Why couldn’t Alexander the Great conquer India?
 It's All Fucked Shirt $22.14 |
 Thalidomide Vintage Ad Shirt $22.14 |
It's All Fucked Shirt $22.14 |
Why couldnt Alexander the Great conquer India?
Why couldn’t Alexander the Great conquer India?
It's All Fucked Shirt $22.14 |
Thalidomide Vintage Ad Shirt $22.14 |
It's All Fucked Shirt $22.14 |
Alexander only overthrew the Achaemenid Empire and hijacked its power structure, he was not capable of novel conquests.
It smelt too bad
It was too far away, the troops were already exhausted from traveling and so much battles, and it was already overpopulated. The muddy jungles terrain didn't help either. Too much resources have lead to India's overpoopoolation. Also yes, Alexander was rather doing diplomatic meme conquests for his autistic empire. Ruling over hundreds of thousands to millions of indians was something neither needed nor feasible for him.
As if that wasn't impressive.
Keep in mind that, the Achaemenids were "The Empire" of the time.
Alexander literally conquered the main part of the οἰκουμένη/oikouménē/Inhabited world.
That's why he went after the Achaemenids and not other lesser important parts.
It is nonetheless important to point out to people who debate whether Alexander could've or why he couldn't conquer certain regions, because the default assumption in every case is that he couldn't.
Fair.
I would say conquering the Achaemenids is already impressive, but fair, if Alexander tried to conquer other places, he probably would have failed.
I think of Alexander, as a larger Philip.
Philip masterfully unified greece, with his diplomatic strategies, Alexander masterfully turned the Achaemenids on him, from the persian control thanks to battles and diplomacy.
>Alexander only beat the Persians akshually
Bullshit, the only major region he annexed without having to fight the locals was Egypt.
He had to fight the Illyrian and Thracian barbarians and raze Thebes to consolidate Greece, had to siege cities on the Anatolian Coast, had to siege and destroy ancient Tyre and Gaza for the Levant, obviously had to fight the Persians but also various unruly people in Mesopotamia and Persia, had to fight the breakaway satraps in Bactria and Sogdia along with opportunistic Scythians, had to fight the tribes of Gandhara, had to fight petty kings and clans in Punjab and Indus, his generals also had to fight for Arabia and the Caucasus. Quite a busy decade.
Also notable background engagements: Sparta (and allies, including Crete) revolted and were put down by Antipater, Parmenion conquering much of inland Anatolia, Alexander's general/satrap of Cilicia Balacrus dying against Pisidian rebels, and some rando named Thibron subjugating Cyrene (annexed by Ptolemy soon after)
>He had to fight the Illyrian and Thracian barbarians and raze Thebes to consolidate Greece, had to siege cities on the Anatolian Coast, had to siege and destroy ancient Tyre and Gaza for the Levant, obviously had to fight the Persians but also various unruly people in Mesopotamia and Persia, had to fight the breakaway satraps in Bactria and Sogdia along with opportunistic Scythians, had to fight the tribes of Gandhara, had to fight petty kings and clans in Punjab and Indus, his generals also had to fight for Arabia and the Caucasus. Quite a busy decade.
other than the persians those were all minor engagements
Completely wrong, read a book
No one denied he fought wars moron. It's just known he was more of a diplomat.
Because their religion and culture were not worth conquering?
Imagine how much better the world would be if Alexander successfully conquered and Hellenized Arabia.
But he conquered the Nile, though.
Not really. The Egyptians GAVE him the Nile. All he really did was show up. Mind you, that's pretty fricking based, but still, not a conquest.
Alexander's gaza siege?
gaza is peleset clay and they were much more belligerent than the egyptians they were subject to
Geography and climate. That's why.
Distance of India from Macedonia and Babylon, and the climate and vegetation of India, which was very alien to Alexanders' armies.
Mix that with a large population in India, and a tired army, and you have the limits of his extent.
Same reason Persians didn't, probably; the dense jungles, humid climate and vast distance from the major centers of India and the major centers of Persia.
A half assed indian army almost BTFO him (he died from wounds sustained against them)
How tf you think he could conquer india proper? He would have been devoured and destroyed himself and his legacy
HE DID CONQUER IT; INDIA WAS THE INDVS VALLEY CIVILIZATION.
Cope
MORON.
Stop typing with caps lock on you pretentious homosexual
He wasn't prepared for fight with functional empire that wasn't in active decline
Right after Gupta fell apart rump state of his empire(Bactria) managed to carve a new kingdom in India relatively easily(which outlived every other Rump state of Macedonian empire)
The short and simple answer is that his army was exhausted and morale was low after Hydaspes, and the idea of embarking on another empire conquering campaign was too much.
From a broader perspective Alexander had two strategic objectives when he entered India. The first was to restore the India tax district which had slipped out of Achaemenid control. India had been a huge source of tribute during the height of Achaemenid Empire (something like 20-30% of the total tribute) and since Alexander was now portraying himself as a restorer of the empire it made sense to bring India back into the fold. Achaemenid India only went as far as the Indus valley, so Alexander achieved that objective.
The second was to find the Outer Ocean. Greek Geographers (correctly) presumed the existence of an ocean that surrounded all of Europe, Asia and Africa. What they got wrong was the size of the landmasses. Alexander had wanted to map and control that ocean so that he could use naval communication to maintain the empire lines of communication. He didn't reach the out ocean, but by traveling to the mouth of the Indus River his navigators and geographers were able to determine the existence of sea lanes to Babylon via the Persian Gulf and Egypt via the Red Sea. Alexander had thus found the most vital part of the sea lane, and that's another objective complete. Before he died Alexander was overseeing the improvement of Babylon's canals and had ordered the mouths of the rivers un-dammed and developed so that the sea and river lanes between Babylon and India (and elsewhere) could be properly established. The Achaemends had done nothing to develop these pathways as they were not a sea-faring folk and saw access to the Gulf as an exploitable weakness rather than an advantage.
Didn't an indian philosopher tell him to turn back
SARS turn around, there is no thing to redeem here
Same reason Mongols didnt Hungary
one thing I heard recently was that alexander didn't truly know how much wealth was in india while the later muslim sultans did. this resistance he faced didn't make much sense if there wasn't a suitable prize to win.
For hygiene reasons
why bother conquering anything that cannot be governed?
At that time, it was actually governable, you idiot.
Not for the people of the time. Double idiot.
Yes for the people of the time:
>https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanda_Empire
You absolute idiot.
By hand
the beast beyond the indus was waiting with unbeatable troopers. seleucus and alexander were btfo on the river
Pajeet absurd claims aside, we were absolutely robbed of a clash of titans between Maurya and Magnus, just another reason to hate mosquitos I guess
Indians are a much more powerful race than Gayreeks
His army wouldn't let him. Now that Greece's ancient enemy had been vanquished, it proved more difficult to convince his men to start new wars against peoples they held no grievances against.
it turns out people really dont like dying by the thousands for another mans ego and its not actually that based and redpilled to be cucked out of your life for a "great man"
he couldnt even hold together the territory he did conquer