Parmenion

He's up against a very strong general that's hired by Darius III.

Parmenion, the best general who's much older that had led with his father for many years, advised him, let's wait till sun up to cross.

It's going to be safer.

And ultimately, he said, you know, I'm paraphrasing, but if I was going to do what Parmenion wanted to do, I'd be Parmenion.

I'm Alexander.

So he heard it, but no matter what, they were going to disagree.

Now all this speaks volumes about Alexander's character, right? He loved his animals, but at the same time he could with ease kill men who had followed him, you know, to the other side of the world.

Philotas, Parmenion, Callisthenes, Cletus and probably many others that we're never going to hear about.

The settlements were built with...

No, wait, I skipped a fucking bit.

On the right, Alexander leads the companion cavalry, his personal hammer.

On the left, Parmenion, his trusted general, commands the Thessalian horse.

Their plan is simple but risky: hold the line against overwhelming numbers, then strike hard where the enemy least expects.

The Persians advance first, chariots charging across the plain.

The vaunted chariots, meant to shred formations, are reduced to wreckage in minutes.

Next comes the cavalry clash.

On the Macedonian left, Parmenion is pressed hard.

Persian horsemen flood against him, threatening to outflank the phalanx.

But at this assembly a critical question at once arose.

Who were the allies of Athens? Was Halos, which Parmenion the Macedonian was besieging when the Athenian ambassadors had passed it on their way to Pella? Was Kersobleptes of the Thracian Kersones, against whom King Philip was about to march in person when the ambassadors were leaving Pella? Above all were the Phokians.

And to Athens we must remember the last two positions of primary importance, the Hellespont and the safety of commerce.

Thermopylae and safety from attack.

But to some, and most of all to Athens, it must have been gall and wormwood to find themselves not only stripped of subject allies, but enrolled along with them in the common herd of contributory appendages to King Philip.

Sparta alone held aloof and was spared this humiliation.

Preparations were at once begun and carried out throughout the year for the projected invasion of Asia, and in the spring of 336 the first division crossed the Hellespont under the command of Parmenion and Attalos, father of Philip's last wife Cleopatra.

Philip himself was to follow with the main body.

To Philip, however, who had just taken Potidaea, there came three messages at the same time.

The first that Parmenio had conquered the Illyrians in a great battle.

The second that his racehorse had won a victory at the Olympic Games, while a third announced the birth of Alexander.

These things delighted him, of course, and the seers raised his spirits still higher by declaring that the son whose birth coincided with three victories would be always victorious.

Greatly disturbed by these stories, Alexander sent Thessalus the tragic actor to Caria to argue with Pixodarus that he ought to ignore the bastard brother, who was also a fool, and make Alexander his connection by marriage.

And this plan was vastly more pleasing to Pixodarus than the former.

But Philip, becoming aware of this, went to Alexander's chamber, taking with him one of Alexander's friends and companions, Philotas, the son of Parmenio, and upbraided his son severely, and bitterly reviled him as ignoble and unworthy of his high estate, in that he desired to become the son-in-law of a man who was a Carian and a slave to a barbarian king.

And as for Thessalus, Philip wrote to the Corinthians that they should send him back to Macedonia in chains.

That was his best buddy and his bodyguard or Ptolemy or...

Even Nicanor, the son of Parmenio, who was ultimately the COO of the army, because it was Alexander's father's loyal general who had two sons, Nicanor and, ah, what's the other son's name? Oh, I don't remember.

Parmenio had two sons, and they both ran different parts of the army of Alexander the Great.

Or Napoleon having one of his generals run the army, Genghis Khan.

You could just think, imagine.