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11-06-2004, 11:49 AM

Alexander had a truly awful "human rights" record. 
 
Right from the destruction of Boetian Thebes to the butchery on the Indus. He showed no mercy to non-combatants or prisoners of war. (see the fate of the Governor of Tyre, not to mention the population) Responsible for possibly millions of deaths (the record is unclear) 
 
He waged agressive wars against peaceful neighbours, even the Achemaenids wanted only peace, and the Indus cultures were simply attacked and exterminated for no reason. 
 
He killed his closest comrades in drunken fits of rage and all up was a right b@stard. 
 
Also headstrong and regardless of the welfare of his men as in the crossing of the Gedrosian desert from Persia to India at huge loss to his army just to say he did it. 
 
After his well-deserved death his legacy was a bunch of generals who fought over the corpse of Eastern Mediterranean civilisation until the Romans sorted them out. 
 
It would have been better had he never lived.

11-06-2004, 11:57 AM

Forgot to mention, Caesar in comparison, although having killed in excess of a million Gauls, at least served a civilising mission, making the world overall a better place. 
 
Maybe a Bomber Harris/Curtis Lemay to Alexander's Hitler.

hansvl · 11-06-2004, 04:24 PM

Caesar on a civilizing mission?? Making the world a better place?? Where have we heard that one lately? 
 
Oh, like the European nations brought civilization to Africa during the colonial period. 
 
As if the Celts were deprived from anything remotely resembling a civilization. 
 
Hans

11-06-2004, 08:55 PM

Hi Hans, maybe I phrased my post badly but my intent was to convey my belief that Caesar "served" a civilising mission, ie on the whole Roman conquest brought real benefits to most people in the long view. I agree that Caesar himself would not have thought along those lines, but nevertheless the benefits accrued. 
 
Interestingly enough I do accept a rough parallel with the European conquests in Africa in the 19th Century. That conquest, though marred with slavery, racialism and exploitation, has also in the long run benefited most Africans, IMO. 
 
Alexander's blind acts of mass extermination and enslavement are much more in line with the Third Reich, IMO. What benefits accrued to the millions in the Achemaenid Empire, even in the long run from Alexander.s and his Successors endless wars fought over what was already a civilised place. 
 
My references to Harris and Lemay were not intended to give offence to any modern German readers. Carthago delenda est

Goffredo · 11-07-2004, 02:31 PM

What makes Civilization? 
Are all "human" groups (I place "human" in quotes to stress the humanity!) entitled to be called Civilizations? 
If not then what are the minimum qualities/quantities that make the Celts resemble a Civilization?

Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus · 11-07-2004, 05:13 PM

I wouldn't say he brought civilization to these people. It brings about the question of what is civilization or civilized. If you look at it from the romans perspective, if you weren't in the roman realm, then you were simply not civilized, except maybe Egypt until their conqering, as well as the Parthians until they fell to roman legions. These Gauls had a society, maybe not as complex as the roman one, but they had kings and a religious cult, if that is the correct way to describe it. Some of them even spoke Greek and Latin, which is really what the Romans thought to be cultured. So did caesar really civilise these people, or did he simply Romanize them. The important thing Caesar did was bringing the Roman system of Law to Gauls and the surrounding territories. Also the forcing of Latin to these people created the formation of the modern day languages. So in conclusion, I believe that caesar brought Roman Law and Language to Gaul, more than he brought civilization to an already civilized people. Remember also that the word barbarian comes from not the way a group of people live, but from the way they talked, to the greeks it sounded like Bar- Bar, hense the greek word barbarian.

11-07-2004, 09:23 PM

OK, if you interpret "civilisation" to include any group of non-savage peoples past the hunter-gatherer level, you have a point. Under this definition I mean Roman Civilisation, which brought huge long term benefits to the populations brought within its borders, too obvious to list. 
 
Who can doubt that had the Romans continued to expand into Central Europe indefinitely that the subsequent history of the world would not have been so much more "civilised"? 
 
Even as it was when has Western Europe ever since enjoyed 400 years of internal peace? That to me is what "civilisation" is all about, the bringing of peace and stability to regions previously wracked by tribal wars and external invasion. 
 
Our existing culture could never guarantee us peace from now until say 2404 AD could it? That was the Roman achievement to me. 
 
Back on topic, Alexander was just a Greek speaking Attila, bringing the Greek language and culture, sure, but at the cost of mass murder, enslavement of whole populations and a heritage of bitter civil wars fought out by foreign mercenaries over regions that had enjoyed true "civilisation" for centuries. (IMO)

Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus · 11-08-2004, 04:16 AM

First of all I will agree with you about the great benefits of the Roman culture in advancing the parts of Western Europe under Roman influence. However by no means were there 400 hundred years of peace in europe. The only continued peace in western europe during the roman empire was during the pax romana. From Attila's ravaging of the roman provinces in europe, to Aleric and his eventual march on rome, even though he did not really attack the western provinces too much. Rome's most important achievements in western europe are 3 things. Law, Latin, and Catholicism. And the way you descibe civilization is a little odd. Yes these areas has lots of wars, but most of them were on rome because they wanted to migrate south. And they were not the tribal villages you speak of, but kingdoms in many areas, maybe not complex, but for the most part they did have kings. Some areas of Gaul were already previously Romanized before Caesar, and when caesar invaded Gaul the various independent kingdoms joined under the banner of Vercingetorix, whose aspiration was a united Gaulic kingdom under his ruling. And about central europe not being civilized I find a little unfounded as well. Going by parts outside of the Roman Empire, so most of Germany. Where was the catalyst of the reformation from. Where was the strongest industrial nation located. Roman influence didn't mean a peoples were uncivilized, but mearly that they lacked some of the administrative and legal benefits of the Roman empire.

11-08-2004, 09:03 AM

Actually Gnaeus I did state internal peace. Granted there were a number of very damaging invasions right through the Imperial period, one of the worst during Marcus Aurelius' time, but the constant wars between the tribal kingdoms were stopped dead and most of the invasion/migrations were turned back before they did too much damage. 
 
In respect of the large German influences later during the Reformation etc., I suggest that by that time, a good thousand years later, Roman influences had spread well into Central Asia via the surviving Roman Empire with its capital at Constantinople. (Moscow was known as the Third Rome) Also Charlemagne had thoroughly christianised and "civilised" the Germans in the early ninth century, with fire and sword. 
 
Just to clarify, I don't dispute the high culture enjoyed by many "Barbarian" nations conquered by Rome, but the influence of the Conquest extended far beyond that in protecting Europe during a crucial period of volkswanderung from the destruction of the Cimbri Teutones and Ambrones by Marius right through to turning back Atilla 600 years later. 
 
What would have happened to Europe during that period without the Roman shield? I suggest that Western Europe would be a "Third World" continent to this day. 
 
For an inkling of this, study what happened to "civilisation" in Anatolia in the eleventh century following the Manzikert disaster. Carthago delenda est

11-08-2004, 11:08 AM

Mad Max, you seem to forget about the endless civil wars of the III and IV centuries within the Roman Empire, not to mention the large peasant rebellions, like that of the Bacaudae. Roman civilization brought law and urban life, but also greatly increased social inequalities, by the V century it was sociaety ruled by an incredibly rich aristocracy with huge land estates that managed to avoid taxes, while the poor weere ruthlessly taxed by a despotic goverment fast becoming a religious autocracy. The best thing Europe got was Barbarian invasions that ditched that corrupted system, unfortunately the Catholic Church survived the fall and managed to do as harm as possible to European peoples for another 1000 years. 
In all, I think an internal development by the "barbarian" nations of Europe would have been more benefical in the long run.

Goffredo · 11-08-2004, 12:13 PM

Editors, moderators get ready! 
 
Aryaman! 
You wrote 
".., unfortunately the Catholic Church survived the fall and managed to do as harm as possible to European peoples for another 1000 years." 
 
I am not a militant Catholic. Indeed I am probably more anti-clerical than you are,a nd for good reason! But your sentence is quite foolish. But I always assume people are at least intelligent. So I ask: Do you really ignore much or are just pretending? I think what you wrote, to put it bluntly, stinks of ideology.

11-08-2004, 12:57 PM

it is alexander who begin the tactiacl positioning then 
then choice his strategic main attack.if you can not stop it then you will lost the battle. 
 
the next generation general can not be compare to 
the old guard...who begin everything,the tactics 
and all the sinews of wars.

11-08-2004, 02:08 PM

Goffredo 
I am merely pointing out that the Church for more than 1000 years was a powerful force against the development of science, actively supporting absolutist governemnts, and spreading some histerical ideas against sex, donÃƒâ€šÃ‚Â´t you agree?

11-08-2004, 08:55 PM

Well you know, it may be regarded as extreme to condemn the whole Church for the things you mention Aryaman. Also it will offence to religeous here, which is not good. 
 
I'm not religious by the way, but respect the beliefs of others. 
 
There is an established view that the Church itself served as a major civilising force after the fall of the Western Empire, both in preserving knowlege and mitigating the savagery of some of the invaders. Carthago delenda est

Crispvs · 11-08-2004, 09:13 PM

Aryaman, 
I think that you are oversimplifying the Church and its activity. 
Firstly, like any culture, the culture of the Church changed and developed over the centuries. Thus, the Church of the Sixteenth century that Luther railed against was not the same as the Church of the Sixth century when the opposing figures of Martin of Toures and St. Augustine were both active as missionaries, the first being restrained from his overzealous activities and the second encouraged on his peaceful activities by a conscientious and well meaning Pope Gregory. During the intervening thousand years a lot of water went under the bridge, and not all in the same direction. 
Secondly, although much learning was lost during the Fourth and Fifth centuries, probably the majority of it was destroyed by the effects of civil wars and invasions. There are few recorded instances of the Church actively destroying learning. True, the emperor Theodosious ordered the destruction of the library of Alexandria, but how much of the famous collection of the Third and Second centuries BC was left by then and what did the library of the Fourth century AD contain in any case. I have always been given to understand that the first (partial) destruction of the library took place during Mark Antony's defence of Alexandria against the Young Caesar (later known as Augustus), and more of its collection was destroyed by every war or natural disaster which came Alexandria's way from then on. We have no way of knowing whether the Fourth century library contained the works that every one of us on this board would love to know about and more, or just a bowdlerised collection of fashionable Third and Fourth century propaganda literature. Thus we do not know what, if any, valuable learning was destroyed on the orders of Theodosius. What we do know though, is that virtually all of the important (not to mention minor and less important) works to survive to our own time did so thanks to the fact that members of church orders felt it worth commiting months if not years to the act of copying them and thus preserving them. This included works of science as well, hence our knowledge of Galen, Pseudo Heron, Archimedes and others. Papyri from the sands of Egypt and wooden letters from Vindolanda are wonderful sources of information, but to the best of my knowledge none have yet turned up anything to rival Plato's Republic or Tacitus' Annals, to name but two. Obviously much more must have survived the burnings of the wars of the Third, Fourth and Fifth centuries than has survived to come down to us, but that does not mean it was maliciously destroyed. When I see books in a second hand shop I buy the ones which interest me and leave the rest. If the shop is flooded or burns down the next day it is not my fault. True, in this case it has been me who has selected the information which is to survive, but this does not make me responsible for the destruction of the rest. I see no reason to believe that the same did not happen 1400 years ago. The Church kept and copied the information which interested it and left the rest to others who were not necessarily so careful, or numerous enough, to preserve it. A modern example of this might be 'Chariots of the Gods', by Erik Von Daniken. Very few people these days would be likely to pick up 'Chariots of the Gods' if they saw it lying in the box of books free to a good home outside a charity shop. True, Von Daniken must still have followers, but whether any one of them would happen by in time to pick up the book before it was thrown away is open to speculation. 
Thirdly, the Church was not always against new learning and technology. Following the First Crusade a great deal of knowledge was brought back to Western Christendom which had been learned from the (Muslim) Arabs and Turks. The Church, along with all the kings, princes, councellors and exchequer officials, enthusiastically took on new ideas on numbers, accounting, calculation of time and probably a host of other things. Following this, the Church sponsored ever more ambitious projects to develop clocks, organs and large scale engineering projects. The Church of the Sixteenth century may have had a problem with new learning and imagination but the Church of the Eleventh and Twelfth centuries does not seem to have had. 
Fourthly, actively supporting absolutist governments was not seen as a bad thing until relatively recently. As late as the 1970s and 1980s citizens of the USSR were expected to support an absolutist government, as citizens of China are still expected to. Absolutist government might seem a long way off to those of us in the West, but the Civil War of the 1640s did not free England from absolutist government. It merely replaced one absolutist government with another so much worse that the old one was invited back. Absolutist government came to an end for much of Europe in 1848 and for much of the rest of it in 1918, although Germany went back to it until 1945 and Russia until 1990. 
Fifthly, "hysterical ideas against sex". Sometimes maybe: in retrospect it seems like a bad idea to force people to be celibate, but then again, many chose it willingly and at least those people didn't end up passing syphillis on to their friends and nieghbours. 
 
Anyway, back on topic, I don't believe that Caesar went to Gaul to spread romanitas and civilisation. Like everyone else, he must have known that the Celts were in the habit of throwing vast amounts of gold and silver into ponds and streams to placate a sky full of hungry gods. He had planned a war against the tribes of Illiricum (demonstrated by the fact that he already had two legions mustered near the border with Illiricum which he then had to request to come west) but when the Helvetii gave him the thinnest of excuses for doing so he changed his plans and invaded Gaul, probably fully aware that if he could conquer even a part of Gaul he would have the chance to drag the ponds and streams and turn the treasure thus won into cold hard cash which would buy him power and influence back in Rome. Caesar did not go to Gaul to spread civilisation (as the Nervii were to find out) but rather to make himself rich and buy himself an unbeatable base of political support. 
 
Crispvs

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