To find out about historical past is to find out about battle, or so it could really feel if you go far again sufficient in time. And in any period of antiquity, few may have matched Alexander the Nice’s mastery of that artwork. After turning into type of the Macedon in 336 BC, on the age of 20, he spent a decade conquering different lands as a way to construct an enormous empire stretching from Greece to India. How he managed to drag it off is the topic of the practically hour-long Epic Historical past TV video above, which traces Alexander’s life and reign over ever-vaster swathes of the then-known world.
Re-creating all of the battles of Alexander’s conquest with not simply maps however 3D animation as properly, the manufacturing makes clearly legible the type of violent conflicts that, little doubt chaotic when skilled on the battlefield, may also be troublesome to observe within the pages of a textbook.
Its graphics and narration break down every little thing from how Alexander initially organized his troops to how he responded, blow by blow, to the strikes of enemy forces. All of it added as much as a army technique that saved Alexander undefeated in battle regardless of typically having been outnumbered, and whose particulars are nonetheless studied immediately.
By his mid-twenties, Alexander had conquered the once-mighty Persian Empire. However with the ambition befitting a victorious younger man — to not point out one who’d been tutored by Aristotle himself — he would accept nothing lower than ruling the world, or at the very least the world as a Greek within the fourth century BC would have conceived of it, and he managed to get fairly near that objective earlier than his loss of life on the age of 32. That he was felled by an sickness somewhat than in battle is certainly one of historical past’s nice ironies, provided that he’d personally led his troops into all their battles. As for the truth that we bear in mind Alexander’s title properly over two millennia after his loss of life, it’s secure to say that it wouldn’t shock him.
Associated content material:
The Historical past of Historic Greece in 18 Minutes: A Brisk Primer Narrated by Brian Cox
The Rise and Fall of the Nice Library of Alexandria: An Animated Introduction
How Arabic Translators Helped Protect Greek Philosophy … and the Classical Custom
Be taught Historic Greek in 64 Free Classes: A Free On-line Course from Brandeis & Harvard
Primarily based in Seoul, Colin Marshall writes and broadcasts on cities, language, and tradition. His initiatives embody the Substack e-newsletter Books on Cities, the e-book The Stateless Metropolis: a Stroll by Twenty first-Century Los Angeles and the video sequence The Metropolis in Cinema. Observe him on Twitter at @colinmarshall or on Fb.
