How the fuck did Seleucus talk his way into this?
On a side note, has a nation ever once had some a large amount of amazing military leaders at once? The only other time I could think of this would be the French Marshals of the Empire during Napoleons time
>>367063
Because it was the shit part of the empire, the Selucids constantly ran into trouble when they went up against the Ptolemians and Antigonids.
Too big to control, too many divergent non-Greek peoples to oversee, to chaotic, too hard to actually rule.
>>367119
>constantly ran into trouble when they went up against the Ptolemians
Weren't the only conflicts between them the Syrian wars, which much didn't change hand?
Size doesn't matter.
>>367079
Genghis.
>>367138
Arguable, there was Temujin himself, Subutai, Nogai, Jebe, can't think of many others
>>367150
Muqali, Borokhula, Chilaun, Bo'orchu.
There isn't alot about most of them but they had a pretty dank team name.
>Four Valiant Warriors
sounds like an 80's anime or something
Also Ogedai
>>367079
>Fabius Maximus
>Scipio Africanus
>Scipio Aemilianus
>Marius
>SULLA
>Metellus Pius
>Sertorius
>Pompey
>Caesar
>Cassius
>Agrippa
>Sextus Pompeius
>>367522
>Cassius
If you need a token good but not great put Antony instead, "at once" implies that they are at least all alive at the same time, and preferably they are all fighting at the same time, like the Marshals of the Empire and the Diadochi
>>367079
Macedonia, Alexander's top generals were all greats in their own right.
>>367912
Senpai, I think he meant anyone outside of Macedonia, considering he said the only other time
>>367912
Budddddddddy.... get with the program
>>367063
It was an even trade. Almost all of Seleucus successors were universally incompetent. And the Iranians get their empire piece meal every few decades.
>>367603
I'm referring more to his feats during his quaestorship in Syria.
>>367119
It was hardly the shit part. Seleucus gained wealthy Babylon and Mesopotamia and later made Syria into one of the wealthiest places in the world.
>>367119
>Because it was the shit part of the empire
Wrong. It was the richest, most populated, and urbanized part of the empire.
>>371946
Nah, the other guy is just dumb. The Seleucids were incompetent administrators in general, which is why their lands were so difficult for them to govern and hold.
>>367063
He was a minor officer that managed to become the satrap of Babylon while the others were busy in Asia Minor and Macedon. There were weak satraps further east, so he conquered them. That gave him a HUGE war chest with which he was able to withstand the other Diadochi.
>>367063
>Ptolemy rectangle around Seleucid Palestine
why
>>372162
Coelesyria
>>367079
Rome
Louis XIV arguably
Friedrich's Prussia
>>367079
Persia has its far share:
Cyrus the Great
Darius the Great
Datis
Xerxes the Great
Cyrus the Younger
Mithridates the Great
Surena
Ardashir the Great
Shapur I the Great
Shapur II the Great
Khosrau I the "Immortal Soul"
Kavadh I
Khosrau II the "Victorious"
>>372221
Oh, I guess I missed the "at once" part.
>tfw no Arabian campaign
Alexander could have removed Islam from history
>>372358
>Alexander could've "removed" something that didn't exist almost 900 years before it came into being
What are Alexfags the most cancerous people in /his/?
>>367138
>>367150
>>367480
>No Subodai, greatest strategist in history.
Ghenghis' real strength (outside of having shitloads of steppe archers, Chinese siege tactics, and unprecedented political power) was that he had the fucking Monstars on his team. Any one of these dudes in a position of power would have made a name for themselves, and Ghenghis knew how to find and promote talent.
>>367063
I'm pretty sure that everything east of the Zagros was barely controled. If the king in Syria was not willing to go on an oppression tour, he relied on the local ruler liking him to exercise it's power.
>>372374
If Alexander conquers the Arabian peninsula circa 320 it almost certainly forestalls the appearance of Muhammad. Arabia would have enjoyed Hellenization and evolved out of the tribal existence that allowed Islam to prosper.
go back to /lit/
>>372358
How are those things related?
He was a master ruseman.
>>372397
But Arabia was mostly under foreign rule when Muhammad was born?
>>372413
>asking a question that's already been answered
>>372425
Part One: The Making of a World. 600-1000 AD
10. Arab Tribes
• In the arid Arabian Peninsula lived various tribes. Some were nomadic, and these were called ‘beduin’. Some were settled cultivators and craftsmen. Essentially, there were sedentary and nomadic peoples
• Nomads, despite being smaller in number, were armed and in collusion with mercenaries, allowing them to dominate the sedentary peoples. These tribes followed the rule of a chieftain or emir, chosen by hereditary succession
• There was another caste, the pastoral/priestly, and they had a share of power
• Pastoral nomads moved into the Fertile Crescent, creating larger, more stable political units
14. Muhammad Appears
• Arabs from Mecca (western Arabia) took hold of region through Islam following the death of M.
• Quran is decidedly a document of 7th century Arabia
• In 622 M. leaves Mecca for Madina to arbitrate disputes there
• M. sought to bring moral order to the pagan tribes of Arabia, in the form of religious practices, social morality, rules for property, inheritance and marriage
• Mecca eventually welcomed M. and his followers back after their socio-economic position had become untenable. Prior to this, Muslims in Madina had clashed with Jewish clans, and some of the latter were killed over religious differences
• The legacy left behind by M. was twofold: first there was his personality and personal conduct, the Sunna recorded in various Hadith(s); then there was his literary and religious legacy, recorded in the pages of the Quran
>>372397
>and evolved out of the tribal existence
There are tribal tensions in Saudi Arabia to this day. They NEVER united, every Muslim caliphate from Rashidun to the Ottomans was one tribe dominating all others, there was never any partnership for the greater good of Islam, they went back to their internal fighting as soon as Mohammed died. By the time Alexander came around everything was already well-established, you'd have to go back far earlier to nip it all in the bud.
>>372358
actually that was the duty of the eastern roman emperor that failed to annihilate islam when he could have done so easily. Keep in mind that islam is just Judaism with extra savage arab ingredients. Jews and moslems have a lot in common... especially when it comes to primitive tribalism and inbreeding via first cousin marriage.
>>372466
I think the parallel in ethnicity between Jews and Arabs (that is to say, between Semites and Semites) is very strong, but religiously speaking Christianity has more in common with Islam than it does Judaism, if you go back to the impetus at its origin. Of course Christianity itself is only a particularly decadent, world-denying variety of Judaism, but still.
>>372376
Subutai is Subodai idiot
>>369958
>>371861
It was, by far, the least Greek.
That's far more important, for a bunch of Greek rulers trying to set up Greek style kingdoms, than population size or even wealth.
>>372084
And what exactly are you basing your argument that they were "incompetent administrators", other than the problems? Why are the rather open and obvious size and ethnic factors not something to consider?
>>372645
>than population size or even wealth
That's bullshit and you know it.
>>367079
Marshals of Napoleon, the first and second triumvirate.
>>372437
You explained nothing. You cannot hellenize nomadic beduins.
The diadochi barely managed to hellenize some cities in Egypt and Syria, and half-hellenize bactria, and they're supposed to hellenize fucking Arabia where urban life is not even suitable in most of the area?
>>373090
Hellenization as in Greeks invade your country and impregnate your women
>>372728
It is not bullshit. Empires run by tiny ethnic minorities are inherently unstable; even when they're not ethnically based states. Go look at what's going on in Syria right now, or in Iraq under Saddam's rule.
>>372425
>>372437
Arabia was ruled in the north by the Ghassanids, who were for all intents and purposes ERE vassals and were literally Hellenized Arabs.
To the east were the Lakhmids who were a part of the Sassanid empire, so Persianized Arabs.
To the south was tribes under Axumite rule in Yemen and another Sassanid satrapy in the Oman.
All of Arabia that was worth anything was already conquered.
If Alexander had conquered Arabia, he would conquer the same places as the other empires/kingdoms because he knew how fucked his army would get in another desert after Gedrosia.
It would have done shit all to influence the rise of Muhammed and Islam since all that shit went down in the desert.
>>373136
That doesn't change shit, among other things because it already happened without Alexander.
>>373090
>barely manage to Hellenize some cities
depends on how you define it, by the time of Muhammad, Egypt and Syria, outside of random Bedouin tribes, were all Greek speaking
>>373324
Completely false.
>>372487
There is very little in common between the basic tenants of Judaism and Christianity.
>>373324
>>373334
Forgot map. But I shouldn't be even posting it, it should be common knowledge. Did the coptic and syrian churches decide to spoke different languages for shits and jiggles?
>>372645
But the Seleukids could muster the largest Hellenic phalanx and didn't have to resort to using native Egyptians or Thracians like the Ptolemies or Antigonids. The Seleukid monarchs were a diverse bunch with many competent and great rulers. The problem was that the king was the state. Antiochus IV fucked up the lines of succession when he desposed his brother. The civil wars that came afterwards were between the two different lineages. Perhaps if Antiochus IV had not died of fever his son could have grown older and continued the Seleukid kingdoms successfull streak. The Seleukids were the superpower of it's day until it's defeat by Rome and death of Antiochus IV.
>>373359
Please stop spelling Seleucids with a K, and being able to raise the largest army doesn't mean shit, other regions had more than just Greek soldiers
>>373357
Egypt and Syria were ruled by foreign dynasties but the general population didn't change all that much.
Kind of like how Fujimori was Japanese, but was president of Peru.
>>373374
Exactly what I said family
>>373141
That is completely irrelevant to what I said. Asia in Anatolia, the Levant, the Near East, the greater Mesopotamia and Persia as well as parts of Greater Iranian lands were the most wealthy. They fought like wolves over land and territory.
>>373386
Ah
>>373393
I mean, look at the map. It says what you say.
>>373359
>But the Seleukids could muster the largest Hellenic phalanx
And Darius had more Hellenic hoplites than Alexander did at Issus. In an age of mercenary soldiers, that doesn't mean much in terms of ethnography.
Furthermore, they always supplemented their forces, heavily, with non-Greeks. Raphia had what? 15-20,000 native soldiers? And a large part of the reason the Romans crushed them at Magnesia was due to the low quality of their auxiliaries.
> The Seleukids were the superpower of it's day until it's defeat by Rome and death of Antiochus IV.
Which is why Antiochus III got the crap kicked out of him by Rome, and they went 2-4 against the Ptolemids in the Syrian wars; almost all of which, I would add, before Antiouchus IV.
>>373389
And your point is completely irrelevant to what I said. The strength of the Diadochi states weren't in wealth or subject peoples, it was in Hellenes and the superior soldiery they tended to produce.
The Selucids had the least, ergo, they had the shit state.
>>373426
That's not even my fucking argument you idiot. All I was talking about from the start was they all wanted to take as much land as Alexander left behind and the Seleucids got the lionshare of it; the wealth being the main focus.
Also
>superior soldiery they produced
The Seleucids had unlimited access to Persian and Iranian horsemen and archers. They sucked ass as a "military" caste because their generals and commanders were awful.
Going back to my original point, the majority of Seleucus successors being incompetent.
>>373421
All Hellenic states recruited mercenaries yet the Seleukids had the most stable supply of Greeks from military settlements. They recruited many auxilaries but these tended to be of lower quality. The Romans themselves relied massively on auxillaries and allies soldiers. Antiochus III lost against Rome since he first underestimated the Romans and overestimated the strength of his Aetolian allies. He did not get the crap kicked out of him. He lost only recently gained territory in Asia Minor and Thracia and quickly payed off the money he owned the Romans.
Concerning the Syrian wars the Ptolemies were a wealthy nation and enjoyed several successes against the Seleukids yet their victories never made them stronger. They were never able to take Syria nor retake their holdings in Asia Minor and lost the ability to maintain their Greek phalanx. At the battle of Raphia Ptolemy IV was forced to recruit the native Egyptians who would later rebell and weaken the Ptolemaic dynasty. Antiochus III himself would later destroy the Ptolemaic Greek phalanx at Panium which crippled Egypt.
The Romans never crushed the Seleukids. They defeated them in a war but it didn't cripple the Seleukid kingdom nor did the Romans return any land to their Ptolemaic allies. It did make Antiochus IV fearful of Rome however.
>>373436
>The Seleucids had unlimited access to Persian and Iranian horsemen and archers. They sucked ass as a "military" caste because their generals and commanders were awful.
Which is why Xenophon trampled all over those Persian/Iranian horsemen and archers. Were all of those commanders incompetent? What about the Persians during the wars of the Delian League? Full of idiots there too? Why was the core of Darius III's army the Greek mercenaries, not his native Persians?
The Greeks had an edge in military matters, it's hardly controversial. Access to that population is what's going to make a strong successor state, not the money. The Selucids lost a lot more than they won against the Ptolemies and the Antigonids.
>>373488
>All Hellenic states recruited mercenaries yet the Seleukids had the most stable supply of Greeks from military settlements.
Bullshit. The Daphne Parade had 15,000 real Greek phalanxes, and that was after importing more Greeks from Euboa and Crete.
>He did not get the crap kicked out of him.He lost only recently gained territory in Asia Minor and Thracia and quickly payed off the money he owned the Romans.
He had to give influential members of his royal court to Rome as hostages in perpetuity, he had to disband his entire elephant corps and restrict his navy to a pathetic 12 ships, and promised to not recruit anyone from the Roman sphere of influence. It was pretty damn bad.
>Antiochus III himself would later destroy the Ptolemaic Greek phalanx at Panium which crippled Egypt.
We'll just ignore the joint invasion with Phillip the fifth. All that naval fighting too, which tended to be orders of magnitude more in terms of resources invested as well as far more lethal.
>>373526
I don't know enough to say anything about the Daphne parade but the Argyraspides numbered ten thousand and then you had the settler phalanx and mercenaries.
Antiochus III didn't disband his elephants since they were used by his heir quite soon after and it's quite hard to get them. Hostages was normal and not special. Antiochus IV was treated like an honored guest and studied at Athens and he wasn't the heir either. The limited navy part is just a joke at this point when Antiochus lost Asia minor and Thracia and he would have built more ships if he needed to. Philip V and Antiochus invaded together but they were hardly allies. It was a simple carving up of the decaying Egyptian corpse. They did not help each other in the war and it was Antiochus who defeated the Egyptians while Philip V fucked around in Asia Minor. The naval war between the Seleukids and Roman allies was quite interesting with defeat and victory on both sides yet the Seleukids fell short.
I do believe the Seleukid navy defeated the Egyptian one during Antiochus III last Syrian campaign. Also importing colonists was the norm. Do you believe Greek soldiers sprung forth from the ground fully grown and armed? Antiochia itself was originally compromised of Athenian settlers.
Go back to /twg/ with your bad memes about the Seleukids.
>>373574
t. Sillykid pro
>>367522
That was several generations
>>373612
I'd buy statuettes of the Seleukid monarchs if there were some for sale.
>>373526
>Which is why Xenophon trampled all over those Persian/Iranian horsemen and archers.
So how do explain then why the Greeks got recked all over Anatolia by the Persians with the same phalanxes and heavy hoplite/infantry they so love?
Or the Greek elite army in Egypt getting slaughtered to the man by the Persians? Your over simplification for Seleucid military incompetence being at root they didn't "have" enough Greek/Macedonian soldiers is bullshit.
>>373526
Also the Seleukids were superior to the Ptolemies in military matters. The Seleukids took Asia Minor and lower Syria from the Ptolemies and Antiochus IV made Egypt into a puppetstate(for some time before Rome spooked him). The Ptolemies merely survived and never surpassed the Seleukids except during the earlier Syrian wars. Let's not speak of the Antigonids. They struggled against minor Greek leagues. Also even though Antiochus III lost at Raphia he kept a city he took from the Ptolemies and Ptolemy IV said nothing about it. Egypt suffered from native revolts and court intrigue the moment after Raphia and had to hire incredible amounts of Aetolian mercenaries to survive Antiochus III second invasion.
