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Aristotle’s (apocryphal) advice to Alexander the Great on Persian elites (2013)

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Re: Aristotle’s (apocryphal) advice to Alexander the Great on Persian elites (2013)

#31

Post by IkmoIkmo »

mattmanser wrote: post #19
qCOVET wrote: post #12

Here is another piece of story that is not in the article. When Alexander tried to enter Afghanistan he was met with fierce resistance. Didn't matter what he did, he couldn't quench the uprisings and could not conquer the country. After losing a lot of men, he wrote to Aristotle for advise. Aristotle asked Alexander for a sample of Afghan soil to be shipped to him. Upon receipt of the soil samples, Aristotle laid the…

My Dad, who is known for spinning tales, once told me a story about a bomb wiping out the Chinese officers on a boat as they posed with it for a photograph. It had been left there by nationalists. This was the 60s, so the communists had only been in power a fairly short while. Also, just for context, this is in the days before super tankers when there were a lot more ships at sea and they were a lot smaller. Because…

Even if the story of the letters and everything is true, the notion that people killed each other because there was Afghan soil under the carpet is obviously bollocks haha.

Thanks for sharing the story.

Re: Aristotle’s (apocryphal) advice to Alexander the Great on Persian elites (2013)

#32

Post by IkmoIkmo »

rmc wrote: post #25
Herodotus38 wrote: post #16

I just finished a Biography on Alexander the Great (Titled: Alexander the Great, The Hunt for a New Past. by Paul Cartledge), which I found to be very good because the author delves into the various sources of information on Alexander, which I found to be surprisingly scant as much has been lost and much has been handed down to us second hand in summarized form (such as through Plutarch). Alexander had his own person…

It's fascinating how little documents we have of people who were incredibly famous and powerful while they lived. Often, some claim that Jesus of Nazareth didn't exist because we have no documented evidence of him from his lifetime. But Alexander was viewed (in his time) as conquring the whole world, and we still don't have written evidence from his life.

> as conquring the whole world

Unless it's a matter of speech, he conquered about 3.5% of the world's land mass and about a third of the (estimated) population, neither of which put you in the top 3 and couldn't be considered the 'whole world' either. By land mass it's not even in the top 20 largest empires ever. He was unique not for the greatest empire but rather for being so primely responsible for the massive empire he did create and in doing it all in about 12 years, the British empire for example by comparison has no single persons who were so primely responsible with many leaders emerging over hundreds of years, combined with his personal role in battles, all of which ending in victory, makes him the stuff of legends.

Re: Aristotle’s (apocryphal) advice to Alexander the Great on Persian elites (2013)

#33

Post by IkmoIkmo »

lololololololol wrote: post #22

Wow, is this some sort of religious propaganda because it got too religious too quick (I stopped after reading the story about the Jew being bad and the Zoroastrian being a good Muslim). This is a classical example of confirmation bias - the author is seeking to confirm his theory about the supeemacy of one religion over others and finds positive evidence wherr se deems fit. This is not to say that one religion is tr…

What am I missing here, Alexander predates Islam by some 900 years and Zoroastrianism is a unique religion separate from Islam? How does this make any sense?

Re: Aristotle’s (apocryphal) advice to Alexander the Great on Persian elites (2013)

#34

Post by m-i-l »

rokhayakebe wrote: post #6

No data for the following. One important "fact" people do not know is much of the western philosophical works (and other disciplines) we know today (from Aristotle, Plato, Socrates, etc...) are from Arabic writings. Apparently when the Muslim Arabs decided to go and conquer the West, they would take down libraries and rewrite all the knowledge in one language (Arabic). They sent out paid emissaries to the "Four corne…

See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transmission_of_the_Greek_Clas... : "This work of translation ... constituted one of the greatest transmissions of ideas in history".

Re: Aristotle’s (apocryphal) advice to Alexander the Great on Persian elites (2013)

#35

Post by eli_gottlieb »

lololololololol wrote: post #22

Wow, is this some sort of religious propaganda because it got too religious too quick (I stopped after reading the story about the Jew being bad and the Zoroastrian being a good Muslim). This is a classical example of confirmation bias - the author is seeking to confirm his theory about the supeemacy of one religion over others and finds positive evidence wherr se deems fit. This is not to say that one religion is tr…

Yeah, I'm not really sure what the point of the page is, other than to tell some apocryphal stories that use cultural groups and historical figures as fairy-tale archetypes.

Re: Aristotle’s (apocryphal) advice to Alexander the Great on Persian elites (2013)

#38

Post by StuffMaster »

IkmoIkmo wrote: post #32
rmc wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's fascinating how little documents we have of people who were incredibly famous and powerful while they lived. Often, some claim that Jesus of Nazareth didn't exist because we have no documented evidence of him from his lifetime. But Alexander was viewed (in his time) as conquring the whole world, and we still don't have written evidence from his life.

> as conquring the whole world Unless it's a matter of speech, he conquered about 3.5% of the world's land mass and about a third of the (estimated) population, neither of which put you in the top 3 and couldn't be considered the 'whole world' either. By land mass it's not even in the top 20 largest empires ever. He was unique not for the greatest empire but rather for being so primely responsible for the massive emp…

He conquered the "known world", I believe is how it goes.

Re: Aristotle’s (apocryphal) advice to Alexander the Great on Persian elites (2013)

#39

Post by eternalban »

stevenmays wrote: post #37
koalaman wrote: post #36

I'm confused, Alexander the Great was an Arab?

He was Macedonian.

Possibly 1/2 Macedonian, 1/2 "Lion-Snake": http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/L... ... ;-)

Re: Aristotle’s (apocryphal) advice to Alexander the Great on Persian elites (2013)

#40

Post by eternalban »

atmosx wrote: post #7
_nedR wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>They won over the people at first by force (conquered) and then via other means they and coopted (won over) them and used them to their ends. If by 'won them over', you mean they threatened anyone who opposed them with terrible consequences, and rewarded those who supported them then you are correct. Of course everyone from ISIL to the USA does varying degrees of the same thing.

I am not sure if you're talking about Alexander, because you make it sound like something everybody does but that's not the case. If anything, nearly everybody does/did the opposite. Alexander became accustomed and adopted the Persian lifestyle, to the point where his countrymen started resenting him, because they didn't feel enough like conquerers . He married the daughter of Darius. Most conquerors at the time, wou…

> At 300 BC what more can we ask?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyrus_the_Great (note the date)

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