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Alexander The Great's Battle at the River Jhelum

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Re: Alexander The Great's Battle at the River Jhelum

#41

Post by jholman »

pm90 wrote: post #35
davidp wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Names don't normally survive intact when crossing languages; even more so when crossing multiple languages (original -> Greek -> Latin -> English). Examples from Wikipedia: - The Greek name for Alexander is Alexandros (Ἀλέξανδρος). - The Persian name for Alexander is Iskandar (اسکندر). - Porus is a similarly Latinized version of the Greek version (Πῶρος) of the Sanskrit name Purushottam (पुरुषोत्तम).

Yes, its interesting to trace the routes of these words. The Persian word for Alexander is also Sikander and it was quite a popular name among sultans in medieval India. And my favorite: Tsar was derived from Caesar :)

And "Caesar" is properly pronounced "kaisar". Try to guess where the German "Kaiser" comes from.

Re: Alexander The Great's Battle at the River Jhelum

#42

Post by krishashok »

snambi wrote: post #33

The author is missing some other things that alexandar's men would not have seen on their journey from greece to india. [1] crocodiles [2] tigers [3] monkeys [4] venomous snakes ( this is a major problem for moving at night) [5] mosquitoes [6] diseases ( with so much life, comes diseases ) He says alexandar would have won the war easily if he had attacked two months earlier. He had no idea about the heat in april and…

Actually, the author is right. In Punjab, June and July is peak summer. April is quite pleasant comparatively. In the Southern part of India, April and May are horrible (I live there).

Re: Alexander The Great's Battle at the River Jhelum

#43

Post by kevin_rubyhouse »

vicks711 wrote: post #31

Raja = King not warlord. Chandragupt Maurya the Emperor of Patliputra (now Patna) had an army much bigger than Porus'

The article agrees with you, "it was fought against a powerful Indian rajah, an Indian equivalent to a king or warlord."

Re: Alexander The Great's Battle at the River Jhelum

#44

Post by antman »

snambi wrote: post #33

The author is missing some other things that alexandar's men would not have seen on their journey from greece to india. [1] crocodiles [2] tigers [3] monkeys [4] venomous snakes ( this is a major problem for moving at night) [5] mosquitoes [6] diseases ( with so much life, comes diseases ) He says alexandar would have won the war easily if he had attacked two months earlier. He had no idea about the heat in april and…

There was an unprecedented failure of correlation vs causation and it was based on crocodiles. The whole idea was that the Indian Ocean was a lake and they would circumvent it, reach the top of the Nile and then sail to down to return to the Greek territory. Unfortunately this geographical mistake was based on the assumption that crocodiles (and lotus plants) they saw in India existed only in upper Egypt only so the two regions were somehow connected.

Regarding Alexanders army, most of it was disbanded after he took the 4 main persian cities and then it was mostly local former persian empire subjects and officers (heteroi - εταιροι) with Macedonian Generals. They probably had a fair knowledge of the situation. The Persians said that they had already occupied some part of Indian territory but there are no Archeological evidence of sustained Persian presence after the Khyber Pass.

Re: Alexander The Great's Battle at the River Jhelum

#45

Post by twilightfog »

kevin_rubyhouse wrote: post #3

Nobody told Alexander the Great about the Indian monsoon season? Surely he could have gained some information about the country he invaded before committing.

I think an even better information could be that he would not reach the end of the world. If he couldn't even get this beforehand, then I think missing the Indian monsoon is a small oversight indeed.
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