Favorite Historical figure?

This belongs in the monestary but i'm a new member so i'm here. nonetheless for everyone not just the historians

me...
Julian the apostate
financial mastermind, philosopher, returned the empire to paganism or tried, military genius, religious freedom, reformer
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_the_Apostate
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Julian.jpg

almost restored the empire. Restored the german frontier. Almost took the persian capital before dying from some sources to a christian within his own ranks ~:mecry:

Well I will have to go with a plain old Scipio Africanus... victor of 2nd Punic War.

Stefan Dusan, our emperor (serbian emperor).

Alfred the Great

:bow:

Winston Churchill. Not rated the greatest Britain ever for nothing :)

Saint Vartan. Die-hard Christian, lead an Armenian rebellion against the Persians after they essentially said covert to Zoarastrianism (sp?) or die. He chose to fight and made a stand with 6,000 men against the whole Persian army in which the Persians lost tens of thousands. He was killed in battle later.

fascinating never heard of vartan, checked wikipedia, apparently a good of the well known byzantines and some other monarchs were decended from:2thumbsup:

Robert E. Lee. A man of God and a man of conscience.

Nerva (Roman Emperor 96-98)

• He organised low interest loans for poor farmers.
• He used the interest as support for orphans and poor children.
• He listened to the senate.
• He invented the "Augustus - Ceasar" system

Shame he's not famous. Wonder why? It could have something to do with the fact that he was not evil or corrupt.

Erwin Rommel. Though he was a member of the nazi-party, i have to say that he was one of this worlds greatest tactits.

Favorite and favorite...Most historical figures were .... from modern perspectives.
Charles XII, Frederick of Prussia, Karl the great, Edward I ("Longshanks"), Ottavio Piccolomini, Albrecht von Wallenstein, Madog ap Llywelyn, Owain Glyndwr, Belisarius, Alexander Nevki(j?), Oliver Cromwell and Béla IV top my list though.

Alexander the Great, Hitler.

awesome so many people i'd never heard of

to add 3 more
Lord arthur wellington. old nosey. from assaye to waterloo, a brilliant man who didn't quite care about his men but kept them alive for his own sake

Flavius Stilicho - roman general, revolutionized roman cavalry held off alaric, reduced the court size

Flavius Aëtius - another roman, brilliant man and politic, spent years with the huns, renewed the empire, held off attila and the horde at chalon

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Originally Posted by Craterus

Alexander the Great, Hitler.

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HITLER? Men who killed 10 000 000 people. :dizzy2: :thumbsdown:

Rommel, FDR:iloveyou:

be nice people, not condoneing hitler he was a cruel and insane bastard but he was charasmatic, vicious and a brilliant political speaker. not that that makes it better

technically stalin was worse, but all in the name of progress history forgets the crimes of the victors and their allies

Robert E. Lee.

Timur.
He, on one paticular siege, ordered his men that numbered 10,000 to give him a severed head of a townsperson or be killed. Some soldiers even paid others to decapitate the people for them so that they would not have to. He was very mean, but a brilliant tactician, a mastermind in the art of war, and led his empire to a massive size. But he died of drinking too much ice water. Haha!! Stupid.

Hannibal Barca "We will find a way, or make one" Arguably the greatest commander(ref: Cannae, Trebia, Trasimene) that has ever lived, he failed in his war against Rome(2nd Punic war), but what a glorious faliure it was.

King Leonidas of Sparta, leader of the 300 at Thermopylae.

Winston Churchill "We shall fight them on the beaches..." The greatest Briton.

Alexander the Great, Hannibal Barca, Ghandi, Sir Francis Drake, ol' Ben Franklin, Caligula (for his dementedness), and Bill Gates for making the computer cool~:cool:

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Originally Posted by Julian the apostate

This belongs in the monestary but i'm a new member so i'm here. nonetheless for everyone not just the historians

me...
Julian the apostate
financial mastermind, philosopher, returned the empire to paganism or tried, military genius, religious freedom, reformer
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_the_Apostate
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Julian.jpg

almost restored the empire. Restored the german frontier. Almost took the persian capital before dying from some sources to a christian within his own ranks ~:mecry:

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I'm not exactly sure how accurate the account was, but I must admit that I myself find the character of Julian the Apostate to be of great interest, and one of the most overlooked emperors of the late Roman era. He seems as if to live on the same dream I often evoked as a dreamy child: attempting to revive dying empires with a breath of personal conviction and a life of glory.

Of course, one can never be sure he will be as great as it might seem at first glance.

It's as if he got the same treatment as "Brokeback Mountain," a one-liner slap-and-forget description: for him, "Tried to reverse Christianity, died early;" for the movie in comparison, "Gay cowboys."

However, I think I could blame history for that. It's often very cruel to those who lost.

:creep:

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Originally Posted by dragomix

Are you have brain tumor or something. HITLER? Men who killed 10 000 000 people.

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It might be sarcasm or it might not, but fascination in a character so morbidly extreme is actually pretty common and in no way automatically dictates that it is the same as admiration.

would make a good movie:beam: :balloon2: the church would love it, :balloon2:

sry bout the accuracy i remember most of it from a project long ago:oops:
he changed a lot of the tax system i remembered and going after the size of the courts is a financial matter on its own.
his attempt to bring the empire back to paganism can be seen as an attempt at religious freedom and he tried to rebuild the temple at jeruselem. earthquakes and disaster (gave the christians a great symbol)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Strasbourg
strasbourg was a brilliant victory even though most likely due to his simple presence on the field and how much he had improved the training of his men
uphill outnumbered with exhausted troops he re ran the almans into the rhine
plus a philosopher something to love in a man in power
and of course nothing better than an orphan rising to power lol ahh
hope that clears up a little bit of it sry

Oh yeah Hitler's up there too. :yes:

Peter the great for bringing Russia out of the middle ages with sheer will power, when almost everyone was against (In and out of Russia).

Lee is also one my favorites. Somehow he managed to keep the confederacy in the fight years after they should have lost.

Julian the apostate: I've studied that much of him, of course, but the records are pretty short and aren't exactly detailed. He reminds me strongly of Germanicus: died too young to judge their true potential.

One of the reasons I'm quite fascinated by him is because of his background: it is very, very rare that Rome has a "philosopher king" on its throne (Julian was the second and the only second, I believe), and if Marcus Aurelius is indicative of his kind then they would be the stuff legends are made of. The pattern of Julian's actions in his short reign also shows something of an attempt to emulate the legendary Emperor.

Of course, believing that most Roman emperors can even come close to Marcus Aurelius' achievements...

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Originally Posted by Julian the apostate

be nice people, not condoneing hitler he was a cruel and insane bastard but he was charasmatic, vicious and a brilliant political speaker. not that that makes it better

technically stalin was worse, but all in the name of progress history forgets the crimes of the victors and their allies

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Stalin was bad, but not worse than Hitler. He was cruel, but he did not wanted to get rid of nations like hitler, or forcing humans to starwe to death and putting them to camps like Ausvic, killing them in gas chambers... So lets not make Hitler favorite historical character.

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Originally Posted by Craterus

Hitler.

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WTH????~:confused: ~:pissed:

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Originally Posted by dragomix

Stalin was bad, but not worse than Hitler. He was cruel, but he did not wanted to get rid of nations like hitler, or forcing humans to starwe to death and putting them to camps like Ausvic, killing them in gas chambers... So lets not make Hitler favorite historical character.

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Your forgetting that it is likely that Stalin killed more people in Siberia than Hitler did in his camps.

IIRC the facts are something to the order of:

Hitler: 6 million
Stalin: 15 million

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Originally Posted by Rythmic

Your forgetting that it is likely that Stalin killed more people in Siberia than Hitler did in his camps.

IIRC the facts are something to the order of:

Hitler: 6 million
Stalin: 15 million

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This is what happens when bad is compared to evil???? I don´t know...both were SOBs-big time. IMO both disqualified....

BTW: Ibn Battuta 4ever!!!!

i believe the death toll from stalin was easily worse then hitler and his own people :book:
his supposed agricultural reforms and movements to siberia devestated the population. both men purged their military. stalin had rivals killed incompetents killed
Soviet records are shit but nonetheless the death toll is atleast 3 million in camps and from excecutions. however another ten million at the least died in the repressions, purges and famines of soviet russia. some of these can be attributed to the harshness of Russia but not all.
both had horredously cruel secret police Nkvd and gestapo
and mabye this is a bit brutal stalins crimes are alos those of a scientific nature, refusing to be wrong he killed scientists who disagreed with him. what the party taught on fertilizers and agriculture was the countries right or wrong. unfortunately it was the scientific wrong.
while this doesn't make him worse the simple fact that stalins massacres are glossed over possibly because of russias stance in world war two is sad. both were criminals, sociopaths, and brutally competative killers. looking at it right now i guess u can't say one was worse as that each killed for different reasons


Gulags? definately camps just located in beautiful siberia.
don't mean to be argumentative, and your right on hitler as attempting to destroy the eastern european jes (word for it, Ashkenazi Jews i think thats it) so i'm not sure.
:shrug: not sure. please post if i'm wrong or anything (don't mean to change the subject of the thread but i'd like to get a better picture of the time)