during ancient times a young and dashing alexander iii of macedon marched his enemies from northern greece to what is now pakistan in one of the largest martial campaigns ever known the red-headed warmonger spent nearly half his life on battlefields and was the epitome of the sane live fast and die young for the majority of time recorded in human history alexander has been titled the great but while his legacy is that of one of the greatest men to ever live is he as great as history remembers welcome to nutty history let's find out if alexander was
really that great as history would like us to remember or if he did a lot of weird things alexander iii's father philip ii's assassination is one of the most well documented events in ancient history but the documented line of events does not entirely account for all of the intentions behind why exactly pulsanius the bodyguard of king philip ii turned on him and impaled the monarch to death the assassination took place in the theater of egy now virginia as philip made his entrance hossaini is charged at him wielding a dagger that he had concealed underneath his
cloak philip was 47 years old and had a limp because of an old battle wound hosanius tried to flee after slaying his king but he tripped on a fine route before reaching his horse and his colleagues swiftly executed him one could say that posanias acted on his own as he did have a grudge against the middle-aged king prosanius was one of phillips former lovers but as he grew older philip's interest shifted towards other younger men philip made prosainius his bodyguard but the compromise wasn't enough for persenius and he felt he got the short end of
the stick because now he had to watch and endure philip being romantic with other men and women up close the penta brood was enough motive to nurture the apathy to terminate king philip but was it enough philip was still a king and a mighty good one he literally saved macedonia from crumbling into dust and turned it around to make it strong enough to conquer a broken grease assassinating such a king needed more than just hatred and jealousy it needed motivation and this is where philip's son alexander and his mother olympias enter the picture there is
no concrete evidence to prove that olympias and perhaps alexander 2 instigated prosanius to terminate philip but it is quite fascinating how quickly olympias and alexander took hold of the power after philip's death and had all the competitors for the throne eliminated with a sort of godfather level of efficiency there are a lot of factors that worked into alexander's ascension to the throne alexander was chosen by philip as his regent during his incursions in asia minor his mother had philip's favorite wife and her infant son eliminated an antipater the only one of phillips senior officers who
were close to alexander persuaded the macedonian assembly to proclaim alexander king the timing was perfect too as analysts and parmenion two of phillips generals and leaders of powerful branches of the royal family were away from pella on a campaign an absence that made it possible to crown the untested alexander when the news of alexander's coronation reached analysts and parmenion parminion had adolescents executed for voicing his opposition to alexander's ascension to the throne thus proving himself loyal to alexander obviously in the times of antiquity the swift elimination of rivals was an important step for a new
monarch but the competence alexander and olympia depicted in solidifying their claim to the throne seemed quite organized in fact olympias wasn't even in macedonia when the assassination occurred this may mean they had an inclination of what was going to happen to philip or perhaps they were simply extra careful contingency planners we will let you decide what may have transpired [Music] unlike his father alexander wasn't a pure macedonian he had greek blood in him too his mother olympias was the daughter of neil thomalis king of papyrus this was one of the reasons why the majority of
the macedonian king's inner circle was against the idea of alexander's ascension to the throne papyrus was an old feudal kingdom southwest of macedon and until philip's reign macedonians were looked down on by more civilized greeks this may have been one of the reasons why philip chose to educate alexander in a non-traditional fashion for macedonian alexander 2 showed early signs of being a prodigy kid he was an intellectual who could hold his ground while discussing matters with adults he had read entire greek literature before reaching puberty and considered the poet homer as his hero rather than
any other warriors or kings except for his father philip alexander was also a proficient liar player and instead of attending the royal page school for any significant length of time if at all he was sent to a private academy set up by aristotle at mieza several miles away from the court of pella at the age of 14. during his three years of education there under the famed philosopher alexander studied poetry philosophy and literature even after becoming the king and launching his massive campaign to conquer asia alexander's love for philosophy and arts never died the historian
plutarch says that alexander carried a copy of the iliad among many other books with him throughout his campaigns and the books played an important part in his strategic and decisive approach alexander also had a whole court of philosophers and scientists and history writers with him during his martial campaigns so he could talk to them and discuss his thoughts basically alexander had his own nerds club to keep him entertained between his battles perhaps if dungeons and dragons or warhammer were around back in antiquity then alexander may have not massacred so many people just to have an
excuse for fighting wars [Music] insecure megalomaniac and a heavy drinker that's never a good combination is it as much of a geek that alexander was he was also a wannabe hardcore frat boy and was infamous for not holding his liquor well standing most likely five feet two inches tall alexander was known for throwing extravagant parties full of intercourse fervor and fermented beverages he used to get hammered to the extent that the healers in his camp considered his liquor problem one of the major possible causes for his death even if he was poisoned it was his
alcoholic weakness that made it possible when partying one night he was given a large glass of wine alexander chugged it and shrieked aloud in pain his health rapidly declined until he died just 10 days later unlike their greek neighbors macedonians were known to drink their wine undiluted and thanks to the pressure of expectations from both parents alexander found solace in wine very early in life another example of alcohol being his coping mechanism was the wedding ceremony that was organized in souza after alexander's close advisor the philosopher callinus immolated himself to avoid dying of old age
and disease struck with the grief of losing his dear friend alexander organized a drinking competition at a mass wedding ceremony to honor his recently demised advisor this was a terrible idea it is widely known that a decade before arriving at souza a grand banquet was held to celebrate alexander and his army's victory after defeating the persian emperor darius iii of course alexander and his men got super drunk at the banquet and according to plutarch it was ptolemy's mistress this who reminded alexander of how persians had desecrated the acropolis in athens during the persian war about
a century ago parmenion urged alexander to not make such a drastic decision under the influence of alcohol but alexander being alexander ordered his men to pillage and burn the city to the ground when alexander the great arrived at precipitous it was among the most impressive cities in the world but sadly when he left it it was a ruin whose spot would be known for generations only as the place of the 40 columns for the remaining palace columns left standing in the sand among the ruins later coming to his senses alexander regretted his decision but clearly
he didn't learn his lesson about four years later he would end up persecuting his dear friend cletus the black in a drunken coral 41 contenders were chosen to participate in the drinking competition some of them hailed from the ranks of his army and others belonged to the local population the rules were simple whoever drank the most wine was the winner and was to be awarded a crown worth a talent of gold the winner was one of alexander's foot soldiers by the name of promicus who managed to drink four gallons of the infamous unmixed wine but
drinking so much undiluted wine was naturally not healthy and the victor perished soon along with only five others who didn't die on the spot not a single contestant survived alexander himself would perish to wine just a year later his paranoia and megalomania fueled his addiction and he would drink large quantities of alcohol in one city even after the fever had struck him in his last days he would ask for more wine instead of water insisting that the fever was an acute case of alcohol withdrawal [Music] there are very few figures from the ancient world who
will fit scarily well in the modern world and alexander the great is one of them to be frank even though alexander is widely known today for his military prowess it was his political acumen that needs to be highlighted more often alexander could check every trait on the list of a successful modern politician when he took over the reigns of macedonia from his deceased father whose death he may or may not have caused he took over the plans of king philip to butt heads with the persian empire however philip's ambition was limited to asia minor only
whereas alexander was dreaming big and wanted to conquer the entire persia to achieve such an ambitious task alexander needed all of greece to back him and to accomplish that he resorted to propaganda persia and greece's relations were somewhat peaceful now but alexander opeled the wounds of greece's defeat in the persian war that happened about 100 years ago thieves tried to obstruct alexander's plans and paid the price by its demise but always a savvy strategist alexander knew he could not do the same to the rest of greece or else his army would never leave the peloponnese
thus alexander framed his campaign against the achaemenid empire as a patriotic retaliation for persia's failed invasion of the greek mainland a century earlier with the idea of making greece great again he projected macedonians as the savior of greek pride and lied that his armies are doing greece a favor by invading persia on behalf of the greeks and they would need greece's support now it's worth mentioning that macedon was not involved in the greco-persian wars and they did not support the greek calls back then he also made false claims of fulfilling the prophecy of loosening the
gordian knot for those who do not know about the gordian knot here's a quick summary of the legend when the phrygians the indo-european natives of anatolia were without a king an oracle that tell mrs decreed that the next man to enter the city driving an ox cart should become their king a peasant farmer named gordius drove into town on an ox card and was immediately declared king out of gratitude his son midas dedicated the ox card to the god zeus and tied to a post with an intricate knot of cornell bark later another prophecy declared
that any man who could unravel its elaborate knots was destined to become ruler of all of asia this is when alexander arrived and attempted to untie the knot but failed he then reasoned that it would make no difference how the knot was loosened so he drew a sword and slice it in half with a single stroke alexander's followers spread the lie of him fulfilling the prophecy that helped promote his image of greece's savior his officers too started addressing him as lord of asia alexander also believed that he was a descendant of the mythical hero achilles
and his mother always told him that it was zeus who was his father and not king philip yeah you can probably see would turn alexander into a megalomaniac dictator right if that wasn't enough an oracle at siwa in egypt would also later confirm zeus beat his biological father of course there was no base behind oracle statement it was just plain old appeasement alexander also mastered the art of making false promises when his army mutinied at the shores of the river beasts and demanded to go home alexander agreed but secretly on his way back he was
planning to invade arabia and may have done so if death hadn't intervened he was also a master of cultural appropriation and after committing a heck of a public relations disaster at precipitous he tried to rectify his image in persia by doing further pr stunts to project that he was one of the persians remember this is the person who used greek patriotism to get enough support to invade persia to the dismay of cultural purists back in macedonia and greece alexander began wearing persian royal dresses tried to imitate their customs and force this man to take persian
women as their wives he followed the same suit in egypt and bactria as well alexander may have been borderline narcissistic do we need to mention that he named 70 cities after himself apart from the famous one at the mouth of the river nile in egypt other alexandrias can be traced in present-day turkey iran afghanistan tajikistan and pakistan after defeating king poorest near the river bias he founded the city of busafila named for his favorite horse for a change doesn't matter still narcissism so was alexander the world's biggest homicidal warmonger religious fanatic and the epitome of
a narcissist let us know in the comments and as always thanks for watching nutty history [Music]
