Alexander the Great | Rise to Power
The Ancients
History Hit
4.7 • 4.5K Ratings
🗓️ 5 February 2026
⏱️ 85 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
NEW SERIES! Journey through the early life of Alexander the Great, from his education under Aristotle to his first military experiences and rise to Macedonian kingship.
In this first episode, charting Alexander's incredible early life, Tristan Hughes and Dr Adrian Goldsworthy explore Alexander's formative years, the Battles that built the world's most formidable military leader and the immediate challenges following his father's assassination.
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Presented by Tristan Hughes. Audio editor is Aidan Lonergan and the producer is Joseph Knight. The senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff.
All music courtesy of Epidemic Sounds
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Ever wondered why the Romans were defeated in the Tudorburg forest? |
| 0:04.0 | What secrets lie buried in prehistoric Ireland? |
| 0:07.0 | Or what made Alexander truly great? |
| 0:10.0 | With a subscription to history hit, you can explore our ancient past alongside the world's leading historians and archaeologists. |
| 0:17.0 | You'll also unlock hundreds of hours of original documentaries with a brand new release every |
| 0:21.8 | single week covering everything from the ancient world to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com |
| 0:28.4 | slash subscribe. Hello and welcome to this brand new series, all about one of the most |
| 0:36.1 | formidable military commanders of all time, Alexander the Great. |
| 0:41.4 | Now, many of you might know that I have a particular interest in this area of ancient history, |
| 0:46.8 | the tale of Alexander, but also that of what happened following his death, the chaos that followed |
| 0:53.3 | his early demise. |
| 0:55.0 | And one of the things that really drew me to this area of ancient history is the stories, |
| 1:01.0 | is the fact that we have so many amazing tales surviving from the age of Alexander, |
| 1:07.0 | concerning Alexander himself, but also, this is what I really love, concerning the figures that |
| 1:13.2 | surrounded him, that made Alexander the conqueror, the legendary figure that so many of us know |
| 1:20.1 | of today. Now, also, I must mention that a lot of you have been clamoring for us to do an episode, |
| 1:28.5 | to do a series, |
| 1:34.5 | a deep delve into the story of Alexander, and that is what we're now going to give you. |
| 1:39.9 | You can imagine that when the team gave the green light for this project, I was very, very excited. |
| 1:47.1 | But I couldn't have done it alone, and so we have, for this series, we've got a special guest. |
| 2:00.4 | We have the one and only, the fantastic Dr. Adrian Goldsworthy, who will be joining us for this series from beginning to end, covering the whole life of Alexander. My producer, Joseph and I, we headed over to |
| 2:03.7 | Adrian's house about a month or so ago, and we recorded this entire series in our day. |
... |
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