Tristan Hughes

I'm Tristan Hughes, your host, and this is Episode 2, The Invasion of Persia.

Adrian, welcome back.

It's almost as if we've just finished recording the last episode.

I know, it's just like being in the very same room.

Time flies when you're having fun.

So this is episode two of our Alexander the Great series.

And where we left it last time, Alexander has just become king and he's done some early military campaigning in Europe, I guess, you know, Bulgaria up to the Danube and then punishing the city-state of Thebes.

And now he's looking east.

Now he's looking towards the Persian Empire, isn't he?

And at the time, so this is spring 334 BC when it all begins.

And that's the beginning of the campaigning season, isn't it?

So winter finishes in March or April time.

That's normally when the army start rolling into action again.

This also feels the time where we now have quite a rich amount of sources surviving, or at least for the military details.

I'm sure I've got here a trusty copy of Arian's Anabasis, which actually I was gifted to be by one of my best friends when I was 18 years old, of all things.

So this has been by my side for a long, long time.

But so obviously we can't take everything here as completely accurate.

But we do get a nice sense throughout Alexander's campaigns, don't we, of the nature of his army, maybe a rough idea of army size if you divide it by 10 sometimes or something like that.

But you do get those military details in the surviving sources from now on.

And I must clarify also, he is good for the army sizes of Alexander's army.