I wanted to pass on a couple of links I found through Rogueclassicism recently.

The first is a paper on the death of Philip, linked through History of the Ancient World. It’s an intriguing read by Amalia Skilton, written a few years ago when she was a student at Tempe Preparatory Academy.

This paper will answer the question of Philip’s murder with attention to both ancient authors’ claims and their sources, as well as to the arguments of modern writers. It will ultimately lay the blame for Philip’s assassination on the shoulders of Amyntas, Philip’s nephew and the son of King Perdikkas II.1 However, it will disregard neither the motives of the assassin himself, Pausanias, nor the possible complicity of other groups in the crime.

I don’t know that the paper “answers the question”, but it does present a compelling story.

The second link resurrects a fun TV movie: “Alexander the Great”, filmed in 1964, eventually released in 1968. The reason for watching it? William Shatner as Alexander, Adam West as Cleander, and starring Joseph Cotton and John Cassavetes (other names for movie buffs: John Ducette and Cliff Osmond, among others—see the IMDb.com page for more) The best part? Here’s a YouTube video of a part of the movie. Honestly…it can make your day. It did mine.

”It was so long ago,” Shatner said of the fizzled project, which started life as a 1964 television pilot but was shelved before it reached the air. “It was great fun to make. It was a pilot that was monumental for ABC just before I went and did ‘Star Trek.’ And I was deeply, deeply, horrendously disappointed when this series didn’t sell and then the following year or so I started work on ‘Star Trek.’”

The pilot depicted the Battle of Issus with a then-unknown Shatner as Alexander leading his Macedonian army in triumph and less-than-famous West as his compatriot, Cleander, who enjoyed a good party as much as a good fight.

Yes, before they took on their iconic roles on “Star Trek” and “Batman,” actors William Shatner and Adam West worked together on a buddy project called “Alexander the Great” that never aired – maybe no show was big enough to hold those outsized on-screen personas.

“It was so long ago,” Shatner said of the fizzled project, which started life as a 1964 television pilot but was shelved before it reached the air. “It was great fun to make. It was a pilot that was monumental for ABC just before I went and did ‘Star Trek.’ And I was deeply, deeply, horrendously disappointed when this series didn’t sell and then the following year or so I started work on ‘Star Trek.’”

The pilot depicted the Battle of Issus with a then-unknown Shatner as Alexander leading his Macedonian army in triumph and less-than-famous West as his compatriot, Cleander, who enjoyed a good party as much as a good fight.

“Bill was a very good Alexander and as the general Cleander I was the wine, women and song, Errol Flynn kind of guy,” West said. “However, just between us, it turned out to be one of the worst scripts I have ever read and it was one of the worst things I’ve ever done. We had wonderful people involved like John Cassavetes and Joseph Cotten and Simon Oakland in the cast.”

Shatner said he had high hopes that the show would find an audience for its spirit of adventure – it was made just eight years after Richard Burton’s big-screen turn in writer-director-producer Robert Rossen’s “Alexander the Great” – but it was destined to occupy a far different place in pop culture.

Watch the first clip and then continue with the “Up Next” clips. Keep an eye out on how to command from the captain’s….that is, king’s…chair.

“I came to put an end to wars forever.”
“We cannot conquer the world!”
“Then we shall build a new one. For Greece, and for all she stands.”
“We shall build a graveyard instead.”