It's the ancients on History Hit. I'm Tristan Hughes your host and today we are going to

the rise of Macedon in particular we are talking about the lives of King Philip the second

and his famous son Alexander better known as Alexander the Great. Now in this podcast

to talk through the lives to give an overview of these two remarkable figures in antiquity

I was delighted to be joined by Adrian Goldsworthy. Adrian is one of the most renowned Roman historians

of our time. He has written books on Adrian's wall, Vindelander, Julius Caesar, Pax Romana

and more. But in his latest book he has decided to go a bit further back. He has gone to the

rise of Macedonia. He has gone to study, to focus on the lives of Philip and Alexander.

And this was a brilliant chat. Adrian is a fantastic communicator. This was great fun and

you are going to absolutely love it. Here without further ado is Adrian. Adrian it is an

absolute honor to have you on the show. Thank you for inviting me. Now Philip the second

and Alexander this is the extraordinary story of two kings that change the course of history.

Yes and Alexander's the famous one you know everybody knows that he's something about him

and they because of familiarity it's sometimes hard to remember that there's this little

kingdom in the north of Greece that suddenly dominates Greece and then marches off defeats

the Persian Empire, the Great Super Bar of the World and keeps going into modern day Pakistan

northern India and turns around eventually but is still clearly planning other things.

In such an incredibly short time it is one of those staggering achievements. The sheer

distance, the sheer scale of all this. But if we just look at Alexander the familiar bit

it makes no sense of how this kingdom can do it and Philip explains why this was possible

how this was possible. So his career is just as important as Alexander's and in many ways

more interesting though it's harder to understand because of our sources. And in regards to Philip

...