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W. Empire pod UK.com. Hello and me to Empire with me Anita Arnan and me William Trumpel.

No just no okay do not know I was just a note at my notes for describing the

wonderful battle which I'm about to give a ration on.

You have the most impish face on. I thought we dealt with this pause business and you're just deliberately now driving me to the edge of

distraction. I am all set to tell one of the most wonderful stories which we're

going to have on this pod. Yeah I mean you left us on a cliff edge it was the night

before the battle the great

battle where Darius the third is going to face Alexander the Great and everything that

could go wrong as far as signs and omens are concerned has gone wrong for Darius.

We have an eclipse that apparently turns the moon blood red first of all and then to darkness.

We've had meteors streak across the sky. We've got the priests who probably don't have the heart to tell Dereis. This is not good news saying could be good, could be bad.

And his wife has died in childbirth. And his wife has died bearing a child that almost certainly isn't his because his wife has been held

hostage by Alexander the Great. So you know this is this is not a good frame of mind that arise and what's more you told us just before in the last podcast all the preparations that the Persians have done for this great battle at Garamella removing removing all the vegetation, flattening the ground for the chariots.

They've seen it all.

Alexander's troops have seen it all because there is a great full moon and all of these battle

plans have been revealed the night before so they are ready they may not have the numbers but they have the preparation that that element of surprise has gone for the Persians so tell us about the Battle of Gogamela itself.

So I think the numbers are not bad. I mean, Arian, the Roman source, says that the Persian army is

40,000 cavalry and a million infantry. Extremely unlikely, almost certainly wrong, but I think the kind of considered opinion is that Alexander has about 47,000 men. So his troops are growing. He's conquered Egypt. He's conquered the whole of the

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