The Other Alexander

The Ancients

History Hit

History

4.7 • 3.5K Ratings

🗓️ 8 November 2020

⏱️ 39 minutes

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Summary

Alexander, an Ancient Greek king and a victorious conqueror. No, not that one, not Alexander the Great. This time, we’re talking about his uncle, Alexander I of Molossia. In 334BC, when Alexander the Great advanced east to conquer the Persian Empire, Alexander of Molossia was travelling west across the Ionian sea to the south of Italy. In addition to their matching names and simultaneous expansionist expeditions, both Alexanders were brought up in the court of Philip II of Macedon. But whilst one remains a household name, the other has sunk into obscurity. To explore the life of this lesser known Alexander, Tristan was joined by Dr. Ben Raynor. Ben is a former Moses and Mary Finley Fellow at Darwin College, University of Cambridge. He talks us through Alexander I of Molossia’s formative years in Philip’s court, his relationship with the Macedonian king and his own successes as a leader. Ben and Tristan also delve into the legends about Alexander’s death, and his omission from popular history.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	It's the ancients on History Hit. I'm Tristan Hughes, your host and in today's podcast
0:06.4	I'm delighted to say that we are looking at one of these forgotten figures of the ancient
0:11.0	Mediterranean world. Now in our previous podcast we were talking about Alexander the Great
0:15.7	and his father, Philip II, with the one and only Adrian Goldsworthy. And today we're
0:20.2	kind of keeping on a similar theme because we are talking about the other Alexander.
0:25.9	This is one of my personal favourite stories from Antiquity. Now in the same year that
0:31.2	Alexander the Great set forth to conquer the mighty Persian Empire in 334 BC. Exactly the
0:38.8	same year, slightly further to the West, in what is now North West gree slash southern
0:44.7	Albania. There was another King Alexander who set forth on his own intrepid expedition
0:51.7	West across the Ionian Sea to southern Italy. His name was King Alexander the First of
0:59.3	Milosha and his story about how he tried to forge his own empire in southern Italy.
1:05.1	It's absolutely extraordinary. And joining me to talk through the life what we know,
1:11.6	what are the stories surrounding King Alexander the First of Milosha is Dr Ben Reiner. Ben
1:17.2	has written papers all about Alexander the First Milosha and what we know about him. And
1:21.8	it was great to get him on the show to talk through the forgotten remarkable story of
1:27.4	the other Alexander. Ben great to have you on the show. It's great to be here thank you
1:37.3	for having me. It's exciting. Now it's very exciting indeed and one of the things I love
1:41.7	so much about this podcast is that I'm able to do an episode to shine a light on these
1:45.7	figures, these remarkable figures who seem to have fallen through the cracks as it were.
1:49.3	And this is no less true of this figure. This is the story of the other Alexander.
1:53.9	The other Alexander indeed overshadowed by the Alexander that everyone thinks of inevitably
1:58.6	Alexander the Great but it's Alexander the Milosha and he's got an amazing story on
	...

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