He drove on, south to the Outer Ocean.
In smashing the mutiny and executing the ringleaders...
...he did nothing, to my mind, that any general in wartime would not have done.
But clearly the Army was divided...
...and Alexander was no longer loved by all.
Stay calm.
Together we are strong as gods!
Cover with your left...
...strike hard with your right.
Fear is rot! A waste of time!
Lock shields!
Battle positions!
Move!
Choppers, prepare your knives!
Follow me!
Shields steady!
Strike hard, boys! Strike hard!
Come, Macedonians!
Why do you hang back! Hurry!
Split to thirds!
Regroup and encircle!
Behind us! Cover your back!
Hold the line!
- We're surrounded! - We must hold!
No! Cavalry on me!
Follow Alexander!
Charge!
The phalanx is in jeopardy!
Meleager, ride to Pharnakes and tell him return to the center at once!
Amyntas, find Hephaistion at the riverbank and bring all cavalry to the center!
We must reach Crateros before it's too late!
Hephaistion! To the center!
Come, Macedonians! Ride! Ride!
Coenus! Get out of there!
No!
Hold together, Macedonians!
Regroup!
The horses won't go! On foot then!
Fall back, men!
Fall back!
Come, Bucephalus.
You see... Fear not, my friend...
...it is only sun and shadow.
You and I, together, one last time, Bucephalus.
Retreat!
Isn't it a lovely thing to live with great courage...
...and to die living an everlasting fame?
Come, Macedonians,
why do you retreat? Do you want to live forever?
In the name of Zeus, attack!
Attack!
Alexander!
The King is down!
To the King!
In the name of your king!
Nearchus, how is he? How is he?
It was the bloodiest of his battles.
Pure butchery...
...the end of all reason.
We'd never be men again.
He lives! Alexander!
Men of Macedon...
...we're going home!
The gods be with you, Alexander! We love you!
We're going home!
His life should have ended in India...
but that's myth.
In life, Herakles died of a poisoned shirt...
...given him in error by his jealous wife.
Making his devotions to the gods at the end of the great journey...
...Alexander bade the East farewell, and marched this army directly west...
...across the great Gedrosian Desert...
...seeking the shortest route home to Babylon.
To this day, there is no accounting of how many died.
It was the worst blunder of his life.
And when he finally re-entered Babylon, after six years in the far East...
...Alexander again seized the imagination of the world...
...by taking two more wives.
Just last night he was...
It's the water, Your Majesty!
He mixed it with the wine.
But, how can this be? Typhus, of India?
I wouldn't tax yourself, Your Majesty. A few good night's rest will do it.
But no wine or cold chicken-
I feel better.
Soon, I'll be up.
We leave for Arabia in the spring and I couldn't leave without you.
Arabia
You used to dress me up like a sheik...
...wave your wooden scimitar.
You were the only one who'd never let me win.
The only one who's ever been honest with me.
You saved me from myself.
Please don't leave me, Hephaistion.
My Alexander.
I remember the young man who wants to be Achilles...
...and then outdid him.
And you Patroclus.
And then what happened?
Ours is a myth only young men believe.
But how beautiful a myth it was.
We reach...we fall.
Oh, Hephaistion!
I worry for you without me.
I am nothing without you!
Come, fight, Hephaistion!
We will die together!
It's our destiny.
We'll have children with our wives...
...and our sons will play together as we once did.
A thousand ships we'll launch from here, Hephaistion.
We'll round Arabia...
...and sail up the Gulf to Egypt.
From there we'll build a channel through the desert and out to the Middle Sea.
And then we'll move on Carthage.
And that great island, Sicily, they'll pay large tribute.
After that, the Roman tribe, good fighters!
We'll beat them...
...and then explore the northern forests,
...and out the Pillars of Herakles to the Western Ocean!
And then one day, not ten years from now...
...Babylon, with its deep-water harbor, will be the center of the World!
The Alexandrias will grow, populations will mix and travel freely.
Asia and Europe will come together.
And we'll grow old, Hephaistion...
...looking out our balcony at this New World.
Hephaistion?
Where is this Doctor?
I can't explain this, your Majesty.
It' s not possible! I swear by Apollo-
Execute him!
Take him out, now, and execute him!
Come away
Get out!
Get out, now!
Be gone with you! Harpies! Get out! Get out!
Are you drunk again? Get out.
- He's dead. - Who?
Many hated him...
...but I don't think any other would have dared!
Hephaistion is dead?
Are you mad?
You monster!
Are you mad?
You've taken from me all that I've ever loved!
May all the Furies through time damn your miserable heart!
Obey me!
I have your child!
Alexander, I have your child!
Alexander, my husband, my King! We have a son!
My poor, poor, ill-fated son!
Never touch me again!
No!
One last toast...
...before the dawn.
To my old...friends!
And to the myths!
Yes! Go on! Finish it!
To the next dawn!
Rest your eyes my little son
Yes, come.
Come to Babylon...
I await you. Your only, loving son.
Wait!
Vultures!
Your son, Alexander!
Just three more months!
Please live!
Alexander, we beg you.
Tell us who.
Who will rule this great empire? Who do you want, Alexander?
Fear not. We are at the beginning.
The myth becomes real.
Beyond Herakles...
I'll be on walls like these.
Zeus is your father!
The Army will divide.
Satrapies will revolt. Without your orders, there'll be war.
Pray tell us, who?
It is I who love you more than any.
What did he say?
To the best.
He said, "To the best."
No, he said, "To Crateros."
To Crateros? Why would he say Crateros?
Babylon, Persia June 323 B.C.
On the 10th of June...
...a month short of his 33rd year,
Alexander's great heart...
...finally gave out, and as he vowed, he joined Hephaistion.
But in his short life, he achieved, without doubt...
...the mythic glory of his ancestor Achilles...
...and more.
His sacrifice was an early death...
...but in keeping to his side of the bargain...
...I cannot help but feel Alexander conquered Death as well.
Olympias' transgression in the murder of his father...
...is to my mind, a probability.
His? A burden.
Alexander was too in love with glory for him to steal it.
But by blood, and blood alone...
...he was guilty.
The body stays in Babylon.
Within hours, we were fighting like jackals for his corpse.
The wars of the world had begun.
40 years off and on they endured...
...Cassander in Greece, Crateros
and Antigonous in western Asia...
...Solucas and Perdiccas in the East, myself in Egypt...
...until we divided his Empire in four parts.
Gentlemen, we are not savages!
Cassander certainly proved his will to power...
...when seven years later, he had Olympias executed.
And within twelve years, he achieved...
...the complete destruction of Alexander's bloodline...
...when he poisoned Roxane and Alexander's thirteen-year-old son...
...the true heir to the Empire.
But the truth is never simple...
...and yet it is.
The truth is, we did kill him.
By silence, we consented.
Because we couldn't go on.
What did we have to look forward to but to be discarded in the end like Cleitus!
After all this time, to give away our wealth to Asian sycophants we despised?
Mixing the races, "harmony", pah!
Oh, he talked of these things...
But wasn't it really about Alexander, and another population ready to obey him?
I never believed in his dream.
None of us did.
That's the truth of his life.
The dreamers exhaust us.
They must die before they kill us with their blasted dreams!
Just throw all that away, Cadmos.
It's an old fool's rubbish.
You shall write,
He died of fever and a weakened condition.
Yes, great Pharaoh.
He could've stayed home in Macedonia, married, raised a family.
He'd have died a celebrated man.
But this was not Alexander.
All his life...
...he fought to free himself from fear.
And by this, and this alone, he was made free...
...the freest man I've ever known!
His tragedy was one of increasing loneliness...
...and impatience with those who could not understand.
And if his desire to reconcile Greek and barbarian...
...ended in failure...
...well, what failure!
His failure towered over other men's successes.
I've lived,
I've lived long life, Cadmos...
...but the glory and the memory of man...
...will always belong to the ones who follow their great visions.
And the greatest of these is the one they now call...
..."Megas Alexandros".