Gregory Aldrete
speaker
587 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard Sep 2024
last heard Sep 2024
Gregory Aldrete’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
Trend
recordings per month · last 12 monthsNo recordings in the last 12 months.Older appearances are listed below; set an alert to hear about the next one.
Appearances
He inherited a system created by his father, Philip II. So he was in the right time at the right place and had this instrument placed in his hands, and then he had the intelligence and the charisma to go use it. So it's one of these coming together of different things. But often his father's contribution, I think, is not recognized as much as it is.
It's his father who reformed the Macedonian army, who came up with that system of equipping them with the sarissa, this extra long spear that made them really effective, created the mixed army. One of the keys to Alexander's success in a tactical sense is that his army was composed of different elements, heavy cavalry, light cavalry, heavy infantry, light infantry, missile troops.
He understood that he can use these in different and flexible ways on the battlefield, whereas a lot of warfare before then had just been you line up, two sides smash together. So he did clever things with this army that was a better tool than others did. And then he was just supremely ambitious.
I mean he cared about his fame, which I guess is ego, but he clearly cared about that more than he did about things like money. He was indifferent to that. And he did have a grand vision. So he did have this vision of trying to unite the world both politically under his control, but also culturally. And this is an interesting thing.
So he was very open, in fact, insistent of trying to meld together the best elements of all the different cultures. So he himself was a Macedonian. But he admired Greek culture, so he pretty much adopted Greek culture as his own. When he conquers Persia, he starts adapting elements of Persian culture. He dresses in Persian clothing. He marries a Persian woman.
He sort of forces thousands of his troops to marry local women. He appoints Persians to positions of power. He integrates Persian units into his military. He really wanted to fuse all these things together. And some people see this as a very enlightened vision that, oh, he's not just – I want to conquer people and now they're my slaves.
That he was really trying to create this one culture that was sort of the best of everything. Others see it, of course, as a form of cultural imperialism. You're destroying other cultures and trying to warp or twist them into something. But what I think is interesting is that this vision he had of uniting cultures creates –
Very problematic tensions among his own followers because the Macedonians, his original troops, did not like this on the whole. They wanted the old model where we conquer you, you're our slaves. We don't want to share stuff with you. We don't want you joining us in the army. We don't want you appointed to positions of power. We're your conquerors and that's it.
And so Alexander had to deal with a lot of friction from his own oldest, most loyal elements at the way he was being, in their eyes, too generous to the conquered. So Alexander is one of these interesting personalities because every generation sees him in a new light and focuses on different things.
So for some, he's this enlightened visionary who was taught by Aristotle, the Greek philosopher, and they say, well, this influenced him. Others see him as an egomaniacal warmonger, just I'm out to kill and gain glory. There was a book a couple decades ago that says, oh, he's just an alcoholic, which he probably was, yeah. So you get all these competing images.
And the great thing is we don't really know what the true Alexander was or what his motivations were. It's a mixed message.
That's a clear answer. So Alexander's empire fragmented the moment he died. And so his empire was all about personal loyalty. It was his charisma holding it together, his personality. And he completely failed to create a structure so that it would continue after his death. And of course, he died young. He didn't think he would die when he did, but still, you should put something in place.
So his was a flash in the pan. He had this spectacular conquest. In 10 years, he conquered what was then most of the known world. But he had no permanent structure in place. He didn't really deal with the issue of succession. It fell apart instantly. The Romans are much more about building a structure.
So, I mean, as we talked about a little, they were very good about incorporating the people they conquered into the Roman project. I mean, they're oppressive. They're imperialistic as well. Let's not whitewash them. I mean, they had moments when they would just wipe out entire cities. Right. But on the whole, they were much more about trying to bring people into the Roman world.
And I think that was one of their strengths is that they were open to integration and bringing in different people to keep rejuvenating themselves.
Yeah. I mean Roman law is one of their most significant – maybe the most significant legacy they have on the modern world. So I mean just to start at that end of it, something like 90% of the world uses a legal system which is either directly or indirectly derived from the Roman one.
So even countries that you wouldn't think are really using Roman law kind of are because all the terminology, all that comes from Roman law. And the Romans, their first law code was this thing, the 12 tables. So this is way back in the Middle Republic, and it was a typical early law code. So most of the stuff it concerns are agricultural concerns.
So if I have a tree and its fruit drops onto your property, who owns the fruit? If my cow wanders into your field and eats your grain, am I responsible? I mean, I love these early law codes that are all about this like farmer problems, you know. But law codes are hugely important because you need a law code to enable people to live in groups.
So they're the transitional thing that lets human beings live together without just resorting to anarchy. And most of the early law codes are agricultural, like Hammurabi's code in Mesopotamia. Most of them are retaliatory, meaning eye for an eye type justice. So you do something to me, it gets done to you. But they're this necessary precondition for civilization, I would say.
And the 12 tables is that. It's a crude law code. It has a lot of goofy stuff in it. It has things about, you know, if you use magic, this is the punishment. But it's that basic agrarian society law code. Now, that's typical of many societies. Where the Romans are different is they keep going. They keep developing their law code.
Showing 161–180 of 587 · page 9 of 30
← Previous
Next →