Alexander the not so Great: History through Persian eyes

BBC ^ | 7-14-2012 | Ali Ansari

[Renfield]

Alexander the Great is portrayed as a legendary conqueror and military leader in Greek-influenced Western history books but his legacy looks very different from a Persian perspective.

Any visitor to the spectacular ruins of Persepolis - the site of the ceremonial capital of the ancient Persian Achaemenid empire, will be told three facts: it was built by Darius the Great, embellished by his son Xerxes, and destroyed by that man, Alexander.

~~~snip~~~

He razed Persepolis to the ground following a night of drunken excess at the goading of a Greek courtesan, ostensibly in revenge for the burning of the Acropolis by the Persian ruler Xerxes.

Persians also condemn him for the widespread destruction he is thought to have encouraged to cultural and religious sites throughout the empire...

[Moltke]

Any visitor to the spectacular ruins of Persepolis

Once the radiation diminishes, tourists will be able to visit the not-quite-so-spectacular ruins of Tehran.

[EggsAckley]

So where does Cyrus the Great fit in? I’ve always been told he was the golden boy of Persia.

[what's up]

Tolerant, yes, but an extremely top-heavy Gov’t.

[Sam Gamgee]

I agree. We use “great” in the sense of what was accomplished. For example “Catherine the Great”. It doesn't mean they were blissfully wonderful people and in fact one can be “great” and an evil person all at the same time.

[Sam Gamgee]

I agree. We use “great” in the sense of what was accomplished. For example “Catherine the Great”. It doesn't mean they were blissfully wonderful people and in fact one can be “great” and an evil person all at the same time.

[Mack the knife]

The fact remains that he was a military commander of amazing ability with the best army of the day.

---

War chariots ruled the battlefields of the middle east for over 1000 years, and it was Alexander that found the perfect defense. During the battle with the Persians, a row of war chariots drove directly for Alexander’s front line.

As the chariots approached the line, the Greek soldiers in the first few rows moved sideways, forming a pocket for each chariot, with spears on all sides — the chariots were forced to stop in the pocket, and the soldiers at their rear simply killed them. The pride of the Persian Army was destroyed in minutes.

War chariots were never used in battles again.

[Sherman Logan]

Macedon conquering the Persian Empire would be roughly equivalent today, in manpower and other resource today to Venezuela conquering the United States.

It still seems to me the Persians had appallingly poor strategic planners. They apparently could not face the Macedonians in battle and win. So why not use Fabian tactics and attack his supply lines? With massively larger numbers, they could force Alexander to keep his army concentrated, while they still had the men to raid and attack elsewhere.

The reason this wasn’t possible is probably because the Empire was not a nation. They had to go toe to toe with the invader or lose the prestige that kept the subject nations down. The Romans and their allies had sufficient cohesion to use Fabian tactics. The Persians, not so much.

[SunkenCiv]

GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother & Ernest_at_the_Beach	join list or digest view topics view or post blog bookmark post a topic subscribe
Thanks Renfield. Big Al adopted Persian ways, and even dealt with the Persian usurper using Persian laws and penalties, after chasing and catching him up in what is now Afghanistan. Naturally (and obviously) one of the greatest "what-if"s of history is, what if Alexander doesn't die young? Alexander the Great was and is called that for a reason. And screw the effin' Persians. To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list.

[colorado tanker]

Did somebody say Persians?

[Verginius Rufus]

Cyrus the Great founded the Persian Empire. Before Cyrus, Persia was subject to the Medes.

The first source to refer to Alexander as "the Great" was long after his death, I believe. In his lifetime he would be called "Alexander the son of Philip" if "Alexander" by itself wasn't sufficient.

He was not popular with most Greeks of the day--Darius III had large numbers of Greek mercenaries fighting on his side. After Alexander's victory at the River Granicus, he had the Greek mercenaries he captured slaughtered in keeping with his myth that he was fighting a war of revenge (because of Xerxes' invasion--Macedonia had been on the Persian side in that war).

[RedStateRocker]

An Iranian friend I had, whose father left when the Shah fell, was always emphatic about how great Persian culture had been before the Arabs destroyed it.
Cyrus was a pretty amazing ruler; his heirs not so much.

[RedStateRocker]

An Iranian friend I had, whose father left when the Shah fell, was always emphatic about how great Persian culture had been before the Arabs destroyed it.
Cyrus was a pretty amazing ruler; his heirs not so much.