What made em great?

Arts & Culture History
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Well after a request from Innocent Smile for more threads about Great Monarchs and personalities throughout history I have decided to open this thread to discuss what made such people great?

Well through the course of this thread I hope to discuss the fine aspects and the not so fine aspects of some of Histories Greats, what made them Great? Why? How?

We will cover such personalities as Alexander, Ramases, Xerxes and people like Alfred and Victoria. Not all will be Monarchs however… some deserve the title of Great but never quite got it… and we can discuss those personalities too. I want to try and stay clear of Religious personalities for they can be a sensitive topic and would prefer to touch upon common and not so common grounds.

We begin by discussing the man History came to know as the builder of the first SuperPower, the King who ruled 27 Nations and who swept the World with his might… we speak of the man upon whose tomb once read…

“O mere mortal, whoever you are and wherever you have come from, know that I am Cyrus the man who won the Persians thier empire! Do not begrudge me then this scrap of Earth that covers my bones…”
(Cyrus the Greats Tomb, or whats left of it)

Indeed the man we shall begin with is Cyrus the Great of Persia. Upon whose Tomb that g*****ose script once held the gaze of Alexander the Great himself and even he did not Begrudge this man.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a7/Portrait_of_Cyrus_the_Great.jpg

A later Portriat of Cyrus as the Romans saw him… probably nothing like the real man but it’s the most common image of him.

Cyrus is a man half lost in Myth. We can be certian of the following facts about him however.

He first came to prominence around 600bc when he united his Native tribes of the Medians who hailed from what we now call Afghanistan and swept across the Persian Plataue conquering much of the land of Farsa (Persia) and leading his Median hordes deep into Messopotamia and right across as far West as Egypt and the Greek Coasts.

Cyrus is believed to be the first empire builder however nobody can be sure quite how he rose to power… for all we know he could have once been a mere sheperd boy but it’s far more likely he was of the Mede nobility and somehow through ruthless conquest came to rise as the foremost chief of the Medes.

His army was revolutionary and was among the first in History to make use of combined arms. His military war machine was made up of complicated units though most of it consisted of archers and spearmen backed by chariots.

However asside to his military brilliance Cyrus is recognised as being one of the first Great Kings in history certianly there is even a hollow clyinder which many purport to be the first example of a declaration of human rights which laid down the laws of the land and gave all free men thier basic human rights.

http://www.kchanson.com/ancdocs/meso/CyrusCylinder1.jpg

The Cyrus cylinder.

Cyrus is a latinised version of his name and the real pronunciation in Persian is more along the line of Khosrose or Kurusose but alas he is known in History as Cyrus.

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Re: What made em great?

Thank you Bhai :slight_smile: :salute:

:eek: He ruled over 27 nations…WOW…

Great words by a Great man…

Very informative..

:hmmm:

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Re: What made em great?

:jazak:

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Re: What made em great?

The next personality I am going to discuss is Ramases the Second Egyptian Pharoa who came to be known as Ramases the great. Now while I placed Cyrus the Great at number one that was partly due to the fact that Cyrus was more succesfull in terms of the fact he actually built a Empire which was a Superpower from scratch. Ramases was the 3rd king of a 19th Dynasty and he was already master of an empire when he became known as the great.

Statue of Ramasese

The reason Ramases came to be known as the Great is largely due to what we would now call Propaganda. Ramases actually ordered records and buildings commemorating his achievements to preserve them fro posterity however he was not exactly clean about everything.

In the History of Egyptian Pharaohs Ramases was actually something of a Farce becuase he didn’t exactly win the Battle of Kadesh for which he is most well known and he certainly did not do much to expand the empire… despite the fact his armies went deep into Syria in the North and Nubea in the South. However he is a remarkable example of how one can still cheat History it seems becuase for centuries he was and still is regarded as the greatest of all Pharaos. Personally I think Pharao Tutmoses the 3rd was probably the best but Ramasese still managed to secure his place in History largely due to his personal censorship of all records and due to the lasting legacy of much of his building projects which include such marvels as Luxor and Abu Simbel temple complex all of which lavishly record how great he was.

One statue is never enough Ramases had four statues of himself outside to guard the temple complex at Abu simbel. :hehe:
Coincedantally he was also reputed to be, and many Scientists and Historians have come to the consensus that, he was most likely the Pharao who was the Biblical opponent of Moses… though this is haighly debateable.

All in all Ramases might not have been as great as he is made out to be but he was still a Pharao and as such deserve his rightfull place in History… that said he was still beaten in the battle of Kadesh but Egyptian sources would have you think he slayed the Hittites all alone. :cb:

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Re: What made em great?

:rolleyes: Ramases…manipulated things in his favour…such a propagandist…

i doubt our politicians are from his lineage… :cb:

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I read somewhere that Persians looked at Cyrus with the same awe as Jews used to look at Moses.

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Re: What made em great?

Is the same Ramases who fought with Moses?

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Re: What made em great?

It is not the amount of winning the wars or ruling the number of nations what make any king / conqueror great, it is the way he treats his people and conquered ones...

No doubt the greatness of Cyrus is undisputed through out the course of history but the things which actually make him great.. Cyrus is known for his Justice and his social reforms... any king/rulers works on this these two are destined to be one of the greatest by the history...

Another character Cyrus enjoys is that he was the Promise of God to the Jews, he freed Jews from the centuries of slavery in Babul ( also known as Babylon), he is also known so building the famous Sid-e-Sikandari which is wrongly remembered after Alxendar the great....

Cyrus is among those few rulers in history who created/innovated system to improve the life standard of their people....if i am not wrong he was the first one to create central administrative system and developed policies for the betterment of the people of the land...

Had the area ruled and war tactics be only measure... Gengis Khan should be greatest of all...

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Re: What made em great?

Faris:

[quote]
We will cover such personalities as Alexander, Ramases, Xerxes and people like Alfred and Victoria.
[/quote]

Don't forget Imhotep. The man who was a commoner by birth, but whose genius made people raise him to the level of god.

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Re: What made em great?

Yes I very much agree with you there, though I was merely replying to requests your correct in correcting me. :slight_smile:

I strongly agree with you on what you say and your last sentence is also very true.

:lifey:

Please do share what you know as I am no genuis so all input is most appreciated we are all here to learn and spread knowledge and we all have opinions and differences but History is very good for sharing peoples take on things perspectives are important. :slight_smile: