It is said that he ruled the "entirety of the known world." Is that an exaggeration? From what I understand, he didn't rule over southern Greece (namely, Sparta), nor did he rule Rome (which was becoming a significant power), and he only ruled half of India.

Perhaps I'm mistaken. Is this map accurate?

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/40/MacedonEmpire.jpg

Who said he ruled the whole known world ?

IIRC he had plans to conquer Arabia at some point. He didn't do that.
Same with India. Where he might have found out about traders from civs further east.
He failed to conquer Dacia.
He knew about civs being in Italy but he thought the east was much richer.

There's probably lots more besides those lands that they knew about, but he didn't conquer.

Who said he ruled the whole known world ?

IIRC he had plans to conquer Arabia at some point. He didn't do that.
Same with India. Where he might have found out about traders from civs further east.
He failed to conquer Dacia.
He knew about civs being in Italy but he thought the east was much richer.

There's probably lots more besides those lands that they knew about, but he didn't conquer.

True! (he did actually conquer a part of Dacia, the southern part - between the Danube and the Balkan mountains :) but anyway, this doesn't matter; he still failed to conquer the great majority the area of Dacia)

It is said that he ruled the "entirety of the known world." Is that an exaggeration? From what I understand, he didn't rule over southern Greece (namely, Sparta), nor did he rule Rome (which was becoming a significant power), and he only ruled half of India.

Perhaps I'm mistaken. Is this map accurate?

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/40/MacedonEmpire.jpg
Not unless you're suggesting that India and China were somehow "unknown". He conquered most of the territory owned by the ancient civilizations of the world in the Middle East. He didn't conquer the whole world.

It is said that he ruled the "entirety of the known world." Is that an exaggeration? From what I understand, he didn't rule over southern Greece (namely, Sparta), nor did he rule Rome (which was becoming a significant power), and he only ruled half of India.

Perhaps I'm mistaken. Is this map accurate?

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/40/MacedonEmpire.jpg


It's just an expression.

Alexander conquered one of the world powers, Persia, which had itself come to be aggregate of many other empires, and then added to it considerably.

I wouldn't call Rome a "rising power" in 323BC, it was little more than a city state that could barely beat the Samnites, much less convince other Italian states to help them.

Perhaps if he had beaten Rome and the Italian penisula along with Sparta he could possibly get away with being known as the person who ruled the world.

Any thoughts on what he would have done next, had he managed to return to Greece?

Gone after the various Greek colonies around the mediterranean maybe? I'm assuming those were independent?

Heretic_cata: why go after Arabia? Isn't it mostly desert?

Alexander conquered Persia, that's just about it. (Bactria, Sogdia, Egypt, Phoenicia, etc are vassals of the Persians and doesn't count while Thebes was just a provincial revolt). Hardly the entire known world. Italy, North Africa, Celts, Germania, Dacia, India, Scythia and Greeks in the Western Med remained unconquered.

By the way, the map is accurate, but that's not the entire known world.

Any thoughts on what he would have done next, had he managed to return to Greece?

Gone after the various Greek colonies around the mediterranean maybe? I'm assuming those were independent?

Heretic_cata: why go after Arabia? Isn't it mostly desert?

He began constructing a fleet in Cilicia to attack Carthage IIRC. Later the fleet was used by one of his generals (Ptolemy?) to kill off his rivals.

Alexander planned to make Babylon his new capital, not Greece (which is too far away from the bulk of his empire which is in the Middle East). He tried to merge Persian customs with Greek ones and that didn't made his generals very happy. I think it's possible he would've been assassinated by either 1) disgruntled Persians or 2) disgruntled Macedonians, and his empire would probably broke up anyway.

Trade in Arabia esp. in incense is very active at the time IIRC. Alexander would probably want to secure these trade routes.

Not unless you're suggesting that India and China were somehow "unknown". He conquered most of the territory owned by the ancient civilizations of the world in the Middle East. He didn't conquer the whole world.

Known but not relevant.

Heretic_cata: why go after Arabia? Isn't it mostly desert?
Yea - like tailedkangaroo said, there were imp trade routes.
I think the kingdom of Saba was very rich at that time.
By looking through wiki it seems there were some other larger ones besides that.

He began constructing a fleet in Cilicia to attack Carthage IIRC. Later the fleet was used by one of his generals (Ptolemy?) to kill off his rivals.


The fleet was gathered and used by Craterus ( one of Alexanders generals ) to help put down the revolts breaking out in Greece after Alexanders death. And you recall correctly, its was being built for a future campaign against Carthage.

His empire was about the size of Persia under Darius I and Xerxes I. He conquered more of the Indus Valley than they did and may have gone a little further into Turkestan, and of course he dominated Greece and Dacia. (On the other hand, Persia had a foothold in Europe for a while.) Alexander actually had less of Anatolia than Persia since he passed through it so quickly he didn't have time to consolidate his conquests.

As far as the "conquering the whole world" bit, he was stopped at the edge of India when his army mutinied. He was quite prepared to keep going and he knew there was a whole lot of India ahead of him.

I'd think his next conquests would have been southern Arabia and the rest of Asia Minor and Armenia, then Carthage and the Greek settlements in Sicily and Italy.

and of course he dominated Greece and Dacia.

He didn't conquer Dacia... Only the southern part which was anyway not in Dacia until Burebista (86 BC).
I don't know what you mean by domination though. :)

I`m thinking traveling from Greece to India in the way that Alexander gone, how much takes time. I mean walking from Macdonia to greece then Turkey Syria, Egypt, again Syria, mestophenia, Persia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and then coming back to Babylon by route in above map tales ten years or much or less.
any openion

Oh I see that routes go to current Tajikstan also

here in Persia we had a King that travel from midle of Iran to Dehli for 3 years about 200 years ago to conqure India

Tamerlane went from the conquest of Delhi to the battle of Ankara in three and a half years. Of course, he'd already beaten up on every other nation in between.

Known but not relevant.

India and China are very very far from "not relevant" as far as world history is concerned. Please explain.

Known but not relevant.

I feel insulted

^ Me too, and I'm not even Indian or Chinese. :p ;)

:D

It is said that he ruled the "entirety of the known world." Is that an exaggeration? From what I understand, he didn't rule over southern Greece (namely, Sparta), nor did he rule Rome (which was becoming a significant power), and he only ruled half of India.

Perhaps I'm mistaken. Is this map accurate?

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/40/MacedonEmpire.jpg

Definitely exaggeration or hyperbole (and believable from the experience of a local who lived in a small village their whole life).

Can Alexander's achievements be over boasted due to the fact that he merely took over a very large empire? It seems that Cyrus had a much harder time since he had to conquer the Medes, Babylonians, and Lydians to secure his empire.

Known but not relevant.

I think what Bast was trying to say here was that China and India were too far away(well, maybe not India) to matter to the Greeks, who-even though they realized it existed-had never personally been there and only knew it through hearsay, and couldn't draw a map of China for their life (feel free to post an obscure map disproving this), and that China was only a little more important to the greeks than the river Oceanus and land of the Hesperides.

I think what Bast was trying to say here was that China and India were too far away(well, maybe not India) to matter to the Greeks, who-even though they realized it existed-had never personally been there and only knew it through hearsay, and couldn't draw a map of China for their life (feel free to post an obscure map disproving this), and that China was only a little more important to the greeks than the river Oceanus and land of the Hesperides.

Exactly! A comparison could be made to Sub-Saharan Africa which the Greeks knew existed through Egypt but never conquered and never needed to.

The known and the relevant world was pretty much Asia minor, the fertile crescent, Persia to edges of India. This was the cradle of civilization as considered then and as it is now.

Bob, great avatar btw: "Money makes the world go round, the world go round, the world go round". :D

Tamerlane went from the conquest of Delhi to the battle of Ankara in three and a half years. Of course, he'd already beaten up on every other nation in between.

we are talking about Alexander in 5th BD not about Timur in 16th AD
in timur`s day there was all over the places raods and an important point is that Turks and Munguls used horsemen and Cavarly more than greece
I mean most of Timur`s Army have horse (not one but two of them) his army like Mugul`s army travel very faster than Greece army
Also Timur conqure nations that some years before conqured them all and only try to respond a new threat from the opposite site but Alexander have not any of this advanages and have a cruled passage not direct and siege some cities