Don't you think Alexander the Great destroyed his own country ?

Question

Don't get me wrong, Alexander is one of my favorite, but don't you think his ambition ruined his country, he needed sources and soldiers for war and many soldiers died in battles and marches and the economy was devastated, yes he achieved great glory for himself and his people, but he left Greece in weakened state and was an easy prey for Roman invasion and later invasion.

Answer 1

Actually, it is doubtful that Greece at her height could have put up much of a fight against the Romans. NO one except for Carthage had any chance against the Romans.

Romans were master diplomats. They had a habit of playing smaller states off of each other in a way that always worked out to their favor. They did it successfully in Cisapline Gaul and Hispania, and later on Julius Caesar would do it in Transalpine Gaul.

Greece was continually at war with itself. Prior to the Macedonian conquest (By Phillip, not Alexander) of Greece, it was a long, never ending series of wars. The rivalry between Sparta and Athens is legendary, but there was also Thebes, Corinth, Rhodes, and other such city states that were playing the power game. The fractured nature of Greece was what made her so easily conquered by Phillip in the first place! Though there were exceptions, such as the Greco-Persian wars, up until Alexander's conquests, getting the Greeks to work together was like herding cats.

It's very likely that were it not for Macedon, The Romans would have found Greece the way the Macedonians found it. And Rome was in a much more favorable position, militarily, to conquer Greece than Macedon would have been.

It wasn't so much what Alexander did during his lifetime. The Greeks were subdued with relatively little conflict, and with the exception of the razing of Thebes, was not an extraordinarily bloody event. Alexander's army that conquered Persia numbered only 30,000 men.

After Alexander died is a different story. His realm fractured, and almost immediately the Greeks began to reassert their independence. Macedon held territory in the northern Regions of Greece, while the Cherimodean League, and later Aetolian League, fought savagely to drive the Macedonians out of Greece.

The Romans arrived around 200 B.C, fresh off their recent victory in the Second Punic War, and utterly miffed at Macedon for their support of Carthage during that war. The first Macedonian War was little more than a skirmish, but did establish some Roman footholds on Greece. This is where Roman mastery of diplomacy comes into play. On the pretense that Macedon was moving to strike against Rome by making alliances, the Second Macedonian War commenced. During this war, the Greek states actually sided with the Romans, hoping to defeat their hated enemy once and for all. After the stunningly decisive victory at Cyanoscephalae, Macedon was subdued, and Titus Flaminius proclaimed the Greek States to be free (which diplomatically was a slendid move, but in reality the Greek city-states were now Roman protectorates)

This new peace did not last. First the Laconian War (or Rome-Sparta War, or the Spartan War) pitted Rome and the Achaean League against Sparta. Sparta was defeated, and was forced to join the Rome-allied Achaean League. Sparta would never again be the power it once was.

Then the Seleucid War occured. The Achaean League invited the Seleucids to help drive out the Roman's influence, but to no avail. Scipio Africanus, the hero of the Second Punic War, smashed the Seleucids at Thermopylae and Magnesia, with the help of their Rhodian allies.

Then the Third Macedonian War, which was Macedon's final, desperate attempt to drive out Roman influence. Macedon was dismantled after their defeat, and permenant Roman provinces in Greece were established.

Finally, the Achaean League revolted in 146 B.C. And the resulting Fourth Macedonian War saw the league dissolved and Greece was now a full province of Rome.

Answer 2

Had Alexander lived longer he would have moved West and there would have been no Roman Empire as we know it. When he died in 323 BC, Rome was just a nothing city-state still struggling against Celts and other Italians on the peninsula. Alexander would have destroyed them but he died and later Rome took Greece out after dealing with the Carthaginians. Hardly Alexander's fault and Alexander was a Macedonian which is a semi-barbaric area north of Greece that shared many linguistic and cultural similiarities but to Greeks they were outsiders.

Answer 3

Do a time line and see. He united Greece and established a Greek empire that lasted several centuries.

Answer 4

Alexander was not Greek, and he did not destroy his own country.