General comments:
Alexander conquered an already falling apart Persian Empire that had already been soundly defeated by the Greeks at Marathon and Salamis. Alexander had a better army with the phalanx, and his troops were well trained, while the Persian troops were hastily gathered soldiers raised by hiring them for money on the spot–- eg. levies.
Caesar on the other hand, fought against huge Gallic and German peoples who had never been conquered by the Romans. The people of Gaul were brave and brutal. At the battle of Alesia against Vercingetorix, Caesar, while besieging the Gallic leader, was surrounded by a huge Gallic army, which some accounts place at as large as 180,000-200,000 men. Caesar, with his force of 30,000, fought off both the surrounding army and the large force that he was besieging. In a great battle, Caesar annihilated the surrounding force and sacked Alesia, ending the war. Although against the Gauls he had superior troops with the legionaries, in the Roman Civil War he completely annihilated a Roman force which outnumbered him three to one and was led by Pompey the Great, one of Romes greatest generals. This shows that Caesar was greater than Alexander.
“the whole campaign resulted in 800 conquered cities, 300 subdued tribes, one million men sold to slavery and another three million dead in battle fields. Ancient historians notoriously exaggerated numbers of this kind, but Caesar’s conquest of Gaul was certainly the greatest military invasion since the campaigns of Alexander the Great. The victory was also far more lasting than those of Alexander’s” —quoted from internet site.
Battle of Pharsalus: Pompey vastly outnumbered Caesar with some 45,000 infantry and 7,000 cavalry to Caesar’s 22,000 and 1,000 respectively.Ceasar won.
Siege of Alesia: Romans were outnumbered as many as 6 to 1. Ceasar won
on the other hand Alexanders great ideas that be brought to the mix: the phalanx and the concept of Seige. But in both cases those wre allready in use from the contributions of others.
facts:
1)The tactic of the phalanx is sometimes credited to Alexander but It was Alexander’s father, Phillip, who developed that tactic of a phalanx.
- Secondly, the concept of a seige had been used for centuries, such as in the Assyrian Empire, where they have found remains of siege weapons and accounts of prolonged sieges.
Conclusion: The Romans were constantly upgrading their legionaries until the late western empire. They kept adding new tactics and new training to keep them up to date. The greeks, on the other hand, rarely upgraded the phalanx, and it remained largely unchanged hundreds of years after its invention. So Alexander didnt “add” anything to strategy in this respect. Secondly, Ceaser was perhaps the greatest strategist in the tactic of seige as evidenced by Alesia. again the master of this tactic goes to Ceasar.
Also, you have to Remember the armies of Caesars time were a lot bigger than in Alexander’s time, so they were more difficult to manage. This is a credit to ceaser and its also a credit to Napoleon.Alexander worked with comparatively smaller forces so it was an easier project to manage.
An other difference between Ceasar and Alexander was also bound in temperament, and that was that Alexander acted mainly on impulse, as whole his nature and personality was impulsive, while Ceasar on the other hand planned everything he did like a perfectionist.
