In the half-century following the Peloponnesian War, Greece wasn't really doing so hot.
Athens' once mighty maritime empire had been rendered moot,
and its continued relevance was primarily if not entirely owed to its lasting
dedication to culture, art, and philosophy.
Sparta's population--which was never all that large in the first place--steadily dwindled through the fourth century,
as its military similarly deteriorated.
Thebes, who has a particularly humorous episode in the fourth century that I've covered elsewhere,
has scarcely had a decade of military dominance to its name.
Greece was effectively the passed out drunk guy on a couch at a house party and their forehead was tempting any and all would be knob
artists to uncap their finest permanent markers and start scribbling.
It wasn't long before Phillip II of Macedon hoisted his proverbial marker, and began drawing plans.
For a little background,
Philip spent most of his childhood in Thebes tutored under the awesome General Epaminondas. While there, he learned a few things
that would become absolutely invaluable to his subsequent military success. First, he learned the importance of using
specific units of elite troops, which was pretty much unheard of in the Greek world. He also learned how effective it could be to
concentrate efforts on a specific part of an enemy's line in order to disrupt and/or break them. For those of you familiar with Thebes' famous
sacred band, this is textbook Thebean tactics. Two of Philip's big innovations were the oblique attack (which we'll see more of later) and his
integration of companion cavalry (which, given that Philip is Greek for "Lover of Horses",
checks out). Lastly, Philip gave his soldiers a cartoonishly long 20-foot lance called the Sarissa. Look at this thing; it's nuts!
so
Conquest Time! He began by swiping up Thessaly, and then a decade later he took the entirety of Thrace. That was a rather bold move,
but he ultimately didn't have all that much trouble in pulling it off. With all of Northern Greece under his wing by
342 BCE (which already should have been setting off some serious alarm bells but apparently didn't because screw that, that's effort), Philip proceeded to push down
into central Greece. I should say, the famous Athenian orator Demosthenes made several impassioned speeches urging the assembly to take some
precaution against the seemingly unimpeded
Macedonian advance; but, again, being passed out on a couch doesn't exactly lend itself well to a coordinated military
defense of one's homeland against as skilled a tactician as Philip. It wasn't until
338 BCE when Philip had reached Boeotia that Athens, Thebes and friends realized that they had a
serious problem on their hands, and by then, it was way
too late. The last battle in Philip's conquest of Greece was fought at Chaeronea, and it's a
fantastic example of just how clever and innovative Philip was. On the defending side Athens held the left, while Thebes and their famous sacred band
held the right. Philip's strategy was predicated on the astute assessment that the Athenians are lousy
Hoplites (mostly because they're a bunch of
philosophical nerds). As such, he placed his best soldiers on the left to meet the Thebeans under the command of his young son
Alexander the Soon-To-Be Great who at the time was just 18, and this next bit was especially
tricksy. As I've described in this video here about ancient warfare, the general way of Hoplite combat was for both lines to meet head-on.
But Philip had Alexander the Oblique advance on an angle refusing the left flank entirely; that way, the Macedonians wouldn't have to actually
fight the very skilled Thebans directly. And the plan worked brilliantly!
Philip broke the Athenians and split the defending line, and then Alexander the Swell charged his cavalry through,
surrounding the Thebans and killing them all. And recall,
Philip knew these guys; he had lived in Thebes and these soldiers were his childhood friends, so that's really brutal!
That said,
Philip was no fool; he knew what he did and he explicitly
said of the Thebeans, "Let no one say that what these men did was
dishonorable." And with that, the proverbial knob was drawn in Greece was his! ...Well, not all of Greece.
Sparta was so weak and irrelevant that Macedon never actually
bothered conquering it. Which, considering Sparta's collective attitude towards weakness in all of its forms, must have stung something fierce. So,
almost all of Greece. In
336 CE, Philip died, and Alexander the Shiny-and-New stepped in to rule Greece. Although, perhaps
unsurprisingly, his ascension wasn't without incident. Many people saw this as an opportunity to revolt, and Alexander The Suddenly-Preoccupied spent two years
suppressing them. In many cases, he quieted revolts by leading his army into an open field and simply having them do marching drills in various
formations and directions, generally showing off how disciplined they were as a fighting force.
For the most part, the revolting parties put down their pitchforks at first sight of just how legit
Alexander The Legit's army was. This is the
only instance I'm aware of in which an armed revolt was suppressed by a marching band
routine; and speaking of Alexander the Passable's army, he made some notable improvements on his father's work. His army was composed of many different
types of units, and he organized his battle lines by their degrees of
flexibility; the slowest, most heavily armed units were in the centre, and he put the lighter and faster unit s towards the outside edge of his
line. The idea was to keep his lines supple and pivot on joints between units so he could refuse and engage different parts of his
line on a dime. And remember, his army is composed of light and heavy cavalry; light and heavy infantry;
archers; slingers, you name it. This was an army unlike anything Greece had ever seen before, and
speaking of, a lot of Greeks took issue with the Macedonians calling themselves
Greek. To places like Athens, Thebes and Sparta,
Macedon was way north and a little weird. Sure, the Macedonians competed in the Olympics, so they had that going for them,
but they could never shake this reputation for being off-brand Greeks. So, with Greece
consolidated, Alexander with the Good Hair decided that he absolutely totally needed to invade Persia
because... I don't actually know. According to the man himself, it was revenge for the Persian Wars 150 years before,
which for several reasons is incredibly flimsy but whatever the case, he crossed the Ellespont
and got to work. His first big encounter came at the battle of the Granicus River where
incidentally he was almost killed. There's definitely something to be said for how much of a morale boost a general gives when he fights in the
front lines. But there are other things to be said for how potentially insanely
disastrous that can be. Following the battle, Alexander the Thorough pursued the strategy of "I want every single Persian port on the
Mediterranean flying with the Greek flag or so help me Zeus I will set the ocean on fire!", and he did.
(The strategy thing, not the ocean fire thing; that didn't
happen and that'd be incredibly difficult logistically.)
Anyway,
this gave him a little bit of trouble later on, but it was a brilliant call overall. He didn't leave anything to chance, and he
didn't ever want to be snuck up on from behind. Moving on, the next famous battle happened when the Persians snuck up on him from
behind.
(*damn it!*) At the Battle of Issus, the Persian king Darius himself
arrived to deliver what he imagined would be a crushing defeat. The danger was that Alexander the Alright was advancing southward into the Lavont,
but Darius came from the north, which meant that the
Macedonian line was mirrored from what it was supposed to be; so Alexander the Adaptable had to do a lot of thinking on the fly
to pull out a win, much as was the case at Granicus, the Greek cavalry was the MVP.
They managed to rout Darius himself
and defeat his army. And the problem was that since Darius was so sure of his chances, he brought his family along with him to
launch his assumed triumph. So when things didn't quite go to plan, his enemies suddenly had his wife and children as hostages.
(*oops!)
After this, Starius knew that he was in dire straits and he sent Alexander the Hostage-Taker a message:
"Hey...
...buddy. I see that you're cleaning up shop with my empire. I'm not thrilled, but I'm certainly impressed,
so I'm willing to cut you a deal. You know, king to king, you take everything west of the Euphrates
River, and we'll call It even. How's that sound?"
Alexander The Hamilton's trusted commander Parmenion advised him, "If I were
Alexander, I'd take that offer." To which he replied, "If I were Parmenion, so would I!"
Damn, Xander. Chill!
Anyway, in his letter back to Darius,
Alexander the Flamable said words to the effect of "How dare you address me as your equal and try to cut a deal? You are
to approach me as the Lord of all Asia. Fight me, pleb!" So Alexander the Alright,
Alright,
Alright, carried along his merry way sweeping eleventeen ports left and right. In keeping with the strategy of "I want all of it" up
until he gets to the island port of Tyre. Now, Tyre argued that they were within their rights to pull a Switzerland on this one
and stay neutral, but Alexander the Insistent said,
"No, no, not so fast-- either I own you or I kill you, so
take a pick."
They picked "Screw You", so Alexander the Thoroughly Miffed started building a land bridge to the island to besiege it. Tyre destroyed the bridge,
so Alexander the Persistent built another wider one with siege engines on it. He also launched ships that had siege engines on them because why
not?
Dude loved his crazy engineers. So Tyre put huge stones in the water to block the siege ships, but then Alexander sent out ships with
cranes on them to move the stones to make way for the ships with siege engines on them to go in and wreck shop.
It was ridiculous, and the whole thing took like eight friggin months, and by the time Alexander the
Absolutely Flawless finally broke through, he was furious.
During his campaign, he made a point to avoid
raping or pillaging, and showed much respect for the people whom he conquered, but this was pretty much the big bloody
exception. Upon entering the city, he killed ten thousand men and enslaved thirty thousand others
Yikes
That Is
Very comprehensive
After Tyre
Alexander The
Adventuresome swooped down into Egypt to clean up the last of Darius's western holdings. The Egyptians, who never much cared for the persons in the
first place after a little bit of sacred bull stabbing by the Persian king Camp isis welcomed their new
Macedonian overlords with open arms and crowned Alexander The Over-Hyped as pharaoh of Egypt.
Now, you may rightly be wondering how exactly
a Greek General can Be a Greek General The Lord of all asia and a Pharaoh of Egypt and Honestly so was the
Macedonian Army People were getting a Little Antsy about the tight rope he was Walking Greeks Didn't like Kings But Here was alexander the Regal
Explicitly Acting Like One in His lifetime he didn't encounter any Major Crises or anything like That but as time went on it became Increasingly
Clear That he couldn't Be everything to everyone however he did his damnedest to govern the various cultures in his new empire
Respectfully for All of Alexander The Feisty Hatred of persia he took a page right Out of Their book by treating his subjects so
Respectfully Athens Certainly Didn'T Do That for Their empire
Besides Government Alexander the Good Boy was Very attentive to religious matters in how he presented Himself back When he was in
Anatolia he diverted to the famous gordian Knot as It Was said that he who could undo the knot Will go on to rule all
of asia Whether the story Goes that he pulls out the pin holding the knot or straight up cuts It in half the fact remains
That he Wouldn't dare let such a Perfect Pr moment go to waste
AnyWay When he was in Egypt he went out of his way to visit the oracle of the zuo
Oasis in the desert so out of His Way in fact that The Army he took with him almost got lost in said desert
Fortunately They Didn't and
Aleksander The is coarse and Rough and irritating and gets everywhere did meet with the oracle and
Apparently the oracle told Him that he was Actually the son of Zeus What a twist this was more Fantastic PR for Alexander the demigod
Some of his army said "Son of Zeus? Really? Come on, dude, we knew Philip."
But suspicious soldiers aside
Alexander The Underwood was playing the politics rather well both for the benefit of himself and his blooming empire
with the entire eastern Mediterranean squared away
Alexander The Not Done Yet turned his attention back to the heartland of Persia
and met Darius for the super epic ultimate showdown of ultimate destiny at The Battle of Gaugamela.
So before the battle Alexander the ??? put his reconnaissance team into overdrive
In general the Macedonians had fantastic recon by the standards of the time
Partly because Alexander The ample wasn't afraid to split up his army,
having fast stuff like calvary go off really quickly
while the lame slow human people waddled along their merry way
But back to recon the three questions were always "Where are they", "How many of them are there", and
"What are they doing". In Advance of Gaugamela, the answers were "Gaugamela",
"About a hundred thousand, ish," and "They're planning to envelop you"
then Alexander the Tactically Gifted proceeded to draw his battle plan,
specifically around being enveloped. Cue the dramatic music.
[Very dramatic music]
The Macedonian line, turning it up to 11 on the Extreme-o-meter, refused both the left and the right flanks
and the javelineers and archers cleaned up against the Persian chariots when they tried to close in
but then just as the Greek center put Darius to flight (again, I might add)
The Persians broke through Alexander The Decent's line and started giving his left flank some serious problems
Now Alexander The Alexand-est had a choice on his hands.
If he chased Darius he could kill him instantly and finally claim all of Persia for himself,
but if he didn't support his left flank There's a chance Persia could crush his entire army right there
Fortunately, good judgment prevailed and Alexander the A-OK returned to his line to stop his army from getting unceremoniously murderized
Darius survived, yeah, but the battle was won.
By this point the writing was on the wall, or, er, on the forehead, I guess, if we're going back to that knob...metaphor...thing
and more Persian satraps (governors, basically), capitulated to Macedon.
Also, as for the whole Darius loose end thing, while Alexander the East-bound had been chasing the poor guy all over Persia
One satrap, Bessus, betrayed Darius and assassinated him.
Alexander the Blandly Named was outraged for having his kill yoinked
but given that he now owned most of Persia and riches beyond what any Greek could even imagine
I'd venture to say he probably wasn't too torn up about it.
Not content to leave well enough alone, he pushed east. Because... Why not?
The Macedonians made it well into the Indus Valley before his army said
"OK, Alex. Buddy, we've been at this for like six straight years,
can we *please* go home now?"
and Alexander the Sculpt Me Pretty Or I'll Kill You said,
"Ugh. FIIIIIIINE.'"
'*But* after we go home we're going to circumnavigate Africa, OK? Deal?
Cool? Cool? Alright, let's go.'
By this point Alexander the Looking More Persian By The Day had taken a Persian wife,
and married off 90 of his generals to Persian wives as well.
He was also making people bow before him, which kind of weirded out the Greeks a little bit because,
again, not the biggest fans of kings.
To wrap up, Alexander The Still Basically Kind of a Teenager led his army back through southern Persia,
casually losing most of it, and posted up in Babylon for some post-campaign festivities. Whereupon he proceeded to die, of either a fever,
alcohol poisoning, or poison poisoning — jury's out on that one.
Now Alexander The Dead left a stupidly big empire behind him, and...
remember how there was all kinds of pitchfork-y revolt-y business when Philip died? Well...
Second verse, same as the first: the empire was up for grabs.
The difference was that there wasn't even an obvious successor this time and in the ensuing free-for-all
the empire split up into a billion different pieces owned by various Macedonian generals.
The ones who we especially care about are:
Ptolemy, who took over Egypt,
and Seleucus, whose empire spanned much of the old Persian empire.
The Selucid empire reached from Mesopotamia to the Indus Valley, and briefly poked up into Anatolia,
but mostly just decayed until it occupied little more than the Levant.
If you want to learn more, I encourage you to first listen to me lose my mind in *this* podcast about the horrendous Ptolemaic family tree and...
Just in general, pick up a book and start reading some fun stuff about the Hellenistic world.
I will say it is a rather entertaining period of history,
but it is also an absolute *mess* to keep track of, with honestly not a whole lot of super consequential stuff going on.
Most people just acknowledge that it exists and then immediately jump over to the Roman Punic Wars,
which were going on at the same time and were objectively much more eventful.
To grossly oversimplify, the Hellenistic period was a right mess,
with civil wars, squabbling over power, and all sorts of faffing about until Rome steamrolled them all into the republic.
And since I've got nowhere to go for the next, eh, minute or so,
I'll give my two drachmas on this whole 'The Great' business.
Gordon Ramsay would be outraged, because it is Just. So. Bland!
What kind of name is that?! Read any page out of Homer and it's jam-packed with specific and evocative
epithets to describe people! Each character has no less than five apiece!
So it's inexcusable that Alexander, arguably the most consequential Greek who ever lived, has one lame title!
Now if I had my way with history I'd give him a much more interesting and informative name.
In Greek, something like Alexander Promachos or Alexander Aristos
would instantly be a step above his Greek title of 'Megas' - 'Big'.
That's just dull. In English, even something as simple as 'Alexander The Conqueror'
or 'Alexander The Horseman' are a step up, because they're at least a little more specific to him.
*Anything* is better than "The Great."
It's an example of what's so wrong with our abuse of hyperbole:
a name that's supposed to mean *everything* ends up meaning absolutely nothing.
Anyway, that's my spiel. I hope you had a great time learning about Alexander The...
[Sigh]
Damn it. Great.