You've never heard of Christopher Marlowe's Tamburlaine the Great?
WI No Alexander the Great?
- Thread starter John Fredrick Parker
- Start date
You've never heard of Christopher Marlowe's Tamburlaine the Great?
John Fredrick Parker
Donor
Well, "Genghis Khan" literally means "Great Khan", so that'd be redundant; then again, while some, like Marlowe, called Timur "the Great", he's more often known as "Tamerlane", or "Timur the Lame", so... there's that. With Atila, his Hunnic Empire managed to threaten Rome, then collapse, pretty much ensuring historians would know him as "the Hun" (read "the Foreigner"), rather than praised by future generations of his own people as "the Great".
Why did this become a moral discussion for the love of God?
everything is about morality especially in the ancient world!
Why did this become a moral discussion for the love of God?
Your guess is as good as mine, I don't see Alexander as being terribly more brutal than any other leader of his age, especially in the Greco-sphere.
At any rate, it is annoying that what could have been a very interesting conversation got high-jacked by a conversation about morals.
I for one would like to ask that the conversation return to that of a historical conversation.
I agree that the Macedonians would likely take a large chunk out of the Mediterranean parts of the Persian Empire. Egypt will break off surely. I think Persia will be crippled. How the Achaemenid Persian Empire inevitably falls is anybody's guess. The satrapies could break away, a new dynasty could rise up, nomads might invade: Who knows?
I would be interested in seeing how a more stable, and presumably stronger Hellenic world stands up against the Gallic raids happen (if they aren't butterflied away).
I for one would like to ask that the conversation return to that of a historical conversation.
I agree that the Macedonians would likely take a large chunk out of the Mediterranean parts of the Persian Empire. Egypt will break off surely. I think Persia will be crippled. How the Achaemenid Persian Empire inevitably falls is anybody's guess. The satrapies could break away, a new dynasty could rise up, nomads might invade: Who knows?
I would be interested in seeing how a more stable, and presumably stronger Hellenic world stands up against the Gallic raids happen (if they aren't butterflied away).
John Fredrick Parker
Donor
The key thing here is that neither Persia not Egypt will be Hellenized -- this will lead to a very different Middle East, with the social legacies of Cyrus the Great quite possibly continuing unperturbed...
Oh surely. I'd be very interested in seeing how Egyptian culture continues along without being Hellenized, Romanized, and (presumably) Arabized.
There was a board-game about the battle of Ankara, which I played once or twice back in the late' 70s, in which the scale of Timur's victory or defeat there was summed up by a set of alternative titles ranging from 'Timur the Great' (or possibly 'Timur the Magnificent') down to 'Timur Who?'
MerryPrankster is right.When I mentioned Damien I meant Father Damien who had sacrificed his own life to serve the poor lepers abandoned by all others.The other "Damien' mentioned by Saepe Fidelis,I think, is a character in an old film, the name of which I don't remember.
You seem to forget Alexander got all the way to India. He may not be great perhaps his Persian name, Iskander the Accursed is better suited to him but anyone who conquered everything from Greece to India deserves a round of applause!
I agree, it was generally expected that rulers be ruthless in those days. Anyway, we haven't finished the proper discussion. When someone calls Ivan the Terrible 'Great' then we'll have a moral discussion. Until then, shut up !
Flocculencio
Donor
Holy necromancy, Batman.
He beat the Persians at Gaugamela and then moved on the sweep up the collapsing satrapies of the Empire. it was a great feat of logistics and management but it's not as if he had to fight every step of the way- and it's significant that once he pushed beyond the boundaries of the Persian Empire and faced his next round of actual military resistance (in India) he pretty much backed off- Alexander's armies were fine with holding down Persia, not with actually fighting another active campaign.
He beat the Persians at Gaugamela and then moved on the sweep up the collapsing satrapies of the Empire. it was a great feat of logistics and management but it's not as if he had to fight every step of the way- and it's significant that once he pushed beyond the boundaries of the Persian Empire and faced his next round of actual military resistance (in India) he pretty much backed off- Alexander's armies were fine with holding down Persia, not with actually fighting another active campaign.
They were fine with fighting another campaign. Just not in India. He was planning to go on his invasion of Arabia just days before he died.
I'm not certain why people are calling him overrated as a general. Overrated compared to whom exactly?
The other aspects (genocidal imperialist with delusions of godhood) might outweigh the fighting ability in the overall assessment, but the man excelled in fighting set pieces, guerrilla warfare, steppe nations and walled cities. He planned and carried complex combined operations where the strengths (his heavy cavalry) were negated.
Sure he inherited a good army and a great command staff (the Macedonians had a glut of competent military leaders) but we don't fault Napoleon for having a good army or good staff, do we? And we don't usually say Batu was a bad general just because his grandfather built the army he was using.
The other aspects (genocidal imperialist with delusions of godhood) might outweigh the fighting ability in the overall assessment, but the man excelled in fighting set pieces, guerrilla warfare, steppe nations and walled cities. He planned and carried complex combined operations where the strengths (his heavy cavalry) were negated.
Sure he inherited a good army and a great command staff (the Macedonians had a glut of competent military leaders) but we don't fault Napoleon for having a good army or good staff, do we? And we don't usually say Batu was a bad general just because his grandfather built the army he was using.