This is the History of the World Podcast with me Chris Hasler

And you're listening to volume three, the classical world

episode 18

Alexander the Great. Oh, In the last episode of the History of the World Podcast, we spoke of how the Kingdom of

Masoden had become the dominant of all Greek-speaking lands and how this was achieved under the leadership of their king, Philip the second.

Over the course of the 100 years leading into the period of this episode, we saw the Athenians fall from power,

thanks to the Spartans at the conclusion of the Peloponnesian War.

Then, in turn, we saw the Spartans the of 3 56 B.C. E. when Philip the second son,

Alexander was born,

the Thebans were the dominant power of Greek lands.

Philip had only just become the King of Masadon just three years earlier,

but he had spent some of his childhood years being educated in Thebes, where

he would have been exposed to the advanced culture of the Greeks of the southern Balkan

Peninsula.

So Philip must have gone back to Macedonia full of ideas and ambition

and all for the benefit of his own kingdom.

If the Thebans thought that educating Philip

would have encouraged his loyalties,

then they couldn't have been more wrong.

Alexander's mother was Olympus of Epirus,

the daughter of King Neotolamus the first,

the king of Epirus.

...