Alexander the Great vs Julius Caesar

huh, interesting.

Varro. Paulus also did not want to attack but it was Varro's turn to command the army. Ironically, Paulus was killed and Varro lived.

Ya every day they switched command, to me that seams like the stupidest thing to do in war, you need a strong authority figure to fight a war.


Hannibal would kick all ancient generals asses though (except for Scipio i guess), Never has there been a general so able to predict the enemy strategy and seize upon it. Not to mention crossing the fucking alps. I wonder all the time what would have happened if Hannibal conquered Rome, because it almost happened.

Carthage wasn't after imperial ambitions that much, and Hannibal wanted the Romans to just beg for peace and give up almost everything, not necessarily take them over.

That is what they always say....

If they won, they would not have expanded much. They were only interested in controlling sea trade. They couldn't do much either with a mercenary army, as they are mercenaries.

Why Alexander and Julius seeing how Alexander won thanks to his father and Julius is one of the worlds most overrated person of all time.

Controlling the Italian Peninsula is important for sea trade ya know. Its that or the giant ass thing ejecting into the middle of the ocean isn't important to maintain.

Sicily is important to sea trade. Not the entire italian peninsula.

No, just no.

Well the truth is that they are very romanticized in popular western culture. If you are going to look them from historical perspective both of them where pretty cruel mass murderers. People seem to ignore there flaws which makes me anti the popular view.

Stop looking at them from modern morals. The standard practice by most conquerors of the time to quell dissent and prevent rebellion was by using violence and fear. They were still both two of the top 5 generals of all time.

How can you safely say that they are top 5 generals of all time? Taking generals from Europe in a small period of time make it seems like you have been influenced by the popular culture. I am sure there are much better well equipped using highly intelligent and well thought out strategies today. And then there are the really good generals that have been ignored by history because they didn't get the chance to actually conquer.
The whole trend that people from ancient Europe are so much better than people from other areas in the world and other time periods is stupid and it should die horrible in a fire.

We don't know enough about other generals to safely call them some of the best in history. And how can you know if a general who never fought before can compare to the likes of Caesar or Alexander? We go by what records we have, not by speculation and what if.

I didn't talk about generals that did not fight, I talked about generals that did not conquer. You realize that not nearly all wars trough history has been about conquering (succeeding at anything of the sort).
Of course there is tons of records about different generals and I am sure MANY of them can compare or even be better then Julius Caesar/Alexander.
If you say that historians have made them ''ze b3st genrels evar'' (a title stupid in it's own right) you are wrong. It's not the historians/learned people it is the writers/poets that have made them what they are in many eyes. It's the same situation like horned viking helmets, it's not factual right but the writers/poets have made it right trough disregarding facts.

Really? Really? You think historians haven't said they were some of the best generals of all time? What about all those books idolizing Alexander and his campaign? Have you read Adrian Goldsworthy's: Caesar: Life of a Collossus? I mean there are other generals who haven't conquered who are still recognized as great, i.e., stilicho, wellington, etc.

Do you really think Carthage would be happy with its greatest rival growing on its Sicilian borders?

All of them basing it on books written by Greeks/Romans really you must in the end see how overly idolized these character have been for no good reason. It really helps when we idolize people that kills millions of others and carve a great empire, because that can't lead to people thinking it's good to be a warlord (Mussolini, Hitler, Franco, Napoleon, countless others)

SO you are going to compare Caesar to Hitler?

No but i'm going to say that he was inspired by Caesar because he writes it in Mein Kampf.

So? Mussolini was inspired by the Roman Empire too. Does that take anything away from Caesar or the Roman Empire just because a nutjob thought they were being like them?