The Gates of the Temple of Janus

In the Roman Republic, the gates of the Temple of Janus, the two-faced Roman God, symbolized wartime and peace. When Rome was at peace, the gates of the temple remained closed. When Rome was at war, the gates were opened. According to Livy, the Temple of Janus was built by King Numa Pompilius (reigned 715–673 BC). During the 500 year history of the Roman Republic, the gates of the Temple of Janus were closed only twice—this implies that the Romans were at war throughout the Republican age. In the second instance, the gates were closed by Augustus, after the death of Antony and Cleopatra.

The credit for killing the highest number of Roman soldiers in a single day belongs to Hannibal. In the Second Punic War, during the Battle of Cannae (2 August 216 BC), Hannibal’s forces trapped a Roman army of 86000 soldiers in a double envelopment tactic and hacked 70,000 Roman soldiers to death in just four to five hours. In the First Punic War, during the Battle of Cape Hermaeum (255 BC), around 100,000 Roman soldiers had been killed due to a sea storm that blew up suddenly and devastated a fleet of 390 Roman warships. 

Due to the high casualties that the Roman Republic suffered in wars, which came in quick succession, the Roman society was always plagued by the shortage of men who could serve as soldiers. The birth rate of Roman women was very high during the period of the Republic, and the Romans were able to replenish their population numbers within 10 years of a major war. If the birth rate of the Roman women had been lower, the Roman population might never have recovered. The feminist writer Simone de Beauvoir has criticized the Romans for treating their women as mere soldier producing factories. Simone was probably right. Having enough soldiers to fight the next war was the primary concern for Roman leadership.

The Romans replenished their numbers by granting citizenship rights to the local aristocratic families and in some cases to entire cities. Many conquered cities were given the status of socii, or allies, of Rome. The socii could be moved to a higher level of full citizenship, if they fully cooperated with Rome. The conquered areas were required to pay tribute to Rome but the universal obligation imposed on them was to put their army under Roman control. They had to contribute their young men to serve as soldiers for the Roman army. The Romans were ruthless in dealing with cities which failed to provide tribute and soldiers. They would raze such cities, enslaving their population, and even slaughtering them to the last man, woman, and child.

As the Romans continued to conquer new cities in Italy, the manpower pool from which they could draw their soldiers became bigger, enabling them to build larger armies with which they subdued the entire Italian peninsula. After that they turned their eyes towards other parts of Europe and towards Sicily and North Africa.

The Twenty-first Century Geopolitics: Feminists Vs. Patriarchies

The West is a civilization of feminists. The Chinese civilization is very patriarchal—the same is the case with the Islamic kingdoms in the Middle East and elsewhere in the world. This implies that the contest for geopolitical power in the twenty-first century boils down to a battle between the feminist nations and the patriarchic nations. If the fate of the world is decided through negotiations, then the West has a chance to prevail, since feminists are generally good at negotiations. But if a full-fledged war breaks out, then I believe the Chinese and the Islamic nations might succeed in overthrowing the West because patriarchies are generally good at savage warfare.

Jarasandha: The Issue of Succession

The slaying of Jarasandha, King of Magadha, is described in the Shanti Parva section of the Mahabharata. Krishna, Bhima, and Arjuna travel to Magadha and challenge Jarasandha to a life and death kind of duel. 

Jarasandha accepted the challenge and opted to fight Bhima. For 26 days, they fought daily in the arena for two and a half to three hours, till both were fully exhausted.  Bhima tried every tactic of fighting but he could not kill Jarasandha. On the 27th day when they were fighting, Bhima looked at Krishna and asked, “What should I do?” Krishna picked up a leaf and tore it into two. Bhima instantly knew the way by which Jarasandha could be killed. He placed one leg on Jarasandha’s left leg and tore him into two.

Jara, the Jungle Goddess, had created Jarasandha by uniting the two halves of a divided-son born to King Brihadratha. There was only one way by which Jarasandha could be killed: the two halves of his body had to be ripped apart. After Jarasandha’s death, Krishna, Bhima, and Arjuna did not usurp his Kingdom of Magadha. They installed his son Sahadeva on the throne and then departed from the kingdom. In the Mahabharata war, Sahadeva fought on the side of Krishna and the Pandavas, the killers of his father.

The notion that the throne should go to the rightful heir has been part of the Hindu tradition since the Vedic period. When a king defeated another kingdom and killed its ruler, in most cases he allowed the next person in the legitimate line of succession to occupy the defeated kingdom’s throne.

The Religion of Zeus

“Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.” ~ Zeus didn’t say this. He didn’t care about the meek. When Zeus threw his thunderbolts, the meek would die with the evil. The thunderbolts of Zeus do not differentiate between the meek and the evil. The deceptions of Zeus are legendary. His sexual conquests, mostly through the use of deception, include: Hera, Aegina, Alcmene, Antiope, Callisto, Danae, Io, Nemesis, Europa, Ganymede, Leda, Metis, and other women of antiquity. There is no evidence that the exploits of Zeus made the world a better place. 

The religion of Ancient Athens was founded on the exploits of Zeus. The Athenians tried to emulate Zeus—they were rapacious, violent, and warlike. They imposed restrictions on their women. They enslaved the meek. They fought for the sake of fighting with no concern for making the world a better place. They needed to fight because they needed to prove to their Gods that they were strong and violent, fit to be the followers of Zeus. Every Athenian yearned for a warrior’s death. Like Achilles, they chose to die in battle and be forever remembered and honored. 

Though Christianity is part of the Western tradition, it is not founded on the philosophy of Zeus—it has a lot in common with the religious thought of Zoroastrians and Hindus. The idea that the meek will inherit the earth, which plays a critical role in Christianity, belongs to the Zoroastrian and Hindu (Vedic and pre-Vedic) traditions.

Women in Ancient Athens and the Persian Empire

In Ancient Greece, women were banned from participating in politics. They had no legal personhood and were assumed to be part of the oikos (household) headed by the male kyrios (master). The Greeks believed that if women were allowed to inherit property, men would become effeminate and the nation would fall. They did not allow their women to go out in public without a veil and unless they were escorted by a male relative. Aristotle has claimed that Sparta fell because the Spartan men had become effeminate after they allowed women to inherit property. 

Greek literature casts women as troublemakers—Hera and Aphrodite are portrayed as jealous goddesses who employ feminine wiles to mislead men.

Contrast the poor status of women in Ancient Athens with the economic, legal, and political power that women enjoyed in the Persian Empire. According to Herodotus, Empress Atossa, the wife of Persian Emperor Darius I, was the real force behind the invasion of Greece in 492 BC. Herodotus has also written Atossa was responsible for ensuring that Xerxes became the Emperor after the death of Darius I. He has talked about other powerful women in the Persian Empire—the wife of Xerxes, Amestris, was the most powerful person in the Persian court; Parysatis, the wife of Darius II, became a center of power in her time.

In the Persian Empire, women were free to step out of their house without wearing a veil and move around without being escorted by a male relative. They enjoyed the freedom to bathe in public, in lakes and rivers. In Persian cities there were outdoor swimming pools which were shared by men and women. When the Greeks used to come to the Persian Empire, they were often horrified by the sight of women moving around without veils and bathing in public. They used to take this freedom for women as a sign of Persian effeminacy and decadence.

In palace ceremonies, the Persian women played a prominent role. They attended the meetings and banquets in which foreign dignitaries had been invited. The Greeks had a hard time accepting the presence of women in their state-level meetings with the Persians, since in Greek culture only the prostitutes and courtesans attended the gatherings of political figures. The Greek dignitaries would often return to Greece with a low opinion of Persian culture, and they would spread canards about the moral character of women in the Persian royal family.

There are several records of Persian women excelling in hunting and warfare. The Greek and the Persian sources talk about Roxane, a relative of Emperor Artaxerxes II, who was a champion in archery and javelin. The Persian women routinely went on hunting. They were capable archers and horse riders. Greek chroniclers talk about the warlike nature of the Persian women. Ctesias mentions that in the time of Cyrus the Great, the Persian women stood in the streets and taunted the men who were trying to flee from the Battle of Medes.

There are records of Persian women buying, selling, and owning property. The Persian men were allowed to bequeath their property to their daughters and daughters-in-law. There are records of Persian women who ran their own businesses and became wealthy. They were allowed to pass on their fortune to the next generation or to anyone outside their family. In the time of Darius I, there was a Persian businesswomen called Irdabama. In her business, located in the city of Shiraz, she employed 480 laborers. Several seals, which record her business transactions, have been found.

Persian Women could rise to the position of satraps, the second highest position after the Persian Emperor. Artemisia I of Caria was the Queen of the ancient Greek city-state of Halicarnassus and of the nearby islands of Kos, Nisyros and Kalymnos (these were within the satrapy of the Persian Empire). In the movie 300: Rise of an Empire, actress Eva Green has played the role of Artemisia, depicted as a ruthless satrap who enjoyed great influence on Emperor Xerxes and commanded the Persian fleet during the Battle of Salamis in 480 BC. It is true that Artemisia commanded a section of the Persian fleet.

Artemisia was devoted to Xerxes and fought for his side in the Battle of Salamis. Herodotus has praised her fighting and leadership skills. He has claimed that the Athenian warriors could not bear the thought of fighting a woman, so they placed a huge bounty on Artemisia’s head. They announced 10,000 drachmas reward for the Athenian who captured or killed her. Despite the threat to her life, she did not leave the battlefield.

Pericles: The Ruler Who Spoke Like Zeus

The Athenians called their leader Pericles, Zeus Pericles. He had a thundering voice. When he spoke at the Athenian Assembly (the Agora), the crowd had the feeling that Zeus was thundering from heaven. Pericles used to appear at the Athenian Assembly bearing the arms associated with Zeus. Before beginning his speech, he would make a show of praying to the Gods. He was the longest lasting leader of Athens—the period in which he led Athens, from 461 to 429 BC, is known as the Age of Pericles.

When the Athenian assembly was in session, the mob of voters would gather in the assembly and create a ruckus. Scuffles between the political factions was a common occurrence at the assembly—at times people would get injured or even killed. The noise at the Athenian assembly would be so great that unless a leader had a thundering voice he could not control the restive crowd and make himself heard. Cimon, the military general who was Pericles’s rival in Athenian politics for several years, is known to have complained that Pericles was favored by the Athenians merely because of his booming voice.

Which class of individuals is capable of speaking in a thundering voice? Obviously, the military generals who have the experience of screaming orders to troops in battles. A civilian from a humble background had no chance of winning the support of the Athenian crowd because his voice would not get heard. From the sixth century BC, when the Athenian democracy developed, to 322 BC, when the Macedonians conquered Athens and wiped out the democratic system, every leader elected by the Athenians was a loud-talking military general.

Athens was a democracy in name only. It was a militaristic society. A series of powerful military families dominated Attica and held political office in Athens.

The Janus Face of the Right and the Left

The conservatives (rightists) think that their civilization is not being given the respect and praise that it deserves. They want to see only the bright side of their civilization. They prefer to ignore the areas of darkness. The liberals (leftists) think that their civilization is being given too much respect and praise. They prefer to ignore the bright side of their civilization. They want to see only the areas of darkness.

Both sides are wrong in this debate. A study of both—the bright and the dark side is important to have a fair picture of the past.

Both sides are violent, inept, corrupt, and decadent. The conservatives destroy lives outside their country; the liberals destroy lives inside their country. The conservatives blame their woes on the outsiders (everyone who is not an original member of their culture or ethnic group is a barbarian and an invader); the liberals blame their woes on the insiders (everyone who is not a leftist or liberal is a counterrevolutionary, racist, and bourgeoise).

The conservatives and the liberals are the two faces of the Ancient Roman deity Janus. One side of the Janus face speaks falsehoods towards the right; the other side of the Janus face speaks falsehoods towards the left.

The Greek Way of Sexualizing Military Victories

In 478 BC, the Greek city-states met on the island of Delos and formed the military alliance called Delian League, under the leadership of Athens. Between 469 or 466 BC, the Delian League besieged the cities of Sestos and Byzantium (modern Istanbul). Persian Emperor Xerxes did not order an immediate offensive action against the Greeks—he was engaged in suppressing revolts in other parts of his empire. He probably did not see the Delian League as a threat, since the Greeks in Anatolia were on the Persian side and were fending off the attacks of the Delian League.

Eventually the response came from the Persian side. Their army and navy gathered at the Eurymedon River, from where they planned to move through the coast of Asia Minor and drive the Delian League out. While the Persians were engaged in developing their battle plan, and were waiting for reinforcements to arrive from Cyprus, the Athenian general Cimon learned of their plans. He moved in with 200 triremes to preemptively attack the Persian force at Eurymedon. The Greeks smashed the Persian ships which were moored at the river’s bank, and then they landed on the bank and slaughtered a significant number of Persian troops.

The Battle of Eurymedon was a great victory for the Greeks and it was a humiliation for the Persian side. Soon after the battle, potters of Athens created the Eurymedon vase, currently preserved at the Museum of Hamburg. The arrogance and overconfidence of the Athenians is in full display in the vase which carries the motif of a bearded Greek, naked except his mantle, holding his turgid phallus in right hand and advancing towards a Persian archer who is bent forward. The vase carries an inscription in Ancient Greek which has been translated as: “I am Eurymedon, I stand bent forward.”

It is not known how many Eurymedon vases the Athenians created to boast that their victory over the Persians was a sexual conquest. Some of these vases might have reached Persia and come to the notice of the Persian elite.

In 463 BC, there was a revolt in Egypt, a Persian satrapy. The Athenians took the ambitious decision that the Delian League should intervene on the rebel side and wrest control of Egypt from the Persians. An Athenian fleet of 200 triremes sailed into Egypt. Initially the coalition of Egyptian rebels and Athenians won some victories. They killed the Persian general Achaemenes, and besieged the Persian garrison at Memphis, a town in lower Egypt. The siege of Memphis dragged on for three years. Artaxerxes I, then the Persian Emperor, dispatched reinforcements under a new general, Megabyzus.

The arrival of Megabyzus transformed the situation. The Athenians and the Egyptian rebels who were besieging Memphis were wiped out. Some Athenians escaped the Persian dragnet in Memphis but most were captured or killed in other parts of Egypt. The Persians wanted to avenge the defeat at the Battle of Eurymedon. They were merciless. The Greeks lost 50,000 men. It is possible that while attacking the Athenians, the Persians might have boasted, “This is Eurymedon in reverse”—alluding to the Eurymedon vase. There is no evidence that the Persians made their own vases to sexualize their Egyptian victory.

Europe’s Great Mistake: The Roman Empire

The Roman Republic was founded in 509 BC. It took the Romans about 300 years (by 218 BC) to consolidate their rule over just the Italian peninsula, and it took them another 350 years to reach the highest extent of their empire (under Emperor Trajan in 117 AD). Contrast the slow progress of Rome with the rapid expansion of other empires: The Mongol Empire of Genghis Khan and his descendants had amassed six times more territory than the Roman Empire in just 50 years. The Maurya Empire of India had become as large as the Roman Empire in just 5 years. The Spanish Empire became twice as large as the Roman Empire in just 30 years.

There is one important reason for the slow expansion of the Roman Empire. The Romans used to regard every tribe which lacked Greek and Roman traditions as barbarians. The Gauls, the Visigoths, the Goths, the Ostrogoths, the Avars, the Celts, the Saxons, the Burgundians, the Suebi, the Franks, the Alans, the Britons—all of them were barbarians, according to the Romans. It didn’t matter to the Romans that these tribals were not invaders from Asia, Africa, or South America—they were the original inhabitants of Europe. They were natives of Europe. 

Most non-Roman tribes in Europe did not want to be part of the Roman world because they never got any respect from the Romans. They fought the Romans for every inch of soil. With much of Europe pitted against them, the progress of the Roman Empire had to be slow. In the time of Emperor Augustus, the Romans tried to develop a policy of assimilating the barbarians by getting them to serve in the Roman military, but by then it was too late since most of Europe had already developed an anti-Roman ideology. 

The Colosseum, built by Emperors Vespasian and Titus in the first century AD, is a tourist attraction in Rome. Most of the gladiators who died in the Colosseum and other such arenas were the European barbarians who were captured by the Romans. In a single sporting season at the time of Emperor Trajan 10,000 gladiators were killed in just 123 days. No other culture in the world has turned the killing of humans into a spectator sport on the scale that the Romans did. Thousands of Roman citizens, including the intellectuals and the political elite, used to sit in the Colosseum (and other such stadiums) and watch gladiators being tortured and killed.

Try to imagine what the Western reaction would be if an edifice like the Colosseum had been built in Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, India, or China. They would have held this edifice as the proof of the vileness and the bloodthirstiness of the culture which built it. They would have written hundreds of books and articles condemning it. But the Colosseum is regarded as a supreme example of Western art, architecture, and culture. The gladiators are mythologized in movies and books as the symbols of Roman valor.

If the Western intellectuals can sell the Colosseum as an example of sophisticated culture, and the gladiators as an example of bravery and valor, then they can sell any nonsense to their own people and to the people in other cultures. The Western version of history is an abortion in the womb of the past.

Who Overthrows the Superpowers? Allies or Enemies

Most empires have been destroyed by their trusted allies and vassals, and not by their enemies. The Persian Empire was destroyed by its former vassal, the Kingdom of Macedonia. In the sixth century, the Macedonians were a minor tribe in Europe. The Persian Emperor Darius I made them the legitimate satrap of Macedonia. The Persians gave military training to the Macedonians and armed them, so that they could serve in the Persian army as mercenaries. In 178 years, the Macedonians transitioned from vassals of the Persian Empire to its conquerers—Alexander the Great became the ruler of the Persian Empire. 

The Western Roman Empire was conquered by its former vassals, the Visigoths (who emerged from the Gothic groups in the fourth century AD). The policy of using barbarians in the Roman army was introduced by Augustus. By the third century AD, the Roman army was very diverse—it had a large number of barbarian soldiers. In the fourth and fifth centuries AD, Goths played an important role in defending Rome against the Hun army. But in 410 AD, the Goths sacked Rome In 476 AD, the Goth King Odoacer captured the Roman imperial throne, bringing the Western Roman Empire to an end. 

The Byzantine Empire played an important role in the rise of Arab Islamic power in the Middle East and North Africa. They funded, armed, and trained the early Arab warriors because they wanted to use the Arabs against their enemy, the Second Persian Empire (the Sassanid Empire). But after conquering the Second Persian Empire, the Arabs turned their eyes towards the territories of the Byzantines. The Arab army first besieged Constantinople in 674–678 and then in 717–718. Both sieges failed but the Byzantine Empire’s reputation was shattered. 

The Byzantine Empire was destroyed by its two allies—the Crusaders and the Ottoman Empire. The Crusaders had arrived in the Middle East to strengthen the Byzantine Empire but they sacked Constantinople. The Ottoman Sultans began as allies of the Byzantines in the thirteenth century. The Byzantines helped the Ottomans in expanding their power in Anatolia in exchange for using Ottoman mercenaries in their army. But the Ottomans were soon nibbling at Byzantine territory. In the fifteenth century, the Ottomans conquered the last outpost of the Byzantines: Constantinople.

The Myth of Western Military Superiority

Whenever the West faces a serious military challenge from a non-Western power, it is either defeated or is bogged down in an endless conflict. The idea of Western military superiority is a myth. The West is not a civilization of warriors. It is a civilization of marketers, advertisers, propagandists, publicists, fiction writers, and fake historians. Their civilization is built on their capacity for bragging, self-promotion, and selling propaganda. They love to project themselves as a military power, but they are not.

The history books written on the basis of the one-sided accounts of Herodotus, Thucydides, and other Greek chroniclers, create the impression that Classical Greece was a great military power in its time. This is not true. The Greeks were a bunch of sparsely populated city-states, which constantly squabbled with each other. Athens and Sparta fought for more than 150 years, but whenever they fought with non-Greek cultures, they lost. They were defeated by the Egyptians, Syracusans, the Persians, and were eventually conquered by the Macedonians.

Western chroniclers call Alexander the Great the world’s first great conqueror, but he did not conquer any territory that was not first conquered by Cyrus the Great and his two sons and successors: Cambyses II and Darius I. After Alexander’s death, a civil war broke out between his generals. The civil wars went on for five decades, after which three new states emerged, two of which were antithetical to Western culture. Instead of making the Persian Empire a part of the West, Alexander’s conquests had turned the Persian territory into a breeding ground for a new crop of anti-Western powers.

Rome is called a great military power, but from 509 BC (the founding of the Roman Republic) to 476 AD (the fall of the Western Roman Empire), the Romans could not quickly defeat any non-European power. Against a non-European adversary, the Romans used to get bogged down in an endless conflict. Rome’s first major war with a non-European power was with Carthage (the Punic Wars). These wars began in 246 BC and continued till 146 BC. Even after 146 BC, the Romans could not pacify Carthage and the fight dragged on till the time of Augustus.

The Romans could not stabilize the areas outside Italy. Their soldiers could not venture beyond the Danube. The barbarians on the other side of the Danube, told the Romans—you can come this far, but not an inch further. In Britain, the Romans could not expand beyond Hadrian's Wall. When the Romans led by Marcus Licinius Crassus, Roman General and Statesman, attacked the Parthians in 53 BC, they were decimated by a much smaller Parthian cavalry. Crassus and his son were killed by the Parthians along with most of the Roman army. 

The Romans got hold of the Iberian Peninsula not due to their own military might but because these lands were the territory of Carthage. Augustus annexed the Iberian peninsula in 19 BC by claiming that this land belonged to Rome since it was part of Carthaginian territory. But when he tried to expand Roman territory into the Middle East, he got bogged down in endless wars with the Second Persian Empire and other powers. 

When the Huns (the nomadic tribe from Central Asia) arrived in the fourth century AD, the Romans could not fight them. The Huns rampaged through Europe till the sixth century AD, and the Romans could do nothing to stop them. Eventually the Huns were stopped by the Goths. The Eastern Roman Empire (the Byzantine Empire) was weaker than the Western Roman Empire. The Huns and other barbarian tribes raided Roman lands every year. The Romans could not defend their territory. In the fifth century AD, the political elite of the Byzantine Empire built a wall around Constantinople to protect themselves from the barbarian raiders.

Rome is probably the most sacked city in history—it was sacked about a dozen times by its own generals. The outside groups which sacked Rome include: the Gauls, the Visigoths, the Vandals, the Ostrogoths, the Normans, and the Holy Roman Empire under Charles V. In 711 AD, the Umayyad Caliphate conquered the Iberian Peninsula and by 759 AD, they had expanded their territory into Gaul. They held this territory till 1492 AD. If the Mongol campaigns of Genghis Khan and his grandson Hulagu Khan had not weakened the Islamic movements in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, then a major part of Europe would be under Islamic rule today.

In the eleventh century, the Western powers launched their crusade. They sent their army to the Middle East with the aim of saving the Byzantine Empire and liberating Jerusalem. But instead of saving the Byzantine Empire, the crusaders played a seminal role in destroying it. Instead of liberating Jerusalem, they destroyed its intellectual culture and ensured its complete domination by the Islamic forces. They were beaten by almost every power in the Middle East—the Zengids, the Abbasids, the Ottomans, the Seljuk Turks, and several other minor groups.

During the Age of Imperialism (16th century to 1945), the Western powers had some success in their attempts to win colonies. But the wars of imperialism were not conventional military wars. The imperialists arrived so suddenly, they appeared so different, that the locals in remote areas were psychologically emasculated. They could not fight to save their land, wealth, and lives from the invaders. It took a couple of centuries for a military style opposition to Western rule to develop in the colonies. When they were confronted with a militaristic opposition, the Western powers immediately fled to Europe. By 1950, imperialism was finished.

The First and the Second World Wars were European wars in which the Europeans and North Americans massacred millions of their own people. Even in these two wars, they fared badly against the non-Western powers. In the First World War, the Ottomans caused massive damage to the West and despite losing the war, they managed to create a new nation called Turkey in Anatolia. In the Second World War, the Japanese thrashed the Americans everywhere—had it not been for the American nukes, the Japanese would never have surrendered. 

After 1950, the Western powers have lost in every military confrontation with non-Western powers. The debacles in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Cuba, the never-ending standoff in the Korean Peninsula, the failed interventions in the Middle East, the futile wars in South America, the ineffective campaign against China, and the imbroglio in Afghanistan that has been going on since the 1970s are a clear sign that that the West is incapable of winning wars against a determined non-European power.

The Meteoric Fall of the Superpower

When you have reached the top, there is only one way you can go—downwards. It should come as no surprise that the world's only "superpower" has been going down since the 1950s. Where else could it go from its perch in the clouds? In the twenty-first century, this superpower has gathered a massive momentum as it hurtles towards the earth like a meteor dropping from the sky. In the next ten years, this superpower, ruled by a clique of naive, corrupt, and complacent plutocrats and technocrats, will hit the earth, shatter into pieces, and create a catastrophic geopolitical event which will cause considerable damage to peace and stability of the world. The fall of this superpower is irreversible since it has already passed the point of no-return. By the laws of physics and history, it must self-destruct by crashing into the ground.

Alexander of Macedon: Conqueror Without a Crown

Contrary to the popular mythos that casts Alexander of Macedon as a world conqueror, the historical record reveals a narrower, more tactical ambition. His military campaigns were confined to two principal theatres: the Balkans and the fractured Persian Empire. He never ventured beyond these geopolitical boundaries, nor did he articulate a grand imperial vision for the unification of the known world. Much of his energy, particularly after his eastern victories, was not spent in conquest but in suppressing the numerous rebellions that erupted under the Macedonian occupation.

Alexander ascended the throne of Macedon in 336 BCE following the assassination of his father, Philip II—a formidable strategist who had transformed the Macedonian military into a professional force of 50,000, centered on the phalanx formation of sarissa-wielding infantry. These pikemen, armed with spears extending 15 to 18 feet, were drilled into a formidable wall of iron that could withstand and crush traditional Greek hoplite warfare.

The young king first turned his gaze to the Balkans. In 335 BCE, he launched a swift and brutal campaign, demonstrating his military acumen and unyielding resolve. When Thebes dared to resist, Alexander razed the city to the ground, sparing only its temples. The annihilation of Thebes served as a stark message to the other Greek city-states—capitulate or perish. Athens and Sparta, recognizing the ruthlessness of Macedon’s new sovereign, submitted. Having secured his rear, Alexander crossed the Hellespont into Asia Minor in 334 BCE, beginning his fateful confrontation with the Persian Empire.

The Persian state, once the world’s most formidable empire, was now a house in disarray. The assassination of Artaxerxes III in 338 BCE had plunged the court into a cycle of palace coups. Artaxerxes IV, his son, was murdered two years later. The throne eventually fell to Artashata, a relatively obscure noble who assumed the regnal name Darius III. Though nominally a member of the Achaemenid line, Darius was not a direct descendant of his predecessors, and many Persian nobles viewed him as a usurper. Revolts erupted in Babylon and Egypt, and Darius had scarcely consolidated power when Alexander’s army breached the empire’s western frontier.

The Persians, having enjoyed two decades of peace, found themselves facing a hardened and disciplined Macedonian force seasoned by constant warfare. Their first encounter came at the Granicus River in May 334 BCE. Though the Persians fought with valor, they were ill-prepared for the phalanx's relentless advance. In the wake of his victory, Alexander swept through Anatolia, capturing the key cities of Sardis, Ephesus, Miletus, and Halicarnassus. By the end of the year, Asia Minor was firmly in his grip.

In a brief but notable challenge to Macedonian ascendancy, the Persian admiral Memnon of Rhodes launched a naval counteroffensive in the Aegean. His death from illness in 333 BCE, however, brought the initiative to a sudden halt. That same year, Darius assembled an army of approximately 50,000 and confronted Alexander at the Battle of Issus. Despite being outnumbered and facing a contingent of Greek mercenaries who had joined the Persian cause out of bitterness for the subjugation of their homeland, Alexander prevailed. The victory at Issus shattered Persian morale and established Alexander as a dominant force in the region.

He then turned to Tyre and Gaza, two strategically vital coastal cities that had refused to capitulate. Both fell to his siege engines in 332 BCE. Significantly, elements of the Persian navy had by then defected to Alexander’s side. With the Levant secured, Alexander entered Egypt. The local population, long resentful of Persian overlordship, greeted him as a liberator. The Persian satrap of Egypt welcomed Alexander and retained his position under the new Macedonian suzerainty.

Meanwhile, Darius was raising another army, drawing from the empire’s eastern provinces. In 331 BCE, Alexander departed Egypt and advanced toward Mesopotamia. The climactic battle came near the village of Gaugamela, east of the Tigris River. Darius’s army was large and diverse, comprising units from the farthest reaches of the empire, but Alexander’s tactical brilliance once again secured a decisive victory. Darius fled, this time with fewer loyalists and no hope of reclaiming his empire. Alexander entered Babylon as a conqueror and proclaimed himself “Great King of Persia.” In the city of Susa, he discovered a treasure hoard so vast that he dispatched to Greece a sum six times the annual revenue of Athens.

In 330 BCE, while attempting to regroup, Darius was betrayed and fatally stabbed by his own generals—Persian nobles who had lost faith in his leadership and resented his failure to defend their homeland. With the death of Darius, the Achaemenid line ended, and Alexander assumed the mantle of Persian sovereignty. Yet, his challenges had only begun. From 330 to 323 BCE, Alexander was no longer conquering but desperately chasing rebellions from Bactria to Persepolis, seeking to hold together an empire that resisted integration.

In 327 BCE, he launched a campaign toward the Indian subcontinent. But here, his army—exhausted by years of continuous warfare and alien to the culture and climate—refused to proceed beyond the Hyphasis (modern Beas) River. Forced to retreat, Alexander attempted a disastrous return through the Gedrosian Desert, losing the majority of his men to thirst and starvation. He finally reached Susa in 324 BCE. There, weary, ill, and politically isolated, he died on the 10th or 11th of June, 323 BCE.

Alexander left behind no blueprint for governance, no philosophical framework for unity, and no imperial ideology beyond the brute assertion that conquest confers legitimacy. He had no plan to assimilate the diverse peoples of his dominion, nor did he attempt to create institutions that could sustain his empire beyond his lifetime. His legacy was military, not administrative. The vast realm he conquered disintegrated almost immediately after his death into fratricidal conflict among his generals. Within a generation, his family was annihilated, including his three wives and his only son.

By 275 BCE, Alexander’s empire had been carved into three durable Macedonian successor states: the Antigonid dynasty in Macedon, the Ptolemaic dynasty in Egypt, and the Seleucid dynasty in the eastern provinces. Though his name lived on, Alexander’s empire was, in truth, a transient flash of military brilliance, not a lasting structure of imperial governance.

In the final reckoning, Alexander of Macedon was not an architect of empire but a warrior-king, driven by ambition and sustained by the phalanx. He won battles, not nations. His sword conquered the world, but his mind never ruled it.

The French King and the Mongol Queen

When Guyuk Khan (the son of Genghis Khan’s eldest son Ögedei Khan) died on April 20, 1248, his Christian wife, Oghul Ghaimish became the regent of the Mongol territories that he used to control in the Levant. At that time, the Mongol Empire was at its height—they had proved that they were capable of defeating any foe in battle. The King of France Louis IX saw a military opportunity in the rise of a Christian Mongol Queen in the Levant. He felt that the Mongols under her leadership could be persuaded to join France in an alliance against the Islamic states.

In 1250, Louis IX’s envoy to Oghul Ghaimish, a Dominican Monk named Andrew of Longiumeau, arrived in her court in Western China, along the Emil River. He had arrived to negotiate a Mongol-European alliance in the Levant, but the Mongols had the impression that he had arrived on the orders of his King to surrender Christian Europe to her. Oghul Ghaimish knew about the bad performance of the Western crusaders and the Byzantines in the Levant, and she saw no value in entering into a military alliance with them. Her response to Louis IX was rude and undiplomatic. 

She sent him a list of rulers that she claimed that she had executed because they failed to pay tribute to her, and she commanded the French King to start sending her tribute. She wrote: “send us so much of your gold and of your silver each year, if you hold it back from us, we shall do what we did to those whom we named before.” When Louis IX saw her response, he simply said, “I feel sorry that I sent a mission to her court.” Oghul Ghaimish was unable to keep the Mongol throne in her branch of the family, and in 1251 Mongke Khan became the Great Khan.

Cyrus, Christianity, Cicero, and Caesar

When the European nations gained mastery over a significant part of the world, between the fifteenth and the twentieth centuries (the Age of Imperialism), they were inspired by the four Cs: Cyrus, Christianity, Cicero, and Caesar. The imperialists of Europe were barbarian warriors, preachers, empire builders, and ideologues. 

In the sixth century BC, Cyrus the Great founded the First Persian Empire (the Achaemenid Empire), which at its peak spanned 5.5 million square kilometers, stretching from the Balkans and Eastern Europe in the west to the Indus Valley in the east. The geographical expanse of Cyrus the Great’s empire became an inspiration for the European conquerors and adventurers who came after the fall of the First Persian Empire. 

Alexander the Great tried to conquer all the lands that Cyrus had conquered. The Emperors of the Western Roman Empire and the Eastern Roman Empire (the Byzantine Empire) were inspired by the geographical expanse and the power of the First Persian Empire.

Cyrus played an important role in the founding of Christianity. He allowed the Jews to return to Jerusalem and build their Second Temple. According to the Biblical book of Ezra, the construction of the Second Temple began in 537 BC. Around 500 years after Cyrus, Jerusalem became the birthplace of Christianity. After the eleventh century, the European nations became united under the banner of Christian religion.

Caesar was the political icon of imperialism; Cicero was the intellectual icon. The leaders of the imperialist powers aspired to be a warrior king like Caesar; they were motivated by the philosophy of Cicero. During the late Middle Ages and the early Modern Age, Cicero was Europe’s most powerful philosopher.

The Three Gods of 330 BC

In 330 BC (the year of the fall of the First Persian Empire), 65 percent of humanity was worshipping three Gods: Vishnu, Ahura Mazdā, and Zeus. Here’s my analysis:

In 330 BC, the population of the Persian Empire (which included the Middle East, and parts of North Africa and Central Asia) was 50 million. The population of the Indian subcontinent (then dominated by the Nanda and the Maurya Empires) was 100 million. The population of those parts of Europe which were influenced by the Greeks, Macedonians, and the Persians was 10 million. The human population on earth in 330 BC was 250 million.

Thus, in 330 BC, 65 percent of humanity lived in the Persian Empire (Ahura Mazdā was the chief deity), the Indian Subcontinent (Vishnu was the chief deity), and the Greek, Macedonian, and Persian influenced parts of Europe (Zeus was the chief deity).

What Constitutes the Western Civilization?

The European nations did not identify as Western Civilization when they were waxing, between the fifteenth and the nineteenth centuries. In the twentieth century, when they started waning, they formed an association called Western Civilization. Oswald Spengler’s The Decline of the West (Volume 1 and 2), published in 1918 and 1922, has played a major role in propagating the ideal of Western Civilization, but his white and Christian supremacist conception of the West would not be acceptable to the Europeans and North Americans of the post-1950 period, when the term “Western Civilization” became popular.

What is the criteria for being part of Western Civilization? Is race the criteria? Is it religion—most Europeans and North Americans in the twenty-first century are atheist? Is it language—Europe is a Tower of Babel? Is it ideology—the Europeans are divided between the right and the left? Is it geography? Is Russia a part of Western Civilization? What about the people of European origin who have settled in non-European countries—are they included? What about Turkey, which exists on the land that was originally Anatolia, the epicenter of Ancient Greek, Ionian, and the Byzantine cultures? By using various criteria, different maps of what might be Western Civilization can be created.

The true believers in Western Civilization cannot define it. They cannot even define what they mean by Western culture: is it religious or atheistic? Is it Catholic, Protestant, or Orthodox? Are non-Christian religions included? Is it woke and liberal or traditionalist and conservative? Is it nihilistic or puritan? Are Nazism, Fascism, and Communism part of Western culture? Whenever the true believers try to define Western Civilization, they decimate it—because they get mired in historical, linguistic, religious, and racial controversies. The true believers treat Western Civilization as a nebulous ideal which is real and unreal at the same time.

The term “Western Civilization'' was first proposed by the French philosophers in the Age of Enlightenment. These French philosophers were atheists—they didn’t want to say that theirs was a “Christian Civilization,” and so they used the secular word “Western.” They theorized that human progress must have a single civilization as its goal—to this civilization they gave the name Western Civilization. Western Civilization that they envisioned consisted of countries in Western Europe and North America. Rest of the world, they posited, was populated with barbarians who had to be subdued and forced to accept Western culture.

In the 20th century,  the Europeans fought two great wars—the First and the Second World Wars—in which they slaughtered millions of their own people and reduced large parts of Europe to rubble. It is wrong to see these two wars as world wars—these were first and foremost European wars. These wars were the climax of the political and cultural disputes that had been raging in Europe since the fall of the Roman Empire. In the bloodbath of these two wars, it was impossible for the European nations to conceive of themselves as a part of Western civilization.

The Mongol Khans and the Romance of Alexander

The Romance of Alexander is an account of the adventures of Alexander the Great. It is attributed to Callisthenes, Alexander’s court historian. The historical Callisthenes died in 327 BC, four years before Alexander, so he could not have written the chapters on the final four years of Alexander’s life. The book’s unnamed author is called Pseudo-Callisthenes.

Genghis Khan and Alexander were separated by 1500 years, but the Romance of Alexander was the first Western book to be translated into Mongolian. In the book’s Mongolian version, when Alexander becomes a great conqueror, he says: “I have become Great Khan. On this very earth there has not been born a Khan who has enjoyed life as I.” The Mongolian version of the book ends with these lines: “It is over, is ended, ended!” 

Genghis Khan’s biography, The Secret History, contains several references to Alexander. According to the book, in Afghanistan Alexander killed a unicorn, which is a sacred creature. Due to the curse of killing a sacred unicorn, he soon died. Marco Polo, who worked in the Chinese court of Genghis Khan’s grandson Kublai Khan, has claimed that Alexander’s horse Bucephalus bred with a unicorn to produce a new breed of horse with a mark on its forehead.

According to some Mongol chroniclers, Monge Khan, Genghis Khan's grandson who became the Great Khan in 1251, used to examine the Mongolian version of the Romance of Alexander to discover insights for administering his Mongol empire.

The Mongol Khan’s Letter to the Pope

The Mongols followed the policy of killing any religious leader who claimed an authority higher than the Great Khan. Genghis Khan had Teb Tengeri, the preacher of Mongolian religion of Sky God, killed. When Hulagu Khan, Genghis Khan’s grandson, captured Baghdad in 1258, he killed the Caliph of Baghdad.

The Mongols tried to summon the Pope to their court for observing his attitude towards the Great Khan. If the Pope had accepted their invitation, they might have killed him.

On March 13, 1245, Pope Innocent IV wrote a letter called “cum non solum” to the Great Khan, demanding that the Mongols should desist from attacking Christians. The Pope inquired about the future plans of the Mongol Empire, and expressed the hope that there would be peace between the Mongols and the Christians. He was probably unaware that the word “peace” was a synonym for “subjugation” in the Mongol language.

A papal delegation, led by Giovanni da Pian del Carpine (also known as John of Plano Carpini), made a perilous journey of more than three thousand miles and brought the Pope’s letter to Karakorum, the capital of the Mongol Empire, in July 1246. After a month of waiting, they had an audience with Güyük Khan, then the Great Khan (he was the son of Genghis Khan’s eldest son Ögedei Khan).

In November 1246, the papal delegation was allowed to leave Karakorum with a response in Mongol, Latin, and Arabic from the Great Khan. Towards the end of 1247, they found the Pope in Lyon and delivered to him their report and the Great Khan's letter.

Güyük Khan’s imperiously worded letter to the Pope begins with a preamble, which is translated as: “We, by the power of the eternal heaven, Khan of the great Ulus, Our command.” The letter declares that the office of the Great Khan is the scourge of God and it makes the following demand from the Pope:

"You must say with a sincere heart: "We will be your subjects; we will give you our strength". You must in person come with your kings, all together, without exception, to render us service and pay us homage. Only then will we acknowledge your submission. And if you do not follow the order of God, and go against our orders, we will know you as our enemy.”

Just as the Mongols did not tolerate any rival monarch, they did not tolerate any rival religious leader. Genghis Khan and the Khans who followed him were the God’s true representatives on earth. To defy the Great Khan was to disobey God.

Attila the Hun: The Lord of Water

The Huns believed that land on earth was infinite and as they kept conquering, there would always remain land that was unconquered. They thought that real power comes from conquering the resource that was finite: water. Attila proclaimed that he was the ruler of the Danube and all other water bodies. He declared that he owned every treasure that was contained in the seven seas. The word “Attila” means father of the sea—this word is related to the Turkish word “talay” and the Mongolian word “dalai” which mean sea. Attila gave his favorite son, the name Tengis, which means ocean in Turkic and Mongolian. Attila was the first leader of a steppe nomadic tribe to develop the notion that he was destined to rule the world.

A Comparison Between America’s and the Soviet Union’s Foreign Policy

In matters of foreign policy, the Soviet Union never compromised on its communist ideology. They never entered into an alliance with rightist and religious groups. In Syria, they allied with Hafez al-Assad’s socialist Ba'ath Party; in Iraq, with Saddam Hussain, a secular socialist; in Vietnam, with Ho Chi Minh’s communist party; in India, with the socialist Congress and the communist parties; in Cuba, with Castro’s communist party; in Korea, with Kim Il-sung’s WPK; in Britain, with the Labor Party.

When the pro-American Iranian government led by Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was overthrown in the 1978 revolution, the American think tanks feared that the new theocratic regime in Iran would join the Soviet camp. That didn’t happen. The Soviets refused to accept the Iranian theocrats as their allies. In fact, communism in Iran was wiped out after the theocrats took over. The pro-Soviet Tudeh Party of Iran used to flourish under Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. In 1982, the Tudeh Party was banned in Iran. In 1988, several Iranian communists were executed.

Unlike the Soviet Union, the American political establishment has no ideological, moral, and political principles when it comes to foreign allies. They will join hands with any regime or movement—religious fundamentalists, totalitarians, fascists, communists—to achieve their short term political agenda.

In the 1980s, Ronald Reagan’s government trained and armed the Afghan insurgents for defeating the Soviet Union. It didn’t matter to the Americans that culturally and politically America had nothing in common with the Afghans. They didn’t consider the possibility that in the future these insurgents might become a threat to American geopolitical interests. They didn’t consider the fact that the Christian movements and the Islamic movements have been battling each other since the eleventh century.

Intellectuals, Tyrants, and Warlords of Rome

When Cicero accused Mark Antony and Octavian Caesar of destroying Roman freedoms, Octavian was outraged. In 43 BC, Octavian had Cicero executed. To remind the Romans of the exact nature of the crime that Cicero had committed, he had Cicero’s hands chopped off and nailed to the Senate door, so that the senators and the masses could see the fate of the hands that had dared to pen a diatribe against Antony.

Octavian was trying to portray himself as a defender of Antony—that is why he claimed that he had Cicero executed for the crime of tarnishing Antony’s reputation and not his own. The execution of Cicero and other outspoken Roman intellectuals can be seen as the political fallout of the divide that had developed between the intellectuals and the politicians of the Roman Republic. This divide was one of the causes of the fall of the Roman Republic.

In 44 BC, Octavian, Antony, and Marcus Lepidus had formed a Second Triumvirate to defeat the army led by the assassins of Caesar. This Triumvirate had a lifespan of five years. In 37 BC, under the treaty of Tarentum, the Triumvirate was extended by another five years. But due to the competing ambitions of the three members, the Triumvirate was torn apart in 36 BC, when Lepidus was stripped of his powers and exiled.

Octavian and Antony became bitter enemies. At the Battle of Actium in 31 BC, Octavian defeated the combined military of Antony and Cleopatra. Antony and Cleopatra committed suicide. Octavian became the first Roman Emperor and he turned Rome into an Empire.

Destruction Precedes Creation

To create a civilization a civilization has to be destroyed—this is the rule of history. The great civilization builders of history were first and foremost merciless destroyers and killers. The act of destruction precedes the act of creation.

The Vulnerability of Modern Civilization

An army of tribals, motivated by faith, led by a medieval political structure, armed with low-tech weapons, and making use of medieval nomadic strategy of warfare, has forced the very high-tech, well trained, and disciplined armies of two superpowers—the USSR and the USA—to withdraw from their country. This shows the vulnerability of modern civilization.

Neither capitalism nor communism can assure victory. Communism creates a corrupt and criminal ruling class; capitalism creates a corrupt and complacent (woke) ruling class. Both ideologies are capable of creating their own Armageddon.

In the last 400 years, the West has played a leading role in history. But 400 years is a small chapter in history. A lot has happened before the West became powerful and a lot will happen in the future. The world has entered a post-Western phase and we don’t know the problems that lie ahead of us and we don’t know what skills we will need to prosper in the future.

Alexander’s Mass Wedding in Persia

After conquering the Persian Empire, Alexander the Great conducted a mass wedding in the Persian city of Susa in 324 BC. The purpose of the mass wedding was to mingle the Macedonian and Persian bloodlines and unite the two cultures.

Eighty of Alexander's generals took Persian brides. Alexander himself took a Persian bride—a lady called Stateira (also known as Barsine), the eldest daughter of Darius III and his wife, also named Stateira. In 327 BC, Alexander had married Roxana, the daughter of Oxyartes, Chief of Bactria. Persian law allowed men to have multiple wives. In the same ceremony, Alexander took a third wife, Stateira’s cousin Parysatis, the daughter of Darius’s predecessor Artaxerxes III. The younger sister of Stateira (Darius’s second daughter) was given by Alexander to his close friend and favorite general, Hephaestion.

By marrying the daughters of Darius III and Artaxerxes III, Alexander was identifying himself with the Persian royal family and securing his position in Persia. He could now claim to be the son and the son-in-law of both Persian emperors.

Alexander’s mass wedding ended in mass divorce—clearly these marriages were not a match made in heaven. After his death in 323 BC, his generals, except Hephaestion, who died before Alexander, and Seleucus, divorced their Persian wives. Alexander’s three wives suffered a gruesome fate. Roxana was pregnant when Alexander died. Since she was expected to produce a legitimate heir to Alexander, she was protected by the Macedonian generals. Stateira and Parysatis were murdered in 323 BC on her command. 

A boy, Alexander Aegus, was born to Roxana in 323 BC. But she lost the power struggle. She could not organize Alexander Aegus’s accession to the throne of the empire that Alexander had conquered. She and the 14-year-old Aegus were poisoned by Alexander’s generals in 309 BC.

Elizabeth I, Shakespeare, and British Nationalism

British nationalism became the driving force of British politics and culture during the reign of the Protestant monarch, Elizabeth I. Her rivalry with Catholic Spain, and other Catholic powers of Europe, including the Papacy, made the masses in her island nation realize, probably for the first time, that they were a distinct people, that they were not just Christians, that they were British Christians, and that the Catholics of mainland Europe were their enemies.

When the British united to defend their island nation against the invasion of the Catholic powers, they developed a sense of their unique history and culture. When England defeated the Spanish Armada in 1588, British nationalism came of age. This nationalistic spirit had consequences which went far beyond the war with Catholic Europe. Nationalism would eventually inspire the British to orchestrate the Industrial Revolution, build a Navy that would rule the sea, and conquer the world’s biggest imperialist empire which would climax with Pax Britannica.

Shakespeare has written about people from all over the world—Cleopatra of Egypt, Caesar and Antony of Rome, Hamlet of Denmark, and Othello, the Moorish general of Venice. In 1595, when he wrote Richard II, he was probably influenced by the spirit of nationalism that was flowing through England after the success of the British Navy against the Spanish Armada. This play has his most famous nationalistic lines, spoken by the character John of Gaunt:

“This royal throne of kings, this sceptered isle, 

This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, 

This other Eden, demi-Paradise, 

This fortress built by Nature for herself 

Against infection and the hand of war, 

This happy breed of men, this little world, 

This precious stone set in the silver sea, 

Which serves it in the office of a wall 

Or as a moat defensive to a house, 

Against the envy of less happier lands—

This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.”

Such intense nationalist sentiment was unknown in British literature before the reign of Elizabeth I. A century earlier Thomas More had written the book called Utopia, but he did not present Britain as the utopian paradise. More’s utopia is located on an imaginary island.

One City, Four Names: Byzantium, Constantinople, Konstantiniyye, Istanbul

Some cities have a longer lifespan than civilizations. Consider the city of Byzantium, which was founded in 667 BC by Greeks from Megara. 

Byzantium was sacked by the Persians in 626 BC. In 478 BC, the Greeks from Sparta rebuilt Byzantium. Between 324 AD and 330 AD, the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great conducted a large-scale reconstruction in Byzantium. He renamed the city Constantinople. In 1453, the Ottomans captured the city and radically transformed its culture from Orthodox Greek to Islamic. They renamed it Konstantiniyye. In 1930, the rulers of the Turkish Republic renamed the city Istanbul.

In its history of over 2600 years, the city of Byzantium was ruled by the Pagan Greeks, Zoroastrian Persians, Pagan Romans, Orthodox Christians, and Islamic Turks, and it was renamed thrice.

Machiavelli: On Isabella and Ferdinand

During the cooperative reign of Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, the foundation of Spain’s global Empire was established. The two spectacular successes of their reign was the liberation of Southern Spain from Islamic occupation and the discovery of the American continent by Christopher Columbus. Machiavelli was an admirer of Ferdinand. In his book The Prince, he explains the popularity of Ferdinand in these words: “Nothing wins a ruler respect like great military victories and a display of remarkable personal qualities. One example in our own times is Ferdinand of Aragon, the present King of Spain…” Machiavelli was impressed by the Spanish campaign in Granada, undertaken in 1492 by Isabella and Ferdinand. He writes in The Prince:

“We have in our time Ferdinand of Aragon, the present King of Spain. He can almost be called a new prince, because he has risen, by fame and glory, from being an insignificant king to be the foremost king in Christendom; and if you will consider his deeds you will find them all great and some of them extraordinary. In the beginning of his reign he attacked Granada, and this enterprise was the foundation of his dominions. He did this quietly at first and without any fear of hindrance, for he held the minds of the barons of Castile occupied in thinking of the war and not anticipating any innovations; thus they did not perceive that by these means he was acquiring power and authority over them. He was able with the money of the Church and of the people to sustain his armies, and by that long war to lay the foundation for the military skill which has since distinguished him. Further, always using religion as a plea, so as to undertake greater schemes, he devoted himself with pious cruelty to driving out and clearing his kingdom of the Moors; nor could there be a more admirable example, nor one more rare…”

There is no important matter on which Isabella and Ferdinand had a difference of opinion. The motto of their prenuptial agreement was: “Tanto monta, monta tanto, Isabel como Fernando.” (They amount to the same; Isabel is the same as Ferdinand.) Faith in God was important for Isabella and Ferdinand. They believed in the adage: “Those monarchs who do not fear God fear their subjects.”

The Vodka-Hashish Dividing Line

“Some scholars have argued that Central Asian steppe nomads were almost destined to convert to Islam because of their religious tradition and their location relative to the “vodka-hashish” dividing line. In the forest zones of Russia, where vodka was consumed, Christianity prevailed. The steppe nomads who used hashish inclined to Islam.” ~ Kenneth Harl in his history lecture Era of the Crusades.

The Sultans Who Occupied Delhi's Imperial Throne

In 1192, Muhammad Ghuri defeated Prithviraj Chauhan in the Second Battle of Tarain. With this victory, a large part of North India came under Ghuri’s control. He entrusted the running of his North Indian kingdom to his Mamluk general Qutb ud-Din Aybak. When Ghuri died in 1206,  Aybak became an independent sultan. Aybak was followed by his son-in-law Iltutmish who ruled from 1210 to 1236. After Iltutmish’s death in 1236, his daughter Radiyya Begum became the ruler. Radiyya's regime was overthrown in a coup. After her, a series of weak sultans followed.  In 1296, power went to the Khilji dynasty, in 1320 to the Tughlaq dynasty, in 1414 to the Sayyid dynasty, and in 1451 to the Lodi dynasty. The Mughal dynasty acquired power in 1526.

The Western Ideologues Can’t Lose in Debates

“An ideologue—one who thinks ideologically—can't lose. He can't lose because his answer, his interpretation and his attitude have been determined in advance of the particular experience or observation. They are derived from the ideology, and are not subject to the facts. There is no possible argument, observation or experiment that could disprove a firm ideological belief for the very simple reason that an ideologue will not accept any argument, observation or experiment as constituting disproof.” ~ James Burnham in Suicide of the West. Burnham is right. The Western ideologues—communists, capitalists, liberals, and libertarians—can’t lose in debates. Their ideology is shock-proof because it has nothing to do with experience and observation.

Opening Lines of the Alexiad

Anna Komnene, the author of the work of Byzantine history, The Alexiad, was the leader of a failed coup against her brother John II Komnenos, the heir to the throne of the Byzantine Empire. She was defeated in the power struggle and was exiled for the rest of her life to a monastery on her brother’s orders. She wrote The Alexiad while she was imprisoned in the monastery. 

The opening lines of her book are memorable. Here’s a translation by E A Dawes:

“TIME in its irresistible and ceaseless flow carries along on its flood all created things, and drowns them in the depths of obscurity, no matter if they be quite unworthy of mention, or most noteworthy and important, and thus, as the tragedian says, “he brings from the darkness all things to the birth, and all things born envelops in the night.”

“But the tale of history forms a very strong bulwark against the stream of time, and to some extent checks its irresistible flow, and, of all things done in it, as many as history has taken over, it secures and binds together, and does not allow them to slip away into the abyss of oblivion.

“Now, I recognized this fact. I, Anna, the daughter of two royal personages, Alexius and Irene, born and bred in the purple. I was not ignorant of letters, for I carried my study of Greek to the highest pitch, and was also not unpractised in rhetoric; I perused the works of Aristotle and the dialogues of Plato carefully, and enriched my mind by the “quaternion” of learning. (I must let this out and it is not bragging to state what nature and my zeal for learning have given me, and the gifts which God apportioned to me at birth and time has contributed).

“However, to resume—I intend in this writing of mine to recount the deeds done by my father for they should certainly not be lost in silence, or swept away, as it were, on the current of time into the sea of forgetfulness, and I shall recount not only his achievements as Emperor, but also the services he rendered to various Emperors before he himself received the sceptre.”

The Two Mistakes of the Byzantines

In their struggle for maintaining their supremacy in the Middle Eastern region, the Emperors of the Byzantine Empire made two mistakes:

1. They overestimated the Europeans: 

In the last decade of the eleventh century, when Byzantine Emperor Alexios I Komnenos requested the Pope for military assistance, he was expecting to receive 2000 to 5000 European mercenaries who would join his army and fight the Seljuk Turks in the Middle East. What he got was a crusade in which between 50,000 to 100,000 people marched into the Middle East to wage a Holy War for liberating Jerusalem. 

The crusaders were divided into factions led by preachers and warlords. They had no strategy, no knowledge of the actual conditions in the Middle East, and no unity. Many were pilgrims with no military training—they intended to disarm and defeat the enemy with their piety. Some leaders of the crusaders were looking for opportunities to found their own empires in the region. They had no intention of doing anything to help the Byzantines. In 1204, the crusaders sacked Constantinople—this was a debacle from which the Byzantine Empire never recovered. 

The performance of the crusaders in the Middle East was so bad that many tribes of nomadic fighters (especially the Turks) decided to move into the fold of Islam. The Turks were led to believe that Islam, not Christianity, was the religion of victory and culture. 

2. They underestimated the Seljuk Turks: 

The Byzantines thought that they could deal with the Seljuk Turks in the same way that they had been dealing with other nomadic groups—that is, they could use bribes and the threat of use of military force to convert them. In the past, the Byzantines had been successful in converting the Bulgars and the Magyars to Orthodox Christianity. They failed to notice, until it was too late, that the Seljuk Turks were unlike any nomadic group that they had encountered before. 

When the Seljuk Turks arrived in the Middle East, they were already a people with strong ethnic and religious identity. They had woven their Turkish identity and language into folk Islam. The Seljuk Turks were powerful fighters. Their nomadic lifestyle had prepared them for a life of warfare. 

In 1055, they started raiding Anatolia. In 1071, Byzantine Emperor Romanos IV Diogenes led an army near the town of Manzikert, where he encountered the Turkish army led by Alp Arslan, the nephew of Tughril Beg, the founder of the Seljuk Empire. In the battle that followed, Romanos IV was defeated and the Turks gained control of Anatolia. In the wake of Turkish victory millions of Turks moved into Anatolia and transformed the ethnicity of this region. The Greek and Orthodox culture of Anatolia was finished by the thirteenth century. 

The 1176 Battle of Myriocephalon, in which Byzantine Emperor Manuel I Komnenos was defeated, was the last Byzantine attempt to expel the Seljuk Turks from the Middle East.

The Psychological Victories of the Conquistadors

Most of the early encounters between the European imperialist powers and the local powers were not conventional military confrontations in which two sides fight pitched battles and try to kill a maximum number of other side’s soldiers. The locals in these encounters were psychologically disarmed and were not mentally inclined to launch a full scale war on the Europeans.

The Europeans knew that they had arrived to conquer and plunder, but the locals were clueless about how to deal with the outsiders who had suddenly appeared on their land. In the initial period of the encounters, the locals would be in awe of the strange customs, language, food habits, dresses, weapons, and ways of fighting of the outsiders. Thus, the Europeans had a distinct psychological advantage. 

In some contests, 50 to 200 European soldiers, dressed in military costumes and riding horses, could psychologically disarm thousands of locals—in a conventional military battle this sort of feat would be impossible. But in South America, Hernán Cortés and his tiny band of Conquistadors could conquer large territories without any military style opposition from the other side.

Cortés was not a military commander. He never won a pitched military battle in South America. In his lifetime, he never fought or led an army in a pitched military battle against a powerful enemy. He won in South America due to psychological reasons. Cortés would not be effective in any military battle where the other side was not psychologically emasculated and was determined to fight back.

In Europe and the Middle East kind of conflicts, a man like Cortés would be a miserable failure. He would not have survived for an hour against Hannibal, Bohemond, Genghis Khan, or Saladin. Cortés was good at waging a psychological war against primitive and isolated communities. But he was no military commander.

The End of Western History

The world that is going to pieces in the twenty-first century is a world that has been shaped by the Western ideological, geopolitical, and technological successes in the last five hundred years. But the Western culture started declining in the 1980s. In the twenty-first century, the pace of decline has accelerated. The decline of the West is irreversible, because the Westerners have already played their world-historical role. For the West, history has ended. The decline of the West is necessary for creating space for the rise of new civilizations which will make new efforts for taking mankind into a new direction.

The Fall of the Sassanid Empire: Twilight of Zoroastrian Persia

For centuries, the Persians believed themselves to be under the divine protection of Ahura Mazdā, the supreme, uncreated god of wisdom and light in Zoroastrianism. Their civilization—majestic, ancient, and resilient—was imagined as eternal, the chosen reflection of divine order (asha) upon the Earth. But this illusion of permanence was shattered in 651 AD, when the Sassanid Empire, the last great bastion of pre-Islamic Persia, collapsed under the weight of Arab conquests and internal decay.

Yazdegerd III, the final Shahanshah of the Sassanid dynasty, was a child monarch, the grandson of the once-mighty Khosrow II. Following Khosrow’s assassination in 628 AD, the empire descended into chaos. A dizzying succession of ineffectual rulers, many reigning for mere months, were enthroned and slain in quick succession. The imperial court in Ctesiphon degenerated into a slaughterhouse of royal ambition and aristocratic betrayal. In the provinces, generals turned into autonomous warlords, carving out private fiefdoms and vying for supremacy in a civil war that ravaged the Persian heartland.

It was in this atmosphere of anarchy and disintegration that Yazdegerd, scarcely eight years old, was crowned in 632 AD. Though he bore the title of king, real authority had long since passed into the hands of military strongmen and noble families, more concerned with fratricidal power struggles than with the survival of the state. Thus distracted, the Sassanid elite scarcely noticed the rise of a new force emerging from the Arabian Peninsula—a zealous and unified Arab force animated by the fervor of Islam.

The first blow fell in 633, when the Arabs defeated the Sassanid forces near Hira, a strategic city in Mesopotamia. Only after this shocking loss did the Persian nobility begin to recognize the magnitude of the threat. But by then, momentum had shifted irreversibly. In 636, the decisive Battle of al-Qadisiyyah saw the Persian army routed, and in 642, at the Battle of Nahavand—later termed the “Victory of Victories” by Arab chroniclers—the Sassanids suffered a crushing and final military defeat. The empire, already crumbling from within, was now bleeding from without.

In desperation, Yazdegerd fled eastward, seeking refuge and reinforcements. At Isfahan, he tried to rally a final resistance, but his army—demoralized and disloyal—mutinied when Arab commanders offered them land and amnesty. He escaped to Estakhr, only to see the ancient city razed and his loyalists massacred. One by one, the old strongholds of Persian power collapsed as Yazdegerd was pursued relentlessly across the Iranian plateau.

The tragic denouement came in 651, in the remote village of Marw. Hiding in the humble dwelling of a miller, the fugitive monarch was murdered—reportedly for his jewelry. With his death, the lineage of the Sassanid kings was extinguished, and with it, the final vestiges of imperial Zoroastrianism.

What followed was not merely the end of a dynasty, but the transformation of a civilization. Persia embraced Islam, first as a political reality and then as a cultural identity. The Zoroastrian faith, once the spiritual foundation of an empire, was confined to marginal status under dhimmi protection. By the tenth century, Zoroastrians had dwindled to scattered communities, many of whom would eventually seek refuge beyond the Persian frontiers, particularly in India.

Thus ended an epoch. The fire temples were dimmed, the Avesta silenced, and the ancient dualism of light and darkness gave way to the singular creed of Islam. Yet in the ruins of their empire, the Persians did not vanish. They adapted, endured, and, in time, became architects of a new Islamic Golden Age—bearing forward the legacy of their ancestors into a profoundly altered world.

Heraclitus: On the Importance of Strife and Wars

“War is the father of us all, King of all. Some it makes Gods, some it makes men, some it makes slaves, some free.” ~ Heraclitus.

"Homer was wrong in saying, “Would that strife might perish among gods and humans.” For if that were to occur, all things would cease to exist." ~ Heraclitus. 

Heraclitus is taking a realist view of mankind. History tells us that wars and strife are the key pillars of progress (innovation, discovery, creativity, invention, and the pursuit of happiness). Without battling the old establishment, we cannot create a new world. It is on the debris of the old civilization that the edifice of a new civilization is built. It needs a supernova, the most destructive event in the universe, to create new stars and planets.

By annihilating an old civilization, we clear the space for the rise of a new civilization. Not all new civilizations are better than the ones that have been annihilated—in the process of constant rebirth or evolution, there are bound to be some dead-ends.

Important Lesson of History

Many empires have declined after being ruled by a politician who was lauded as a visionary and tough leader by his contemporaries. The Athenian Empire declined after Pericles. The Roman Republic declined after Julius Caesar. The Roman Empire declined after the reign of the five good emperors: Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, and Marcus Aurelius. The Hun Empire declined after Attila the Hun. The culture of Mongolia was crushed under the colossal legacy of its greatest conqueror Genghis Khan. The Byzantine Empire declined after Alexios I Komnenos. The Ottoman Empire declined after Suleiman the Magnificent. The Russian Empire declined after Catherine the Great. The British Empire declined after Churchill. The Soviet Empire declined after Stalin. Britain saw a second phase of decline after Thatcher. The American Empire declined after Reagan.

The Fall of Trantor’s Empire

The age of wars for supremacy in the galaxy is over. The rebellions by various galactic factions have been crushed. The galaxy is unified for all times under Trantor, capital planet of the mighty galactic empire. Under Trantor’s hegemony, there is no possibility of wars and rebellions anywhere in the galaxy. The only sentient beings of the galaxy, the humans, can now look forward to permanent peace and prosperity. But Hari Seldon, mathematics professor at Streeling University on the planet Trantor, has bad news.

Seldon has discovered a science called psychohistory, which uses history, sociology, and mathematical statistics to make large-scale predictions about entities in which very large groups of humans are involved. When he runs his equations of psychohistory on a machine called Prime Radiant, which has been built by his colleague Yugo Amaryl, he is able to predict the brutal historical path that humanity in the galaxy will take in the future. Trantor’s galactic empire is doomed. The central authority in Trantor will collapse. Rogue generals will arise to battle for supremacy. There will be an epic civil war, like none other in the history of the galaxy. Billions of people will die. Trantor, which is home to forty billion people (the elite of the galaxy), will be wiped out. The annihilation of Trantor will lead to the eruption of rebellions by regional barons in several parts of the galaxy. The galaxy will become divided once again.

For his dire predictions Seldon earns the nickname Raven. Centuries later it was discovered the process of decline and fall of Trantor was following the exact pattern that Seldon had predicted. This scenario is from Issac Asimov’s five books of the Foundation series. I think the prediction of the future of human societies is impossible because complex dynamic systems are unpredictable—the events, which might seem minor from a contemporary perspective, can lead to large-scale and completely unexpected consequences in the future. However, Asimov’s Foundation series is entertaining science fiction.

Romans Versus Gauls: The Battle of the Allia

When Hannibal crossed the Alps in 218 BC, the North African and Spanish forces that he brought with him were outnumbered by Gallic soldiers, who were ferocious fighters and sworn enemies of Rome. For seventeen years, as Hannibal continued to pillage the Italian countryside, and fight pitched battles with the Roman troops, many of his North African and Spanish soldiers died. New waves of Gauls kept joining his crusade against Rome and that pushed the proportion of Gauls in his army higher. Thus, Hannibal’s war on Rome can be seen as another chapter in the centuries old feud between the Gauls and the Romans.

The nomadic Gauls or Celts had conquered much of central Europe by the sixth or fifth century BC. After that they started expanding into Northern Italy and there were frequent fights between them and the Romans. One of these Gallic tribes was called Senones—they settled on the Adriatic coast. According to Livy, the tension between the Senones and the Romans flared up when a Roman aristocrat killed a Senone chieftain during a local dispute. The Senones asked the Romans to surrender the aristocrat who had killed their chieftain. When the Romans refused, the Senones and their Gallic allies declared war on Rome.

The battle between the Gauls and the Romans was fought in 387 BC at the confluence of the Tiber and Allia rivers, Plutarch writes that the Romans were not outnumbered in the battle. Both sides had approximately 40,000 soldiers. Plutarch notes that most Romans were untrained and did not have the experience of using weapons in war.

Livy does not talk about the size of the belligerent forces but he provides lots of information on the social conditions and the actual battle. He writes that the Gauls marched to Rome so quickly that "Rome was thunderstruck by the swiftness at which they moved.” Livy stresses the difference between the Gauls and the Romans. He calls the Gauls: “outlandish warriors who fight naked and are armed with strange weapons,” “strange enemy from the ends of the earth,” “enemies who utter cries like the howling of wolves and barbaric songs,” “the infernal giants.” The Gauls were probably larger and stronger than the Romans.

Concerned about being outflanked by the Gallic army, the commanders on the Roman side created a battle formation that was a thin line extending on both sides, and they stationed a bulk of their troops on top of a nearby hill. When the Senones chieftain saw the Roman reserves on the hill, he thought that they would attack his forces from the rear. Instead of targeting the Roman line in the plains, he led his Gallic troops up the hill to attack the Romans stationed there. After capturing the hill, the Gauls descended on the Roman line. 

The Roman army panicked; their formation was shattered at the first impact of the Gauls. The surviving members of the Roman left wing jumped into the Tiber. Weighted down by their armor, many drowned. Those who made it to the other side of the river, escaped to the town of Veii, which the Romans had conquered from the Etruscans in 396 BC.

Another group of Roman soldiers fled to Rome and they made a last stand on the Capitoline Hill, where the women, elderly, and children of Rome had locked themselves in the Citadel. The Gauls marched into Rome unopposed—they were surprised by their easy victory. They sacked the city and besieged the Capitoline Hill. When one group of Gauls tried to rush up the hill, the Romans charged back with ferocity and inflicted heavy casualties on the enemy. The Gauls realized that the Capitoline Hill could not be easily captured. They settled down for a prolonged siege. The area was full of dead bodies which the Gauls had not buried, and an epidemic broke out. Many Gallic soldiers died of disease.

The situation in the Roman camp at the Capitoline Hill was desperate. They entered into negotiation with the Gauls. It was agreed that the Gauls would leave Rome after a payment of one thousand pounds of gold. But the Romans discovered that the weight that the Gauls were using was heavier than the standard weight. When they complained, according to tradition, the Chief of the Senones threw his sword and belt on the scales and shouted, “Vae victis!" ("woe to the conquered”). Now the Romans needed to bring more gold, since they needed to counterbalance the Senones Chief’s sword and belt. 

Meanwhile, Marcus Furius Camillus, Roman statesman, had managed to regroup the Roman forces in Veii. He arrived at the area where the gold was being weighed, and throwing his own sword on the scales, he said, “Non auro, sed ferro, recuperanda est patria" ("not with gold, but with iron, will the fatherland be regained”). The appearance of Camillus and his army brought an end to the shameful transaction that was taking place. A battle broke out between the Romans and the Gauls in the streets of Rome. The forces under Camillus inflicted two defeats on the Gauls—first inside the city, and then outside the city. The Gauls were forced to retreat. Later Camillus was feted as the "second Romulus,” the second founder of Rome. 

The feud between the Romans and the Gauls went on till the time of Caesar and Augustus. Polybius, the Greek historian of the Hellenistic age, has written that the Romans became militarized because of their long struggle against the Gauls.

History Never Ends

"That which does not kill me makes me stronger.” ~ Nietzsche in Twilight of the Idols. 

History proves Nietzsche right. The civilizations which possess the inner strength to withstand great catastrophes—brutal invasions, devastating epidemics, famines, civil wars, and massacres—and adapt to the new conditions often become stronger over a period of time. No civilization can dominate the world forever, because other civilizations, which might be down today, are learning and adapting, they are trying to become stronger, they are trying to develop new strategies for capturing the territory and wealth of their rivals. 

Victory is not permanent. The side that has lost in the past might regain its strength and return to the battlefield to settle old scores and make new conquests. History never ends.

Forged by Fire: How Western Civilization Rose from the Horsemen of the Apocalypse

Western civilization was not born in peace but forged in chaos—by the horsemen of the apocalypse. Goths, Huns, Vikings, Crusaders, Mongols, and the plague known as the Black Death all played their role in shaping the temperament and trajectory of Europe.

The legacy of nomadic invasions and failed crusades left a deep psychological imprint on the European mind. The experience of devastation, humiliation, and repeated military failure did not humble Europe—it hardened it. From the ashes of these defeats emerged a civilization with a growing appetite for conquest, massacre, plunder, and empire-building. The trauma of losing the Crusades did not lead to introspection; it ignited a thirst for revenge and a determination to dominate.

The Black Death, which wiped out between 30% to 60% of Europe's population in the 14th century, was another brutal turning point. The old political and feudal order crumbled under the weight of demographic catastrophe. In its place rose a new class—ambitious, ruthless, and unburdened by the moral codes of the past. These were the spiritual heirs of the very barbarians who once terrorized Europe: the Goths, the Huns, the Vikings, and the Mongols. They did not merely remember these figures with dread—they imitated their methods and sought to turn Europe's former suffering into a blueprint for global domination.

Contrary to romanticized narratives, the philosophical traditions of Ancient Greece played a limited role in the Age of Imperialism. Imperialism was not rooted in the rationalism of Plato or the ethics of Aristotle. It was a raw, militaristic, and vengeful endeavor—a project of domination driven less by ideas than by instincts.

To build a mountain, one does not rely on stable geology but on cataclysmic eruptions. Likewise, to forge a world-conquering civilization, it is not contemplative philosophy that is decisive, but the violent disruptions of history—the horsemen of the apocalypse.

The Romans, the Visigoths, the Huns

From the second century AD, the Goths were regarded as Europe’s most ferocious warriors. In the fourth century AD, a nomadic tribe appeared that was ferocious on a new level: the Huns. The Huns arrived on the Volga in 370 AD, and they started raiding the territory dominated by the Goths and other Germanic tribes that were living outside the borders of the Roman Empire. In 376 AD, they defeated the Goths. Ermanaric, King of the Goths, was devastated by the defeat and committed suicide. The Romans were shocked by the speed and brutality with which the Huns had slaughtered the Goths, who were Rome’s allies.

By 430 AD, the Huns were in control of a significant part of Central Europe. In 434 AD, they rallied around their charismatic leader, Attila the Hun. Attila and his brother Belda had ascended the throne jointly. They shared power and jointly led the expeditions. They were not just raiding the European cities but capturing a number of them. In 444 AD, Attila killed his brother and became the sole ruler of the Huns. By 445 AD, he had reached the height of his power. The Latin chroniclers have described Attila as Flagellum Dei (the Whip of God).

In 450 AD, Attila received a ring from Empress Justa Grata Honoria, elder half-sister of Roman Emperor (of the Western Roman Empire), Valentinian III. She resented her brother and felt that she would be a better Empress of Rome. Valentinian III tried to subdue his sister’s imperial ambitions by marrying her off to an old senator called Bassus Herculanus. Faced with an unwanted marriage, she sent Attila her plea for help and her ring. Attila took her ring as a marriage proposal. He dispatched a message to Emperor Valentinian that he would marry Honoria and that he would take Gaul and Spain as his bride’s dowry.

Valentinian did not have the power to hand over Gaul and Spain to Attila. He was furious at his sister for getting the royal family involved with Attila. He wanted to execute her. But due to the influence of his mother Galla Placidia, he exiled Honoria to a monastery in Constantinople. He wrote to Attila that his sister’s marriage proposal was not legitimate.

When Attila learned that Valentinian had refused his proposal and exiled Honoria, he declared war on Rome. In 451 AD, he marched towards Rome with an army of 50,000 to 100,000 soldiers, including a large number of mounted horsemen. The Hun army swept Western Europe like a swarm of locusts (this is how the Latin chronicles describe the Huns) destroying the cities that they passed. Strasbourg, Worms, Mainz, Cologne, and others were sacked by the Huns. Paris was the only city that the Huns spared.

The Roman General Flavius Aetius, who is often called “the last of the Romans,” raised a Roman army, which consisted of a number of Gauls, Visigoths, and other Gothic tribes. Flavius’s army met Attila’s Hun army on 20 June, 451 AD, in the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains.

Attila divided his forces into three parts—the strongest component, the Hun cavalry, was in the center, and the weaker allied groups were stationed at the flanks. Flavius kept his weakest forces in the center and stationed his strongest forces at the flanks—the Visigoths were stationed on the right, and the Romans and the Franks on the left. 

The Hun cavalry at the center of Attila’s formation attacked first. They charged deep into the center of the Roman formation and scattered it. It appeared as if the Roman army had been ripped into two. But the Huns had done exactly what Flavius had expected (and wanted) them to do. The Visigoths plowed into the right flank of the Hun army, while the Romans and Franks attacked from the left. The estimates of the dead vary between 165,000 to 300,000. Neither side conceded the battle. But Attila was forced to withdraw.

A year later, in 452 AD, he attacked Italy with another large Hun army. It was during this invasion that Pope Leo I met Attila and convinced him to withdraw. For reasons that are unclear, Attila heeded the Pope’s words and he retreated with his army.

Decline of the West: Rise of the Nomads

History tells us that in the contests between nomadic people and sedentary civilizations, the nomadic people generally prevail. The rise of the electronic industry, software industry, and the Internet has transformed the character of the Western nations—they are now a very sedentary civilization. 

There has never been a civilization as sedentary as today’s Western nations. In the last two years, they have taken their sedentariness to a new level—in the name of saving themselves from a pandemic, they have locked down a vast section of their economy and culture. They prefer to work from the “safety” of their home or office (indoors). They think that “staying indoors means staying safe”—but this notion is not true. The nations in which people stay indoors (and within the borders of their nation) get conquered by aggressive and adventurous nomads.  

The sedentary people are incapable of defending their nation. They are incapable of taking offensive action against their nation’s enemies. They are incapable of innovating and taking advantage of new geopolitical and technological opportunities. They often get mired in highly destructive civil wars. In a few years most of these sedentary Western nations will be captured by the people who are of the nomadic mindset.

Parthians and the Fall of Seleucid Hegemony: How Rome Unwittingly Enabled Its Eastern Rival

The Battle of Magnesia in 190 BCE was a decisive moment in the collapse of the Seleucid Empire. Fought between the forces of the Roman Republic and the Seleucid King Antiochus III, the Roman victory not only marked the end of Seleucid dominance in Asia Minor but also created a geopolitical vacuum in the East. Inadvertently, Rome paved the way for the rise of a formidable new power: the Parthians.

The Seleucid Empire, established in 312 BCE by Seleucus I Nicator—one of Alexander the Great’s generals—had governed a vast territory stretching from the Aegean to Central Asia. However, in the decades leading up to Magnesia, the empire had already begun to fragment. Between 247 and 190 BCE, the Parthians, originally a nomadic offshoot of the Scythian peoples, were functioning as semi-autonomous vassals within the Seleucid realm, governing its easternmost provinces.

With the Seleucid defeat at the hands of Rome and the subsequent disintegration of centralized authority, the Parthians seized the opportunity to assert their independence. What followed was a transformation of their identity—from frontier governors to sovereign monarchs. Under leaders such as Arsaces and later Mithradates I, the Parthians began expanding westward, establishing their own empire atop the eastern ruins of the Seleucid realm.

The conquests of Mithradates I were particularly significant. In 140 BCE, he decisively defeated and captured Demetrius II, the Seleucid king, and went on to subdue the Hellenistic rulers of Bactria. This consolidated Parthian control over Mesopotamia and parts of Persia, including the famed city of Babylon, which was then among the wealthiest and most cosmopolitan urban centers of the ancient world. That a confederation of steppe horsemen could claim such a jewel of civilization was emblematic of the tectonic shifts underway in the balance of regional power.

As the Parthians expanded westward, their influence increasingly brought them into proximity with Rome’s eastern frontier. The turning point came in 69 BCE, when the Roman general Lucius Licinius Lucullus defeated King Tigranes the Great of Armenia—a powerful ally of the Parthians—at the Battle of Tigranocerta. This victory not only established Roman military presence in the Middle East but also brought Roman forces to the banks of the Euphrates, placing them in direct confrontation with Parthian ambitions.

Plutarch, in his Life of Lucullus, recounts that the battle was fought on October 6 near the Batman-Su river, a tributary of the Tigris. Roman soldiers, recalling the disastrous Battle of Arausio that had occurred on the same date in 105 BCE, pleaded with Lucullus to postpone the engagement. He refused, famously declaring: “Verily, I will make this day, too, a lucky one for the Romans.” 

Using a bold flanking maneuver, Lucullus personally led a detachment that forded the river downstream and attacked the Armenian forces from the rear. The heavily armored Armenian cavalry (cataphracts), unable to maneuver effectively, collapsed into disarray when caught between Roman forces attacking from two sides. The victory was swift and decisive; Tigranes fled the battlefield, and Armenia’s military dominance in the region was broken.

With Armenia defeated, a clash between Rome and Parthia became inevitable. In 53 BCE, the Roman general and statesman Marcus Licinius Crassus—motivated by personal ambition and eager to emulate the military exploits of his rivals Pompey and Caesar—launched an ill-fated campaign into Parthian territory. According to Ovid and Plutarch, the pivotal engagement occurred near Carrhae (modern-day Harran in Turkey) on June 9. The Parthian commander Surena, leading a force of only 10,000 cavalry against Crassus’s 50,000-strong army, deployed superior tactics and mobility to devastating effect.

The Roman legions, trained for frontal engagements and reliant on infantry formations, were unable to counter the swift, archery-focused assaults of the Parthian horsemen. In a critical moment, Surena's forces isolated and annihilated a Roman contingent led by Crassus’s son, Publius. His severed head was paraded before the Roman line, shattering morale. Crassus, devastated and cornered, was compelled by mutinous troops to attend a peace parley proposed by Surena. The summit proved a trap: in the skirmish that ensued, Crassus and his senior officers were killed, many legionaries were massacred, and the remainder taken prisoner. In a symbolic act of derision, the Parthians poured molten gold down Crassus’s throat, mocking his reputed obsession with wealth.

The defeat at Carrhae was one of the worst military disasters in Roman history. Rome’s pride was wounded, and the desire for retribution simmered for decades. However, with the rise of Augustus in 27 BCE, Roman policy toward Parthia shifted from aggression to diplomacy. Augustus eschewed costly eastern wars in favor of strategic negotiation. He succeeded in securing the return of Roman prisoners and military standards lost at Carrhae—a symbolic restoration of Roman honor without direct military confrontation.

In retrospect, the fall of the Seleucid Empire, accelerated by Roman intervention, did not lead to unchallenged Roman dominance in the East. Instead, it inadvertently facilitated the emergence of a new geopolitical equilibrium. The Parthians—heirs of the steppes and the Scythians—became the eastern counterweight to Roman power for centuries, defining the contours of West Asian geopolitics until their own eclipse by the Sassanids in the third century CE. The saga of Rome and Parthia remains a compelling study in unintended consequences, imperial ambition, and the enduring resilience of nomadic power.