Dr Adrian Goldsworthy

So that tradition is there.

And it's not considered dishonorable.

Alexander tries, you know, he's trying to make this into all the Greeks coming together under my leadership, fighting this.

But that's...

The Greeks, there isn't Greece.

You are an Athenian, you are a Theban, you are from Bethune, any of these cities.

So it's again, it's not up to him to say he's in charge and you've got to follow him.

You get deployment, initial moves, and then the camera pans in and it's all Alexander.

Particularly in this case where you get great detail about the blows he strikes, the ones he suffers.

So it's, which in a sense you could say that's what happens in Homer's battles.

You know, you have the sort of the broad sweep and you talk about all these numbers and then suddenly it's named heroes doing their thing.

So there's an element of that.

The other thing is Alexander's perception of a battle is going to be like that.

It goes back to something we talked about a bit in the first episode.

Alexander trusts his subordinate commanders and the rest of the army to do their thing.

He doesn't have to supervise.

He's not the battlefield manager, the sort of Julius Caesar, Duke of Wellington type, galloping around from here, there, and everywhere.

Right, you do this now.

I need to bring you up to support here.

It's basically, I've set you up