Alexander and Julius?

[henyo10]

im curious about both of them. what were their greatest achievements? they seem to be the most famous leaders because i knew even before playing civilization but im not quite sure what they did that was so great even though i read the civilpedia

 

[civplayah]

Alexander never lost a single battle and conquered a vast empire. Julius overthrew the Republic and founded the Empire.
Short and sweet.

 

[Mesix]

Alexander conquered the entire known world of his time. All of the civilized nations of man that were known to the Greeks were part of his vast (although short lived) empire. Upon conquering Egypt, he became Pharoah, a God on Earth.

 

[petey]

As a young officer, Caesar was on a military transport carrying legonaire pay to Africa that got hijacked by pirates. The pirate leader told the officers how much they'd each been ransomed for. Caesar scoffed at the amount they'd ask for him and demanded they ask for much more, as he felt they were undervaluing him.

He then told them that he'd hunt down and kill every last one of them after he was released and came back to the area with an army of volunteers he found amongst the ex-Legionaires and their children living in North Africa and did just that.

It's easy to do cool . .. .. .. . when you've already got a big army behind you, but Caesar was doing it back when he was just some dude named Julius.

 

[Wolfshanze]

Julius had an entire Orange Slushie empire named after him... raking-in untold millions of dollars of profit.

 

[BalbanesBeoulve]

For more information consult your local library.

 

[flyingchicken]

Caesar was assassinated and stabbed several times by several Senators and kept on ending his sentences with "for I am Caesar." Alexander was a king who made love with young Persian boys and his Greek officers and even publicly proclaimed his horniness by having coins minted with his likeness but with horns. Also, he probably wanted to make love to Darius II, and he probably did.

 

[Supr49er]

henyo10

As Caesar tells you when you meet, he invented a great salad he made himself.

 

[Slobadog]

Caesar was assassinated and stabbed several times by several Senators and kept on ending his sentences with "for I am Caesar." Alexander was a king who made love with young Persian boys and his Greek officers and even publicly proclaimed his horniness by having coins minted with his likeness but with horns. Also, he probably wanted to make love to Darius II, and he probably did.

Its Darius III not Darius II.


More reasons why Alexander was great:





Alexander made many new cities. He cleverly named all of them Alexandria. Except for one city which he named after his horse, Bucephales.



He was king of Macedon and Pharoh of Egypt at the same time.

His corpse was put on display in Egypt. The Roman emperor Caligula stole his armor though.


We can't find his body anymore.



Alexander led the charge in battle. Yet survived. Impressive don't you think?



Alexander conqured the Persian Superpower and the entire known world by age 32. Then he got PWNED by microorgaisms.





Alexander made a barbarian his Queen.


Alexander as a kid tamed Bucephales when no adult could.


Alexander undid the Gordian knot. A very hard knot to undo. He may have cheated though.



Alexander's middle name was "the" and his last name was "Great"



His statues were in their original painted form look kinda gay. A discovery which inspired the movement to end "don't ask don't tell."




He conqured Iraq. Something that the U.S has been unable to do.







He was Greek. Greeks are cool.



His father was the god Zeus. Achilles was his ancestor.


He spread Greekness.


He tried to create a fusion of Greekness and non Greekness .


He forbade the killing of peacoks.


He tried and failed to reach the end of the world.

He discovered petroleum.



He did not cross Asia to steal his victory at Gaugamela.


He thought that nothing should be done tommorow that could be done today.


He noted that his step father Philip II wanted to make it from Greece to Persia but couldn't make it from one couch to the next.

His favorite book was the war comedy epic "The Iliade" .



He had a 1956 movie made about him. It looks like it was made in the 1950s


He had a 2004 movie made about him. It looks like he is really fighting elephants.



He is a recurring character in Sid Meier's Civilization video game series.



Continued on post #2........

 

[Slobadog]

Continued from post #1:


Gaugamela: 47,000 Greeks against 250,000 assorted people who serve the Persian emperor. Well 250,000 may have been a exaggeration but we'll never know for sure now will we?

 

[Slobadog]

Why Julius Ceaser is great:



He is Roman.


He came , he saw , he conqured .



He had an affair with Cleopatra because he loved her personality , her politics but not her nose .









He adopted Octavian.


He went were no Roman has gone before. Which happened to be England.



He was flexible with his alliances. He allied with the Celts against the Germans then with the Germans against the Celts .


He was good at war and at politics . Unlike George W. Bush who is only good at politics and unlike Wesly Clark who is only good at war .




Augustus was also a Ceaser.



Octavian may have killed Julius Ceaser's and Cleopatra's son.




Mark Antony followed in his footsteps. Including in the footsteps of his relationship with Cleopatra.




At Alesia when faced with a dun to seige and a scary group of celts who were coming to its relief he decided to deal with both at the same time. Which meant that he beseiged the dun and protected his own army by building a fort around the dun.






He spoke Latin. Which is currently a dead language that is not used anymore except for science and maybe the catholic church.




He managed to be popular with the common people but not with the aristocracy's representatives .



He wrote his own history of his invasion of Gaul.


He claimed he saw unicorns in Gaul.


He is part of the inspiration for Papaltine .





He formed a triumvirate .



When faced with legal/political problems he crossed the Rubicon.




He became dictator of Rome .



He expected to not get stabbed by the senate for doing that .



He said "Et tu Brute?" But did not get a response.



Like Alexander he died at the height of his power.




He probably visted Alexander's dead body .



There was a 2002 TV mini series made about him.



There was a 1599 Shakespeare play made about him.




He is a recurring character in the Civilization video game series.
He is part of the reason Cleopatra is a recurring character in the Civilization video game series.

 

[crazyunits]

Alexander is awesome b/c 300 in essence ripped off one of his battles where he faced a Persian army several times his size and let's not forget

THIS
IS



SPARTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

 

[CoZe]

He was Greek. Greeks are cool.

I thought he was macedonian.

Alexander is awesome b/c 300 in essence ripped off one of his battles where he faced a Persian army several times his size and let's not forget

THIS
IS
SPARTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

you're getting mixed up. that was leonidas. he lived before alexander. he's present in the game as a great general.

 

[crazyunits]

I thought he was macedonian.



you're getting mixed up. that was leonidas. he lived before alexander. he's present in the game as a great general.

oh oops, i got Macedonians and Spartans mixed up...Spartans have awesome phalanxes and Macedonians have awesome cavalries right?

 

[Slobadog]

He was Greek. Greeks are cool.

I thought he was macedonian.

You're right. Macedon was semi hellenized at the time though. To some people thats close enough.

 

[Sisiutil]

You're right. Macedon was semi hellenized at the time though. To some people thats close enough.

The other Greeks at the time probably thought Macedon was far too close. Especially after Philip and then his son conquered them.

If you want to read more about these two remarkable men, I have some books to recommend. Surprisingly, there aren't many really great historical fiction versions of Alexander; Steven Pressfield's The Virtues of War is probably one of the best, though it's surprisingly thin for an account of Alexander's life. Then again, the fact that I wanted the book to be longer probably speaks to its quality.

In comparison, Julius Caesar has been a favourite subject of many historical novelists. My own favourite novels about his life are Colleen McCullough's Masters of Rome series--though I'll warn you, each book (there are now sever) is about 1000 pages and heavy with detail about Roman society. And Caesar doesn't appear until the third book!

I myself am more impressed with Caesar than with Alexander. Alexander was a great war leader, possibly the greatest of all time--but that's really all he was. His empire fell apart after he died. Caesar, on the other hand, was not just a great general, but also a writer, a politician, an administrator, a lawyer, a priest, a populist, and a ladies' man to boot. And he didn't just do those things, he did them appallingly well. And of course, the Roman Empire--and Caesar was the one who, for better or worse, really started Rome's shift from a Republic to an Empire--lived on after Caesar's death by a good 400-500 years, possibly longer, depending on how you figure things.

 

[unclethrill]

Like Bill S. Preston Esquire said, "Caesar was a salad dressing dude"!!

 

[Stoney the I]

nice job sobadog, enjoyed reading yr colorfull posts

 

[Pir Lan Tota]

Slobadog, YOU ROCK DUDE!!!!!!

 

[Lexicus]

Gaius Marius instituted what are called the Marian Reforms of the Roman Army, and was responsible for the classic run-of-the-mill legionary that we think of today as a Roman soldier. He abolished the property requirements for joining the army and generally turned it from a citizen-army into a professional fighting force. He also was responsible for the provision that gave retired legionaries farming tracts in newly conquered lands. He was also a very successful general who commanded immense personal loyalty from his men. He was elected consul seven times, more than any man in history.

But I digress.

Young Caesar was Marius's nephew, and when Marius, despite all his capabilities, was beaten in a civil war by Cornelius Sulla, a young Caesar was brought in chains before Sulla as Rome burned around them. Sulla demanded that Caesar divorce his wife to bring shame on both their houses. When Caesar refused, Sulla let him go anyway, and is reported to have said he saw "many of Marius" inside the young man.

How right he ended up being.

Personally, I think that Caesar's most important achievement was the conquest of Gaul. It meant that France would later have a Latin culture as opposed to a Celtic one.