Help: Translating Napoleon

[pezhetairoi]

I'm unsure about Napoleon. He was a tyranical megalomaniac with ambitions of ruling Europe and caused the deaths of countless thousands (some estimate over 5 million). An unlikely hero. Not even French.

Mind you, how many other respected people could that description fit?

Agreed, he was megalomaniacal. But he was a great general for a time. And at least when he started out, the intentions for France were good. He did reform things in the period between the Peace of Amiens until and Third Coalition war, and undoubtedly would have done more if war had not broken out (admittedly through his own shoddy and jingoistic mismanagement of the Brits).

And if we want to look at it that way, practically every other 'great man' we know of in history also waded over the blood of innocents, whose smaller number were no doubt a commensurate proportion of the population of the world then. Alexander massacred the Gazans. Julius Caesar practically carried out genocide in Gaul. The Assyrians were famously bloodthirsty, just read their monuments and tally the heads they collected. Genghis Khan, Qin Shihuang, Asoka and Chandragupta, all the same too. Louis XIV made France a Power but damn near bled his country dry at the same time. Peter the Great may have built St Petersburg and made Russia a force to be reckoned with, but at what cost of those who died in the Neva marshes?

This description is not really meant to fit respected people, Horst. It's meant to fit feared people, when it boils down to the bare basics, people with the auctoritas and the gravitas and the wherewithal to compel that their will be obeyed. Respect is just the people's justification for their fear, most of the time, though in some cases what they have accomplished is indeed worthy of respect, if one puts away the human cost.