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Hello Karl:You wrote:'I do believe that Alexander worked in a similar way to Hitler ; keeping power in his own hands by distributing it to more than one with no clear demarcation; encouraging their rivalries.'There is no evidence that he encouraged rivalries between his commanders - only an idiot would do that because the one it impacts is himself worst of all. However it appears he was the only one who could 'control' them well enough to make them work together. As to their quality, they were far more bloodthirsty than their master as their behavior after the King's death would prove. Hitler is not a good comparison with Alexander. 'Lyncestis was dead as soon as he had been forgiven; the story of the Persian messenger is apologia, just as the tale of Philip the physician and Parmenion's letter is propaganda. Alexander waits until he is strong enough to eliminate people to act; he is a clever man. Only after eliminating his best advisor,Parmenion, does he turn tyrranical.'We have no evidence that Parmenion was his best advisor, nor do we have any evidence there was a premeditated plan to eliminate Parmenion. In fact we have a lot of evidence he wasn't. That is a figment of Badian's imagination not supported by the historical record.'His greatest failing is to not be able to curb his temper, nor to be imaginative enough to think of a better way of dealing with many people than killing them. Forget the Unity of Mankind , he was a divide and conquer merchant, and one of the best.'His temper was certainly one of his greatest weaknesses. In the ancient world, it was as Jack London said so well 'Kill or be Killed.' So what do you think Parmenion would have done had Alexander let him live after he rightfully executed his only living son? I might add, Philotas was rightfully executed. As for the unity of mankind, there is ample evidence Alexander wanted this, and just as ample evidence his men did not agree with him. He was before his time, even before our time in this, alas...Regards,Tre

Well, I don't know whether Philotas was "rightfully executed", but that's another discussion for another day.However, Tre, I couldn't agree more with your point that there's no evidence that Alexander encouraged rivalry between his commanders. In fact, if one considers the way that Al dealt with the rivalry between KRateros and Hephaistion, and between Eumenes and Hephaistion, it would seem pretty clear that he was very concerned *not* to have any rivalry.All the bestMarcus(DO you realise this took me an hour to write - my boss came in while I was in the middle of typing. So apologies if it's a bit disjointed!)