[quote=""Shield-of-Dardania""]Good work, Annis. I agree, I think a mortal Alexander is infinitely more interesting, as well as more believable, than that demigod figure so many authors and historians seem to have liked to sell him as. In that vein, Cameron's Alexander would very much remind me of Scott Oden's version in Memnon. For goodness sake, I don't know why the
man has been so revered as such. He was just a kid who woke up one day and found himself in the candy store.
As an empire administrator, he couldn't hold a candle to either Cyrus or Darius (the Great), could he? He backed away from a fight with the Nanda Empire of Chandragupta Maurya's grandfather, didn't he? Who with their 9,000 elephants might well have crushed and buried Alexander's entire knackered army in the dust of northern India. While reputable Alexander biographer Peter Green believes that he was actually beaten on the first day at Granicus River and was only saved by Parmenion on the second day. Sorry, I'm suddently in rant mode now.
I knew, when I read Christian's Tyrant: Storm of Arrows, that there were some things I especially liked about his style. Now that you've specifically mentioned worldbuilding and characterisation, I'm inclined to agree. He also has a great eye for fine logistical detail, you can depend on him to meticulously deliver and vividly describe, to use your words, the
nuts and bolts of a military campaign. Not surprising considering his military background. I believe that he also has a soft spot for the strong woman. His Srayanka in Storm of Arrows is magnificent, I think.[/quote]
Alexander was a good general but he was also lucky in that he went up against an incompetent opponent. The Persian state was the last of the great Middle Eastern empires to follow the old military tradition which consisted of fielding vast numbers of poorly armed and trained conscripts, backed by a core of professional troops. The huge numbers quoted by Herodotus and others may well be accurate. Given its resources and preparations (the Persian empire would spend several years stockpiling food reserves and cutting wide highways on which its hosts would pass) it was quite possible to field and supply an army of several million men. It was a point of prestige as well as a psychological ploy: arrive at your enemy's doorstep with a couple of million men at your back and he would usually be shocked into submission.
Greek warfare, however, had progressed to the next level. The Greeks made the revolutionary discovery that numbers don't matter. A vast but poor-quality army had a fragile morale. A smaller, more determined and better equipped force needed only to hit hard where it mattered. Routing one section of its opponent had a domino effect: routed troops would panic others and make them rout in turn, causing the whole army to decamp in chain reaction.
It didn't need Alexander to prove the point: the saga of the Ten Thousand and the campaign of Xerxes had already done that. All Alexander needed to do was field a respectable army - even better than the Greek version since his father had developed the phalangite system and perfected the superb Companion Cavalry - and then help himself to the Persian east.
It was when he came up against opponents who were
not Persian that his problems began. He won at Hydaspes but just barely. I always wonder how he would have coped with a tough professional army like his own led by a competent general. Alexander versus Scipio Africanus.....personally my money is on Scipio.