Alexander the not so Great: History through Persian eyes

[Takaavar]

Now read what the Greek guy Xenophon says about the Persian king Cyrus:

The achievements of Cyrus the Great throughout antiquity is well reflected in the way he is remembered today. His own nation, the Iranians, have regarded him as "The Father", the very title that had been used during the time of Cyrus himself, by the many nations that he conquered, as according to Xenophon:[76]
“ "And those who were subject to him, he treated with esteem and regard, as if they were his own children, while his subjects themselves respected Cyrus as their 'Father' ... What other man but 'Cyrus', after having overturned an empire, ever died with the title of 'The Father' from the people whom he had brought under his power? For it is plain fact that this is a name for one that bestows, rather than for one that takes away!" ”

The Babylonians regarded him as "The Liberator".[77] After his conquest of Babylon, followed Cyrus's help for the return of Jews; for this, Cyrus is addressed in the Jewish Tanakh as the "Lord's Messiah". Glorified by Ezra, and by Isaiah, Cyrus is the one to whom "Yahweh, the God of heaven" has given "all the Kingdoms of the earth"

 

[amalakas]

Look I got no problem with Greeks, in fact I always support them against Turks. But your continuous trolling here is going to change that good feeling. You should know that Greek historians wrote history in a biased way in favour of other Greeks. Thats how the 300 BS got spread. Also so what that Alexander had to hold a big spear? So did all the Iranian kings had to carry them as well.

Also Alexander captured already conquered land. Cyrus and Darius where the first people to capture them. First bill of human rights. Freed Jews. Allowed freedom of religion and language.

In fact Alexander was in so much awe and inspiration of Iranian kings that he followed in their customs, totally abandoning Greek customs in favour of Persian ones. That should tell you all you need to know.

Everything that doesn't agree with you is trolling ? wow.

open your eyes and face history. You will be surprised. Trust me you are brainwashed.

 

[PERSIAN GOD KING]

Everything that doesn't agree with you is trolling ? wow.

open your eyes and face history. You will be surprised. Trust me you are brainwashed.

what history? the one created by you greeks and supported by hollywood?

 

[Takaavar]

Cyrus was killed by his enemies in battle.
Militarily he was nowhere near as good as Alexander or Ganghis Khan. Both of whom never were killed and did not lose.
This forum is full of a certain demographic. If you go and debate with people from other parts of the world, you would get more refutations to your assertion.

There's a good point in your post: if being militarily strong is the thing that matters then the barbaric Ganghis is the best commander on earth and should be adored by the whole world eh?
The thing that really matters is that Cyrus is respected even by his enemies, unlike all other commanders (AFAIK). Read this again please:

"And those who were subject to him, he treated with esteem and regard, as if they were his own children, while his subjects themselves respected Cyrus as their 'Father' ... What other man but 'Cyrus', after having overturned an empire, ever died with the title of 'The Father' from the people whom he had brought under his power? For it is plain fact that this is a name for one that bestows, rather than for one that takes away!"-Xenophon

Cyrus was a great man, and is the only king who is respected by all nations and even his enemies and all religions. A king who respected its people and their beliefs, a person who was famous for never lying throughout his life (lying was the deadliest sin between Persians) -- these are the things that are interesting for us, not that he won this or that battle or even that he was the "king of the four quarters of the world".

 

[Wright]

Ok now people are saying Spartans were not fine warriors. Even though they dedicated their entire lives to war. lol.

This thread has lost all hope.

@Takavaar: No one is denying he was not a great man. But to call him the greatest military commander that lived is an overstatement.

 

[Indus Pakistan]

^^^

Perception is reality. I think I must have been 10 when I read a book in English about Alexander. It went on to to inform my view of this great soldier. However over the years as my view of history became more sophisticated my perception of Alexander has gone through some changes.

Without a doubt he was a great leader but I think he has enjoyed exclusive limelight for too long. The reality is Cyrus and other Persians sit on a higher pedestel then Alexander.He was a 'one hit wonder' in the same category as Genghiz Khan. He failed to consolidate his empire and very soon after his death his legacy just dissolved.

Cyrus and and other Persian kings built up a legacy that lasted, that had depth and were multifaceted leaders. Alexander seems to have killed, killed and killed more and then died. He left nothing enduring other than the battles he fought and won. Well according to that measure Genghiz Khan did more killing, won more battles conquered more square miles than Alexander.

The most important point that I would like to make is that everything i said is open to debate. History is never absolute. At best it is x number of stories all vying to be the accepted narrative amongst the most people.

The fact is for some time the dominant language is English in the world and the dominant region is the Western with it's original home in North Western Europe. It is the Europeans who have wrote the dominant historical version accepted in the world today. At height of the European power in 18-19th centuries Western europeans sat at the top of the world looking at other peoples as backward.

This led to racist ideas of inherant European superiority. The blond haired blue eyed European was looked at as the ideal man and all other races as inferior. There was a problem with this theory though. This smug satisfied superiority was based on a wafer thin slice of history. Although North West Europe was dominant after 17th century but that had never been the case before that. Over the previous millenia this region had been full of savages.

To the Romans the Germans were savages. In fact Vandals from Germany had destroyed the Roman Empire. So writers in England etc began to to Ancient Greece to connect their present might to the past glory of Greece. That is why London, Dublin, Berlin, Paris etc began to look like ancient Greek cities as cloned copies of Hellenic buildings appeared all over Europe.

The Victorian English almost looked at themselves as modern day decendants of Greeks. Greek and anything Greek became the trend. From architecture to words everything had to Greco-Roman. It was in this context that Alexander was built up as the ancient European who conquered Asiatic 'savages'. The English built up Alexanander as if he were a English Victorian General in classical times.

This 'Alexander' has had almost 2-300 years to publicity and now enjoys a reputation in the world. The Hollywood films just reflects this biased story of Alexander. How false is this? Well think about this, how many Greeks living under their scorching sun are blue eyed and blond? I would struggle to differantiate between a modern Greek, a Turk or Iranian or even a Pashtun from Pakistan. Even if there are differances they are closer in appearance than with blue eyed blond haired Northern Europeans.

Yet the films will have blue eyed actors from Northern europe playing the good guys and the evil Persians as almost black Ethiopians. This just reflects the perception built over the previous couple of hundred years.

Iranians are going to have to counter this narrative. It will take time and will be a struggle because Western media paints Iran as primitive society but in time I think Cyrus etc can take their deserved position in history. I must point out that I amnot saying Alexander was not greatr, indeed he was that but others were greater but are not recognized. That is what I meant about perception is reality.

***

I very well appreciate Iranian/Persian sentiment on how history and fact have been distorted to fit a given agenda by a dominant group. I come from Pakistan and every day we have to contend with 1.2 billion Indian's plundering our history, distorting our past and claiming our forefathers. They have managed to write a plagiarised, distorted narrative as the accepted wisdom.

Consider Alexander's invasion of South Asia. In his army went through today's Khyber Pass [Pakistan] to Peshawar[Pakistan] to Taxila [just outside Pakistan's capital Islamabad]to River Jhelum in Punjab, [Pakistan] where he fought a Punjabi ruler Porus [Pakistan] and set up a town he named after his horse Alexandria Bucephalous which is near modern day Jhelum [Pakistan] and on the other side of Jhelum River [Hydaspes] he set up Nicea [Mong, Pakistan] and then soon after headed south to Alexandia on Indus [Multan,Pakistan] where he was injured byb a arrow which some historian say was the eventual cause of his death. This if true would mean the fatal arrow was shot by a Punjabi which is the largest province of Pakistan today.

He sailed south along the Indus River to reach Sindh [Pakistan] from near modern day Karachi port on the Arabian Sea some his army sailed west others marched along the barren Baloch coast [Pakistan] before entering modern day Iran. At no stage did he invade what is today called India. Any doubts please have a look at a map or watch 'In the footsteps of Alexander' and see if any episodes involved India. The easternmost country that was filmed in the historical documentary was Pakistan.

I am sorry to our Iranian friends here for going off topic but a Indian poster made a comment and I felt this needed a riposte. Also I wanted to show how history can be distorted in the popular imagination. Iran is a victim of that and so is Pakistan.

 

[Wright]

On a different note: Why do Iranians dislike everyone? They dont like Arabs, Turks, Europeans, North Americans, Japanese, Afghans. Why?

@Atanz: The Mongol empire lasted a VERY long time.

 

[PERSIAN GOD KING]

On a different note: Why do Iranians dislike everyone? They dont like Arabs, Turks, Europeans, North Americans, Japanese, Afghans. Why?

@Atanz: The Mongol empire lasted a VERY long time.

We like anyone who respect our culture and does not create random BS.
I have friend from many different countries and we get on very very well.
most my friends are british but I still have many friends from different races.

 

[Takaavar]

On a different note: Why do Iranians dislike everyone?

?!!

They dont like Arabs,[1] Turks,[2] Europeans,[3] North Americans,[4] Japanese,[5] Afghans.[6] Why?

[1] That's not true. How we can hate Arabs (as ethnicity) while our religious figures our mainly Arab?
[2] Totally wrong. Big portion of our population are Turks and we are living together without any problem.
[3] Countries like Britain who has ruined our country yeah, but toward others we are neutral
[4] Take a look at history
[5] What do we have against Japanese people??
[6] We don't hate them, some Iranians just look at Iranian Afghans a bit downward mainly becouse they are poor and their lack of education etc. Just like what you westerns do with your black fellows.

@Takavaar: No one is denying he was not a great man. But to call him the greatest military commander that lived is an overstatement.

Never said that......

Actually, there are a lot of different people and ethnic groups in Iran but still we are living together without any problem, while we hear news about misbehaviour of a White with a Black in a western country every now and then

 

[Shahin Vatani]

Afghans are our Iranic brothers, if our government has mistreated them then I am sorry for that. Japanese there is no hate, I personally respect them a lot for their history and great economy. Europeans like Germans and Scandinavians and Spanish we like. British have meddled a lot in our history so we dislike them. USA has really fvcked us for past 100 years so we hate them as well. Turks we don't like or dislike, just enjoy trolling them on this forum

And Arabs, well Saudis and khaleejis we dont like, all the rest are great people.

 

[Indus Pakistan]

On a different note: Why do Iranians dislike everyone? They dont like Arabs, Turks, Europeans, North Americans, Japanese, Afghans. Why?

@Atanz: The Mongol empire lasted a VERY long time.

Not in the form and shape that Genghiz Khan left. It morphed into many Khanates. I suppose his most profound legacy was genetic in that he fathered generations of future rulers !!!

 

[Shahin Vatani]

Not in the form and shape that Genghiz Khan left. It morphed into many Khanates. I suppose his most profound legacy was genetic in that he fathered generations of future rulers !!!

Not just future rulers... He fathered most of Central Asia! 1 in 10 people in whole of Asia are related to Changiz Khan!

 

[Indus Pakistan]

Not just future rulers... He fathered most of Central Asia! 1 in 10 people in whole of Asia are related to Changiz Khan!

Well that is what I meant. If you father 1,000 childen every year, that is 10,000 over 10 years. Well that is 5,000 times greater chance of fathering a future leader than another less active dad who fathers only 2 children.

So all said and done Genghiz Khan might have killed and killed just like Alexander but in bed he was a dud. Whereas Genghiz was a hit with the women ............. so he gets the gold trophy there !!!

So the winner of "Greatest Man of History" is .................. Genghiz

 

[Developereo]

After his conquest of Babylon, followed Cyrus's help for the return of Jews; for this, Cyrus is addressed in the Jewish Tanakh as the "Lord's Messiah". Glorified by Ezra, and by Isaiah, Cyrus is the one to whom "Yahweh, the God of heaven" has given "all the Kingdoms of the earth"

Just an interesting tidbit I saw on TV about how this relates to the evolution of Judaism...

Cyrus, of course, didn't give a damn about Jews. His only interest was to defeat the great Babylonian Empire and shrink its boundaries.

On the Jewish side, up until that time, Judaism was still a local religion, like all other religions. All its gods were borrowed from earlier, indigenous gods, and each group of people had their own set of gods, with some overlap. Most importantly, Judaism was not monotheistic. When the Babylonians defeated the Hebrews, it was a blow to their whole world view and religion. Essentially, a pagan god's followers had defeated the Hebrew god's people.

How to reconcile the superiority of Hebrew gods?

In response, the Hebrew theologians came up with a brilliant stroke of genius! They declared that there was an all-powerful global God, Yahweh, who also ruled over all other peoples, including the Babylonians, and the Babylonian victory was Yahweh's way of punishing the Hebrews for sinning. Cyrus' later victory was also attributed to Yahweh, and Cyrus cast as His Messiah, in order to cement the all-encompassing power of Yahweh.

Anyway, back to the discussion...

 

[Cyph3r]

I watched the hollywood movies "300" & " Prince of Persia" and noticed that in "300" the Persian cast was almost entirely black & ugly and in "Prince of Persia" the Persian cast magically turned white & handsome! In "300" the Persian army was called "an evil army of slaves" & Persian King Xerxes was half naked with chains & piercings all over his body making him look like a uncivilized barbarian. But in "Prince of Persia" the Persians are now white, handsome and all-powerfull. Persian prince Jake Gyllenhaal even speaks with a british accent when he's actually american. Funny how in the movies Persians are white when they are the good guys and black when they are the villains. Hollywood & western media distorts Persian culture and history