Dr Adrian Goldsworthy

So Alexander captures his sister.

His wife and his mum.

And his mum, yeah.

And treats them, you have, first of all, the great bit of story where they think Hephaestion is actually Alexander because he's taller.

And then, oh, it doesn't matter, everyone's an Alexander in the army.

But then he treats them, he doesn't abuse them, doesn't rape them, doesn't execute them, any of these things.

He treats them as royalty.

So it's putting himself on an equal with, and if anything, as a superior, because I can deign to treat you well, but I'm treating you with respect because you were royal.

Later on, Statira, one of them will, there's a story of her dying as a result of a miscarriage.

So there's all the theories, you know, was he quite as honorable as the man?

But the basic, the way the story is told, and the majority of sources show him as treating them with great respect,

with dignity, not touching them, not harming them in any way, protecting them from an army that's just won a victory in his running riot.

And doing all of this, and this will then become a great example to emulate of later commanders, Scipio Africanus, for instance, in the Punic War, and the greatest of his society doesn't touch the Spanish Iberian princesses and nobility that he captures at New Carthage, but treats them as Alexander does with respect, doesn't

and touch them and this sort of thing.

And you'll get it later on.

So it becomes one of the great Alexander moments that can be reborn in the medieval period in the chivalric ways as showing this is the man who respects ladies and treats them properly.

That's the thing with Alexander.

He does something spectacular and it's not the end.

There's just more to come always.

It's why it's such a huge story.