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Why Did Alexander The Great Go East?

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Guest alydan

My question is.... Has anyone read why Alexander the Great of Macedonia chose to not to attack the Roman Empire, but instead drove his armies to the east?

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Well the Romans at the time were still a small Republic, neither posing a threat or attracting much notice from Macedonia. The Romans were busy fighting the Samnites and were not a regional power to draw much interest from Alexander. The wealth of the ancient world at the time, was in the east, and Alexander certainly wanted it for his own kingdom.

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Another reason was political...namely the long bitter rivalry between the Greek city states and the Persian Empire as a percieved semi-civillized greek region Alexander used the "Persian Threat" to cement the Greek states into a tempory alliance based on the tried and tested means of revenge and plunder.

 

Ofcourse given the success of Alexander no one was complaining about the "barbarous macedonians" once the spoils caravans arrived in Greece but one has to wonder would Alexander have become Great if his campaign recruitment among the Greeks had been...

 

Soldiers of Greece, I ask you forget the East, where the Persian threaten to invade again and forgive the persians, the burning of our cities, the enslavement of greek wives and daughters, put out of your mind the emmense wealth of fabled Troy and instead follow me westward where Rome, a village by greek standards is fighting it's neighbors for control of central italy where resources are fairly scarce and the march hard given the mountainous terrain but if successful pottery and grain is your spoils of war....

 

Anyone...come on someone must want to head West...anyone at all...

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LOL, Crag i guess thats sums it up! :)

 

cheers

viggen

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Another reason was political...namely the long bitter rivalry between the Greek city states and the Persian Empire as a percieved semi-civillized greek region Alexander used the "Persian Threat" to cement the Greek states into a tempory alliance based on the tried and tested means of revenge and plunder.

 

Ofcourse given the success of Alexander no one was complaining about the "barbarous macedonians" once the spoils caravans arrived in Greece but one has to wonder would Alexander have become Great if his campaign recruitment among the Greeks had been...

 

Soldiers of Greece, I ask you forget the East, where the Persian threaten to invade again and forgive the persians, the burning of our cities, the enslavement of greek wives and daughters, put out of your mind the emmense wealth of fabled Troy and instead follow me westward where Rome, a village by greek standards is fighting it's neighbors for control of central italy where resources are fairly scarce and the march hard given the mountainous terrain but if successful pottery and grain is your spoils of war....

 

Anyone...come on someone must want to head West...anyone at all...

Etruscan pottery was said to be very very nice. :P

 

 

And yes, Persia was already an established enemy, and I think young Al' had a point to prove. :)

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Rome wasn't an empire at the time. It was a tiny city-state that control like 100 miles of territory. lol

The most powerful empire of the time was the Persian Empire. And he inteded to conquer it.

Zeke

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Yeah, To be honest, Money is what drives everything now and it certainly is what drove everything then. Alexander Did actually have Italy in mind to conquer but I think he must have thought of it more as a peninsula to build on than really conquering a dangerous foe. But, he did in fact want to subjugate Carthage which was his diplomatic enemy during his war with Persia. They considered for months on sending resources to aid the Persians. The Carthaginians at this time had money. That's obvious because Carthage wasn't famous for its army but famous for buying them. Most of their army was made up of Greek Mercenaries. Perhaps it's only because the richest nations are the ones that can afford the rock to throw at you but there's no question that Alexander the Great loved Gold and would use it to direct his pursuit of conquering the world.

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I belive Alexander march to east, from a side because Persia(as you have just say) is the political enemy, on the other side because he dream of India and India may be reach only trougth Persia...

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It should be noted that Alexander idealized the Greek Heroes and fancied himself one as well so by going East he was following in the footsteps of Dionysos and Heracles...

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Alexander also wanted to gaze towards the outer ocean, that is why he pushed his men so hard in India during the mutiny, so he could have claimed to have seen the ends of the earth. To go from the 'Frog pond' of the Mediterranean to the Outer Ocean in India would have been the ultimate achievement.

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Alexander also wanted to gaze towards the outer ocean, that is why he pushed his men so hard in India during the mutiny, so he could have claimed to have seen the ends of the earth. To go from the 'Frog pond' of the Mediterranean to the Outer Ocean in India would have been the ultimate achievement.

 

I see You saw the movie. Take the movie with a grain of salt. There are a tremendous amount of innacuracies in it, not to mention it's an awful film. Some of the innacuracies were made for dramatic and story-telling reasons. Most of them were made because Oliver is a Coked-out, liberally destructive hack who had no business in making a movie about Alexander the Great. Oliver has gotten far too much acclaim and it's because he became famous making his stupid conspiracy movies. This made people think he was more than that and do other things. He really hasn't. Scarface is the only other thing he took part in that was any good that didn't slander something. Because of him, itt'l be another ten years at least before anyone takes another crack at trying to make a film on Alexander the Great. It can be done. Just, no one has done it yet.

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I see You saw the movie. Take the movie with a grain of salt. There are a tremendous amount of innacuracies in it, not to mention it's an awful film. Some of the innacuracies were made for dramatic and story-telling reasons. Most of them were made because Oliver is a Coked-out, liberally destructive hack who had no business in making a movie about Alexander the Great. Oliver has gotten far too much acclaim and it's because he became famous making his stupid conspiracy movies. This made people think he was more than that and do other things. He really hasn't. Scarface is the only other thing he took part in that was any good that didn't slander something. Because of him, itt'l be another ten years at least before anyone takes another crack at trying to make a film on Alexander the Great. It can be done. Just, no one has done it yet.

 

It seems to me that you aren't a big fan of the movie. :D

You are right, I have mixed up my Arrian with Oliver Stone's film, sorry. Arrian mentions many times that Alexander pushed towards the outer ocean and that he had intended to sail from there back to Europe, although this might not actually mean that he had his eyes on reaching the outer ocean when he started his wars of conquest. I am sure on the other hand that he wanted to expand and rule all the borders of the outer ocean, for instance Alexandria the furthest was built where it was because Alexander belived that a few miles beyond it lay the ocean (the steppes is what actually layed there). He also believed the Caspian Sea to be a part of the outer ocean.

 

I am not a big fan of his film either. My last avatar made fun of it before I changed it to a coin of Diocletian. (I had a picture of Anthony Hopkins' Ptolemy 'Blah Blah Blahing' around). If they are going to make an attempt on Alexander again in the future it ought to be a big budget series or a series of films. It is impossible to do a 2-3 hour movie about Alexander that would do him justice as so much happened in his life. Even so, the last big budget movie about Alexander before Oliver Stone's film was made in th 1950's...there's a gap of about 50 years there, let's hope we won't have to wait that long for another movie.

 

The 1950's film was a flop as well, but no version is probably as bad as the 1960's TV series starring 'Captain Kirk' as Alexander. I had the displeasure of seeing one short scene from that series where Alexander was ambushed by about 12 Persian archers.

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didn't his maternal uncle, alexander of epirus go west, and died in an ambush in italy? or is that fiction?

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