Hi, thanks for tuning in to ancient Greece declassified.

Episode 38, Alexander the Great inherited glory.

Everyone knows about Alexander the Great and his epic conquest of most of the world known to the ancient Greeks 2300 years ago.

But few today know about his father, Philip II, the guy who transformed Macedonia from a backwater kingdom into a

major world power, and who built and trained the army that Alexander then inherited and used

to conquer the mighty Persian Empire. So was Alexander really that great on his own, or did he

owe much of his success to the work of his father father Philip? That's what we're going to find out

today. I figured you guys could use a little break from the ongoing Republic series, so I thought

we might do something more historical and less philosophical. Of course, the topic of Philip and

Alexander is not completely unrelated to Plato's Republic, since it was Plato's student

Aristotle who was recruited by Philip

to tutor the young Alexander.

So I guess you could say that Plato was Alexander's intellectual grandfather.

And next time we'll get back to the Republic and pick up from where we left off.

But now, here to discuss the often overlooked role of Philip in laying the foundations for Alexander's conquests is Adrian Goldsworthy,

military historian and author of the new book Philip and Alexander, Kings and Conquerors.

Now, what sets this book apart from the many other books you can find on Alexander the Great is that it gives Philip a central

role in the story. The first half of the book recounts the life, adventures, and accomplishments

of Philip, and the second half presents the more familiar story of Alexander's conquests as a

sequel to the campaigns of Philip. Now before we get into the discussion, this episode represents a new

milestone in the evolution of this podcast. We are finally adding a video component to a lot of

these conversations. If you're a visual person, you can enjoy this entire episode on my YouTube

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