What was his end game?

We're talking about Alexander the Great, not Angela the Merkel

To have a harem of brown women and name more cities after himself.

These are all correct.

In the Iliad the warriors of Greece and Trojan fight for ever lasting glory. That's how they achieve immortality.

The idea of individual glory on that scale was essentially a fairy tale. Poets of the 6th and 5th centuries, if they spoke of glory for warriors in battle, spoke about collective glory for the army in the minds of their polis.

Alexander enters into Greek history with Leonidas as being one of the only actual persons to achieve true ever lasting glory.

The argument could be made for others only Leonidas and Alexander have the name recognition of Achilles.

Whatever it was, and it was likely world domination, it fell apart when he was confronted at Jerusalem with his prophetic future; he spared Jerusalem and just basically died.

>Biblical narrative.
As worse as Marxist's positivism.

>Alexander enters into Greek history with Leonidas as being one of the only actual persons to achieve true ever lasting glory.

No, because the Greeks saw Achilles and Hercules as real persons. So you are wrong.

>Alexander
>Great

>Leonidas
9/10, very subtle. Already had an angry response typed out.

The world.

Daily reminder if you ever become a great man say numerous time what your nationality is. Also your true heigh and don't surround yourself with super tall men all the time.
t. Napoloni's ghost mamma mia

So the Macedonians were just a bunch of barbarians on the periphery of an actual civilization quietly getting good at combat and then conquering the known world a la the Arabs and Mongols?

Yes, but many Europeans wouldn't view it as such. Alexander has been the husbando of every European ruler since.

Yes for the most part.
However you have to keep in mind that the Greeks considered the Macedonians to be barbarians, which meant a lot of their history was not written down by them or written in a bad light. So implying that they were not an actual civilization is uncalled for. They just did not spread out like the Greeks did.

The heart of the post is the comparison to the often considered "uncivilized" conquerors like the Arabs and Mongols, not the exact definition of "civilized".

he was going to go as far as he could

To eat all the olives.

They did, but we know better now, and the list of people who actually lived and are remembered along side Achilles and Herakles is pretty short.

>They did, but we know better now, and the list of people who actually lived and are remembered along side Achilles and Herakles is pretty short.
Alexander is one of the only if not the only person to burn his name into history a la mythological figures.

I agree. He's not the only one who, through glorious battle, has achieved relative immortality, though, is all I am saying.

Obviously Alexander the Great is in a tier of his own though. Arguably the only non-modern figure of comparable fame is Caesar.

This to be honest.

Hellenization didn't work in Persia

The same end game he had every night, Pinky.

It sure did until the Sassanids.

Macedonians were not considered barbarians by the 5th century, and whenever they were called barbarians after that time, it was purely for political propaganda - similar to how the Germans were called Huns in WW1.

I think he just wanted to fight battles against people.

Wrong.

No, it didn't. Because the primary inhabitants and citizens, the actual ethnic Persians, hated the Greeks and Macedonians. Also, the Arsacid dynasty, the rulers of the Parni tribes that made up the Parthian Empire, gave up on being Greekboos themselves about mid-way in their reign because of how unstable their rule frequently became.

Majority of Iranian and Iranic tribes were vehemently anti-Hellenists because Hellenism is not compatible to Iranic culture. So I wouldn't personally define Hellenization as "succeeding" until the Sassanids came into play when its only success is partial success with mainly the Parthians. Also should mention, a big reason for the Sassanids success was because they slandered the Parthians as being race traitors by being pro-"Aniran" i.e. "Anti-Aryan/Anti-Iranian".

Please, stop propagating the nonsense that Macedonian/Greek invaders in actual Iranian lands made success with Hellenization attempts.

If Hellenism lasted for 350 years in Persia, then that's certainly "succeeding" by any rational person's definition.

Hellenism never lasted for 350 years in Persia. The Seleucids being Greek rulers does not equate to making the inhabitants as embracing Greek or Hellenistic culture. False equivalence there.

Where is 350 years coming from? One of the main reasons why Seleucid and his heirs lost their empire was the attempt of force the citizens of non-Greek or Macedonian origins to embrace Hellenization.

Which is why the Jews were constantly revolting, issues and continually fragmentation of Greek administration and rule in the Iranian plateau, Parthia's rise, and so forth. You could have a partial argument that the Seleucids built or renamed a shit ton of cities like Antioch in Hellenistic fashion but the actual success of Hellenization of the Iranians besides the Parthians was pretty much a failure. The only real success was the Pontus Kingdom and a major influence on the Parthians for the first half or so of their rule.

I was in fact talking about the Parthians. Strong anti-Greek sentiment didn't get fully into swing until the mid 1st Century.

What is your idea of Hellenization? It sounds to me like you treat it as the total eradication of native culture coupled with the replacement of Greek everything. But "Hellenization", at least how it was understood in the past, had always primarily syncretic. Greek theater, coinage, classical art and architecture, all flourished in Persia under the Parthians. Plus it was the lingua franca for commerce and government.

I'm interested in why you think equating the ruling class/dynasty of the Selecuids or the Arsacid empires being Hellenophiles equates to that being prevalent with their subject peoples? Especially considering the Arsacids main court language was primarily still Persian (Old evolving to Middle/Pahlavi), Parthian, and a host of other languages as they tried to emulate their Achaemenid predecessors with a multilingual state. In fact even the Hellenization of the Arsacids tends to be overblown.

They dressed in traditional Iranian fashion, they addressed themselves in their titles, pageantry, and religious in the same way. Even the majority of the Arsacid rulers used Zoroastrian and Achaemenid era names for themselves; such as Darius, Rostam, Kaus, etc...

Was there a Greek influence? Sure. Was it as strong as their Iranian native roots? No.

who are genghis, saladin, and charlemagne?

is cortez too recent?

Cortez doesn't enter into the Western consciousness on anywhere near the scale of the others.

Maybe for South Americans?

And yeah, I agree with Genghis and Charlemagne and Saladin. I'd throw Attila in there.

So what, our list is now 6, maybe 7 people long?

And lets be honest here, Saladin and Charlemagne are not anywhere near as famous as Alexander.

The Jews only revolted the once IIRC. And either way, by the end they were Hellenized. The last Maccabee kings were fully Hellenized, half of the religious sect was Hellenized, etc.

Literally none of these guys marked his name in history like Alexander of Caesar. The closer one in Charlemagne and not really that close.

Cities founded by Alexander that exist to this day:

Alexandria (Egypt)
Kandahar (Afghanistan)
Herat (Afghanistan)
Gulashkird (Iran)
Khujand (Tajikistan)
Iskanderun (Turkey)
Phalia (Pakistan) (not really a city any longer but still occupied and retains a variant of the original name Bucephalus)

Alexander carved Asia out for himself, opened the door for the Hellenization of the East, founded more cities than all other proposed names combined, many of which are important economic centers to this day, and many more were important before their eventual destruction.

It's probable that nobody mentioned in this thread had the impact Alexander did except for Saladin. Even Caesar wasn't particularly special. After Sulla it was just a matter of time before a Caesar came long (Caesar was an officer, or thug, under Sulla).

Maybe Genghis Khan, but I don't know enough the Mongols or their impact to say for certain.

>Jews
>Hellenized
Nope.

thread theme:

youtube.com/watch?v=OGL_L0fok10

The priests of the temple and pharoses were very much hellenized. So we're the last several maccabee kings.

This is by the admissions of modern Jewish scholarship. The revolt wasn't even a revolt, so much as a civil war where the traditionalists won and then fought the seleucids. Then after a couple of generations, the exact thing they tried to fight happened to them as they become decedent and the temple and priests fell to hellenic influence.

Jewish theology in the 3rd Bc until the 2nd Ad and even later was heavily dependant on Greek ideas and even the editorial correspondence of the mishna or whatever was based on the template of Greco-Roman scholars leaving commentary on previous authors.

>Pharoahs
>Jewish
>Maccabees
>popular
>or relevant

The fuck you get pharaohs from? I misspelled pharisees. Know what those were?

Though the rest of your post seems to belay the fact you're a retard, so whatever. You keep living in your dream world where Jews were immune to hellenization.

>this autism
Nice try, champ. Were you the same fag who was claiming the Parthians were completely Hellenized too?

>What was his endgame

Losing.

I didn't day that the Jews were fully hellenized, just that they were. I can't speak to exactly what degree in the general populace of Judea, but the fact remains that both religious and royal circles were infiltrated by philhellenism.

Being a failure trying to emulate Cyrus the Great.

Also, maccabees weren't popular?

Hanukkah literally celebrates their revolt and is the only Jewish holy celebration not rooted in biblical tradition.

Fuck off retard

crashing persia
with no survivors

Thanks for the enlightened contribution. The fact that Alexander embraced Persian culture, revered it and treated it somewhat superior to Macedonian culture (read up on Arrian's orientalisation of Alexander), which is what in turn angered his soldiers, who disagreed with Alexander's slow progression into becoming just another Persian emperor. He also implemented light-touch imperialism, often rehiring individuals he defeated in battle to become satraps of their own kingdoms. Do you really think he wanted to "crash Persia"? Certainly, that was his goal when embarking to take over Persia, but in the long run, not really.

>WE WAZ ISKANDAR

Wrong poster, retard.

I like how continually Selecuids control of Persia and Iranian lands slipped with every passing ruler they had.

Nice memeing.

>I like how continually Selecuids control of Persia and Iranian lands slipped with every passing ruler they had.

Antiochus III the Great restored Alexander's borders, but then he lost Asian Minor to Rome and died reconquering the rebellious east.

>never managed to subdue the Arsacids

The history books seem to suggest his next goal was Arabia and then to move west towards Carthage [spoiler]and Italy.[/spoiler]

Oh I agree completely, and just think that he's kind of a tier of his own. Like if I was making a Veeky Forums style power ranking of people who burned their names into history through war I would probably go

>Alexander the great tier
Alexander

>God tier
Caesar
Charlemagne
Napolean
... etc

Call me when you find a single nation in history whose rulers bear the title called "Saladin".

You've lost me.

as said, the Macedonians were thoroughly Hellenized by the time of Phillip II.

>Even Caesar wasn't particularly special
>It's probable that nobody mentioned in this thread had the impact Alexander did except for Saladin

Oh, I see now.
Caesar lived on as a title because of Augustus, who was obliged to take the name when he was adopted, because of patronymic conventions of Roman names.

So strictly speaking, you can attribute the proliferation of the name to denote a head of state to Augustus and not Caesar, since it was in fact Augustus who forged the Empire and not Caesar.

Giving Caesar credit for the name thing would be like giving Philip credit for Alexander's campaigns.

And once again, Caesar was just the most capable strongman in a city of potential strongmen. A 'Caesar' was always going to materialize in that atmosphere. Albeit, he had better odds than most as nephew of Marius and trusted enforcer/thug of Sulla.

But anyways, I think the thread is in agreement that Caesar was an incredibly important figure in history who has obviously left his mark. At this point we're basically discussing power levels and there will never be a consensus.

Caesar would've wrecked faggot boy.

...

Legions - 10
Phalanx - 0

Alexander never limited himself to Phalanxes

And his cousin, Pyrrhus, did alright for himself all things considered.

boipussy

>constantly had strategic defeats
>by throwing men in droves at the Romans
>"did alright"

>if I say it enough it becomes true

>Caesar would've wrecked faggot boy.

>Caesar went to serve his quaestorship in Spain after her funeral, in the spring or early summer of 69 BC.[29] While there, he is said to have encountered a statue of Alexander the Great, and realized with dissatisfaction that he was now at an age when Alexander had the world at his feet, while he had achieved comparatively little.

jej

This, the bpussy was strong.

1 in every 200 people in the world are descendents of Genghis.

He raped into history

Alexander was indeed great, but he was also born into royalty and had a father who laid the foundation for his efforts, while Caesar was just a patrician from a relatively unimportant family.

Militarily they were both legendary tacticians, but I don't know enough about the topic to say which was better.

Pyrrhic victory isn't a good thing for a reason.

>Julias
>"relatively unimportant family"

Caesars family ties were the sole reason he was able to join/form the triumvirate. So youre wrong.

Yep he conquered men and then was conquered by boys.