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Hi FolksI just visited a site called Ancient Tacticians, and rated as the greatest Generals are;
1 Hanibal2 Publius3 Belisaurius4 Narses then Ghenghis Khan.no mention of Alexander.Then I got chatting to a member and according to him Alexander fought no real calibre generals, and If according to him hanibal was in command of Taxilians and Afghand the Alexander would have been massacred.Its fair to say Alexander never met a general of Hanibals calibre but at the time he met and beat the best that was out there.Its fare to say that throughout history did there hardly ever come together 2 great generals, its fair to say Hannibal met his share of muppets, and when he came across a calibre Roman general,, Scipio he was soundly thrashed a t Zama.Upon reflection i am sur that Alexander had the ingenuity and Tenacity to defeat the list of great generals mentioned.Does any one else come across this negative attitude toward Alexander and if u do how did u answe them ?regardskenny

I see this ignorance all the time. You can find plenty of ammunition in the archives of this forum and other forums. Just find the time, gather your references and attack!You can ask anyone in my country (USA) and there's many people that do not know one thing about ancient history but you mention the name Alexander the Great I will assure you they have herd of his name, mention the name Hannibal and most people think you're talking about a deranged modern day cannibal.Remember, you can always prove your point with respect to your adversaries.

So according to these 'experts' whatever Alexander managed was irrelevant? rubbish I say!.
In that respect Hannibal was also a lousy general He only came up against 1 quality opponent in Scipio and lost - Doesnt make sense does it?
As far as Gengis Khan , well what was new about that style of war? It was done just as effectively by Attila in the 4th century.

Neither Belisarius nor Narses fought any great generals either and their reconquest of Italy was hardly as permanent as the Hellenisation of the East.This sort of ranking is only a game since you can never compare like with like, we are at the mercy of the random preservation of source material and that material's equally random interpretation by so-called modern experts.Finally the best answer would be that Hannibal rated Alexander as the greatest general ever and according to your opponents he should know.

Thanks For the replies,I accept and realise all that you say and know we are right, I suppose I get a little stuck because I cant really mention a brilliant commander Alexander came against.I only know he met and defeated the best and massive empire at that time, Its sometime criticised that Alexander didnt turn east and try himself against the Romans.Thats even easier to answer,persia was the richest and most powerful empire at that time, so what was the point of hitting a relative backward venture like Rome, Rome was irrelevent at that time, but I think we all would agree once Alexander had consolidated in Babylon, with his new model army I cant see that Carthage,Rome nor Arabia would have held against him.It would have been nice if he had met an equivelent Hanibal or Caesar, but in reflection its very rare throughout history that great generals ever met, Maybe Napoleon-Wellington was a one off.Regards Kenny

Other than those mentioned how about ..Rommel vs Montgomery
Richard vs Saladin
Harold vs William

Nicely said! In reference to your last paragraph I can say the same about modern day team and individual sports, the comparisons are a never ending story.All the best, Andrew

What about Laurel vs. Hardy, Abbott vs. Costello, and Martin vs. Lewis, neither would have been worth a darn without the other. LOL...

You got to love these odious comparison thingies. They are very silly indeed. However, as Karl has mentioned Hannibal rated both Alexander and Pyrrhus above himself. One mo . . I'll go and do a quick chop and paste from the archives; save you the bother.The story goes that late in life, effectively in hiding at the court of Antiochus in Seleucia, Hannibal's old nemesis, Scipio, turned up and requested a meeting. Hannibal agreed. It's easy to imagine the two old campaigners staring at each other after a gap of decades. All those memories of Zama and Cannae swirling around behind their silent brows. One thing led to another, and a conversation started, and unsurprisingly it turned to generalship. The relevant passage is taken from Acilius.Scipio asked: "Who, Hannibal, would you suppose to be the greatest captain of all?"
"Alexander, the great," replied Hannibal, "because with a small force he defeated armies whose numbers were beyond reckoning, and because he overran the remotest regions merely to visit them, which is a thing beyond normal human ambition."
"Yes, but after him, to whom would you award second place?"
After reflecting Hannibal said: "Pyrrhus, for he first taught the method of encamping; nor did anyone ever show such fine judgement in choosing his ground and disposing his posts; moreover, he could so well conciliate himself to men that, in spite of his foreigness, the people of Italy wished for him to be their sovereign rather than the Romans."
"Very well, but after him?" asked Scipio.
'Myself, without doubt," replied Hannibal. Scipio laughed, then asked,
"And what would you have said if you had beaten me?"
"Than," came the reply, "I would have placed Hannibal not only before Alexander and Pyrrhus, but all other commanders besides."Run that past the experts on the other site. Twits.

As an afterthought . . .I presume you haven't asked these geniuses about siege craft. If Alexander doesn't rate on that front who on earth does?
Furthermore, Napoleon thought the batle of Hydaspes one of the finest ever executed in military history. Then again what would a jumped up Corsican know about these things?