Dan Carlin
speaker
2,006 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard Jul 2026
last heard 31 Jul
Dan Carlin’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 1.
Appearances
It's going to be the kind of area where navies are important.
And unfortunately, this is the area of Alexander's military operation where he is weakest.
the persians are not a seafaring people traditionally but they rule over a bunch of people who are some of the best of all time i mean any of your top five seafaring peoples in history list is going to have the polynesians on it but it's going to have the phoenicians too and well guess who controls the phoenician fleet that would be the persians
and the Cypriots I mean just all these wonderful seafaring people in an era where the little things like how you row and handle your oars and the timing I mean all that stuff it is such a specialized art but there's no way that Alexander's fleet even though it includes a lot of Greeks who are also pretty darn good at seafaring are going to be able to compete with that fleet in a
qualitative sense and the problem is is that they're absolutely dwarfed in a quantitative sense 400 or so persian ships allegedly to about 160 that alexander has trying to deal with the city surrounded on three sides by water
And we see Alexander and his proverbial speed come into play again.
And the hard thing when you're looking at it 23 or 2400 years later is we sort of give Alexander the credit for everything.
I mean, his admiral moves quickly, so it's Alexander's fault.
Well, maybe it is.
But his admiral takes 160 or whatever it is ships.
And what's the old Civil War line gets their firstest with the mostest?
Well, he gets their firstest with the leastest.
And in the particular constraints of, you know, this area of naval operations, that's enough.
because there are a couple of key islands that sort of wall off access to the inner part of the port and the city and everything you would want to do if you wanted to come in as a Persian fleet and help your Persian city.
Well, that area is going to be walled off by these islands, and Alexander takes possession of those islands because he gets there first.
drops 4,000 or so Thracians on one of the main ones to make sure it's occupied and then takes his smaller fleet and faces it outward with the prow sticking outward, sort of ship to ship to ship in like a long line, barring entrance to that area.
And in a way, if you want to visualize it, turning it into like a mini passive thermopoly.
And the Persian fleet, bigger though it is, can't get into the key harbor area to do anything, to help, to resupply, whatever.
And Alexander gets a visit from someone representing the leadership of the city.
According to Arian, the mercenaries are part of the people in charge, and they offer Alexander an arrangement.
Showing 141–160 of 2,006 · page 8 of 101
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