Originally posted by: newtoIF
Hello dear Shyamala Aunty. Hope you are feeling better with your hands,as I see you have been wandering on the forum.
In the west, every university course or workshop on leadership has a page for Alexander.
Such is the admiration for his cognitive thinking,intuition,risk taking,strategy and tactics,just sheer fearlessness.
I got this link,I had read a long time ago-
https://www.rbth.com/blogs/2013/06/03/alexander_vs_porus_beyond_the_fog_of_war_25749
I have read this article a long time ago, as also a more detailed account of the lecture by Marshal Zhukov at a military college in India about the battle of the Jhelum. I will try and dig it out for you. You should try and watch the 1990 Chanakya, which is a classic, for the early episodes on Alexander, especially his long, passionate plea to his troops to stay the course and go deeper into India. The makers of that show drew heavily on contemporary Greek and later Roman accounts.
Apparently Russians do not admire Alexy 😉 But I do not agree with the assessment that he was hated by the Greeks, he was literally hero worshipped by his soldiers,greek,macedonian,persian alike.
The Greeks as a people, that is the citizens of the individual city states, despised all Macedonians as uncultured, and of course they detested Alexander because he rubbed their noses in the dust. But that would not apply to the Greek soldiers under his command, for whom he, as such a splendid warrior and commander, would have been a demi-god, the divine Alexander.
There were over 30,000 literary works on him and most of it were incorporated into the Alexander Romance which is a fictionalized biography of his about 500 years after his passing.
I have located an English translation and bookmarked it for reading.
But it is universally accepted that the Greeks considered the Indians to be the noblest and most valorous of all the kingdoms they invaded.So, I like the premise of the storyline of Porus, although I tried a few other historicals on TV which are mediocre.The show has an authentic feel,great performances and quality of action+direction.
The conflict appears when Alexander adopts his philosophy as Offense is the best Defense.
And Porus sees Defense as his birthright.The antonyms do not take the context of the philosophy.
There is an interesting tale of Aristotle,while teaching Alexander,Ptolemy,Antigonus etc., described them a situation,and asked them what their reaction will be. Alex alone tells him that he cannot say, because his circumstance will dictate his reaction to a situation.
Fascinating!
And so is our human race's evaluation of history.Its our own political climate that Alex is an antagonist,instead of wondering how the defender Porus admired Alex as an emperor so much,that it is said after Alex passes away,Porus still sends the annual tribute in the name of the King of Kings Alexander of Macedonia, not to any of the regents or generals of the Diadochi, until Porus himself was assassinated by one of the greek generals later.
I never knew this. You are clearly a storehouse of such memorabilia.
It takes one to see one, and Alex and Porus met their match in each other, did not feel any sense
of humiliation in admiring the strengths of the other.Truly the mark of statesmanship in both.And the greeks were generous enough to praise Porus, and wrote about him more than our own desis did.
Chanakya used Alex as the role model for CGM,building a standing army,etc.CGM is considered the Indian Alex for his ambition and tricks😆
I wonder if and how they are going to show Chanakya in this serial. One bit of relief, from what the high priestess of Delphi said yesterday, is that they do not propose to indulge in natakiya rupantar to the extent of declaring Porus the victor in that titanic battle!
Alex made his shares of mistakes,especially with his mindless adoption of decadent persian customs, and the mutual suspicion he and his macedonian generals had of each other, leading to many plots,conspiracies,executions etc.Perhaps one last trip to see his mother would have saved him,for all her intuitions were bang on, the snake that she herself was😛 That his lineage did not survive,I think was the real tragedy, all others getting their due.
I am not sure about the lineage business. Neither Alexander, nor Julius Caesar, nor Napoleon, the three unrivalled military geniuses in the last three millennia, of whom Alexander was the greatest, had an heir who succeeded him in a real sense. Even if they had had sons who came after them, chances are that they would have been pale copies of the splendour of their fathers. So it is perhaps just as well that Alexander stands alone. But he could have lived longer and done more, which is the real pity. Those whom the Gods love die young, but so young?
The Aristotle-Alex exchanges on leader vs master, the jewish high priest and Alex exchanges when he visits the jewish temple,how he survives the journey in the libyan desert to meet the oracle at siwan,the supposed Alex and the Brahmans exchange,also make for excellent reading.
I do hope they do not shortchange the Siwan part, as also the Persian campaign and the Gordian Knot. Already they have lost a potentially splendid little sequence re: the taming of Bucephalus.
Definitely need a post from you on the ridicolous script for Puru and PAurav Rashtra.
If the Macedonians are the ruthless plotting lot, then the show says Puru and PR are a bunch
of moronic idiots, the king knows not what is going on,the queen comes out of some mental illness after 20 years,parrots the same 2 lines,puru protects a murderous criminal of an adopted brother,what qualities of nobility do they have really? Why point to some Faras for your own failures,when all you do is squabble for 20 years.I will rather take the quick witted maverick Macedonian with the green eyes any day ⭐️
So would I!😉And the makers have been very clever in getting such a visually perfect Alexander in this boy Rohit, who is not, I think (though I might be wrong, as I watch very few serials), very well known. He looks every inch the conquering hero, and he makes the Macedonian segments eminently watchable. And he was wonderfully vulnerable in the part when he goes to Olympia after the stormy clash with Philip in the open court.
OK, my fingers are spent. Bye for now.
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