How did a Macedonian prince, tutored by Aristotle and obsessed with Homer, conquer the largest empire the world had ever seen before his 33rd birthday? This show follows Alexander III of Macedon from his youth in Pella through the grueling campaigns that shattered the Achaemenid Persian Empire—from the Granicus River to Issus, Tyre, and Gaugamela—then eastward into the Hindu Kush and the Indus Valley. Along the way, Lucas and Luna examine the military innovations (the sarissa phalanx, Companion cavalry), the political consolidation (Hellenistic foundations, satrap appointments), and the cultural fusion (marriages at Susa, adoption of Persian court ceremony). They also confront the darker aspects: the destruction of Persepolis, the massacre at the Malli town, the execution of Parmenion and Philotas, and the mutiny at Opis. The show delves into Alexander’s legacy—how his empire fragmented into the Seleucid, Ptolemaic, and Antigonid kingdoms, spreading Hellenistic culture from Egypt to Bactria, and how his myth inspired later conquerors from Caesar to Napoleon. Did he truly believe in a unified human race, or was he a pragmatic autocrat? Join Lucas and Luna as they follow the long march of the Argead king who changed the world and then died of a fever in Babylon.
