Speaker 1: It's perfect into your day.
Speaker 2: Jesse Kelly on seventy ten wo.
Speaker 1: R Dreams The Jesse Kelly Show.
Speaker 2: Another hour of The Jesse Kelly Show on an amazing,
Speaker 2: a fantastic Thursday. And here's what's in store for this hour.
Speaker 2: History time, Baby, No more politics. I don't want to
Speaker 2: talk about raids and the EPA and the idiots in
Speaker 2: Congress and other We've done that all week long. And
Speaker 2: I have owed you this story for quite some time.
Speaker 2: So we you and me, we're about to take some time.
Speaker 2: Maybe this is part one, maybe I'll do the whole thing.
Speaker 2: I have no earthly idea, but we are about to
Speaker 2: take a long time, and we're about to discuss Alexander
Speaker 2: the Great in one of the most amazing sieges you've
Speaker 2: ever heard of in your life. Alexander the Great in
Speaker 2: the siege of a place called tire t y R.
Speaker 2: And actually, maybe depending on your upbringing or your church
Speaker 2: attendants now, or just reading the Bible, maybe that name
Speaker 2: sounds familiar to you. You see, there's this prophetic verse
Speaker 2: or two. There's a couple of those in the Bible.
Speaker 2: I think that'd probably be a good place to start out.
Speaker 2: Maybe you could call this a little foreshadowing, if you will,
Speaker 2: Ezekiel twenty six, verse three. Therefore, thus says the Lord God. Behold,
Speaker 2: I am against you, oh Tire, and I will bring
Speaker 2: up many nations against you. As the sea brings up
Speaker 2: its waves. They shall destroy the wall of Tire and
Speaker 2: break down her towers. I will scrape her soil from
Speaker 2: her and make her a bare rock. She shall be
Speaker 2: in the middle of the sea, a place for the
Speaker 2: spreading of nets. For I have spoken, declares the Lord God.
Speaker 2: Now let us discuss how things worked out for Tire. First, well,
Speaker 2: before we get to Alexander the Great, let's discuss briefly Tire.
Speaker 2: Where it is what we're actually talking about here. As always,
Speaker 2: maps help if you are not driving. May I invite
Speaker 2: you to open up your phone or a computer if
Speaker 2: you're in front of it, and I want you to
Speaker 2: look up Lebanon. Lebanon. You know where it is, Lebanon,
Speaker 2: just north of Israel. Over there, you know where it is.
Speaker 2: This is the Mediterranean Lebanon. Okay, it doesn't mean we
Speaker 2: don't have to get more specific than that, but you
Speaker 2: can leave the map open if you'd like. This is
Speaker 2: our area for our story. Here now we are back
Speaker 2: in We're three hundred years before Christ. Okay, this is
Speaker 2: the time of Alexander the Great. That's not exact. But
Speaker 2: remember history is not names, dates and locations. That stuff
Speaker 2: is boring. History is storytelling. Roughly three hundred years before Christ,
Speaker 2: that's the time we're in, Okay, And at this time,
Speaker 2: the wealthiest, you would probably argue, most powerful empire on
Speaker 2: the planet is the achimited Persian Empire. It's often known
Speaker 2: as just the Persian Empire or the Achimenid Empire, but
Speaker 2: the achimened Persian Empire, and they are in control of
Speaker 2: this area at this particular time. Now pause on that
Speaker 2: for a moment. Let me explain something else. This city tire,
Speaker 2: it isn't necessary Persian. It's under Persian control. And this
Speaker 2: is going to matter for our story at some point
Speaker 2: in time. That's why I'm boring you with a little
Speaker 2: bit of this background in this detail. Yes, the Persians
Speaker 2: wanted the Persians own it, the Persians are in control
Speaker 2: of it, but it's not really a Persian city. It
Speaker 2: is a Phoenician city. The Phoenicians. I'm not going to
Speaker 2: go into all this stuff, but you've heard of a
Speaker 2: Phoenician city before Carthage. Carthage is a Phoenician city. What Chris,
Speaker 2: what Chris said, isn't that Persia, man, It's under control
Speaker 2: of Persia at the time. You see, the Persian Empire
Speaker 2: at this time was massive. They had fought wars, they
Speaker 2: had done all this conquest. They were not only massive,
Speaker 2: they were infamously wealthy. And I know they're kind of
Speaker 2: the bad guys in this story, at least for dudes,
Speaker 2: because dudes all cheer for Alexander the Great. I'm no different.
Speaker 2: They were for the time not a bad empire to
Speaker 2: be conquered by. We're not talking about the Assyrians here
Speaker 2: where they're gonna stuff a hook through the bottom of
Speaker 2: your mouth, put it out underneath your tongue. Chain you
Speaker 2: and your wife and kids up on a long chain
Speaker 2: and drag you off to slavery, and they might flay
Speaker 2: you alive when you get there. The Persians didn't really
Speaker 2: operate in that way. The Persians, you could probably call
Speaker 2: them the Donald Trump at the time. The Persons wanted
Speaker 2: to do business. Hey, you want to do business, Yeah,
Speaker 2: we're gonna conquer you. And don't get me wrong, we
Speaker 2: will send our armies and we'll smash you. But why
Speaker 2: don't we just do business. We'll take over you. You're
Speaker 2: gonna have to pay tribute when we call for troops.
Speaker 2: That's fine, but we're not gonna abuse you. You can
Speaker 2: have your religious practices and you can keep your tradition.
Speaker 2: I don't care. We're here for business. That's how the
Speaker 2: Persians handled conquest. And that's why Tire was under control
Speaker 2: of the Persians. But was it really Persian? They were Phoenician,
Speaker 2: the Phoenician people. We're not going to go into all that.
Speaker 2: Here's your one minute explain around the Persian people. They
Speaker 2: were a seafaring people. They really ruled the Mediterranean by
Speaker 2: owning the waves. They were a merchant slash slash navy people,
Speaker 2: and that's gonna matter for our story. A merchant slash
Speaker 2: navy people. They figured out how to go to and
Speaker 2: fro on the water, which was a big deal back then.
Speaker 2: And then you know, there weren't speedboats. They figured out
Speaker 2: how to go to and fro on the water because
Speaker 2: they were on the ocean, because they figured out how
Speaker 2: to trade across the water water. They were stupid wealthy.
Speaker 2: Carthage was wealthy. Tire was wealthy. These Phoenician cities were
Speaker 2: crazy wealthy. Now, maybe you're focusing on the biblical aspect
Speaker 2: of this, because I opened up with the Biblical verse,
Speaker 2: and because you're wondering what was God God's acts to
Speaker 2: grind with these people. Ah, they were big on child sacrifices,
Speaker 2: like really, really really big on child sacrifice. And not
Speaker 2: that there's any kind of wonderful child sacrifice, planned parenthood,
Speaker 2: not that there's any kind of wonderful way to kill children.
Speaker 2: But they burnt them alive. It's horrible, really really terrible.
Speaker 2: And it's not that this would be okay, we're not
Speaker 2: even just talking babies, children who were older. They would
Speaker 2: just cook them alive. A real, real demonic even the Phoenicians.
Speaker 2: It was what they did. It was part of their
Speaker 2: religious practice, and they wouldn't repent, and they got crossways
Speaker 2: with God. And that genuinely ends with right way of
Speaker 2: the same way every single time was set that aside.
Speaker 2: That's tire at the time. Phoenician society Lebanon, that's where
Speaker 2: you need to think of under control of the Persians.
Speaker 2: You with me so far, Now let's go the other way.
Speaker 2: Everyone has seen the movie three hundred or everyone at
Speaker 2: least has heard of this. I take that back. Kids,
Speaker 2: please don't watch the movie three hundred. Definitely not for
Speaker 2: the kids. People know the story of the three hundred
Speaker 2: Spartans at Thermopyla if you don't. The Persians invaded Greece, okay,
Speaker 2: and that was a complicated affair. The Persians felt they
Speaker 2: were completely justified invading Greece. But the Persians invaded Greece.
Speaker 2: This was a long time, over a century before where
Speaker 2: we are now. But time is a funny thing, meaning
Speaker 2: how we think about time now isn't how they always
Speaker 2: thought about it, Because the pace of our life is
Speaker 2: so much faster now. If you if I was to
Speaker 2: take you right now, and I was to tell you, hey,
Speaker 2: you you need to get a hold of your mother,
Speaker 2: but you need to wait five hours. It's really important
Speaker 2: that you talk to your mother, but you have to
Speaker 2: wait five hours to do it. That would be stressful,
Speaker 2: wouldn't it five hours? Why Why can't I call her?
Speaker 2: I need to get a hold of mom. I can
Speaker 2: text her right now. I could pick up a phone.
Speaker 2: If I was to teleport you back to just the
Speaker 2: year nineteen hundred and say you need to talk to
Speaker 2: your mom now and you'll talk to her in five hours.
Speaker 2: You'll be blown away by the speed of it. WHOA, really,
Speaker 2: that's amazing. What are you teleporting me there? Greece had
Speaker 2: not let go of the Persian invasion. When we hear
Speaker 2: it was one hundred and fifty years earlier, time to
Speaker 2: get over it. Everybody's dead by that. They were not
Speaker 2: over it at all. For the very proud Greeks. That
Speaker 2: was an affront to them, That was an offense that
Speaker 2: was ingrained in Greek society, and they were mortified that
Speaker 2: these uppity Persians and all their money took a big
Speaker 2: army and they came and invaded Greece. Now that's the
Speaker 2: Greek the Tire situation, or that's the Tire situation, the
Speaker 2: Phoenician situation. That's the Greek acts to grind. Now, let's
Speaker 2: introduce Alexander the Great.
Speaker 1: It is the Jesse Kelly Show on a Thursday.
Speaker 2: Driving the show off the rails, as we do from
Speaker 2: time to time because it's history time on the Jesse
Speaker 2: Kelly Show, delivering on my Alexander the Great Siege of
Speaker 2: Tires story that I had promised you. I left it
Speaker 2: up to you, and that's the one you wanted, So
Speaker 2: that's the one you're getting. So that was tire. The
Speaker 2: Phoenicians will come back there, well, more specifically, Alexander the
Speaker 2: Great's about to come back there. Alexander the Great. It
Speaker 2: is one of the most amazing stories ever. And believe
Speaker 2: it or not, I'm actually not talking about his military conquests.
Speaker 2: I'm talking about the creation of this man. How do
Speaker 2: you what does it take to create somebody who's capable
Speaker 2: of conquering the world at the age of twenty five?
Speaker 2: What does it take to create somebody who, at the
Speaker 2: age of twenty is commanding armies, who never loses. Surely
Speaker 2: there is something to his background, right well, there is
Speaker 2: a lot to his background, not all of which I'm
Speaker 2: going to go into right now, but we have to
Speaker 2: discuss it because one, it's fascinating. In two, you can't
Speaker 2: understand the man until you understand first his father. His
Speaker 2: father is Philip the Second. His father is one of
Speaker 2: the most amazing and bravest conquerors of my lifetime, of
Speaker 2: my lifetime that I've ever heard about. He died before
Speaker 2: I got here. Philip the Second, Philip of Macedon. Macedonia
Speaker 2: is considered Greek by us. But at the time when
Speaker 2: Philip was coming up, they were considered ruffians, barbarians, those
Speaker 2: northern wilderness people. Okay, picture Athens as New York City
Speaker 2: and people from New York City who loved New York City.
Speaker 2: How do they look at people from rural Alabama? That
Speaker 2: is very similar to how the people of Athens looked
Speaker 2: at Macedonia. Those stupid hicks said that they're uncivilized. That's
Speaker 2: how they looked at it. But Philip of Macedon, he
Speaker 2: had this upbringing where he had a bunch of military
Speaker 2: training and hicks or rural or whatever they may have been,
Speaker 2: the Macedonians were tough as nails. They were just a
Speaker 2: tough people. They lived in a tough environment. They were
Speaker 2: always at war. They were at war with Greece, they
Speaker 2: were at war with other Ruffian tribes to their north.
Speaker 2: They were a warlike people from a warlike area, and
Speaker 2: they were tough as nails. And along comes this very
Speaker 2: sharp man named Philip, Philip the second, and he has
Speaker 2: a plan. And his plan is this, no more separate
Speaker 2: Greek city states. No more Sparta fighting Athens, who's fighting Thebes,
Speaker 2: who's fighting us? No more of this, I am going
Speaker 2: to raise an amazing army. I'm going to reform it,
Speaker 2: and I am going to go conquer Greece and unify
Speaker 2: it under my command. That's what Philip wanted to do,
Speaker 2: and over years and years and years, I did. Look,
Speaker 2: that could be ten shows what I just breezed through
Speaker 2: in three sentences. Over years and years and years, he
Speaker 2: did it. He did it through bribery, he did it
Speaker 2: through conquest. He reformed the army. His army was experienced,
Speaker 2: and to his credit, Philip the Second, unlike these loser
Speaker 2: politicians today, was at the front at all times. Philip
Speaker 2: almost died in combat more times than I can count.
Speaker 2: At one point he got shot in the eye with
Speaker 2: an arrow. At one point he broke both of his
Speaker 2: legs at the same time. Philip the Second had more
Speaker 2: wounds than you can possibly imagine. But he finally did it.
Speaker 2: Now along the way, Philip the Second picked up a
Speaker 2: bunch of wives. That was a Macedonian thing. They believed
Speaker 2: in a bunch of wives. Not our place to judge,
Speaker 2: I guess at this point in time, but it was there.
Speaker 2: It was really their fing. They had a bunch of
Speaker 2: wives and one of those wives was Alexander the Great's mother.
Speaker 2: We're not going to go into her in depth, but
Speaker 2: she is a vicious woman, no question. You don't know
Speaker 2: what propaganda to believe, but we know she was a
Speaker 2: vicious woman capable of killing people and did so quite often.
Speaker 2: You know how I just said Philip had a bunch
Speaker 2: of wives. Well, Philip is a king who takes the
Speaker 2: throne when the king dies. One of the king's sons,
Speaker 2: Philip had another son. The other son got brain damage,
Speaker 2: and everyone kind of acknowledges it was Alexander the Great's
Speaker 2: mother who pretty she did something to him, probably poisoned.
Speaker 2: She poisoned him and just wrecked his mind. So now
Speaker 2: look at that, no more succession crisis. Looks like the
Speaker 2: other boys got some metal issues. Oh is on himself.
Speaker 2: I guess we'll have to go with Alexander. This is
Speaker 2: the kind of woman we're talking about here. She marries Philip,
Speaker 2: She sleeps with snakes as part of her religious custom.
Speaker 2: That's not just propaganda, Yeah, Chris, she was a worshiper
Speaker 2: of Dionysis. It's this weird Greek god that believed in
Speaker 2: snakes like they. When I say sleeps with I mean
Speaker 2: there are snakes in her bed. I get it. That's
Speaker 2: the kind of exotic person we're talking about here, the
Speaker 2: kind of girl you run off with for a couple
Speaker 2: weeks in college and then regret your decisions and never
Speaker 2: tell mom about it. You got me. That's Philip, that's
Speaker 2: his wife. So already, what kind of a child are
Speaker 2: these people going to have? They have? Alexander, Alexander the
Speaker 2: Great has all the physical tools. Apparently he was short,
Speaker 2: but not ridiculously short. He was fairly average for the time,
Speaker 2: five six they think five to seven. No one knows
Speaker 2: for sure. He was reportedly strong, very strong, and very fast.
Speaker 2: Some people talk all the time about his speed, that
Speaker 2: he could run, that he moved very quickly, and he
Speaker 2: had quite the education. Hang on, it is the Jesse
Speaker 2: Kelly Show on a wonderful, wonderful Thursday. We are doing
Speaker 2: a little bit of history here this hour, a little
Speaker 2: bit of Alexander the Great Siege of Tire history. And
Speaker 2: remember we'll be back to politics at some point, maybe today,
Speaker 2: maybe tomorrow, But tomorrow's ask doctor Jesse Friday. So you
Speaker 2: need to get your questions emailed in whatever they may
Speaker 2: be to Jesse at Jesse kellyshow dot com. Back to
Speaker 2: Alexander the Great. He's got this warrior conquer father who
Speaker 2: just unified Greece. He has this raging psychopath mother who
Speaker 2: may just be a lovely well, I don't think there's
Speaker 2: any chance she was a lovely woman. But she loved
Speaker 2: her son. She would kill for her son and did.
Speaker 2: And that wasn't the only upbringing he had. Phillips father, Look,
Speaker 2: think about this. What kind of a king who can
Speaker 2: send people to do what he wants? What kind of
Speaker 2: a king is in the front of his army at
Speaker 2: all times getting wounded. Not just a brave one, but
Speaker 2: a brave one who will demand that of his son.
Speaker 2: Philip starts to transform Alexander. Starts to train Alexander as
Speaker 2: a boy into a military machine. Alexander the Great is
Speaker 2: receiving not just classes, not just alongside his father on
Speaker 2: military campaigns, not just sitting around the table with the
Speaker 2: other general's sipping wine figuring out how to move this
Speaker 2: and that. He is sending Alexander the Great on forced marches.
Speaker 2: He hires somebody to harden him, essentially turn him into
Speaker 2: a beast, put him through a one on one boot camp.
Speaker 2: But it's more than that, they are training him to
Speaker 2: be a king. They bring up Aristotle. Ever heard of Aristotle?
Speaker 2: Alexander the Great and his other friends, his friends would
Speaker 2: be General's kids and things like that. They receive personal
Speaker 2: schooling from Aristotle himself. Again, it's like he was created
Speaker 2: to be a conqueror in a lab. In every sense
Speaker 2: of the word, he is competitive. Every account, accounts that
Speaker 2: hate him, accounts that love him. Every account from the
Speaker 2: time cites the fact that Alexander the Great is obsessively competitive,
Speaker 2: and that is one of those qualities. I'm not saying
Speaker 2: you have to have that quality, because everybody is not
Speaker 2: built the same way, but that is one of those
Speaker 2: qualities that Uber's successful people possess almost every time. Michael
Speaker 2: Jordan is famously so competitive that it gets kind of
Speaker 2: unpleasant to be around. He'll play ping pong. When he
Speaker 2: was on the Dream Team, they would play ping pong,
Speaker 2: and eventually ping pong became not fun because Michael Jordan
Speaker 2: couldn't take losing. Just obsessive, just just awful. Tom Brady
Speaker 2: business leader types Bezos is this way. Elon Musk is
Speaker 2: the Uber Uber competitive guys that hate to lose. He's
Speaker 2: one of those types of guys. All right, let's fast
Speaker 2: forward to the celebration which I reverenced referenced the other day.
Speaker 2: There's a huge celebration for Philip the Second. Philip the
Speaker 2: Second is murdered in front of everybody at this celebration.
Speaker 2: One of his bodyguards, former lover, I don't know, kind
Speaker 2: of weird former lover. One of his bodyguards takes a
Speaker 2: dagger and jams it into Philip the Second's ribs. He
Speaker 2: bleeds out and dies in front of everyone. Lo and behold,
Speaker 2: the assassin, instead of being captured, is killed immediately. Little
Speaker 2: bit suspicious. You would normally want to grab that guy
Speaker 2: alive and pull his fingernails out to figure out who
Speaker 2: hired him. So now we'll never know. Was it Philip
Speaker 2: the Second's wife? But who knows? We'll never know. It
Speaker 2: doesn't matter, We're never gonna solve that mystery. Now. Now,
Speaker 2: Alexander the Great, as a young man I believe he's
Speaker 2: twenty at the time, is in command of the finest
Speaker 2: army in the world. Philip the Second, having unified Greece,
Speaker 2: was already getting ready to invade the acheumened Persian Empire.
Speaker 2: The one we had talked about before he already had
Speaker 2: What do I mean by getting many getting ready? He
Speaker 2: already had ten thousand men in Persia attacking Persia, basically
Speaker 2: building up supply depots in Persia. Philip the Second was coming,
Speaker 2: the boats were ready, he was going, the army was prepped. Boom,
Speaker 2: He's dead. Alexander the Great steps up immediately with the
Speaker 2: backing of Philip the Seconds generals, and Alexander the Great says,
Speaker 2: I'm the guy. Alexander's mom murders everybody, everyone who may
Speaker 2: have contended for the throne. That's the kind of woman
Speaker 2: she was. Look, Alexander the Great, I'm sure helped a bit.
Speaker 2: And now Alexander the Great is pretty much free. He
Speaker 2: first has to put down some rebellions at home, those
Speaker 2: tribes up north where bad He goes up, beats the
Speaker 2: crap out of them, does a bunch of really cool things.
Speaker 2: That's a story for another time. We already talked about Thebes.
Speaker 2: The other day, the major Greek city decided they were
Speaker 2: going to rebel. Hmm, bad idea. Greece didn't understand Thiebes
Speaker 2: didn't understand what they were dealing with. Also, remember, Alexander
Speaker 2: the Great is famously short tempered, prideful, competitive, and short tempered.
Speaker 2: At one point during the peace negotiations, Thebes makes fun
Speaker 2: of him, almost always a bad idea, and Thebes also
Speaker 2: brags to Alexander the Great that they're being paid by
Speaker 2: the Persians to rebel. Now he's really mad. Alexander the
Speaker 2: Great wipes out the city of Thebes. Whoever doesn't get
Speaker 2: killed and raped gets sold into slavery. He tears down
Speaker 2: virtually every building, eliminated, one of the oldest, greatest cities
Speaker 2: in Greece, wipes it out gone. Now it's Persia time. Baby.
Speaker 2: He gathers this army, he crosses the sea. The Persian
Speaker 2: emperor he's a man by the name of Darius. He
Speaker 2: is aware of Alexander. He is I will not say afraid,
Speaker 2: but he's not taking him lightly at all. He dealt
Speaker 2: with his father enough to know this is a serious family,
Speaker 2: and he just sat back and watched Alexander the Great
Speaker 2: beat the living crap out of all the rebellious people
Speaker 2: at home. He is aware that this young man is
Speaker 2: a capable young man. He's young, but he's capable, and
Speaker 2: he's coming over to Persia with a very capable army.
Speaker 2: Darius himself, as we mentioned earlier in the show, is
Speaker 2: in command of really the most you would think before
Speaker 2: this look before the war starts. If you're handicapping things,
Speaker 2: you're looking at it and you're saying, well, the Persian
Speaker 2: Empire's the most powerful empire on the planet. So Darius
Speaker 2: gathers up a very large army as Alexander the Great invades,
Speaker 2: and he squares off with him. This is not the
Speaker 2: Siege of Tire, It's the Battle of Issus. It's a
Speaker 2: very famous battle. I'm not going to go into it now,
Speaker 2: because that's not what we're discussing. Darius gets his teeth
Speaker 2: kicked in badly. He shows up. I don't want to
Speaker 2: say he underestimated him. He brought a very sizable force.
Speaker 2: But he's not Alexander the mediocre, is he. Alexander the
Speaker 2: Great is really really good at what he does, and
Speaker 2: he beats the living crap out of Darius's army. He
Speaker 2: beats him so soundly that Darius has to flee the
Speaker 2: field or be killed himself, probably not going to win
Speaker 2: any shivalry points. He left behind his wife, his mother,
Speaker 2: and his children, and Alexander the Great took possession of
Speaker 2: Darius's wife, mother and children. Now, Darius, remember you need
Speaker 2: to think about this geographically, because we're about to get
Speaker 2: to tire itself. Darius has taken off. He still has
Speaker 2: a bunch of troops, but physically, geographically, that's what I
Speaker 2: don't want to say. Physically, geographically, the acumuted Persian empire
Speaker 2: is huge. It's massive. He has disappeared back into the
Speaker 2: interior of it as he leaves and goes to gather
Speaker 2: another army so he can go back and fight Alexander
Speaker 2: the Great again. When we picture these these old wars,
Speaker 2: Alexander's battles, for instance, we picture that Alexander, oh, well,
Speaker 2: he fought him at this one place, and then they
Speaker 2: moved over to this other place and they fought again,
Speaker 2: and they That's not how it works. If you're Alexander
Speaker 2: the Great, you can't leave Persian truth hoops, Persian cities
Speaker 2: behind you. You have to supply thousands of men with
Speaker 2: food and weapons and medical supplies and new troops. You
Speaker 2: have to secure everything as you go. It's a slow process.
Speaker 2: It's not show up one day, be win one battle,
Speaker 2: and you won. Doesn't work that way. Now Alexander has
Speaker 2: to secure the ports, secure the port cities along the Mediterranean.
Speaker 2: It's time to go to Tire. Yes, is the Jesse
Speaker 2: Kelly Show on a fantastic Thursday. I haven't decided if
Speaker 2: I'm even going to go back to politics. I really
Speaker 2: genuinely don't know, because I'm not going to finish this
Speaker 2: story in the next ten minutes. Do I finish it
Speaker 2: next hour? Maybe I'll ask Chris and Corey. Chris Corey,
Speaker 2: do I go back to politics and make him wait
Speaker 2: till mondays it can't do it tomorrow? And ask doctor
Speaker 2: Jesse Friday, and do I finish the siege of Tire today?
Speaker 2: Chris said, we'll see what's in the news. Okay, fair enough,
Speaker 2: fair enough. Now, Alexander the Great just defeated King Darius
Speaker 2: of the achemend Persian Empire, and he has to do things.
Speaker 2: Remember I told you to look at Lebanon, because that's
Speaker 2: the area we're in. He's looking at all that coastline
Speaker 2: and along that coastline back then there are cities. Remember
Speaker 2: we're about three hundred years before Christ. There are cities there.
Speaker 2: And Alexander the Great he's up north. Okay, so he's
Speaker 2: going north to south. He starts conquering these cities he wants.
Speaker 2: He needs control of these port cities. He has to
Speaker 2: have it. He can't have port cities legal to the
Speaker 2: Persian Empire in his rear. They'll attack him in the rear.
Speaker 2: They won't have I realized that made me sound like
Speaker 2: Lindsay Graham. They'll they'll attack his supply lines. They'll they'll
Speaker 2: he can't have it, Okay, So he starts attacking, and
Speaker 2: he starts taking city after city after city until he
Speaker 2: gets to the city that is our subject today. And
Speaker 2: this city is known as Tire. This is the important
Speaker 2: thing you need to understand. Don't worry. It's easy to understand.
Speaker 2: He gets to the city on the coast. That city
Speaker 2: is known as Old Tire. Remember that Bible verse we
Speaker 2: read at the beginning book of Ezekiel. That's Old Tire
Speaker 2: they were talking about. Old Tire is the one right
Speaker 2: there on the coast. Not exactly heavily defended, but very
Speaker 2: very old. Why wouldn't it be very heavily defended because
Speaker 2: the people of Tire, the Tyrenes, they found themselves a
Speaker 2: new gig about. Look, I've read half a mile, I've
Speaker 2: read three quarters of a mile. One dirty European said
Speaker 2: one kilometer, like anybody knows what that means. Right off
Speaker 2: the coast of Old Tire out into the Mediterranean is
Speaker 2: an island. This island is known as New Tire. It
Speaker 2: is a large, very very large island town slash fortress
Speaker 2: in every sense of the word. In fact, we get
Speaker 2: the question a lot on ask doctor Jesse Friday, if
Speaker 2: you could go witness an old battle or witness something
Speaker 2: from history, what would be your one thing? This is
Speaker 2: on my short list, just to see the city and
Speaker 2: see another aspect of this battle, which I'll get to
Speaker 2: in a moment. But this is an island fortress. It
Speaker 2: has a couple of fortified harbors on it, which is everything.
Speaker 2: Remember these are a naval people that'll come into play.
Speaker 2: They have ships. This island has walls that are allegedly
Speaker 2: there's a lot of dispute on whether people believe this
Speaker 2: that are alleged the one hundred and fifty feet high
Speaker 2: Whether or not they were actually one hundred and fifty
Speaker 2: feet high, that doesn't matter. What matters is they were
Speaker 2: high surrounded by high walls. And again it's an island.
Speaker 2: Alexander doesn't have an army. Alexander cannot allow this Persian
Speaker 2: loyal city in his rear. He has to take it somehow,
Speaker 2: some way, So he first tries the clever route. Alexander
Speaker 2: was a Greek, obviously considered himself to be Greek. And
Speaker 2: you know they had all these different gods Zeus and
Speaker 2: all that Tire it had a temple. Old Tire had
Speaker 2: a temple, and New Tire had a temple. Both of
Speaker 2: these temples were to Hercules, you know who. Hercules was,
Speaker 2: ancient Greek hero. New Tire had a bigger, nicer temple
Speaker 2: obviously than Old Tire. Remember old tiles, old tires, the
Speaker 2: one on the coast, just kind of ancient collecting dust. Alexander,
Speaker 2: trying to be clever, gets with the Tire people and says, hey,
Speaker 2: you have a beautiful island. I've heard there's a beautiful
Speaker 2: temple to Hercules, and I Alexander the Great, would really
Speaker 2: love to go out there and make some sacrifices to
Speaker 2: Hercules and that temple. Do you mind of me and
Speaker 2: some friends come out to your island and pay homage
Speaker 2: to Hercules. The people of Tire were not fools. This
Speaker 2: guy had been rampaging through Persia for a while. They said, oh, hey,
Speaker 2: that's that's going to be a no. But guess what
Speaker 2: good news we have an we have another temple in
Speaker 2: Old Tire. Go make your sacrifices there. Okay, so everyone
Speaker 2: understands the game. Alexander the Great receives that news about
Speaker 2: as well as you would expect. He received that news,
Speaker 2: and so he now decides to wipe out Old Tire.
Speaker 2: Remember that biblical passage I read in the very beginning,
Speaker 2: the prophecy that this city is going to essentially be
Speaker 2: scraped down to soil. Yeah, Alexander the Great did that.
Speaker 2: He wiped the entire place out, but he wiped it
Speaker 2: out with a purpose. You see, Tire made a horrible mistake,
Speaker 2: a horrible mistake, mistakes that they used to make with
Speaker 2: that people used to make against Genghis Khan, and for
Speaker 2: some reason, they made them against Alexander the Great too.
Speaker 2: Envoys Alexander the Great had sent envoys to Tire. Tire
Speaker 2: not only killed his diplomats, his ambassadors. These are peaceful
Speaker 2: people just coming out to talk. Tire not only killed
Speaker 2: them in front of Alexander. Remember he's half a mile
Speaker 2: off shore, he can watch all this. They threw the
Speaker 2: bodies of his envoys in the Metai tranium. Hmm, that
Speaker 2: was not a good move to make. So Alexander the Great,
Speaker 2: Alexander the Great sets about destroying and building at the
Speaker 2: same time, if you will. Why did he remove all
Speaker 2: the buildings? Why was essentially no stone there? Apparently there
Speaker 2: weren't two stones still stacked on each other by the
Speaker 2: time he was done with Old Tire. Was this purely
Speaker 2: out of spite? Well, don't get me wrong, that's something
Speaker 2: Alexander would do. But no, it wasn't purely out of spite.
Speaker 2: Alexander the Great doesn't have a navy, he has an army.
Speaker 2: He needs to attack an island, so he decides to
Speaker 2: build a bridge, a causeway. More specifically, he is emptying
Speaker 2: Old Tire of all the stones that had built it,
Speaker 2: and he's throwing them in the water and building a
Speaker 2: causeway out to New Tire. And you know what, I'm
Speaker 2: not even leaving it up, Kristen Cory, We're gonna tell
Speaker 2: this tale in its completion next maybe we'll get to
Speaker 2: some politics in a little bit.