Today we’re in ancient India with a Bollywood production. The Maurya Empire was founded by Chandragupta in the wake of Alexander the Great’s empire. Asoka opens with an elderly Chandragupta abdicating his throne to become a Jain monk.
Connecting the dots further from last week’s fall of Babylon: soon after conquering Babylon, the Persians began to butt heads with the Greeks. In 480 BCE, we had the Battle of Thermopylae (depicted in the movie 300). Two years later, the Greek city-states teamed up to form the Delian League. By 431 BCE, this alliance fractured into Team-Athens vs Team-Sparta with the Peloponnesian War.
Not long after this, under the leadership of Philip II, the underdog kingdom of Macedonia conquered most of Greece. Their conquest continued well outside of Greece under Philip’s son, Alexander the Great.
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