Philip and Alexander: Kings and Conquerors
Dan Snow's History Hit
History Hit
4.7 • 13.7K Ratings
🗓️ 5 November 2020
⏱️ 59 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Alexander the Great. One of the most recognisable names in history. In his short lifetime he conquered the mighty Persian Empire and marched his army as far as the Indus River Valley. But it is important to remember that Alexander’s achievements were only possible because of his father Philip. It was Philip who transformed the Kingdom of Macedon from a backward domain into the dominant power in the Central Mediterranean. It was Philip who reformed the army and created the force that would serve as the nucleus of Alexander’s famous victories. Both were extraordinary leaders. Both embodied a charismatic style of leadership that helped transform them into semi-legendary conquerors.
Adrian Goldsworthy joined Tristan (@ancientstristan) on the podcast to talk about Philip and Alexander. One of Britain’s most renowned ancient historians, Adrian has written countless books on ancient Rome, and is the author of Philip and Alexander: Kings and Conquerors.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi everybody, welcome to Dan's Knows. History hit, we've got an episode of the ancient's for you today, Tristan aka |
| 0:08.3 | La Tristorian, geeking out heavily with Adrian Goldsworthy about their favourites, |
| 0:14.8 | fill it the second and Alexander the Great. Those Macedonians who conquered |
| 0:20.0 | First Greece and then a great chunk of the Near East. |
| 0:24.9 | Which is appropriate because today is the anniversary of the Battle of Issus. |
| 0:28.3 | I always remember this one, 333 BC Fort at Issus, which is just in the edge of southwest Turkey today. |
| 0:38.5 | As ever, Alexander the Great leading from the front, smashes through the Persian left flank typical, |
| 0:45.1 | heads straight for Darius, but then is forced to circle back leaving a Persian king to fight another day, |
| 0:52.4 | which he does, Battle of Gagamela. Anyway, he'll be hearing much more about that on this podcast. |
| 0:56.9 | Feel free to add over to the ancient's and wherever you get your pods, have a listen, |
| 1:00.6 | there's lots of fantastic podcasts on there about the Mediterranean Basin, but also lots of other parts |
| 1:06.9 | of the classical world as well. You can also listen to it on History Hit TV, you've got all our |
| 1:12.0 | podcasts, all our TV shows on there. We're going to lots of people watching our homage to 1917, |
| 1:17.6 | it's called 1916. Pretty original over here at History Hit and we shot an entire documentary in one |
| 1:24.0 | take, pretty awesome. If you use the code pod1pod1, check out you head over to history.tv, |
| 1:30.4 | you get a month of free in your second month, just one pound euro or dollar, so please go and do that. |
| 1:35.7 | In the meantime, everyone, enjoy this interview where our Tristan talks Adrian Goldworth. |
| 1:45.4 | Adrian, it is an absolute honor to have you on the show. Thank you for inviting me. |
| 1:50.6 | Now, Philip II and Alexander, this is the extraordinary story of two kings that change the |
| 1:57.2 | course of history. Yes, and Alexander's the famous one, you know, everybody knows that he's |
| 2:02.0 | something about him and they, because of familiarity, it's sometimes hard to remember that there's this |
| 2:06.6 | little kingdom in the north of Greece that suddenly dominates Greece and then marches off, defeats |
... |
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