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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)

#41

Post by protomyth »

louhike wrote: post #17
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…

I do not know a lot of countries which have not been defiants to foreign occupation. I'll put it harshly but it sounds a lot like propaganda. And as you can see on this map https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_the_Great#/media/Fil... , he did invade Afghanistan, and even a part of today India.

Genghis Khan did pretty well in his invasion of Afghanistan also.

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

#42

Post by protomyth »

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.

Its also interesting the mindset of some of the documents. We have a distinctly European view of Genghis Khan which might be more 'look at the devil' than reality or what was said in the home grown documents.

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

#43

Post by IkmoIkmo »

StuffMaster wrote: post #38
IkmoIkmo wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Well he factually didn't even from the perspective of 'his known world', Alexander both turned back from on campaign, and had planned another campaign he didn't live to initiate.

But regardless it strikes me as a pretty ridiculous claim to make, (especially today) when an estimated 70% of the world population lived in places (they obviously know) that weren't conquered by Alexander. After all there is no 'the' known world. You can find many millions of people who have not a clue of the world beyond a few miles away and you'll thereby find many different people who each rule their known world.

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

#44

Post by selleck »

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.

Ozymandias Percy Bysshe Shelley, 1792 - 1822

I met a traveller from an antique land Who said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert . . . Near them, on the sand, Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed: And on the pedestal these words appear: ‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!' Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

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

#45

Post by 5040 »

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…

>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

This statement greatly distorts the truth. Almost all extant Greek philosophical texts can be traced to 17 Byzantine manuscripts.

The book reviewed here has much more information about the transmission of Greek philosophy (the review is well-worth reading too):

http://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2009/2009-01-31.html

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

#46

Post by atmosx »

eternalban wrote: post #40
atmosx wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

Good catch. Great legacy too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyrus_the_Great#Legacy

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

#47

Post by rmc »

protomyth wrote: post #42
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.

Its also interesting the mindset of some of the documents. We have a distinctly European view of Genghis Khan which might be more 'look at the devil' than reality or what was said in the home grown documents.

Genghis Khan is an example of history written by the losers. The Vikings were also written about by the people they invaded and killed, hence why they were thought of as so fierce.

It is definitely not the case that "history is (always) written by the victors".

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

#48

Post by rmc »

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…

Yes it is a manner of speech. My full quote was: "Alexander was viewed (in his time) as conquring the whole world".

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

#49

Post by erikb »

restalis wrote: post #26
erikb wrote: post #14

I must be reading something incorrectly. Certainly I didn't hear about these exchanges before. But is it correct that most of the exchanges can be boiled down to "be nice to people"? I always thought politics was based on keeping control of import political powers like media, military, law, food, and money while replacing people in high positions who don't work for you with people that you improved to these positions…

"Can one go to another country, declare oneself as their leader and then just lead by being nice?" The thing is that Alexander's biggest proportion of conquests were the former Persian Empire's - lands of various people which all their life lived under some foreign rule. So there was a change in power, now here's this new ambitious and charismatic leader offering some of the most nicest conditions imaginable if you j…

For most people you are right. But in every group large enough there are a few who always want more and who don't think as much about the risk. I'd argue that Alexander himself also was such a person. If you offered him nice conditions for his submission and a low chance to succeed by fighting, do you think he would have submitted?

And what about days when not everything is well and nice? Drought, famines, storms, sickness. When something irritating happens people tend to blame leaders. Suddenly the situation doesn't feel nice, no matter what you do as a leader. What do you do then? Go home and stop leading?

Just think about us. We probably live in the richest, most peacefully, culturally most widely developed time of human history, yet we don't feel happy about it. Many people would argue that another leader might be better for them than the current one. So I would argue that even if one lives a happy, good life, one is not so happy about it to fully trust the leader.

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