The Good, the Bad and the Unready (26 page)

Akbar surely ranks alongside his contemporary Suleiman the
MAGNIFICENT
for the good he achieved. His creation of a new religion, however, in which he was God, and a new calendar which began on the date of his accession, suggest that his estimation of his own self-worth may have been somewhat exaggerated.

 
Albert the
Great

Albertus Magnus, German nobleman, c.1200-1280

Albertus, a Dominican bishop and philosopher, is perhaps best known as the teacher of St Thomas Aquinas. His writings on philosophy and theology may have been cutting edge, but it was in his writing on the natural sciences that he exercised his greatest influence and earned himself the nickname ‘the Great’. He was a modest man, and his soubriquet, given to him while he was still very much alive, must have been something of an embarrassment.

His
Book of Marvels
makes interesting reading. In its pages one can find the necessary ingredients for various potions. If you want to make someone believe that their bed is full of lice, for instance, you will need a quantity of winter cherry and some hawk feathers; to make women dance for joy, the blood of a gannet, a hare and a turtle dove are crucial; and if your intention is to make a man fart ceaselessly, an essential ingredient is snail’s blood.

Albert may have been great in mind, but was not so in stature. In some circles he was also known as ‘le Petit Albert’ because he was so short, and once, when he was paying his respects to the pope, the pontiff thought he was still kneeling when in fact he was standing up.

Alexander the
Great

Alexander III, king of Macedonia, 356–323 BC

When he was only twelve Alexander tamed a horse called Bucephalus, an animal so wild that no other person could approach let alone ride it. For the remainder of his short life, stories of his mastery over the rebellious and recalcitrant abound.

Educated by Aristotle, Alexander became king of Macedonia aged twenty. One of his first acts was to suppress a revolution in the city of Thebes whose people thought, erroneously, that he was dead. Alexander sacked the city, selling 30,000 inhabitants
into slavery and sparing only the temples and the house of the poet Pindar. Then, in 334, his conquest of Persia began in earnest.

Alexander crossed the Hellespont and within a year had taken most of Asia Minor. From there he moved to the mountain town of Gordium where, according to legend, he ‘untied’ the intricate Gordian knot by slicing through it with his sword. Over the next couple of years he subdued Syria, routing the forces of the Persian king Darius III along the way, and founded the city of Alexandria in Egypt. His travels then took him back through Syria across much of Mesopotamia and into Babylon, which he made his capital.

Thereafter nations and their peoples capitulated to him without much of a fight. Even cities like Susa and Persepolis, hoarding vast amounts of silver and gold, surrendered relatively quickly. Soon Alexander was marching on to the Caspian Sea, and then crossing eastwards into modern-day Afghanistan and Pakistan. At this point his men declared they would travel no further, and Alexander was forced to return to Susa. In 323, aged only thirty-three, he caught a fever and died.

In his brief lifetime Alexander rampaged through the Persian Empire and opened it up to the West. Some, however, have seen his conquests, for which he earned the title ‘Macedonia’s Madman’, as well as ‘the Great’, as little more than swashbuckling acts of robbery, since he merely ransacked great cities and failed to replace them with anything of value.

It appears that Alexander considered his own achievements not only as outstanding but also as surpassing those of any other mortal. He proclaimed himself a god, and began wearing two rams’ horns attached to a band around his head, so that they appeared to be growing out of his blond hair just above his ears. Some Greek and African states did indeed confer divine status upon him, calling him ‘Zeus-Ammon’ or ‘the Two-Horned’. Alexander certainly had one mortal failing, however, namely an unhealthy love of wine, and while he was no alcoholic, as some have portrayed him, he did occasionally drink himself into a stupor.

Without doubt, Alexander was one of the greatest generals of
all time. Countless histories record how he brought Greek ideas, customs and laws to the Middle East and Asia. Fans of rock music, meanwhile, have the additional pleasure of listening to ‘Alexander the Great’ by the heavy metal band Iron Maiden, which outlines his greatest achievements.

Alfred the
Great

Alfred, king of Wessex, 849–99

Our perception of the greatness of Alfred may be coloured by the story of his accidental burning of a peasant woman’s cakes. The briefest of objective analyses, however, shows that, culinary abilities aside, Alfred was a truly notable monarch. In fact, he is the only English king to have been distinguished with the nickname ‘the Great’, and his reign was one of the most decisive in his nation’s history.

He was the most effective opponent of the Vikings since Charles the
GREAT
, protecting his kingdom with a network of forts, a newly established navy and a standing army. He augmented these military developments with a revival of interest in religion and learning, the king himself contributing a substantial body of prose literature. Such achievements become all the more impressive when one learns of Alfred’s chronic physical infirmity, diagnosed by some scholars as Crohn’s disease, an intermittent condition characterized by abdominal pains, fever and wasting. In Wantage, the town of his birth, a life-size statue bears a plaque summing up his more public successes:

 
Anthony the
Great
see
Anthony the
GREAT BASTARD

Casimir the
Great

Casimir III, king of Poland, 1310–70

In 1869 an overzealous workman digging in the crypt of Cracow Cathedral accidentally sliced open the tomb of Poland’s medieval king Casimir III. The attendance of tens of thousands of well-wishers at his re-interment suggests that Casimir was held in the highest esteem by the Polish people. Such adulation appears well placed: while being ruled by ‘Kasimierz Wielki’, or ‘Casimir the Great’, medieval Poland reached the pinnacle of her power and prosperity.

Casimir’s achievements beyond his nation’s borders were impressive: he significantly advanced its frontiers in the east and cleverly sued for peace with Bohemia. But it was his domestic dealings that won him the most acclaim. Recalling the ideal of Louis the
SAINT
, he ruled his country under the motto of ‘One king, one law, one currency’ and, through his administrative and fiscal reforms and encouragement of the arts, he cemented newly achieved Polish unity and raised his country to a position equal to other states of Europe.

Casimir was a true leader, a fine legislator and an able economist. Hailed as ‘the Peasants’ King’ for his concern for the common people, he was undoubtedly a popular monarch. Three unhappy marriages, however, and a string of mistresses (the most famous being the Jewess Esther, possibly invented by chroniclers to explain his friendliness towards regional Jewry) hint at a private life less great than his public one.

Catherine the
Great

Catherine II, empress of Russia, 1729–96

In a letter to a friend in 1871, Catherine half-jokingly detailed her accomplishments: