Ancient Greece and Alexander: The Teenager Who Ended Persia

In 321 BCE, the body of Alexander the Great was stolen on its way home. To find out who took it, and why, we follow Ancient Greece from tiny city-states to the largest empire the world had seen: democracy in Athens, the Spartans, Marathon, the real story of the 300 at Thermopylae, Socrates' trial, Philip of Macedon, and Alexander's march from Greece to India. Then his generals tear his empire apart, the Greek world spreads from Egypt to Afghanistan, and a city in Italy that nobody took seriously begins to rise. Episode 11 of "From Dust to Us" (Season 2, Episode 5). Previous: The First Empires and How Persia Conquered Them All · Next: Rome CHAPTERS 0:00 The stolen body 0:52 Tiny cities, big ideas 2:09 The Persian wars, Greek side 3:21 Athens against Sparta 4:07 Socrates 4:57 Philip of Macedon 5:55 Alexander's march 7:27 India and the end 8:09 Who stole the body 8:42 The Greek world 9:25 Rome rises 10:34 Next time SOURCES Herodotus, Histories 6 (Marathon, Pheidippides) and 7-8 (Thermopylae, Salamis) Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War (the plague) Plato, Apology and Phaedo (the trial and death of Socrates) Xenophon, Hellenica and Anabasis (Cyrus the Younger) Arrian, Anabasis of Alexander; Plutarch, Life of Alexander Diodorus Siculus 18.26-28 (the funeral carriage and Ptolemy) Cleomedes, On the Heavens (Eratosthenes' measurement of the Earth) Plutarch, Life of Pyrrhus 21