Today, we’ll examine two more stories of Alexander … and see if we can learn how we was able, over ten years of war (during which the majority of his soldiers never saw their homes even for a brief leave or furlough) to maintain the passionate devotion of his officers and men.

Alexander was twelve years old when horse dealers brought the great stallion Bucephalus, for sale, to his father Philips’s court in Macedonia.

With today’s episode we’ll move on from the Spartans, the consummate Warrior Collective, to the paramount individual warrior in history—Alexander the Great.

We will talk about the King archetype a lot as this series goes along.

Certain warrior virtues are obvious. Courage.Fidelity.Mental and emotional toughness.

Why have we concentrated so intensely in this series on the 300 Spartans at Thermopylae?

Today’s episode borrows heavily from Victor Davis Hanson’s book, The Western Way of War, whose thesis is that the way Alexander, Caesar, Napoleon, and all great Western generals down to today chose to wage war was to seek a pitched, decisive infantry battle that, at one blow, would decide everything.