Did Alexander rule the whole known world?

[Mirc]

^ Me too, and I'm not even Indian or Chinese.

 

[Stolen Rutters]

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).

 

[zjl56]

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.

 

[bob bobato]

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.

 

[Bast]

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".

 

[PersianBoy]

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