<< Previous

OTHER PEOPLE’S MONEY

Use foreign resources whenever possible.

I bankrolled much of my adventure in large part thanks to the gold I collected in Persia. In one instance in 331 BC, I sent home large sums of money in order to help launch a war against Sparta and its allies, ending Sparta’s position as a military power.

Without the foreign riches, none of this would have been possible. I knew it, my soldiers knew it and Greeks back home knew it too so the support for my global conquest maintained strong. Sparta had been sidelined and Athens would forever be indebted to me.

I would eventually go on to finance the services of Persian mercenaries to fight in India.

Before India…

By December 331 BC, I had steam rolled through Persia: from Babylon to Susa, on towards Persepolis: the capital of the Persian Empire.

To Greeks, Persepolis represented everything that was evil about the Persian Empire. To us, it was the worst enemy amongst all cities in Asia. Leaving it untouched would have been blasphemous to the Gods who watched in horror as Xerxes torched the Athenian Acropolis as well as the towns and temples of Attica in 480 BC.

Once we got there, I meticulously turned the city over to my men, letting them loose on it with the exception of the Palaces and the Citadel.

My men proceeded to storm the streets, murder men, steal from women and destroy property. This was done to avenge the destruction that King Xerxes had left in Greece over a hundred fifty years before.

Continue >>