Seleucus was a literal nobody serving in Alexander the Great's army

Holy shit perfect choice to play Seleucus in the inevitable biopic too bad he's 100 now

Pretty sure he captured a bunch of British soldiers by himself armed with just a handgun.

at least he got to play spartacus

i think thats a apocryphal story

Didn't Seleucus live to a ridiculous age and even rode into battle when he was in his 80s?

Yeah he was either 77 or 78 and was about to launch a conquest of Thrace and Macedon but he got assassinated by Ptolemy's reject son

oh ok

Sargon of Akkad. The real one.

you might be thinking of Antigonus Monopthalmus

...

Nader Shah

His husband and his father in law too. They were filthy illyrian peasants before travelling to the capital searching for the Constantinopolitan dream. Emperor Justin even died without having learned how to write and read.

wasn't there a Byzantine emperor who started off as a literal nobody working in a farm until he was sent to live with his uncle, and worked his way up to palace guard and then emperor?

Seleucus Nicator was Satrapy of Babylon, a future center for Alexander's empire. So I wouldn't call him "nobody".

>Constantinopolitan dream
I fucking love this term now

so justinian was albanian :^)?

not really
Constantinople is dead
It's Istanbul now wh*Te boys

I don't know if he was sent to live with his uncle, but the rest is basically Justin as I said previously. Justin was the uncle of Justinian who also went from nobody to the most famous byzantine emperor, maybe you mixed the two guys.

basil 1

literally started life as like an illiterate horse handler that could barely speak greek and worked his way up to emperor

Even worst, he was from modern FYROM. He was a latin though.

This meme is lamer every day

i'm probably mixing up multiple emperors from what it looks like, thanks for replying, i love finding new history shit to read about

what meme?

the asterisk probably
it was funny on /int/ but it got overplayed faster than a redditer spamming images from /b/ over here

Prior to his promotion he fought in a particularly vicious battle af Ypres only 16% of his company managed to come out of it in fighting condition.

No other world leader at that time had been in anything close to that except arguably Churchill.

>During the war, Hitler served in France and Belgium in the 16th Bavarian Reserve Regiment. He was an infantryman in the 1st Company during the First Battle of Ypres (October 1914), which is remembered in Germany as the Kindermord bei Ypern (Massacre of the Innocents) because approximately 40,000 men (between a third and a half) of nine newly enlisted infantry divisions became casualties in 20 days. Hitler's regiment entered the battle with 3,600 men and at its end mustered 611.[5] The regimental commander was killed and thereafter they were known as the Regiment List in his honor. By December, Hitler's own company of 250 was reduced to 42.

>his husband

you left out an important detail.... see pic related

the casualties were from friendly fire

>Stalin also certainly qualifies.

Yeah Stalin was dirt poor peasant who attended priestly seminar for a while, did bank robberies for commies and was hated by the bolshevik party elite for not being urban elite/intelligentsia. Even his position as party secretary didn't merit seeing him as anyone really important.

Jean-Baptiste Jules Bernadotte rose from a mere middle class civilian to a marshal of France before becoming king of Sweden. His dynasty still holds the throne.

Everybody is a nobody until they become somebody.

King David, although that's up for debate

You're nobody till somebody kills you

And conquered pretty much everything.

But he was only appointed as satrap because he happened to be in the right place at the right time and helped assassinate Perdiccas

>literal nobody
He was literally a general

Diocletian was of lowly status, rose through the military ranks and ended up becoming Roman Emperor. Not just any emperor either but he introduced the tetrarchy which arguably led to the split into the Easter and Western Roman Empire a few hundred years down the road.

>Alexander
>the Great

When will this meme end?

Zhu Yuanzhang.
Peasant-turned emperor.

>his position as party secretary didn't merit seeing him as anyone really important.
wat, no. general secretary was a really important position, even if other people didn't recognize it as such. it gave him the power over party appointments so he essentially controled the party from the moment he got the position. also, Lenin valued Stalin pretty highly, and even favored him for succession before this caused a split between them and Lenin used the last of his energy to make sure he didn't take control

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgian_Affair

richard nixon

I remember my grandfather telling me how he captured 14 german soldiers with a handgun in WWI. Coincidence?

That's a good number of Roman and Byzantine emperors. Diocletian was originally a peasant from Dalmatia called Diocles. He changed his name to Diocletianus to disguise his bumpkin origins.

He didnt conquer aztecs tho
Lmao fucking lame whitebois

>REEEEEEEE WHY ISN'T THERE ANY WOMEN WITH THAT TITLE FUCKING PATRIARCHY
Kinda liked him until that episode

>WHY ISN'T THERE ANY WOMEN WITH THAT TITLE

I sure hope he didn't actually say that because Catherine the Great springs to mind almost immediately.

The greatest philosopher/thinker of our time.

this

Nikita Khrushchev was literally born a illiterate peasant.

>Tito, a locksmith from a poor rural family, ended up ruling a nation of 20 million people comprised of 3 major religions, 3 languages and several ethnic groups as if he was royalty
I don't like the guy, but credit where credit is due

Subutai, one of Genghis and Ogedei's primary generals, was born to literal nobody peasants, and by mongol steppe standards he held no status in any clan, or even being a warrior.

"He directed more than twenty campaigns in which he conquered thirty-two nations and won sixty-five pitched battles, during which he conquered or overran more territory than any other commander in history. He gained victory by means of imaginative and sophisticated strategies and routinely coordinated movements of armies that were hundreds of kilometers away from each other. He is also remembered for devising the campaign that destroyed the armies of Hungary and Poland within two days of each other, by forces over five hundred kilometers apart."

Literal underrated military genius who didn't drop a battle from China to Poland.

The jews did it.

70s I believe. But still it's pretty badass. But a lot of the successor generals were. Antigonos was in his 80s when he died in battle, Lycimachus was a peer of Seleukos of died days before him.

Also he was a part of the pseudo-royalty of Orestis(?) dynasty which Perdiccas and Leonatus were a part of. While this might not seem important these days, the Out-Kingdoms of Orestis and Lyncestis(?) were incredibly important in the stability of Macedon during Philip's entire reign and Alexander's early reign. Sure, due to what Alexander did they became far less important, especially as Alexander didn't give a fuck about Macedonian nobility and eliminated it as much as he could during his lifetime, but it was an incredibly important and complicated factor during his early reign.

Regardless of whether one subscribes the theory that Alexander was involved in Philip's assassination or not the Out Kingdoms were very much viewed by propaganda at the time as being involved in that assassination, and Philip's marriage to Cleopatra Eurydike was something of an affront to those Out Kingdom nobles as she was a more "central" blue-blooded Macedonian as were Attalus and Parmenion.

>but he introduced the tetrarchy which arguably led to the split into the Easter and Western Roman Empire a few hundred years down the road.

This in untrue, the tetrarchy barely lasted longer than Diocletian.

Enlighten me user

What happened?

Most peasants are born illiterate.

>tetrarchy barely lasted longer than Diocletian.

I think he meant that the institution of the tetrarchy made it acceptable to emperors to split the empire up among multiple rulers.

One of the biggest MADMAN in history.

Wasn't Ramses II a normal peasant until the pharaoh adopted him as a teenager?

Name one person that was born literate

Subutai is the greatest general of all time.

Me

Why was it a pseudo dynasty? Why were they important to stability of macedon? Do you mean that seleucus was part of a faction of nobles that were angry at having lost power during the conquest and having less of a say in policy than they used to? That alexander possibly ised them (or at least benefitted) from their killing his father?

>literally nobody
>one of Alexander's generals

nigga they were all top tier generals in their own right.

Diocletian's father was a slave, Justinian's father was an illiterate peasant

Winston Churchill

Go eat your semen cereal faggot

Originally Macedon essentially just included Central Macedon under the Argead Dynasty (the bloodline of Philip and Alexander). However central Macedon began to expand and ended up taking Lyncestis and Orestis which had previously been independent. There was always a level of resentment by the Lyncestian and Orestian nobles. The murderer of Philip, Pausanias was a member of the Orestis nobility, as was Perdiccas, and Seleukos.

The first people to publicly put their support behind Alexander was Alexander of Lyncestis, whom was later executed by Alexander for either an attempted plot against Alexander, or proof of his involvement in Philip's murder.

I say pseudo-dynasty because the Out-Kingdom nobles had not been monarchs for quite some time. And during Philip's marriage to Cleopatra Eurydike they were discontent for having less power at the court in Pella than they had while Olympias had been queen and Alexander the unquestionable heir-apparent. Many of Alexander's close friends were from the Out Kingdoms rather than the more blue blooded Macedonian nobility.

thanks for the answer, that clears up a lot in my head. but was what i said about the conquest true? that they hoped to benefit from it somehow and that alexander had snubbed them? or did the in fact benefit from the conquest and alexander's death allowed them arrogate even more power to themselves?

Dime and a dozen in China. But the most notable were Liu Bang and Zhu Yuanzhang.

Liu Bang was a homeless bandit who founded one of China's greatest imperial dynasties and its longest lasting: the Han

Zhu Yuanzhang a.k.a Emperor Hongwu was a homeless peasant who ended up founding the Ming Dynasty

>hat they hoped to benefit from it somehow and that alexander had snubbed them? or did the in fact benefit from the conquest and alexander's death allowed them arrogate even more power to themselves?

They both did and didn't benefit from Alexander being the new King. They benefitted in the initial short term with the removal of Attalus and Cleopatra Eurydike, but Parmenion reasserted himself (it was he who killed Attalus for Alexander thus engraciating himself with the new monarch), and then with Alexander of Lyncestis' death and Parmenion's control of most of Alexander's army (as well as Antipater being the regent of Macedon) But later on Parmenion would die and Perdikkas became the second man in Alexander's empire after the death of Hephaestion. After Perdikkas' death Seleukos would end up ruling the lion's share of Alexander's conquests. So in the long run I'd say it worked out for them.

Baibars

Slave captured from the Caucasus by Bulgars, sold to Syrians, and then an Egyptian aristocrat. Became bodyguard to a prominent mamluk, then captain of the mamluks, then sultan of egypt.

The late Roman Empire may be full of these types, considering how vital the meritocratic military was to the Imperial throne, but I think of all the personalities to rise to dominance, Flavius Stilicho was the most meteoric.
Born to a literally who Vandal soldier and a literally who Roman woman. Enlisted in the Roman army. Through pure service he was constantly promoted. After a successful negotiation with thew Sassanid emperor, he was elevated to master of horse and later supreme commander. After the death of Theodosius, he governed in the stead of Western Emperor Honorius. Fought multiple wars against the invading Barbarian kingdoms and Roman usurpers until his execution by Rome's elites.

wtf is with egypt being ruled by balkan soldiers. muhammed ali comes to mind

interesting, thanks again for answering

This. He also utilized meritocracy over birthright heavily in his military strategy, which proved absurdly successful. Albeit, not without obstacles. Not obstacles he couldn't overcome to be the most successful conqueror the world has ever known, though.

More like wtf is with the balkans and being taken by muslims as slaves

No problem. The history of the Macedonian court is actually really fascinating and usually isn't given much if any notice by historians speaking about Alexander despite the fact that when one looks through Alexander's reign the struggle between the Central Macedonians and Out Kingdoms Macedonians remains important throughout Alexander's reign.

Don't forget LBJ too

>""civilised"" Romans started murdering foederati/Germanic women and children after Stilicho's death
People like to shitpost about muh savage Germanics destroying the Roman Empire but they really did everything they could to deserve it.

He was basically a Mount and Blade character

>born son of an irrelevant coat-maker in the frontier
>when he's 13 dad dies, Nader to feed family gathering sticks for firewood
>when 17 he and his mom are captured and taken as slaves by an uzbek raid
>mom dies, Nader eventually escapes and becomes a mountain bandit withwith his friends
>tired of that shit he becomes a courier for a nobleman, sends messages between his region and the capital
>kills the other courier to be the only one, convinces the Shah to give him gifts instead of punishment
>but his boss is mad and his daughter hot, so Nader flees to the caspian nd becomes a bandit again after killing the boss and taking the daughter
>meanwhile the ruling dynasty is collapsing, afghan rebels take the capital while russians and turks invade
>Nader's band joins the royal army, eventually gets to command all the troops after exposing the previous commander as a traitor to the Shah
>He recaptures all Persia, saves dynasty from collapsing
>but decided that the sissy shah isn't better than him so he usurps the throne, puts end to the dynasty and proclaims himself Nader Shah
>He defeats afghans and the ottomans, reconquers lost parts of the caucasus and central asia and even goes beyond, he attacks and sacks Delhi
>no empire in Iran has been that large or strong for centuries

tl;dr From gathering sticks to Napoleon of the East.

More like the german "refugees" were already invading the land by mass immigration and Stilicho was one of them. No exceptional individual could be spared, germans had to be removed. The east did this and survived. The west allowed men like stilicho to thrive for too much time and died.

Aetius also went from half barbarian hunnic hostage to keeping the west together for 20 years only to be murdered by his bitch of an emperor

The east had plenty of Germanic and even Hunnic peoples moving around its borders, they just didn't have the bad fortune of having the Rhine frontier.

>The west allowed men like stilicho to thrive for too much time and died.
Stilicho was one of the few people holding Rome together towards the end, you hateful idiot.

Not in positions of power after they got rid of Aspar.

When his people has already done the damage, it's irrelevant what he did. He should have been humble and stayed away from power.

It doesn't matter what positions they were in, they still were there. Not to mention, of course, that Aspar was influential in the court of the east for almost 20 years with no major degradement in its status. The fall of the West had to do with a healthy amount of bad fortune and terrible decision making, often on the parts of the Romans; it's what led to both sacks of Rome and the loss of North Africa and Britain. If Stilicho were still in power, it's likely that the 410 sack wouldn't have occurred

>Duke
A nobody?

>mfw he said pants were invented by the patriarchy to suppress women.