My man Jules was a monster on the field. He loved to fuck him up some Gauls I read bellum gallicum for Latin class in high school wouldn’t want to duck with him
Genghis Khan played in an era against a bunch of soft bodied half-time warriors. For my money you've gotta go with Alex the Great.
I know it's cliche but Genghis has like 15 million people carrying his y chromosome to this day. Whatever biological imperative there is to stamp out your rivals' DNA and supplant it with your own I think he won.
When my wife and I got our first apartment together and could have cats we got two kittens and named them Cyrus and Tamerlane
Genghis then Alexander but not as close as some are making it out to be. The Mongolian Empire literally stretched from the pacific to Ukraine at one point. And that was after the great khan had passed. The fact that he had his conquering down to such an exact science that a number of descendants could keep the conquering going by following the playbook speaks to Genghis’s conquering prowess.
I think you could also argue the reverse. Alexander was such a necessity for the conquering to happen he added the most value above replacement
Alexander the Great only lived 33 years and took over pretty much the entire writing world. Most of his adult life was spent in transit. It’s not even close.
He also had a great strength of schedule. But I think the fact that Genghis literally started from nothing with a people that were known as raiders more than anything makes him greatest. Alexander was the son of a great conqueror which gave him some advantages.
whilst i do agree that the mongol tribes were not much more than raiders the tribes were, to a lesser extend, united before and when they did unite they were OP af. So is uniting a bunch of clans a sign of a great conqueror or more of a great politician (or is that a useless divide to make). Dying at 32 was also kind of a thing so Alexander never had the longevity to establish a Pax Lex
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timur also killed like 14 million people, but who's countin' (also, my coworker is named after him)
Wow Alexander not getting the love he deserves in here He conquered the known world and died in his early thirties he would be leading all the analytics in efficiency here
Octavian aka Cesar Augustus definitely should be up there. Julius Cesar was good at conquering and subjugating narratives but not so good at actually consolidating his own power. Clive of India, Opium and intimidating steam battle ships all deserve a shout.
Can u imagine being in a Tyre while besieged by Alexander and his guys? a stinking hoard of traumatized murderous dudes with spears and swords in shitty lil boats
Augustus is arguably the best ruler of all time and was political mastermind but he only “conquered” mostly Romans who opposed him and trusted Agrippa and others to command a lot of the battles
My definition of conqueror isn’t necessarily battle tactics but more to do with amassing personal power. Agrippa was no doubt a giga Alpha Chad
Many Shuvs and Zuuls knew what it was to be roasted in the depths of the Slor that day, I can tell you!
Going with Khan, a book I tend to reread around business expansion and adjacencies actually sums up The Alexander Problem pretty well. ‘Alexander the Great ruled the largest area of the earth ever conquered by a single individual, stretching from Mt Olympus to Mt Everest. Although not everyone’s idea of the model CEO, he amassed his kingdom in less than four years, covering more than four thousand miles by foot, and winning 100% of his battles - a remarkable record in such a short time. But did he create lasting value? Just a few years after his death, his empire had dissolved and the captured territory slipped away. Alexander’s problem was not inadequate initial resources or poor execution. it was the lack of a long term strategy and the inability to exploit and consolidate his extraordinary short term gains throughout the Near East to Nepal, which stretched his resources to govern too far beyond his Macedonian core.’ Alexander won and his tired troops constantly faced the choice to stop and consolidate or to press on to more distant and unfamiliar territory, which the later always won out. However, does the expansion without consolidation really count for a win?