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1.

why didn't he quit when it was obvious that the concured countries could easily over throw the goverment?

2.

why didn't he expand the territory into the roman penensula?

3.

did he consider using the wedge formation?

4.

how did his army of phalanx defeat indias army of elephants?

5.

why didn't he concure china? what prevented a revolt of the concured contries?

6.

why not concure sparta

-- Anonymous, January 22, 2003

Answers

loan rescheduling

-- Anonymous, June 16, 2003

2. He didn't expand his empire into the Italian peninsula for one simple reason: he died too soon. He picked the biggest plums first: Persia, Egypt, India. Italy was poor, by comparison. It could wait until later. Later, Alexander was dead.

3. His thoughts on the wedge formation died with him.

4. Elephants were notoriously unreliable. Their only strength as a weapon was to inspire terror in one's opponents. Alexander's troops were so battle-hardened and well-disciplined that they were not terrified by anything. Instead, they terrorized the elephants, who, as was their way, turned on their own troops and trampled and terrorized them. Elephants aren't picky who they trample.

5. This was two questions. The second I already answered for you.

As for China, it was impractically far from Alexander's base of power, making it too expensive to conquer. Literally. To conquer it, he would have needed to conquer and consolidate power over a broad corridor from modern Pakistan to the China sea. Until then, Alexander couldn't base his loyal troops near enough to China to punish it for revolting. Without punishment, revolt was a certainty.

6. Sparta was Alexander's tame dog. It posed no challenge to his power. The only really valuable thing in Sparta was its soldiers and he didn't need them. Yet.

Now, Kyle, before you write your report, you have to figure out how much of what I wrote here was a lie. I am like that. I lie a lot.

-- Anonymous, January 23, 2003


First, to make certain others understand you in the future you may wish to amend the spelling of the word "concure" to the more usual and accepted form: conquer. It's your call.

1. The purpose of conquering a country during Alexander's time was to impose some form of tribute upon it - in other words, to impose a tax on it. This could take the form of gold, food, or soldiers. Pretty much anything of value. In addition, it was highly desirable to prevent that country from joining up with your enemies. These minimal aims required only minimal interference with the existing government of a country. Alexander understood this much better than your teacher.

The usual way for a country to "overthrow" someone like Alexander was childishly simple. They just stopped paying tribute. Then it was up to Alexander (or whomever) to go punish them, cut off the head of the 'king' who revolted and replace him with a 'king' who would pony up the tribute. Alexander would then loan the new 'king' a few thousand troops as muscle. The new guy would root out the opposition and kill as many as were necessary. Everything else stayed the same.

As long as it looked like Alexander could carry out this kind of punitive war, there was little incentive to overthrow Alexander. Since, it was obvious that Alexander probably could crush any revolts, the very premise of this question is faulty.

-- Anonymous, January 23, 2003


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