India, the land where the sun was born...
...fabled to be even richer than Persia...
...had never been explored or conquered.
From the beginning, we struggled to unify a land without a center.
Kings who conspired against one another.
A labyrinth of tribes urged on by zealots and philosophers...
...to die by the thousands for their strange gods.
We saw things we'd never dreamed and could hardly describe.
We saw birds that could talk and men that couldn't.
Crateros, in the advance party, fought against men with hairy skins...
...who were tiny and lived in the tops of trees.
- Over there! - They're animals.
Until Hephaistion convinced us these were animals who imitated men...
...but wore their own skin.
They called this tribe "monkey."
Monkey. Monkey.
But we saw little difference with the tribes who lived among them.
- Look at his hand. - It's so much like ours.
Hello, little man.
- Do they speak? - No, but they do sing and make noises...
...from the roofs of the forest.
We saw men who walked naked in public...
...and spent hours at a time staring and doing nothing.
Some who lived 200 years.
And then, there was the rain.
Never before had we seen water that fell from the gods...
...for 60 days and nights.
Well done today.
Make sure the women and children are fed.
You know better, Machatas.
What's your son going to say?
Come on, man. The older you get, the stronger.
Right, my king. You're my horse, Alexander.
I'll be with you at your side.
Everything rotted in this rain...
...and scores of men died miserably from the tiny serpents...
...that were everywhere in this evil land.
- What happened? - It's to the neck.
Oh, no. Zeus, no.
Hold on. Hold on.
Be brave.
Oh, Zeus.
Our quest for gold and glory evaporated as we realized...
...there was none to be had.
Tempers worsened.
We massacred all Indians who resisted.
And with the local water putrid...
...we drank the strong wine.
And as we moved south and east...
...Alexander often returned the lands we'd conquered to their defeated kings...
...so as to make them allies.
But this did not sit well with the army...
...who began to wonder:
Were we here for riches? Or had Alexander...
...in some remorseless and crazed quest to imitate the glory of Herakles...
...forgotten them?
One thing an army knows quickly in their bones...
...is which way the gods are blowing.
Kiss him!
- To Bagoas. - To Bagoas!
- And to my mother's god, Dionysus... - Dionysus!
...Who, we're told by our Indian allies, traveled here before Herakles...
...some 6000 years ago.
To a hero.
To a hero!
Roxane.
You lose face.
These Indians...
...they are a low, evil people.
You don't try to understand them.
I try.
But this I know, Alexander.
In Persia, you are a great king.
Here...
...they hate you.
Let us go back to Babylon.
There, you are strong.
We'll talk about this later.
Yes.
Later.
Talk.
I shall come.
Tonight.
And I shall wait.
Good night, my king.
Your Majesty.
Come, Alexander, drink with us.
- Alexander. - Alexander!
I remember a time you hated how your father drank.
Now I know why.
Dionysus is hero.
But he is also mind breaker.
He destroys our self-control.
Self-control is a lover I've known too long, Ptolemy.
The struggle worries me to the bone.
And success I find to be as corrupt as failure.
But Dionysus, bless his ancient soul...
...frees me from myself.
And then, I move up.
I am simply Alexander.
A toast to Bagoas.
And the 30,000 beautiful Persian boys...
...we're training to fight in this great army.
And to the memory of Philip.
Had he lived to see his Macedonians...
...transformed into such...
...a pretty army.
To Philip.
To a real hero.
Philip!
To Cleitus and his new appointment as satrap of Bactria.
Cleitus.
That's a fancy way of putting it, Ptolemy.
But we all know what a pension and an exile is...
...after 30 years' service.
Exile?
From where, Cleitus?
From my home, Alexander, Macedonia.
You could've asked me where I wanted to spend the rest of my life.
You call governing this major province exile?
Has Your Majesty given any of his closest companions...
...a province so far from home?
Then you won't make a very good satrap, will you, Cleitus?
So be it.
Let me rot in Macedonian rags...
...rather than shine...
...in Eastern pomp.
I won't quake and bow down like the sycophants you have around you.
Hephaistion, Nearchus, Perdiccas.
As governor of one of our most Asian of satrapies...
...Cleitus, does it not occur to you that if my Persian subjects...
...bow down before me, it's important for them to do so?
Do I insist on Greeks doing the same?
You accept Greek offerings as a son of Zeus, do you not?
Only when offered.
Why don't you refuse these vain flatteries?
What freedom is this, to bow before you?
You bow before Herakles, and he was mortal...
...but a son of Zeus.
How can you, so young, compare yourself to Herakles?
Why not?
I've achieved more in my years.
Traveled as far.
Probably farther.
Herakles did it by himself.
Did you conquer Asia by yourself, Alexander?
Who planned the Asian invasion...
...when you were still being spanked on your bottom by my sister Lanice?
Was it not your father?
Or is his blood no longer good enough?
- Zeus-Amon, is it? - You insult me, Cleitus.
You mock my family. Be careful.
Never would your father have taken barbarians as his friends...
...asked us to fight with them as equals in war.
Are we not good enough any longer?
I remember a time...
...when we could talk as men, straight to the eye.
None of this scraping, groveling.
I remember a time when we hunted...
...when we wrestled on the gymnasium floor.
Now you kiss them?
Take a barbarian, childless wife and dare call her queen?
Go quickly, Cleitus, before you ruin your life.
Doesn't your great pride fear the gods any longer?
This army... This army is your blood, boy!
Without it, you're nothing!
You no longer serve the purpose of this march!
- Get him from my sight! - I don't serve your purpose?!
What was I serving when I saved your puppy life at Gaugamela?
Were you Zeus' boy? What if I left you to die in the dust there?
Do you think we'd be forced now to mate with brown apes?
Alexander!
Turn out the guards! Arrest him for treason!
- I'll go with him. - Alexander.
- Who's with him? - No.
Who's with him?
I call Father Zeus to witness.
I call you to trial before him!
And we'll see how deep this conspiracy cuts!
- Take him! - In the name of the gods, get him out!
Now look at you! Great white ass, Alexander.
Hiding behind his fairy god!
Or are you too great to remember whose life was saved by me?!
- I am more a man than you'll ever be! Ever! - Get him out!
- He's gone. He's gone. - Alexander.
Come on!
What a tyrant you are! An evil tyrant you've become, Alexander.
You speak of plots against you? What about poor Parmenion?
Get out!
He served you well. Look how you repaid him.
You made me do your foul deed. Have you no shame?
You ungrateful wretch! No one, not my vilest enemy, has spoken like you to me.
Hear what I say! Despot. False king.
You and your barbarian mother live in shame.
Cleitus.
Oh, my Cleitus. Cleitus.
- Let me pass. - None can enter.
I am the queen.
I want to see him. I've waited three days.
He says none, not even you.
- He needs me. - No, he doesn't.
And he needs you?
Hephaistion, you make a mistake.
The army grows restless, questioning.
Alexander.
They need your reassurance.
Heinous.
Like an old lover they forgive, but they will never forget.
- He was an aging drunk. - He was my friend.
His sister Lanice nursed me.
And how did I repay her?
Two brothers dead, fighting him by my own hands.
Her last remaining blood.
What will she do but weep on the day of my birth?
Come. You know more than any...
...great deeds are done by men who took and never regretted.
You're Alexander.
Pity and grief will only destroy you.
Have I become so arrogant that I am blind?
Sometimes, to expect the best of everyone is...
...arrogance.
Then Cleitus spoke true. I have become a tyrant.
No.
But perhaps a stranger.
You've gone too far.
They don't understand you any more.
They speak of Philip now...
...as if I were a passing cloud...
...soon to be forgotten.
I've failed...
...utterly.
You're mortal.
And they know it.
And they forgive you because you make them proud of themselves.
Philip once said...
...that there's a Titan in all of us.
That they wait, mixed in our ashes.
It wasn't because of the wine, I killed.
It was because I wanted to.
Philip, King of Macedonia...
...and leader of the Greeks.
All my life, I've waited to see Greeks grovel with respect for Macedonia.
Today is that day.
They say already, "Philip was a great general...
...but Alexander is simply great."
But if you ever insult me again...
...I'll kill you.
I've missed you.
In the spring, Persia.
You'll command my horse from the right.
I'm honored, Father. I wouldn't miss it...
...for all the gold in the world.
Which, one day, you'll have.
Making himself a 13th god.
He's drunk so much wine, my poor Philip, he's lost his mind.
- Your Majesty. - Attalus.
I hope the prince is enjoying the spectacle...
...as much as our regent.
He's very tired.
Hey.
- Pausanias, bring the rest of the guard. - Royal guard!
To the arena! March!
No guard, Your Majesty? In all this crowd?
- Greeks all over the place. - Cleitus, Cleitus.
My Cleitus.
This man you can always trust, Alexander.
Treat him as you would me.
He'll guard your back for you.
Yes, Father.
My people are guard enough today.
Let these Greeks see for themselves how I can walk through my people.
Then let them call me tyrant.
Bring the main guard in after my entry only.
Cleitus, make sure the wine flows steady all day.
I want them to like me.
Weren't you told? I go in alone.
Follow with the main guard.
Go on.
- Go on. - Father, it's best I go with you.
You want the world to see you're my successor.
Is that what she wants?
Don't look so hurt all the time, Alexander. Be a man.
You count yourself lucky you were here at all today, after your public display.
By Herakles, by Zeus, by all the gods...
...obey me this once!
Have courage, Father.
And go on your way rejoicing that at each step...
...you may recall your valor.
And now, our beloved King Philip...
...in whose honor these wedding games begin.
Pausanias, I told you--
Who's your new friend?
There's your new friend.
No! Please, don't! No!
The king lives!
Alexander, son of Philip!
May the gods bless the king!
Alexander is king!
You're king now. You're king.
Long live Alexander!
- Alexander! - King Alexander!
Alexander!
Alexander is king!
May the gods bless Alexander!
May the gods bless the king!
Alexander!
You break my heart, you men.
Afraid.
Of course you have fears.
We all have fears...
...because no one has ever gone this far before.
And now we are weeks from the encircling ocean, our route home.
We'll build a fleet of ships...
...and sail all the way back down the Nile to Egypt.
And from Alexandria, we shall be home within weeks.
There to be reunited with our loved ones.
To share our great treasures and tales of Asia.
And to enjoy our imperishable glory to the ends of time.
- Follow Alexander. - I'll follow you.
What?
- Silence? - We're with you, Alexander!
Crateros.
And another one.
My king.
I'm a fighting man.
I don't like no bellyaching. I won't tolerate it in any of my units.
I lost many a man.
Young ones, never been with a woman.
Some died of disease.
Some were butchered in Scythia by the banks of the Oxus.
Some died good.
Some just didn't get no luck.
But they died.
Forty thousand I come over with eight years ago.
And we march after you more than 10,000 miles.
In the rain and the sun, we fought for you.
Some of us, 50 battles we've been in.
We killed many a barbarian.
And now when I look around, how many of them faces do I see?
Now you want us to fight more of these crazy monkey tribes east of here.
We hear talk of thousands of these elephant monsters...
...cross a hundred more rivers.
Crateros. Good Crateros.
Who better than you to speak, most noble of men.
But you know there's no part of me without a scar or a bone broken.
By sword, knife, stone, catapult and club. I've shared every hardship with all of you.
Aye, you have, my king, and we love you for it.
But, by Zeus, too many have died.
You have no children, Alexander, and we're just...
...humble men, we seek no disturbance with the gods. All we wish for...
...is to see our children and our wives and our grandchildren one last time...
...before we join our brothers in that dark house they call Hades.
Yes. You're right, Crateros.
I have been negligent.
I should've sent you veterans home sooner, and I will.
The first of you shall be the Silver Shields.
Then every man who's served seven years. With full pensions from our treasury.
And respected, rich, loved.
You'll be treated by your wives and children as heroes for the rest of your lives...
...and enjoy a peaceful death.
But you dream, Crateros.
Your simplicity long ended when you took Persian mistresses and children...
...and you thickened your holdings with plunder and jewels.
Because you've fallen in love with all the things in life that destroy men.
Do you not see?
And you, as well as I, know...
...that as the years decline and the memories stale...
...and all your great victories fade...
...it will always be remembered, you left your king in Asia!
For I will go on, with my Asians.
- To the jackals with you, then, Alexander. - We come for you, and you discard us.
- Shame! - We want to go home, Alexander.
We're tired of glory.
We want to see our wives and children before we die.
I've got children I haven't even seen.
I want to see my children.
I paid for your bastard children. I've taken nothing for myself.
And all I've asked of you is one more month.
- Shame. - That's your king.
What would your father say?
I've taken you further than my father ever dreamed.
So go home. I look to the barbarians for their courage.
I go east.
He wants us dead so we can't speak of his crimes.
- Who said that? - We won't make it to Macedonia.
You despicable coward. Come forth.
- Make your accusations public. - So you can have us killed?
- Son of Zeus. - You desecrate your real father's memory.
- Or did you murder him like you did Cleitus? - Hide in this mob because I'll take your life.
You men insult my honor, my paternity. Arrest him.
And him. Yes. And you, this loudmouth Demetrius.
You call me murderer? I have no such blood on my hands.
And him. Yes, you'll know the pain of treason.
You mock my shame for Cleitus and say I'd harm a hair of my father's head.
Arrest him. After all I've done for you, you swine.
You cowards. Traitors.
Come on, then. Where are your daggers?
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.
He drove on, south to the outer ocean.
I confess a disappointment.
Especially on these reports of your taking on Eastern ways.
Beware how these manners inflame the senses with pride.
However, I have lived long enough now...
...to question...
...when so many others invest such emotion in their disrespect for you.
I can only hope that you continue what you began as the boy I knew at 12.
Be that man always, Alexander, and you will not slip.
And perhaps you will prove this old materialist...
...as you always thought me:
A dreamer after 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.
Strike hard, boys. Strike hard.
Come, Macedonians. Why do you hang back? Hurry.
Cavalry!
Split to thirds. Regroup and encircle.
Hold the line.
We must die!
- Oh, no. Cavalry on me. - Follow Alexander.
Charge. Charge. Charge.
The phalanx is in jeopardy.
Meleager, ride to Pharnakes and tell him return to the center.
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.
- The horses won't go. - On foot, then.
Fall back, men! Fall back!
Come, Bucephalus.
Fear not, my friend.
Bucephalus.
'Tis only sun and shadow.
Bucephalus and Alexander.
One last time, it's you and me.
Isn't it a lovely thing to live with great courage...
...and to die leaving an everlasting fame?
Come, Macedonians. Why do you retreat?
Do you want to live forever? In the name of Zeus, attack.
Attack.
Alexander!
Alexander.
- The king is down! - To the king!
It was the bloodiest of his battles.
Pure butchery.
We'd never be men again.
Get out.
Go.
How can you behave so shamelessly in public?
Because it was meant to be.
This isn't how I wanted to become king.
- No one blames you. - They blame me behind my back! In secret.
- Slander is not power. - Shame is?
Who killed my father?
Tell me.
Tell me, or shall I put you on trial for his murder?
- Pausanias. - He had help!
Did you help him?
No, never.
Why? Why would I?
So many wanted it.
Greeks, Persians, men, women.
I'd be shocked if there were not a god he had not profaned.
How ironic though, in the end...
...a boy he rutted with once too often returned the favor.
You're mad. You're cursed.
You've unleashed Furies, you don't know their power.
Now who is exaggerating?
Even if it was the wish of your heart--
That's a lie! He was my father! I loved him!
He was not your father!
You owe no blood debt to that man.
You lie and lie and lie.
So many lies you've spun like a sorceress, confusing me.
Look at you. Look at you.
You are everything that he was not.
He was coarse, you are refined.
He was a general, and you are a king.
He could not rule himself...
...and you shall rule the world.
You're so cursed by all the gods when you speak like this.
Such thick pride...
...and no mourning for your husband.
Mourn...
...him?
What do you know of Philip?
No, Alexander. Zeus is your father.
- Act like it. - My first act would be to kill you!
You murdered me in my cradle.
You birthed me in a sack of hate.
Hate you have for those stronger than you.
- Hate you have for men. - I taught you my heart, Alexander!
And by Zeus and Dionysus, you grew beautiful.
Damn your sorceress soul.
Your soul is mine, Alexander.
No! No!
You've taken from me everything I've ever loved and made me you!
Stop it. Stop acting like a boy.
You're a king. Act like one.
Parmenion is with us, for once.
Execute Attalus without delay.
Confiscate their lands and root out that family forever.
Eurydice? Never.
Laugh, you monster.
You heartbreaker.
How will you live out the year like this?
- Have you learned nothing from Philip? - No. From you, Mother.
The best.
What have I done to make you hate me so?
One day, you will understand this.
But I have only you in my heart.
I know what you need.
Now is the time.
The gods favor you.
Great wealth, power, conquest.
All you desire.
The world is yours!
Take it.
He never saw his mother again.
And while he was away, fighting the Northern tribes...
...Olympias had Philip's new wife, Eurydice, and her infant son murdered.
By necessity, Alexander had her uncle Attalus executed.
He lives! Alexander!
Men of Macedon...
...we're going home.
- What? - What?
- Home? - We're going.
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.
Great Zeus...
...we have worshipped you in blood.
Look kindly on our homeward steps...
...and smile upon our backs.
May all those who come here after us know, when they see this altar...
...that Titans were once here.
Making his devotions to the gods at the end of the great journey...
...Alexander bade the East farewell and marched his army directly west...
...across the great Gedrosian desert...
...seeking the shortest route home to Babylon.
Here, he watched helplessly the cruel breaking of his army.
Not by any human foe...
...but by nature.
To this day, there is no accounting of how many died.
It was the worst blunder of his life.
And when he finally reentered Babylon, after six years in the Far East...
...Alexander again seized the imagination of the world by taking two more wives.
Now Alexander had three wives, two lovers...
...a contentious mother and a turbulent Greece...
...satraps of dubious loyalty in several provinces...
...generals questioning his every decision.
And beneath it all, a restive new army made up of 10 Asians for every Greek...
...all held together by one slender thread.
They took another reading. The harbor can only be dredged to 20 feet.
Then get a second opinion from the Phoenicians. It goes deeper.
Alexander. We're well over 12,000 talents on wood alone for the fleet.
And their armor costs are staggering.
- Cast another dye, we shall back them. - How?
Our armor-- Our Treasury--
With our future, Cassander, the best capital we have.
Even so, I seriously doubt the Phoenicians can make a timber quote in time.
Perhaps we could sail with fewer ships or delay until the spring--
There'll be no delays, Nearchus.
- Ptolemy, how goes our library? - The trees are falling as we speak.
Good. We must not forget our libraries.
All the Alexandrias we have, I want libraries.
- Just last night he was-- - it's the water, Your Majesty.
He mixed it with the wine.
But how can this be?
- Typhus of lndia? - I wouldn't tax yourself, Your Majesty.
A few good nights' rest will do it. But no wine or cold chicken.
With the regimen of cares that I've put in place--
Come, doctor.
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.
I remember the young man who wanted to be Achilles...
...and then outdid him.
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.
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, 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?
No!
- 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, come away. - Liars. Liars. You all hated him. All of you.
Get out. Get out now!
Be gone.
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 I've ever loved.
May all the Furies through time damn your miserable heart. Obey me.
Alexander. I have your child. Alexander.
- Alexander, we have a son. - No.
- The child. - Oh, Your Majesty, no.
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. - To the myths.
Yes, come on. Finish it.
To the next dawn.
My little Achilles.
- Bless you, Alexander. - Lord, we love you.
Bless you, Alexander.
My lord, these herbs are from Delphi.
They saved my brother.
- Rest yourself. - Thank you.
We love you, Alexander.
Alexander.
We love you, Alexander...
...and your seed.
Keep moving, men, please.
Yes, come.
Come to Babylon. I await you. Your only loving son.
For the men.
Bagoas.
Can you prop me up a little? It catches me here.
I've never been so idle.
The fleet will never get out by spring. I must go.
You have given me all.
- Bagoas. - And you have given me...
...the happiest times of my life, Alexander.
Happy? What is happy?
While in your mind and body are stretched to breaking...
...you have no thought beyond the next.
And you look back then...
...and there it was, happiness.
In the doing, never the thinking.
Still, you have made me so happy.
It is done, Bagoas.
It is done.
Wait. We have his son.
Alexander. Wait.
Wait.
Vultures. Wait.
We have his son.
Just three more months.
Please live.
Alexander, the army will divide.
Satrapies will revolt. Without orders, there'll be war.
We beg you. Tell us who.
Who will rule this great empire?
- Who do you want to, Alexander? - We beg you, tell us.
The myth becomes real.
You're terrible.
All that matters is what you've done.
Zeus is your father.
Who will it be?
Pray tell us, who?
- What did he say? - "To the best."
- He said, "To the best." - What?
- No, he said, "To Crateros." - To Crateros?
Why would he say Crateros?
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.
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.
No!
- Bolt the doors. - The body stays in Babylon.
- The body belongs to Macedon. - Within hours...
...we were fighting like jackals for his corpse.
The wars of the world had begun. Forty years, off and on, they endured.
Cassander in Greece. Crateros and Antigonus 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.
- We are the future-- - Get out!
I think Alexander would have been disappointed in us.
Naturally, rumors grew he'd been poisoned by one faction of his generals or another...
...but the truth in these matters has long since been driven from currency.
Cassander saw to that with his fake diaries...
...painting Alexander as a sick and bloated drunk.
Many believed, to remove suspicion from himself.
He certainly proved he had the temperament for politics and murder...
...when seven years later, he executed Olympias.
Met her death with great courage.
Five years-- No, it was six years after that...
...Cassander finally achieved the complete destruction of Alexander's bloodline...
...when he poisoned Roxane...
...and Alexander's 13-year-old son...
...the true heir to the empire.
But Roxane too, like Olympias...
...played by stern rules, supported by several generals.
Days after Alexander's death, she had Stateira poisoned.
It was reason enough for some to believe...
...she was the one behind Hephaistion's sudden demise.
But this is unproven in my mind.
Bagoas disappeared from the histories entirely...
...a wise move, perhaps.
But I will say his love and devotion for Alexander...
...were unquestionable and extraordinary.
Now I am the keeper of his body...
...embalmed here in the Egyptian ways.
I followed him as Pharaoh, and have now ruled 40 years.
I have two sons, each jealous of the other's power.
But they will grow to make fine fathers and husbands.
And I trust they'll be just in their affairs.
But they have never seen...
...the great cavalry charge of Gaugamela...
...or the mountains of the Hindu Kush...
...when we crossed a hundred-thousand-man army into lndia.
He was a god, Cadmos...
...or as close as anything I've ever known.
"Tyrant!" they yell so easily. I laugh.
No tyrant ever gave back so much.
What do they know of the world, these schoolboys?
It takes strong men to rule.
Alexander was more, he was a Prometheus, a friend to man. He changed the world.
Before him, there were tribes...
...and after him, all was possible.
There was suddenly a sense the world could be ruled by one king...
...and be better for all.
Eighteen great Alexandrias he built across this world.
It was an empire, not of land and gold, but of the mind.
It was a Hellenic civilization...
...open to all.
But the truth is never simple...
...and yet it is.
The truth is, we did kill him.
By silence, we consented.
Because--
Because we couldn't go on.
What, by Ares, did we 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?
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.
Oh, 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.
Oh, he could have 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...
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.
The greatest of them all.
[ENGLISH]