August 19, 2025 • 14 mins
Discover how the Kingdom of Macedonia, under the visionary leadership of Philip II (382-336 BC), rose to dominate ancient Greece through a mix of shrewd diplomacy and military prowess. Philip revolutionized the classical Greek phalanx by integrating soldiers armed with the formidable 6-meter spear known as the sarissa, creating an infantry that remained unmatched until the rise of the Roman legions. After Philips tragic assassination, his son, Alexander the Great (356-323 BC), ascended to the throne and embarked on an extraordinary journey, establishing an empire that stretched from Greece to the far reaches of northwestern India. The Hellenistic culture he spread not only influenced his empire but also laid the groundwork for modern western civilization. (Summary by Pamela Nagami, M.D.)
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Section eighteen of the Rise of the Macedonian Empire by
Arthur M. Curtis. This Librevox recording is in the public domain.
Read by Pamelinagami Chapter thirteen, The Death of Darius, Reduction
of Parthia, Execution of Pholodus, and Parmenion Part two. Speaking generally,
(00:23):
these provinces are the southern slopes of a huge mountain bastion,
thrown out from the towering perapanisas towards the lower level
of the Aryan Plateau. From time immemorial, and in spite
of the perpetual barbarism of the population, this country has
been of first rate importance as the easiest approach to
(00:44):
India from the west. The climate is fine, though severe.
Snow falls heavily throughout the mountain district in winter and
is even seen in the plains and in summer. The
heat in the lower lands, though oppressive in parts, is
less intense than in India. The irrigation, which alone turns
(01:05):
the parched country into a garden, diminishes the volume of
the rivers, which are rarely full except after the melting
of the winter snows. In Afghanistan, there are four cities
which boast of Alexander, if not as their founder, at
least as the originator of their greatness. Kandahar Alexandria even
(01:27):
tries to trace its name to the great Iskander Alexander.
That Alexander passed through both Kabul or Tospana and Kandahar
is certain, as also that he spent some time at
Fura Prophasia. It is far from improbable that he actually
founded the now important city of Herat Alexandria in Arius,
(01:51):
which for ages has been the center of commercial intercourse
between India, Persia, and Tartary. The mere sight of this
gate of Central Asia marks it out as an object
of contention to its neighbors, a prize for which Persians
and Afghan's fight and which Russia desires to have. It
(02:12):
lies in an immense plain on the northeastern edge of
the desert, destitute indeed of trees, but fertile and beautiful.
There are numerous canals and scattered villages, watered and fertilized
by the heady rood Arius, and on all sides are
ruins attesting former greatness. To the traveler, fresh from the
(02:34):
steps of the north and the desert of the west,
the plain of Herat is as the Eastern province says,
like Paradise, its climate is one of the most delightful
in Asia, and its products are plentiful as they are various.
It would not be strange, therefore, that a man of
keen and rapid judgment like Alexander should have fixed upon
(02:56):
Herat as a link in his long chain of fortress
Coline to reach from Babylon to the Indus, or that
he who stands there as a victorious invader from the
north or west, should be said to hold the key
of India in his hand. From herot Alexandra marched southward
to Prophthasia Fura, a place of sinister influence on his
(03:20):
good name and character, for it was there that the
terrible tragedy was enacted, which ended in the deaths of
Pelotus and his father Parmenion, the first cloud that casts
a shadow over Alexander's heroic character, the first calamity that
embittered his hitherto uninterrupted prosperity. It is difficult to ascertain
(03:45):
exactly the precise share of guilt attaching to each actor
in this tragedy. When the most trustworthy of our authorities,
Arian gives only a brief and guarded account, and the
fuller details are added by men like the Roman Curtius
or the gossip Plutarch. Yet granting this, it is certain
(04:06):
that of all who were concerned in it, not one,
save perhaps the aged Parmenian himself, was wholly guiltless, while
the conduct of some of the Macedonian generals was atrocious.
The inherent difficulties of the king's position have already been
briefly noticed. His great officers were strongly averse to his
(04:27):
adoption of Persian customs, and Philotus, no less than others,
was apt to ridicule in private his growing vanity. They
were also more spoiled than he by their marvelous successes,
and were furiously jealous of each other and of Craterus
or Perdecus, were envious of the influence and wealth of
(04:48):
Parmenion and his family. Pholotus himself was unguarded in his
language and insatiable in his claims. If we would understand
by what kind of men Alexander was surrounded, and how
baleful an influence they might possibly exert on his susceptible mind,
we have only to look forward a few short years,
(05:09):
and observe, how when his strong hand was removed, his
generals fought for the power which they were neither worthy
to gain nor able to retain. Filotus was the commander
of the Companion cavalry, and therefore in daily, almost hourly
communication with Alexander himself. He was the sole survivor of
(05:31):
three brothers, sons of that Parmenion, of whom Philip once
said that the Athenians were lucky, indeed to find ten
generals every year, for he, in the course of many years,
had never found but one, next to the king himself.
The father and son were perhaps the most important men
(05:51):
in the empire, but they were not popular nor even
wholly trusted. Parmenion, it is true, was left in chief
command of Agbatana, but he was getting old and was
thought to have shown a want of energy and resource
at the Battle of Gaugamela. Phelotus also was in bad
odor with both officers and men, with the former for
(06:15):
his arrogance and bluntness and his very success, with the
latter for a supercilious selfishness which showed itself in disregard
for their comfort as compared with his own, and a
studied contempt of their wishes and prejudices. Even with the
king himself. For the past eighteen months, his relations had
(06:36):
been less cordial than before, owing to some disparagement of Alexander,
which he had let fall in conversation with his mistress,
and which had been betrayed by her to Craterus, and
by Craterus only too willingly to the king. In so
perilous a position, caution was needed, and caution was the
(06:57):
virtue of which Felodus was incapable. Now. It happened at
this time that a certain officer named Dimnas was accused
by one of his bosom friends of a design against
Alexander's life. This friend had imparted the secret to his
own brother, and the brother in turn disclosed the plot
to Felotus as to one who would certainly provide against
(07:20):
the danger. The attempt was to be made on the
next day, but one on that day and on the next,
Felotus had long interviews with the king, and on each
occasion omitted to mention what he had heard. On the
third day, his informant, finding that nothing had been done,
(07:40):
resolved to take the matter boldly into his own hands.
He demanded admission to the King's presence at once, even
though he was in the bath, and told him all
he knew. Orders were immediately issued for the arrest of Dimnas, who, however,
either slew himself or was slain in resisting, and thus
(08:01):
the most important witness in the matter was removed by
an act that appeared to prove his guilt. It presently
came out that Felodus also had been aware of the
plot two days before, and had said nothing in so
grave a matter. Silence would in any man seem strange.
In Felodus, not unnaturally, it was taken to prove complicity,
(08:25):
while his defense that the story seemed to rest on
insufficient authority was looked upon as an afterthought. The suspicions
aroused in Alexander's mind were artfully inflamed by Kratorus and
other enemies of Felotus. A council of officers was held,
and they insisted that the only means of arriving at
(08:47):
the truth was to arrest and question Felotus. It needs
but little imagination to see how it all happened. Alexander hurt, angry, suspicious,
the general one here and another there, hinting arguing or
openly accusing, the very absence of Pelotus, who was not
(09:08):
present at the council, perhaps being turned against him. That night,
the accused man was arrested, and on the next day,
according to the national custom, he was brought before an
assembly of the Macedonian troops, where the king himself stated
the charge against him, though he retired before the trial began.
(09:29):
But there was little hope of an impartial hearing, where
the accuser was the idol of the generals who envied
the accused and of the soldiers who hated him. He
was found guilty of the charge of being privy to
the act, but this was not enough. If the son
were condemned on evidence so slight, what view would the
(09:51):
father take of the whole affair, And if he chose
to resent it or took up arms in self defense,
the revolt of so famous a man, master of all
the vast treasures stored at Agbatana, would be formidable even
to Alexander. Parmenion therefore must be involved in the fate
of Felotus. Evidence must be gained against the father as well,
(10:16):
and that evidence must come from the lips of the
sun to us both the end and the means taken
to achieve the end are Equaliodius Felotus was tortured, But
we must not forget, if we wish to be just,
that the false notion of torture being the surest means
of eliciting truth, has been common in nearly every age
(10:38):
and nation, and was neither more or less disgraceful in
Macedonian officers than in Roman slave masters or Christian inquisitors.
However wicked the object may have been, we may be
sure that the means used for its attainment seemed natural
and suitable. Felotus was tortured and can confessed what was desired,
(11:02):
that both his father and himself were guilty of a
design against the king's life, and that he himself had
purposely precipitated measures lest death should remove his father, who
was now seventy, from the command of the treasures which
were necessary to success. A confession, the truth of which
was said to be confirmed by the contents of a
(11:22):
letter from Parmenion seized among the papers of Felotus. On
the next day, this confession was read before the troops,
and Pelotus and others his accomplices were executed, while a
hurried messenger was sent off to Agbitana eleven days march
across the desert, with orders to Clayander, the second in command,
(11:43):
to put Parmenian instantly to death. The command was obeyed,
and the old man was killed while reading a forged
letter purporting to come from his son. An impartial consideration
of the story just narrated leads us to the conclusion
that of all all the persons concerned, Craters and his
friends were the most guilty. Whether we assume that Felotus
(12:07):
was really privy to the plot, or without being privy
to it, would not have been ill pleased to see
it succeed, or was simply imprudent and forgot to speak,
and either of these assumptions as possible, it is clear
that there was prima facia ground for suspicion, and that
the generals used it to ruin Felotus. They might have
(12:28):
used their influence to pacify Alexander, they did, in fact
exasperate him against their enemy. It is hardly strange that
the king himself should have suspected Felotus when he knew
that for two days he had been aware of a
plot against his life and had said nothing about it.
While the very first man implicated had preferred death to
(12:50):
facing investigation. Appearances were against Felotus. It is equally clear
that the charge was not proven, and that if the
accused had had friends at court, there was much to
be said in his defense, while the actual way in
which he was treated showed a passion, a suspiciousness, and
a want of generous forbearance, not unnatural perhaps in a
(13:14):
son of Olympias, but hitherto unexampled an Alexander. If we conclude, however,
that it remains an open question whether Felotus was innocent
or guilty, the same cannot be said of the fate
of Parmenion. That the death of the son should have
made the father's death an apparent necessity both for Alexander
(13:35):
and his generals may be granted, but that is only
saying that one false step necessitates another. No man who
admires the genius or respects the noble qualities of Alexander
the Great can fail to deplore the odious crime which
he allowed himself to commit in assenting to the assassination
(13:56):
of his oldest and ablest general or to you condemn
the wickedness of those who urged such a barbarous judicial murder.
Felotus may have been guilty, Parmenion was almost certainly innocent,
and of Section eighteen
Section eighteen of the Rise of the Macedonian Empire by
Arthur M. Curtis. This Librevox recording is in the public domain.
Read by Pamelinagami Chapter thirteen, The Death of Darius, Reduction
of Parthia, Execution of Pholodus, and Parmenion Part two. Speaking generally,
(00:23):
these provinces are the southern slopes of a huge mountain bastion,
thrown out from the towering perapanisas towards the lower level
of the Aryan Plateau. From time immemorial, and in spite
of the perpetual barbarism of the population, this country has
been of first rate importance as the easiest approach to
(00:44):
India from the west. The climate is fine, though severe.
Snow falls heavily throughout the mountain district in winter and
is even seen in the plains and in summer. The
heat in the lower lands, though oppressive in parts, is
less intense than in India. The irrigation, which alone turns
(01:05):
the parched country into a garden, diminishes the volume of
the rivers, which are rarely full except after the melting
of the winter snows. In Afghanistan, there are four cities
which boast of Alexander, if not as their founder, at
least as the originator of their greatness. Kandahar Alexandria even
(01:27):
tries to trace its name to the great Iskander Alexander.
That Alexander passed through both Kabul or Tospana and Kandahar
is certain, as also that he spent some time at
Fura Prophasia. It is far from improbable that he actually
founded the now important city of Herat Alexandria in Arius,
(01:51):
which for ages has been the center of commercial intercourse
between India, Persia, and Tartary. The mere sight of this
gate of Central Asia marks it out as an object
of contention to its neighbors, a prize for which Persians
and Afghan's fight and which Russia desires to have. It
(02:12):
lies in an immense plain on the northeastern edge of
the desert, destitute indeed of trees, but fertile and beautiful.
There are numerous canals and scattered villages, watered and fertilized
by the heady rood Arius, and on all sides are
ruins attesting former greatness. To the traveler, fresh from the
(02:34):
steps of the north and the desert of the west,
the plain of Herat is as the Eastern province says,
like Paradise, its climate is one of the most delightful
in Asia, and its products are plentiful as they are various.
It would not be strange, therefore, that a man of
keen and rapid judgment like Alexander should have fixed upon
(02:56):
Herat as a link in his long chain of fortress
Coline to reach from Babylon to the Indus, or that
he who stands there as a victorious invader from the
north or west, should be said to hold the key
of India in his hand. From herot Alexandra marched southward
to Prophthasia Fura, a place of sinister influence on his
(03:20):
good name and character, for it was there that the
terrible tragedy was enacted, which ended in the deaths of
Pelotus and his father Parmenion, the first cloud that casts
a shadow over Alexander's heroic character, the first calamity that
embittered his hitherto uninterrupted prosperity. It is difficult to ascertain
(03:45):
exactly the precise share of guilt attaching to each actor
in this tragedy. When the most trustworthy of our authorities,
Arian gives only a brief and guarded account, and the
fuller details are added by men like the Roman Curtius
or the gossip Plutarch. Yet granting this, it is certain
(04:06):
that of all who were concerned in it, not one,
save perhaps the aged Parmenian himself, was wholly guiltless, while
the conduct of some of the Macedonian generals was atrocious.
The inherent difficulties of the king's position have already been
briefly noticed. His great officers were strongly averse to his
(04:27):
adoption of Persian customs, and Philotus, no less than others,
was apt to ridicule in private his growing vanity. They
were also more spoiled than he by their marvelous successes,
and were furiously jealous of each other and of Craterus
or Perdecus, were envious of the influence and wealth of
(04:48):
Parmenion and his family. Pholotus himself was unguarded in his
language and insatiable in his claims. If we would understand
by what kind of men Alexander was surrounded, and how
baleful an influence they might possibly exert on his susceptible mind,
we have only to look forward a few short years,
(05:09):
and observe, how when his strong hand was removed, his
generals fought for the power which they were neither worthy
to gain nor able to retain. Filotus was the commander
of the Companion cavalry, and therefore in daily, almost hourly
communication with Alexander himself. He was the sole survivor of
(05:31):
three brothers, sons of that Parmenion, of whom Philip once
said that the Athenians were lucky, indeed to find ten
generals every year, for he, in the course of many years,
had never found but one, next to the king himself.
The father and son were perhaps the most important men
(05:51):
in the empire, but they were not popular nor even
wholly trusted. Parmenion, it is true, was left in chief
command of Agbatana, but he was getting old and was
thought to have shown a want of energy and resource
at the Battle of Gaugamela. Phelotus also was in bad
odor with both officers and men, with the former for
(06:15):
his arrogance and bluntness and his very success, with the
latter for a supercilious selfishness which showed itself in disregard
for their comfort as compared with his own, and a
studied contempt of their wishes and prejudices. Even with the
king himself. For the past eighteen months, his relations had
(06:36):
been less cordial than before, owing to some disparagement of Alexander,
which he had let fall in conversation with his mistress,
and which had been betrayed by her to Craterus, and
by Craterus only too willingly to the king. In so
perilous a position, caution was needed, and caution was the
(06:57):
virtue of which Felodus was incapable. Now. It happened at
this time that a certain officer named Dimnas was accused
by one of his bosom friends of a design against
Alexander's life. This friend had imparted the secret to his
own brother, and the brother in turn disclosed the plot
to Felotus as to one who would certainly provide against
(07:20):
the danger. The attempt was to be made on the
next day, but one on that day and on the next,
Felotus had long interviews with the king, and on each
occasion omitted to mention what he had heard. On the
third day, his informant, finding that nothing had been done,
(07:40):
resolved to take the matter boldly into his own hands.
He demanded admission to the King's presence at once, even
though he was in the bath, and told him all
he knew. Orders were immediately issued for the arrest of Dimnas, who, however,
either slew himself or was slain in resisting, and thus
(08:01):
the most important witness in the matter was removed by
an act that appeared to prove his guilt. It presently
came out that Felodus also had been aware of the
plot two days before, and had said nothing in so
grave a matter. Silence would in any man seem strange.
In Felodus, not unnaturally, it was taken to prove complicity,
(08:25):
while his defense that the story seemed to rest on
insufficient authority was looked upon as an afterthought. The suspicions
aroused in Alexander's mind were artfully inflamed by Kratorus and
other enemies of Felotus. A council of officers was held,
and they insisted that the only means of arriving at
(08:47):
the truth was to arrest and question Felotus. It needs
but little imagination to see how it all happened. Alexander hurt, angry, suspicious,
the general one here and another there, hinting arguing or
openly accusing, the very absence of Pelotus, who was not
(09:08):
present at the council, perhaps being turned against him. That night,
the accused man was arrested, and on the next day,
according to the national custom, he was brought before an
assembly of the Macedonian troops, where the king himself stated
the charge against him, though he retired before the trial began.
(09:29):
But there was little hope of an impartial hearing, where
the accuser was the idol of the generals who envied
the accused and of the soldiers who hated him. He
was found guilty of the charge of being privy to
the act, but this was not enough. If the son
were condemned on evidence so slight, what view would the
(09:51):
father take of the whole affair, And if he chose
to resent it or took up arms in self defense,
the revolt of so famous a man, master of all
the vast treasures stored at Agbatana, would be formidable even
to Alexander. Parmenion therefore must be involved in the fate
of Felotus. Evidence must be gained against the father as well,
(10:16):
and that evidence must come from the lips of the
sun to us both the end and the means taken
to achieve the end are Equaliodius Felotus was tortured, But
we must not forget, if we wish to be just,
that the false notion of torture being the surest means
of eliciting truth, has been common in nearly every age
(10:38):
and nation, and was neither more or less disgraceful in
Macedonian officers than in Roman slave masters or Christian inquisitors.
However wicked the object may have been, we may be
sure that the means used for its attainment seemed natural
and suitable. Felotus was tortured and can confessed what was desired,
(11:02):
that both his father and himself were guilty of a
design against the king's life, and that he himself had
purposely precipitated measures lest death should remove his father, who
was now seventy, from the command of the treasures which
were necessary to success. A confession, the truth of which
was said to be confirmed by the contents of a
(11:22):
letter from Parmenion seized among the papers of Felotus. On
the next day, this confession was read before the troops,
and Pelotus and others his accomplices were executed, while a
hurried messenger was sent off to Agbitana eleven days march
across the desert, with orders to Clayander, the second in command,
(11:43):
to put Parmenian instantly to death. The command was obeyed,
and the old man was killed while reading a forged
letter purporting to come from his son. An impartial consideration
of the story just narrated leads us to the conclusion
that of all all the persons concerned, Craters and his
friends were the most guilty. Whether we assume that Felotus
(12:07):
was really privy to the plot, or without being privy
to it, would not have been ill pleased to see
it succeed, or was simply imprudent and forgot to speak,
and either of these assumptions as possible, it is clear
that there was prima facia ground for suspicion, and that
the generals used it to ruin Felotus. They might have
(12:28):
used their influence to pacify Alexander, they did, in fact
exasperate him against their enemy. It is hardly strange that
the king himself should have suspected Felotus when he knew
that for two days he had been aware of a
plot against his life and had said nothing about it.
While the very first man implicated had preferred death to
(12:50):
facing investigation. Appearances were against Felotus. It is equally clear
that the charge was not proven, and that if the
accused had had friends at court, there was much to
be said in his defense, while the actual way in
which he was treated showed a passion, a suspiciousness, and
a want of generous forbearance, not unnatural perhaps in a
(13:14):
son of Olympias, but hitherto unexampled an Alexander. If we conclude, however,
that it remains an open question whether Felotus was innocent
or guilty, the same cannot be said of the fate
of Parmenion. That the death of the son should have
made the father's death an apparent necessity both for Alexander
(13:35):
and his generals may be granted, but that is only
saying that one false step necessitates another. No man who
admires the genius or respects the noble qualities of Alexander
the Great can fail to deplore the odious crime which
he allowed himself to commit in assenting to the assassination
(13:56):
of his oldest and ablest general or to you condemn
the wickedness of those who urged such a barbarous judicial murder.
Felotus may have been guilty, Parmenion was almost certainly innocent,
and of Section eighteen
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