Hello and welcome to the 97th episode of the Ancient Warfare podcast.

My name is Huss Portus. I am the editor of Ancient Warfare Magazine, and I'm here today with

Lindsay Powell, Murray Dom, Mark McCaffrey, and Mark DeSantis. It's a in-betweener episode, as we

call them, and today we're going to discuss Alexander the Great in Afghanistan.

I think it was suggested by one of our patrons.

That's always good.

Oh yeah, it was. Jared, thank you.

And I think we'll just launch straight into the questions with Jarrett's first one,

because it is a nice introduction.

Do you believe Alexander would have gone into the region had he not been pursuing Bessus?

Mark, would you like to kick us off on that one?

Of course, Alexander, after his initial invasion of Persia and the battles, the major battles,

that he encounters King Darius in

in terms of first at Isis and then at Gorgomela. After that, Darius falls from grace

and of course is eventually overwhelmed by a number of his satraps from the east in particular,

and particular Bessus, who takes on the mantle

of the new standing king as such, for a time taking Darius along with him, but again, later on,

getting rid of him and actually leaving him famously by the side of the road for Alexander to pick up,

you know, half dead and dying.

Now, Alexander, of course, when he took on Darius and beat him, he wanted, well, supposedly,

to actually take on the mantle of the new great king.

And to have that mantle, it would be very useful for him, propaganda-wise, to actually

...