Alexander the great vs Porus?

Originally posted by ruffian Penelope,    In India the defeated were treated with great dignity. We have many examples where the invaders were defeated and they were allowed to return with their armies. So I am not surprised that Alexander's armies' nuclues remained intact. Plutarch clearly mentions:  "As for the Macedonians, however, their struggle with Porus blunted their courage and stayed their further advance into India."    Also telling is that Alexander had to find a new route to return home. The provinces he captured were up in arms and would have made return miserable. When he decided to sail down Indus no one from Porus's kingdom helped him to: a) Navigate Indus b) Fight against the Malli clan. Fighting them Alxander's lung was pierced.   Selucid were able to consolidate because selucus was a good general but his reign was short lived as he was defeated by Chandragupta maurya.

Originally posted by athenas owl Ruffian you cited Diodorus 17:20  for  Persepolis. Actually 17:20 discusses the Battle on the Granicus and Cleitus saving Alexnader's life.    The rest, too much work to bother.  I just happened to have Diodorus handy.

Athenas,
 I am quoting other sources who have quoted diodorus. It is possible they are wrong or it possible you did not look in the correct section. Can you please recheck?

In January 330, Alexander reached Persepolis, the capital of the Achaemenid empire. Three months later he destroyed the palace, because he was not yet sole ruler of the Persian empire, and it was too dangerous to leave the enormous treasures behind, where his enemies could recapture them.  

The Greek author Diodorus of Sicily, describes the events in sections 17.20-22 of his World history. The translation was made by M.M. Austin.

Originally posted by ruffian Originally posted by athenas owl Ruffian you cited Diodorus 17:20  for  Persepolis. Actually 17:20 discusses the Battle on the Granicus and Cleitus saving Alexnader's life.    The rest, too much work to bother.  I just happened to have Diodorus handy.  Athenas,  I am quoting other sources who have quoted diodorus. It is possible they are wrong or it possible you did not look in the correct section. Can you please recheck? In January 330, Alexander reached Persepolis, the capital of the Achaemenid empire. Three months later he destroyed the palace, because he was not yet sole ruler of the Persian empire, and it was too dangerous to leave the enormous treasures behind, where his enemies could recapture them.   The Greek author Diodorus of Sicily, describes the events in sections 17.20-22 of his World history. The translation was made by M.M. Austin.

Originally posted by khshayathiya This is your imagination only. Let us see what curtius says about Mazaeus and his town: (In Babylon after Mazaeus had surrendered the city to Greeks and Alexander had promised no reprisals on the cityfolk): For an entire night the men broke into homes and dragged the women, and even little girls, from their beds and raped them in the streets. The men attempted to fight off the attackers, but they were cut down as they tried. By  the time it was all over, the city was not only strewn with flowers (which the city folk had showered on alexander as he rode into the town thru the Ishtar gate), but with ravaged women and the bodies of their slain husbands and fathers. (Curtius 5: 2) This is your post. In it, you say that Curtius described at 5:2 how the Babylonian women were treated. Curtius did NOT write that. I'm not sure if you made this quote up or just took it from the bosom of the overly generous internet without bothering to check the actual source. The point of the matter is this: Curtius does not say the Babylonian women were raped, Curtius says the Babylonian women practiced sacred prostitution. Now, aware of the blunder, you quote the much more reputable livius.org site: The Roman author Quintus Curtius Rufus describes how the Babylonian women were treated; and although he describes their behavior as voluntary, we need not doubt that in fact it was not. Greek and Roman authors nearly always blamed women for being raped. Perhaps that is true. It is very likely that Macedonian soldiers did, indeed, rape Babylonian women (as soldiers of all times, ages, creed or race are prone to do). But what exactly does this have to do with Alexander?

Thanks. That is precisely the point. Takeover of Babylon was not peaceful as you had been insisting. The reason this point is important as I have asked previously that why similar events not take place in Porus's town. We are not here judging alexander's character or that of that of his army just his war with Porus. As collateral what is also emerging that Alexander has been romanticised to such a level that all his misdeeds have been shoved under the rug.

Nowhere does Curtius say that Alexander instigated the immoral behaviour of his soldiers. Not even the author of the article on livius.org, though highly critical of the Macedonians, can accuse Alexander personally.

Agree Curtius is courteous towards alexander. Well why dont we move to Persepolis where Alexander infact did instigate to wreck the city?

That you see fit to judge Alexander according to our modern standards, shaped by the spirit of the Geneva Convention is your own choice. Feel free to accuse Alexander of anything and feel free to think anything about him. But it may be better to bring something more solid than a fake quote from an ancient author as an argument, or else don't be surprised to see people don't agree with you.

I dont get it. You agree that Babylon and Persepolis were raped and pillaged. BTW it might have been the norm in Europe to treat the defeated the way alexander's army did in India it was never the case. In fact thru the centuries  we have many instance where Indian general caught the harem of the opposing mughal general but the women were never molested instead were treated with dignity and sent back. To paint the entire world with one brush is wrong.

The takeover of Babylon was peaceful. Isolated acts of violence committed by soldiers against the civilians among whom they are stationed do not imply anything about the manner in which the community received the garrison.

Let me make this more clear with an example:

Peripoltas the seer, who conducted King Opheltas with his subjects from Thessaly into Boeotia, left a posterity there which was in high repute for many generations. The greater part of them settled in Chaeroneia, which was the first city they won from the Barbarians. Now the most of this posterity were naturally men of war and courage, and so were consumed away in the Persian invasions and the contests with the Gauls, because they did not spare themselves. 2 There remained, however, an orphan boy, Damon by name, Peripoltas by surname, who far surpassed his fellows in beauty of body and in vigour of spirit, though otherwise he was untrained and of a harsh disposition. With this Damon, just passed out of boy's estate, the Roman commander of a cohort that was wintering in Chaeroneia fell enamoured, and since he could not win him over by solicitations and presents, he was plainly bent on violence, seeing that our native city was at that time in sorry plight, and neglected because of her smallness and poverty. 3 Violence was just what Damon feared, and since the solicitation itself had enraged him, he plotted against the man, and enlisted against him sundry companions, — a few only, that they might escape notice. There were p407sixteen of them in all, who smeared their faces with soot one night, heated themselves with wine, and at daybreak fell upon the Roman while he was sacrificing in the market-place, slew him, together with many of his followers, and departed the city. Plutarch, Life of Kimon, 1-2

Judging by your standards, if one sees the story of a Roman soldier assaulting or threatening to assault an ephebe, one should naturally conclude that the Romans had pillaged the city when they had taken it over. Well, that's just not true, and the story of how the Romans did get possession of the city is recounted again by Plutarch, this time in his "Life of Sulla", in the episode relating the Roman dictator's battle with the Pontic general Archelaos by the walls of this city. It was an entirely peaceful business, with the Chaeroneans gladly receiving the Roman troops (indeed inviting them) and subsequently giving them substantial aid. More on the interactions and tensions between guards and civillians may be found in A. Chaniotis & P. Ducrey (eds.) - Army and Power, in particular J. Ma's article "Oversexed, overpaid and over here".

To sum things up, your theory about Alexander's alleged hypocrisy based on something an ancient source does not say, ut we moderns believe it should actually say simply does not hold water.

At Persepolis things are entirely different. Persepolis was one of the major residences of the Achaemenids, so in burning it down Alexander may have wanted to signal his Greek allies that he had completed the mission entrusted to him by the Corinthian League, namely exacting revenge on the Persians for the damage inflicted by them on Greece during the Medic Wars. By burning Persepolis, Alexander may have "exacted revenge" on the Persians for the burning of Athens. It is also important to mention that the burning of Persepolis is in some sources instigated not by Alexander, but by a Greek prostitute.

That there were Indian generals who captured the harems of enemies and treated them generously does not surprise me one bit. It is the very thing any half-wit politician would do. And, to your dismay, that is precisely what Alexander did as well, when he captured the women of Dareios III. Or you have just found a source which says otherwise?

Originally posted by khshayathiya It is also important to mention that the burning of Persepolis is in some sources instigated not by Alexander, but by a Greek prostitute.

If you read Nazi literature do you know what they say about the start of World War 2?

That there were Indian generals who captured the harems of enemies and treated them generously does not surprise me one bit. It is the very thing any half-wit politician would do.

What do you mean?

And, to your dismay, that is precisely what Alexander did as well, when he captured the women of Dareios III. Or you have just found a source which says otherwise?

Well what I have found out is Darius's wife was raped by Alexander's soldiers and died in child birth.


Edited by ruffian - 20-May-2009 at 14:26

There are conflicting versions of what happened to Stratira the wife of Darius, not his daughter.

Edited by athenas owl - 19-May-2009 at 04:46

Originally posted by athenas owl There are conflicting versions of what happened to Stratira the wife of Darius, not his daughter.

It was a typo. I meant to say Darius's wife.

She dies in childbirth, or she simply died.  She died before Gaugamela, within a year of Issos, or she died shortly before Guagamela, very shortly before.   She may have had a relationship of some kind with Alexander or she may not have.   The sources conflict.  Plutarch (30.1) and Justin (11.12.6) are the only ones who says she died in childbirth.

Well she did die in childbirth and that is why some people think that Barsine, her daughter with Darius, had a motive to knock off ALexander.

Even Curtius, who never met a salacious story about Alexander he didn't love, says she died of illness.  Women, especially the Persian women, weren't really of interest to the Greek and Roman writers, except as conveninet props to further a storyline.  Afterthoughts in a man's world. But in NONE of them show the daughter of Darius raped by Alexander and dying in childbirth.  In fact both daughters were married to Alexander and Hephaistion.   Sadly they wouldn't long outlive Alexander because, so say the sources, Roxane (his Sogdian wife) had them murdered, with the help of Perdiccas.

Please see above. It was not the daughter but the wife of Darius that I wanted to say who died in childbirth.

Again, this may be true, or it may not...easy to blame Roxane, later a victim herself and Perdiccas because neither had much say in what was told in the histories and the propaganda wars, Perdiccas being dead within a few years of Alexander, and Roxane and her sad, sad son rendered moot as well, then murdered.   Though, in real politik, it does make sense for the Achaemenid wives to be done in by her, or at least on her behalf.

Well Cassander had Roxane and the young son knocked off as also olympias. I guess thessalionke survived somehow.

Ruffian, seriously, a suggestion.  If you are going to use the Greek and Roman sources, you need to read them yourself.   You are getting some very faulty information from somewhere.

No not faulty info just a typo on my part. Apologies for that.

Originally posted by khshayathiya Yes, we don't know that Stateira was officially Alexander's wife. But it seems their relationship was widely known at the time. That was enough for official propaganda.

What official propaganda? Please point a source.

You state that "Statira was taken against her will". Perhaps. But you imply that she had married Dareios III with her full consent, which is by no means certain.

Are you suggesting she was a spoil of war and Darius had gotten her the same way? Can you please point a source?

Even if this is true what does it have to do with the context of this discussion?

Besides, Alexander was a young man, and a handsome one by all accounts. Who can tell if she was or was not genuinely attracted to him?

Her cities plundered, her people pillaged and raped, her husband hounded and she fell for him? Is this your opinion or are you quoting a historian here?

Anyway, a political marriage hardly equates with being "raped by Alexander's soldiers" as you had posted with supreme confidence earlier. This is the sort of faulty info athenas owl warned you against.

Please point out a source for this political marriage.