"Was Alexander Really Great???" Topic

What is your opinion? Was Alexander of Macedon Great?

Or was he just a good general?

Or was he downright bad (for his own people and/or his enemies)?

Very, Very, Very……..Great. But not as Great as Napoleon.

My son is called Alexander. I wanted Alexander Napoleon Frederick but to no avail. I had to settle for Alexander Frederick.

James

Definitely great. There were many good generals. There was only one Alexander.

And Alexander was definitely greater than Napoleon. Napoleon was ultimately defeated by his enemies and his own mistakes. Alexander never lost a battle, and died at the height of his power.

Not as great as Napoleon? Alexander certainly left a more lasting legacy, and unlike Napoleon, was only defeated by a young death. His Successors ruled vast states for several hundred years and their impact is still felt today from Greece to Pakistan.

Twitchy

Hannibal thought so. I trust his judgement.

Now, if you ask me if he was a Nice Guy, then I have a different answer.

You didn't tell him he wasn't. Ask Cleitus.

If he isn't, then who is??? Like John the OFM said- I'll trust Hannibal's judgement on this!

The greatest!

I am not sure the definition of nice applies to a force of nature.

Alexander was just himself, few conquerors or even generals are 'nice' it is not in the job description.

Was he great, oh yes, he beat all the major powers in reach, and only stopped advancing outwards when his army decided they were too far from home…

I think that counts as great.

I thought his Irish accent and dyed hair were a bit questionable, though.

I kept those thoughts to myself. Never tell a narcissistic pyschopath anything they might not want to hear.

"Great"? Well, who could say otherwise?

As a general and military leader truly great (as others have said trust Hannibal).

As a military innovator – Phillip II probably deserves more credit.

Compared to Napoleon – well Alexander didn't deplete his own people through war in the same way that the emperor did.

As a person – well he certainly wasn't a man to cross or fall out with (just ask Parmenion or Philotas!).

Also debatable as to whether he was a paranoid megalomaniac in his final years.

Great? No doubt about it. Nice? If he had been nicer he may not have been great!

Alexander the Pretty Good.

If more than two thousand years have past and people know you by name then you did something to deserve it.

If people can identify you by a single name only, then you have reached the pinnacle of fame.

Alexander, Caesar, Napoleon, Hitler, Madonna, Prince.

Einstein, Eisenhower, Patton, Lee, Grant, Sherman, Lincoln, Washington… actually, the list of "one namers" can get pretty long.

Yes.

Define Great?

Under some definitions he was. Under others not.

I think he was the most Appolonian and Dionysian of Greeks (and yes culturally, which is what matters, he was Greek)

Definitely. Great with a capital 'G'. As great as Napoleon. I'd say it's close. How about comparing him to the other 'Greats'? Fredrick, Charles (Charlemagne) and Alfred. I'd put him ahead of all of them.

he was an alky. I don't recall Napoleon being beaten too severely by the age of 33

Yes but his Dad was known as Philip the So-so.

It can be said that he excelled at conquering his neighbors.

Yes, but you really have to ask the question: Could he have beaten Chuck Norris?

A general is only as good as his opponents and arguably Darius 111 was ordinary.
However, he also defeated distance: no mean feat.
The minor military challenges (nomad warfare, elephants, fortified pinnacles etc) he faced were all successfully solved.
He seemingly was no mindless conqueror and had possibly revolutionary plans for his new empire.
All in all, its hard to find him wanting in any aspect of greatness.

Alexander was a very great man. By then-existing standards he was a moral man; by ours he was a monster. He seems to have been significantly outnumbered in every battle he fought, but he never lost one.

Again, by my standards, a bad man; but surely a great man.

------> He wasn't very tall.

What is your opinion? Was Alexander of Macedon Great?

------> He became great, his name became something of worship and many thought that his cult was a precursor to acceptance of monotheism among the Romans and Greeks.

Or was he just a good general?

------> Like all great generals much of his success came about because of mediocre to poor leadership on behalf of his enemies. It is to his credit that he surmounted all the obstacles that his opponent's threw at him.

Or was he downright bad (for his own people and/or his enemies)?

------> All heroes are bad for their people, read Dune. But in Alexander's case, he was good for Macedon. Macedon could have gone away after Philip II. For a parallel, whatever happened to Epirus after Pyrrhus?

Macedonian Kings ruled most of Greece for 175 years after Alexander, and before then Greece had pushed them around, so in those terms, his people were better off. Opening Asia to Greek settlement and colonial expansion changed world history in ways that cannot be measured. Places like Pergamum and Syria and Egypt became part of the Greek world, and lost most vestiges of the Persian world.

The story of Alexander is about his growth in an evironment that allowed him to excell, he learned how to excell, he accomplished amazing things, then it went to his head. It's not hard to understand why he became a megalomaniac and bad drunk, many other rulers became so with no talent and without ever accomplishing anything.

Parzival – "Einstein, Eisenhower, Patton, Lee, Grant, Sherman, Lincoln, Washington… actually, the list of "one namers" can get pretty long."

But a lot of people outside of the US wouldn't know half of the names on that list.

"But in Alexander's case, he was good for Macedon."

Like creating a legacy of Macedonian greatness so inflated he gave Perseus delusions of grandeur so he took on Rome & the kingdom got fragged ?

He succeeded where others with as powerful forces failed.

Mc Clellan could have been great, but all he could do was put together and train what should have been an unstoppable force and then refused to risk it.

His greatness is reflected in his refusal to be daunted by possible failure and an unshakeable confidence that his troops could not be defeated.

No guts, no glory.

JW

I've always thought that he inherited his army and the plan to conquer Persia from his dad. He carried out that plan with the army he was given. He also had excellent advisors and generals, also picked by his dad. He was able to attack Persia because Greece had been subdued (thanks again, dad).
He suceeded with the tools he was given. If he'd created those tools then he would be great. As it is, he may well have deserved the legend he left behind but I believe he owes most of it to his father. If things had just taken a slightly different turn we would be talking about Phillip the Great, and rightly so.

I would argue that Alex tweaked and ultimately transformed the superb army left by him by his Dad: making it even superber (sic).

To quote the great Will Cuppy in 'The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody':
"He is known as Alexander the Great because he killed more people of more different kinds than any other man of his time. He did this in order to impress Greek culture upon them. Alexander was not strictly a Greek and he was not cultured, but that was his story, and who am I to deny it?"

If i'm not mistaken did'nt Alexander call himself Great?

Regardless of what happened to Napoleon Alexander was'nt as great as Napoleon IMHO.

Plus if i'm correct are'nt there more books written about Napoleon than anyone else?,with the exception of Jesus of course.

Captain Gideon

Maybe not great, but definitely "Nifty"….

Like John the OFM said-

And hereabouts, his moniker actually means "John the Ostensibly Fantabulously Magnificent"….

IMHO, one of the greatest men in history.

I place him as second in all of recorded history.

IMO, yes. The Book of Daniel mentions him:

Daniel 8:21 "The shaggy goat represents the kingdom of Greece, and the large horn that is between his eyes is the first king."

Daniel 11:3 "And a mighty king will arise, and he will rule with great authority and do as he pleases."

Daniel 11:36 ""The king will do as he pleases. He will exalt and magnify himself above every god and will say unheard-of things against the God of gods. He will be successful until the time of wrath is completed, for what has been determined must take place."

Alexander was almost certainly a great general. His record as a ruler was distinctly more mixed. At a minimum he failed in his obligation as the king of Macedon to produce an heir soon enough to continue the ruling dynasty and to ensure stability in the succession. Beyond that, he failed to establish the governance of the empire he had conquered in such a way to allow it to survive his passing even if it was at an early age. Alexander seemed to be at his greastest on campaign and not nearly so much dealing with the day to day business of ruling what he had conquered.

His father Philip seems to me to be far better overall as a ruler even if he questionably wasn't as great a general as Alexander proved to be. In building the Macedonian army that Alexander inherited and in establishing a stable and wealthy Macedonian state along with hegemony over Greece, Philip achieved what I doubt Alexander could have. On the other hand Alexander's conquests quite possibly far exceeded what Philip might have achieved had he lived to invade the Persian Empire. And in his direct effect on history and in the size of his cultural and mythical legacy, Alexander certainly does deserve to be called the Great.

Chris

But a lot of people outside of the US wouldn't know half of the names on that list.

A lot of people don't know who Alexander was either.

A lot of people IN the US wouldn't know half the names on that list.

Napoleon certainly left successor states and influenced the world as much as Alex did – how many countries curently have their civil law based around his code of laws? And arguably German unification and everythign that has happened subsequent to that comes down to him, as do all the revolutionary movmeents in Europe in the 1800's (as in they wouldn't have happened as they did without the example of France, and Napoleon arguably preserved a "revolutionary" France as an example for later generations.

Napoleon fought a lot more battles, with a lot more men, angainst a lot more opponents……..but he didn't manage to crush any of them enough to wipe them off the map.

its silly to ask questions like that.

everyone who sends thousand to their deaths is a lunatic moron (or should at least claim to be if i was judging him).

he was military succesful. and he had enough influence and wealth and terror at his hands to have people paint a favorable picture of him.

Great

By then-existing standards he was a moral man;

Don't know about that; Diodorus and Curtius, both men of the classical world, pretty clearly disapproved at times of Alexander's propensity for brutality. In fact many people seem to have disapproved of Alexander's harsh behavior, perhaps explaining why Arrian goes to such lengths to defend the morality of his hero.

everyone who sends thousand to their deaths is a lunatic moron

It's important not to glorify war, but let's not get carried away. Was Eisenhower a "lunatic moron" for ordering the Normandy invasions? Or should Europe have stayed in the grip of Fascist tyranny and genocide?

>>Don't know about that; Diodorus and Curtius, both men of >>the classical world, pretty clearly disapproved at times >>of Alexander's propensity for brutality. In fact many >>people seem to have disapproved of Alexander's harsh >>behavior, perhaps explaining why Arrian goes to such >>lengths to defend the morality of his hero.

Diodorus and Curtius were farther seperated in time from Alexander than we are from Frederick the Great; are you a man of Frederick's time? Alexander treated his enemies more leniently than they (the Persians, Indians, etc) would have treated him, had the situations been reversed. One of Alexander's claims to greatness is the magnanimity with which he sometimes treated a beaten foe.

By any modern standard, of course, he makes Milosevic look like a Scoutmaster.

Diodorus and Curtius were farther seperated in time from Alexander than we are from Frederick the Great; are you a man of Frederick's time?

A false opposition -- because a simple measurement of linear time of course means nothing in and of itself. Think of the world in the 18th century and the world of today, how enormously different they are in almost every respect.

Now, think of what we know about the fourth C. BC and the first century BC -- there's nowhere near as dramatic a difference.

In fact, there's more of a difference between 1909AD and 2009AD than there is between 3000BC and 2000BC. So much for linear time having anything meaningful to say.

As a general he was a great tactician.

In his conduct of war he was brutal by the standards of his
times. Destruction of cities had become unaceptable until he reopened the door with his destruction of Thebes.

As a ruler he was capricious, executing people who were merely winging in due to the lack of clear direction from the center.

In his personal life he was a sociopath who murdered a friend and had a severe drink problem.

Great? great what?

The Persians were a much better bet to have ruling over you than the Macedonians – all the Persians wanted was gold earth and water. The Macedoninas inplanted settlers and their own governing classes, changed religions, and pushed Greek culture onto the world – good or bad, its not a choice you get under their rule.

that said

Alexander was great. great and terrible.

But he did get his botty smacked from the hydaspes onwards, and as for claiming that his legacy was the sucessor states – well, they were the legacies of the sucessors, who maitained said Greek culture in lands Alexander had barely spent a decade extracting tribute from.

That is much more Philips legacy of giving Aristotle as a teacher to them as kids, I think.

The Great? Great in what?

Unlike Temujin, his successor states didn't leave much in the history. After Persia and Northern India killed the Greeks who were ruling them, they when back to where they were. Temujin spawned an entirely new race of ruling class in the Middle East, the Turkic-Mongols, who spawned even greater conquerers like Timurlang, Shah Rukh, Babur and the Mughals.

Thanks to Temujins ideas and forces, even when he died, did the lasting impression the Temujin made on the world was felt.

What did Alexander do except beat a few Persians? Are there any monuments to him left anywhere in Iran now? There are a lot of relics from the Mongolian Persia time.

Alexander the Great? No, just Alexander.

<<< Are there any monuments to him left anywhere in Iran now? There are a lot of relics from the Mongolian Persia time. >>>

One presumes that you intend to exclude the ruins still extant as well as the Alexandrias still inhabited in Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan, not to mention the abundant Persian and Indian literature still extant around the Alexander story. Yep, other than that, no monuments left.

<<One presumes that you intend to exclude the ruins still extant as well as the Alexandrias still inhabited in Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan, not to mention the abundant Persian and Indian literature still extant around the Alexander story. Yep, other than that, no monuments left>>

Yes I did exclude them because there was no evidence of them being started by Alexander and the fact they are not called Alexandria anymore. However Tabriz, Isfahan and Hamadan in Mongolian Persia still exist and were written in literature. No where did I mention he isn't in literature. If I said they please be kind enough to show where I wrote this.

And what Alexandria's were there in Pakistan? The Greeks ruled there even less than they did in Persia.

By olicana

My son is called Alexander. I wanted Alexander Napoleon Frederick but to no avail. I had to settle for Alexander Frederick.

I have one of those too. Although to be honest I wasn't picking the names for generals; we liked Alexander and my Grandfather was a Frederick.

Steve P