Read the excerpt from alexander the great’s speech at opis. what i shall say to you now, macedonians, is not an attempt to counteract your desire for home—as far as i am concerned you can go wherever you wish. but if you do go i want you to understand on what terms you are leaving—what i have done for you, and how you have treated me in response. i shall begin necessarily with my father philip. when philip took you in hand you were a collection of impoverished nomads, most of you dressed in skins and herding a few sheep and goats on the mountains: you were fighting a losing battle to keep them out of the hands of the illyrians and triballians and the thracians on your borders. what is alexander’s primary purpose in this excerpt? to inform his soldiers that he does not mind if they leave to persuade his soldiers that they needed philip to help them to persuade his soldiers to reconsider returning home to inform his soldiers about what philip did for them in the past