back.
- [22:50]
Wesley Levisay
He thinks that he is going to be killed like Darius. He thinks he's about to be assassinated and he orders them to let him go. So they're finally like, okay, enough, whatever, he's the king.
- [23:06]
Rachel Kauser
Alexander turns on Cleitus the Black.
- [23:11]
Wesley Levisay
He grabs this 18 foot long spear from a nearby officer, plunges it through. Clitus kills him at once.
- [23:25]
Rachel Kauser
Cleitus, this loyal soldier that had served both Alexander and his father, is dead, killed by Alexander.
- [23:36]
Wesley Levisay
He sort of comes to himself, realizes that he's just killed this guy to whom he owes his life, and he tries to kill himself.
- [23:44]
Rachel Kauser
He pulls the spear out from Cleitus body and points it towards his own body.
- [23:50]
Wesley Levisay
It's the only time we know of that he ever contemplates suicide. And his bodyguards grab the spear at that point and take him away. And he's weeping and crying. He refuses food and drink for three days. I mean, it is for him, I think, a devastating moment.
- [24:10]
Rachel Kauser
Rachel Kauser says this is really Alexander's rock bottom in many ways. It's the beginning of the end. And yet he continues east through two more years of brutal fighting. Finally, Alexander has made it to the Hyphasis river in modern day India.
- [24:28]
Wesley Levisay
It's clear from the literary sources that he is just planning to just keep on going. And the soldiers are just like, ugh, no. And they're terrified to say anything because how could they disappoint their king?
- [24:42]
Rachel Kauser
Alexander and many of his men have now been on this campaign for eight years. Their armor is worn out, their horses hooves are worn out, and for the last 70 days it has been raining. Alexander can sense their exhaustion. And he gives a speech all about how they're on the brink of creating a universal empire. He says he can complete a task greater than those of the Greek demigod Heracles. And then it's time for the soldiers to talk.
- [25:17]
Wesley Levisay
Koinus, who's one of his closest companions and closest friends, takes off his helmet and begins to speak. And he basically says, you know, we can't go any farther. We are exhausted. If you have the energy to go further, send us back. Create another army and take them. But we cannot, we can go no further. And Alexander is clearly dumbfounded. He's not expecting this. And he goes and he sulks in his tent for three days. And I think he's hoping that they're going to kind of back down.
- [25:54]
Rachel Kauser
They don't back down. And realizing that he's not going to be able to convince his men to continue on, he turns once Again to the divine.
- [26:08]
Wesley Levisay
He summons his soothsayers and has them make sacrifices to the gods and consults omens. And the omens conveniently say that you really shouldn't go any further. And so this allows him to say, okay, it's not that I'm giving in to my soldiers, the gods are against me. We're going to go home.
- [26:34]
Rachel Kauser
Alexander doesn't go all the way back to Macedonia. He establishes a new capital in the ancient city of Babylon in modern day Iraq. His empire now includes most of the Persian Empire, the Egyptian empire, the kingdom of Macedonia, and the Greek states his father had conquered. And Alexander realizes that he's now accumulated enough power to make a new demand of the Greek city states. He sends them a I, Alexander, am now officially a Greek God too. Demosthenes, an Athenian politician and critic of Alexander, reacts sarcastically. Let him be son of Zeus and Poseidon too, if he likes. Most of Greece, however, seems to accept Alexander's deification. He seems to believe he's a God, and now so do the Greeks. At least they believe him enough. And that's also good for Alexander politically. He needs to continue to consolidate power if he's going to finish his conquest of the world.
- [27:41]
Wesley Levisay
Alexander is setting his sights on Arabia, the Arabian Peninsula, the only sort of major unconquered area in the heart of his empire.
- [27:51]
Rachel Kauser
But this next conquest would never come to pass.
- [27:56]
Wesley Levisay
It's still a mystery. We know that he has a fever. We know that he has it for about 10 days.
- [28:04]
Rachel Kauser
In 323 BCE, Alexander falls ill. We.
- [28:09]
Wesley Levisay
Have some extensive descriptions, but they're not clear enough to me to diagnose an illness. Although I must say, some ancient history loving medical doctors have tried pride. Some of them diagnosed malaria, which of course, for a swampy place like Babylon's, not surprising. Some of them diagnosed typhoid, also very common in the ancient world. And of course, some of the literary sources say this was poison.
- [28:37]
Rachel Kauser
We'll probably never know the exact cause, but at the age of 32, Alexander the Great dies, his mythic dreams unfulfilled. But his death does show just how successful he was in manufacturing his own divine image.
- [28:57]
Wesley Levisay
Shortly after his lifetime, he's honored as a God and called Alexandros Magas, Alexander the Great. And yet to me, a big question is, what is that greatness? Should we call him that?
- [29:09]
Rachel Kauser
He certainly would have wanted us to. Alexander seems to have believed that he was a God and he tried his best to act like one.
- [29:19]
Wesley Levisay
And so while I see him certainly as a charismatic in some ways, larger than life figure. I also see him as struggling and terribly young. He becomes king at 20, which is mind boggling.
- [29:32]
Rachel Kauser
Rachel Kauser says Alexander did really try to be a good ruler. He may have had an insatiable drive to expand his empire, but that drive and even his drive to be seen as a God, it had this collateral effect of uniting people behind him.
- [29:52]
Wesley Levisay
Here is a guy who's trying to forge a nation out of very disparate peoples, religions, cultures, all of that.
- [30:03]
Rachel Kauser
And he does it in part by taking up the customs of these other cultures, becoming the son of Zeus, the pharaoh of Egypt, the son of Amun. He also makes sure that people from kingdoms he conquered were then represented in his military, creating a true international force.
- [30:22]
Wesley Levisay
And so I think that to me is sort of like that capacity is what makes him compelling and I think something we could learn from.
- [30:33]
Rachel Kauser
In the Iliad, Alexander's favorite book, the hero Achilles defeats Hector, a Trojan prince and his main adversary. But the book doesn't end there.
- [30:45]
Wesley Levisay
Instead, where the Iliad ends is with Hector's father, Priam, coming to Achilles asking for the return of his child's body and Achilles recognizing the humanity of his enemy and giving the body back. It's a scene that, like I can be sitting on the subway reading and I like I burst into tears every time it gets me.
- [31:10]
Rachel Kauser
Alexander looked to Achilles as a heroic figure, as someone who relentlessly pursued greatness and vanquished anyone in his way. But maybe the Iliad, this epic story, also inspired Alexander's other legacy.
- [31:27]
Wesley Levisay
I wonder if, in fact, what Alexander took from the Iliad wasn't just the ideal of this kind of extraordinary heroism, but the part of the heroism was, in fact being able to recognize the humanity of the enemy.
- [31:53]
Rachel Kauser
Thanks for listening to History this week, a Back Pocket Studios production in partnership with the History Channel. To stay updated on all things history this week, sign up@historythisweekpodcast.com and if you have any thoughts or questions, send us an email@historythisweekistory.com Special thanks to our guest, Rachel Kauser, professor of Greek and Roman Art and Archaeology at the City University of New York and author of Alexander at the End of the World, the Forgotten Final Years of Alexander the Great. This episode was produced by David Weisbord, produced and sound designed by Ben Dickstein and produced and story edited by me, Sally Helm for Back Pocket Studios. Our executive producers are Ben Dickstein and David Weisbort from the History Channel. Our executive producers are Eli Lehrer and Liv Fiddler. Don't forget to follow. Rate and review History this Week, wherever you get your podcasts, and we'll see you next week. Hey listeners, we just want to let you know that as we head into the holidays, History this Week is not going anywhere. You'll have plenty of new stories to share with family and friends. So when you're showing off everything you learned, make sure to tell them you got it from History this Week.