- How do you do?

It's my very great pleasure to be with you.

And in this series of 26 discussions, we shall talk about the development of two of the great forces, two of the great concepts that made the Western civilization, which is ours today, the Roman Empire and the Christian Church.

Now the Christian Church has been called by that famous British theologian Dean Inge, either the last and greatest intellectual accomplishment of the ancient world or the first and greatest intellectual accomplishment of the modern world.

Whichever it may be, and it's probably both, it was the river down which the civilization of the ancient world flowed to us, or one of the two rivers, if you wish.

They're so closely intertwined, it's hard to say.

The Roman Empire, which extended from the Roman Wall and Northern Britain up to the Danube and into the countries east of the Rhine, the territory east of the Rhine, out to the borders of Persia and down into the Sahara Desert, this too with its law and its roads, its armies, its legions that held the frontier behind which civilization developed, this too is part of that river, if not a major part of the river down which the civilization of the past is to flow to us or be amalgamated into our modern world.

Now these lectures will cover this development from the pre-Christian era down through the period of the development of the empire and the development of the church, down again to the breaking of the empire and the coming of the barbarians, the Barbaroi, the people whom the Greeks said used a language which went ba-ba-ba, which is why they called them the Barbaroi, the barbarians, rather than speaking of course Greek like civilized human beings.

The coming of the barbarians in your fourth and fifth and sixth centuries after Christ, the emergence of your great Eastern Roman Empire and your Carolingian Empire of the West, bringing it down through the early Middle Ages toward the culmination of course of your Eastern Empire, and the development or the beginning developments of your Western states.

So it is to be a story, if you wish, our story, the story of our cultural background, the romance of our cultural background, Pilgrim's Progress, the progress of Western man, your ancestors and mine, down through history.

And as such, we really should begin with one of the great germinal forces that spread Hellenistic culture, or Hellenic culture, Greek culture, which, as someone has said, like a caged bird was beating with its wings in darkness against the cage, spread it out and amalgamated it so that heretical Judaism could be syncretized, syncretized with cosmopolitanized Hellenism, with a cosmopolitan form, cosmopolitanized form of the Hellenic background, to form the most sophisticated religion in the world, Christianity.

And where a peninsula of rude soldiers who had a genius for the sword and for law and for engineering, the Romans could become the conqueror of that world and the purveyor of that civilization down through the centuries.

A fascinating story in its own right as the rivers flow together and down to us.

And as I say, we must go back first for the beginning of our story, for the beginning of our Pilgrim's Progress, to one of the great, strangely great military figures of history, Alexander the Great, whose portrait head you see here, rather a fine-featured young man.

He died at 33, having worn out his body and his mind and having marched with his phalanx all the way to Northwest India.

And that's a long march.

Having carried the Hellenic culture of which he was an inheritor, though a Macedonian by blood and background, across Asia, almost to the central part of the Indian peninsula.

Now let's talk about Alexander just for a bit here because the man is fascinating.

He's one of the great strange figures of history.

Remember that he was the son of Philip II, Philip Monothalmus, Philip the One-Eyed, who probably in his own right was as much a military genius as his son Alexander.

Philip had been captured and carried as a hostage to Thebes.

That city in central Greece which for a brief 20 years, 25 years, under the leadership of two famous captains, Epaminondas and Pelopidas, were the military masters of the Hellenic peninsula during the decades of anarchy following the end of the war to the death between Athens and Sparta, the Peloponnesian Wars, which, as General Marshall has said, in minuscule, is the modern world today, the great maritime democratic power, Athens, fighting the great militaristic, strangely aristocratic communistic state, Sparta, an anomaly but a fact, which of course the two protagonists fought each other almost to the death, both so weakened that they lost the hegemony which both had held at one time.

And Thebes became the brief inheritor, and Philip II lived as a hostage in Thebes, an honorary hostage.

His father was king of Macedonia, a rude semi-Greek barbarous country to the north of Greece, lying here, strongly influenced by Greek culture, strongly influenced by the Greek background of the south with the capital of Pella, but still a barbarous primitive kingdom.

The Macedonians were a people in themselves, undoubtedly part Thracian, maybe with a Celtic strain from the north.

We don't really know, but the aristocracy spoke Greek and were educated as Greeks and probably were partially Greek in blood.

Philip lived as a hostage, lived in the home of Epaminondas, the great captain, and saw the great military reforms of the Theban army, the Theban formation, the new phalanx 50-man deep and the use of cavalry as a striking force.

Following the Persian invasions and your fifth century before Christ, the great Persian stud stallions had been left behind apparently, and the Greeks at long last had developed a proper cavalry horse.

And Philip used cavalry, or rather, Epaminondas used cavalry and a deeper phalanx of spearmen to defeat the redoubtable Spartans.

It also was the era of that famous Athenian condottiere, professional mercenary soldier who developed the peltast, the medium-armed soldier, the skirmisher, who carried a longer spear, lighter armor, quilted armor, and could skirmish with missile weapons or close and fight with his long spear.

And he in turn had defeated, had destroyed an entire Spartan mora, a Spartan regiment of heavy-armed hoplite, hoplites, heavy-armed soldiers.

And so he saw, Philip did, the great military innovations which were taking place in his time and adapted them to his Macedonian army and developed the phalanx pikeman carrying the sarissa, or 18-foot pike, 16 or 18-foot pike.

His cavalry as a striking force, his missile weapon troops, mercenaries from the north, Thracians and Agrianians, tribesmen who used the thrown javelin.

Cretan archers, the archers from the island of Crete were the famous bowmen of the ancient world, like the English of our own Middle Ages.

Cretan mercenary archers, Agrianian and Thracian javelineers, heavy spear-armed cavalry mounted on big horses and the phalanx with a long pike.

Philip developed these, and Alexander was to be the inheritor of Philip's military machine.

Alexander's mother was Olympias, the half-mad or holy-mad princess from Epirus, that country on the west coast of the Hellenic Peninsula where modern Albania now stands or now is situated.

Olympias, for reasons known only unto Olympias, and this probably is to discipline Alexander in his conquests in later times, conceived the idea that while wandering on the mountainside, she had cohabited with the father god, Zeus.

And Alexander was the product of that union between the father god, Zeus, and Olympias, a fact which Philip II, by the way, resented and somewhat held in ridicule.

Philip was a very practical old man.

But Alexander was to remember this probably in later days when he assumes an almost godlike position among his people, strangely and often terribly.

Alexander had one other characteristic, developed characteristic, which I find fascinating, and I think you will too.

His father hired as his personal tutor the most sophisticated, the most learned moral philosopher of his day, the Athenian Aristotle.

Aristotle who wrote the "Nicomachean Ethics," was Alexander the Great's private tutor.

So Alexander was brought up in all the concepts of Greek civilization and the Greek classics, the concepts of the higher ethics out of Plato and Aristotle, the concept that Aristotle of course made famous of his megalopsychos, his great-souled man, or megalopsychos, the great-souled man, the man who's totally temperate, the man who is neither overly courageous or cowardly, the man who is neither overly temperate nor overly licentious, the man who goes down the middle way, the meden agan, nothing in excess, the middle way, who has temperance, who handles himself and controls himself.

But Aristotle also taught him, as all Greeks believed, his god-given, if you wish, his destiny-given right to conquer barbarians.

And it's probably part of this, his feeling that it was his destiny, that causes him to march East.

Now in 334, 334 B.C., after Philip had sent a reconnaissance and force over into Asia Minor against the moribund Persian Empire, and don't forget that the Persians under Darius and Xerxes had invaded Greece in the preceding century and been defeated by the Greeks at Marathon, Salamis, and Plataea, but it had not been forgotten.

The forces of Asia had been driven back.

And in 334 B.C., Alexander the Great, with 30,000 foot and 5,000 horse, crossed over into Asia Minor and marched on the great Persian Empire which extended all the way across to the Hindu Kush.

We don't have it here on the map.

All the way out across Asia to the Hindu Kush, went into what is today modern Afghanistan, went up along the frontiers here of your Caucasus and included all of Asia Minor, Syria, and Palestine and Egypt, the wealthiest, the greatest empire with the greatest population.

And with 30,000 foot and 5,000 horse, Alexander crossed and started marching down toward the very center of the Persian Empire.

He fought and won his first battle at the Granicus, a river in Western Asia Minor where he defeated the governors, the satraps of the Persian Empire.

And then he swung south, marching along the coast and capturing, he had no fleet, what little fleet he had he'd sent home, marching down and capturing the bases of the Persian Navy, the trireme and now quinquereme Navy, the big warships of Persia, mostly from the coastal cities.

The Persians themselves were not sailors.

They had for their sailors the people of the maritime cities of Tyre and Sidon, the old Phoenician city-states and the cities of Southern Asia Minor, capturing the bases as he marched.

In 333, marching south, the Persian army under its King of Kings, Darius, cut him off from his base, and Alexander marched north out of Syria and met the Persian army at the Battle of Issus.

We have here the famous mosaic from Pompeii, of course done long after the fact but very accurate and very fascinating, of the Battle of Issus.

You can see the pikes of the Macedonians, the sarissa of the Macedonians in the background.

You can see King Darius turning to flee in his imperial chariot.

It's interesting to note of course that the horses, the cavalry, don't have stirrups.

Stirrups were not invented until the fourth century after Christ.

Now they probably were invented before somewhere up in Asia Minor, but they come into the Mediterranean world in your fourth century after Christ.

This is a digression, but I think a valid one.

Up until this time, you couldn't have a lance-carrying cavalry because you cannot carry a lance couched under your arm thusly, riding against an obstacle when you have no stirrups to brace against, so you go off the rear end of the horse.

I've tried it when I was young in an experimental stage, and it's quite true.

You can't do it, I learned the hard way.

You cannot carry a lance couched.

Lance-carrying shock cavalry are a thing of the future, not until the fourth century, fifth century after Christ.

They carried a stabbing spear and rode with their knees, and couldn't wear armor on the inside of their legs accordingly and used the stabbing spear as you would use a sabre.

But the Macedonian cavalry, Alexander, of course, is attacking him, and you see Darius fleeing, Alexander riding in pursuit, and his pikemen pushing down at the great Battle of Issus with the Macedonian phalanx facing Greek mercenaries.

In Persian employ, 5,000 of them finally defeat the Greek mercenaries.

The Greek cavalry defeats, after a very hard fight, the Persian cavalry.

And Darius flees, and Alexander pursues him and then swings back to conquer first the great city of Tyre by a seven-month siege in 332, 333 B.C., in the period of seven months, swinging down to capture Tyre by a seven-month siege, land and sea amphibious assault, and marching down to capture the city of Gaza, to capture the great territory of Egypt, to found the city of Alexandria named for him, which is to be within a brief 200 years a city of half a million people and one of the great cities of the ancient and modern world, one of the great university and library centers of the ancient world.

During this time, he went out to the oasis of Siwa, where the shrine of Zeus Ammon.

Now Ammon was the god, the sun god of the Egyptians, the Zeus of course of your Greeks.

You have a syncretism already which is to be progressively so during this entire Hellenistic period.

Zeus Ammon, worshiped both by Greeks and Egyptians.

And here Plutarch tells us a fascinating story.

He went out over the desert, lost his way.

According to the story, it was guided by an asp, one of the cobras of the desert making its way toward water one gathers, but of course this was considered to be a sign.

He went out to the oasis of Siwa, and according to Plutarch, and I see no reason to doubt it, the high priest of the shrine of Zeus Ammon came out to Alexander.

He couldn't speak very good Greek, and he said, as Alexander approached, "O pai Dios."

Now he meant to say, "O paidion," "Oh, my son, welcome."

What he said, "O pai Dios," was, "O, son of God, welcome."

Now let's not forget that Alexander's mother had this strange pathological feeling concerning his birth.

Let us not forget that this to Alexander already, oh he's only a young man, he's in his early 20s here.

He dies at 33, in 323 B.C.

Here is another sign of his godhead, if you wish.

How much it influenced him, we don't know.

We suspect considerably.

He swung north out of Egypt, having conquered Egypt, marched up through Syria, met with his army on the Tigris River, the combined armies of Darius at the Battle of Gaugamela, defeated them signally, and Darius fled north toward Bactria, and Alexander followed him.

In the process, he captured the Persian capital of Persepolis, and one of the only savage acts of his career, the man is strangely merciful.

At Issus, for example, he captured the queen of Persia and her daughters, and they were mourning the death of their father in battle, presumably killed, and Alexander sent word to the queen that the father was safe, Darius was safe, and they were inviolate, and he would not go to see them, he would not go to see them.

Now this is out of Aristotle again, if you wish.

It is important enough in the ancient world to be mentioned that here is a man of moderation who shows mercy to captives, who shows chivalry to women, a totally controlled human being, a man with a dedication and a purpose.

He marches over here.

I'm sorry to say, Darius's own followers, in the hope of gaining favor with Alexander, killed Darius.

And Alexander, coming up a day later, found him lying dead and covered him with his own purple mantle and had him carried back to be buried in the family graves, the family tombs at Persepolis, because he was a very great Zoroastrian gentleman as well as a king, and should be buried as a king.

He then marched east, his armies behind him.

And then 327 B.C., marched all the way to Northwest India.

What is today Afghanistan and India, founding cities, he marched upon the east coast of the Caspian and fought the Scythians, the Sakai, the Tartars if you wish, the peoples who wandered up there on the steppes, fought them and defeated them.

Then marched into India where he had his hardest fighting of all, fought Porus on the Hydaspes River, a king of Northwest India, and met elephants for the first time.

And elephants, the two tails, you know, or the two heads or what have you, frightened his troops.

They'd never seen anything like this, and the Indians used war elephants.

But even this didn't stop him, and he crossed the Hydaspes River and outflanked Porus, defeated him.

When Porus was captured, riding his own favorite elephant and brought before him, he asked Porus how he wished to be treated.

And Porus, God bless him, put his head in the air and said, "Like a king," Alexander.

Alexander was so pleased by this act of courage and chivalry that he made him king again under Alexander.

And now of course, well, the story they tell is that he wanted to march even further east.

He'd heard that ocean existed on the other side of India.

That of course would be the Indian Ocean, that there was a great country in your, the country further east there along the rivers of India, that he should march to see a great civilized people, which of course there was.

He never got there.

His troops, marching over the mountain ridges, saw ivy growing for the first time on a high mountain ridge.

Ivy is a European plant.

It grows across all over the world, but you find it only in temperate areas.

Saw ivy growing and they burst into tears for seeing a familiar plant and demanded to go home, and so he led them home.

Led them home.

We have the chronicles of Arrian, the chronicle of his admiral, Nearchus.

They built a fleet, and half of the army came up the Persian Gulf, and half of the army marched back across the Gedrosian Desert, the worst desert in the world, actually one of the driest deserts, looking for water, all sorts of fascinating adventures.

They meet Stone Age people, the fish eaters on the coast, probably still a very primitive pre-humanoid type.

They finally come back.

And in 323, Alexander, planning for further conquests, having amalgamated Persians into his army, having adopted Persian costume and demanded that his Macedonians do the proskynesis to him, the prostration as they would to a Persian king, Alexander died of a combination of swamp fever, malaria, exertion, probably heavy drinking.

He was not a very temperate man as far as his eating and drinking habits went.

And he had established a Greco-Oriental empire.

Now this was manifest destiny for the Greeks.

The Jews seek for wisdom and the Greeks... Sorry, the Greeks seek for wisdom and the Jews look for a sign.

Here is your amalgam of Oriental and Greek philosophy and concepts.

Here are your Greeks marching east, going out to Hellenize the world which the Macedonian armies have captured.

Moving out to Northern India, for 300 years and more, there was a Greek kingdom in Northwest India and Afghanistan, the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom, ruled over by one of Alexander's, of a line founded by one of Alexander's generals.

And that is why in your Mauryan Empire, your empire, the first great empire of Northwest India, of Chandragupta Maurya, your Buddhas stand upright because Greek sculptors probably are the progenitor sculptors of the figures of the Buddha, of the Lord Buddha.

Influencing all of this area, bringing back Oriental concepts to the West, it is the seductive, sophisticated, syncretized Hellenistic world that comes to Rome, that Rome is to take and spread all over the Mediterranean, that Rome is to conquer and be conquered by.

It is just as I have said, this syncretism, this bringing together of the concepts of Oriental gods and Western gods.

You have Zeus Ammon.

You have Yahweh, the Jewish Jehovah, Yahweh.

Ahura Mazda, the Persian.

You have Isis and Cybele.

You have Isis, the goddess of Egypt, of the Nile, and Cybele, the Magna Mater, the mother goddess of Syria and Asia Minor.

You have the beginning concept of what the Latin world, the Roman world, is to call the summus deus, the high god, the one god of all men, the god of all, not just Yahweh of the Jews, Ahura Mazda of the Persians, Zeus of the Greeks.

You have a syncretized, a syncretized world, a world which did not conquer the Orient but which moved the Orient profoundly and which brought the Orient west.

So this is the world in which the Roman Empire and Christianity is born.

And here is Alexander's sarcophagus, where he was buried, presumably.

It is still at a museum at Constantinople, magnificent figures of his army.

And this is the beginning of our saints and legions of the Christian Roman world about which we're going to talk.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues)