Most Influential Historical Leader

[Klingan]

Wow this was bumped, anyway, the problem with all those who's influential, who's the most important threads are that all the people listed build on each others achievements. Of all the Romans listed none of them would have have been influential at all without Scipio who's also listed. Therefor should Scipio be the most influential by logic. Now I guess that you all see whats wrong with it... Potentially you could have a bloody dinosaur on the top of the chain.

 

Anyway I was curious on the other votes so I threw mine on Constantine the Great. Christianity had a slight leap forward with him so to speak.

[Antiochus III]

Exactly. Thats why I voted for Scipio.

 

Antiochus III

[Segestan]

Julius Caesar

 

For his role as leader, stateman and general he was the most influencial person in world history. By his crossing the Rubicon he set the stage for the worlds greatest empire , the Roman Empire and in doing so helped Roman ideas of law and order influence all following ages of law. Rome was the seat of Republican ideas , Athens the seat of Democratic.

The second most important person would therefore be the first consul of the new Roman constitution and Republic : Lucius Junius Brutus. The worlds first genuine Republican leader and representative of moral law and order.

[Tiberius Gracchus]

A lot of people here seem to get caught up on the idea that as past events effect current ones, if people in the past hadn't done what they'd done then people later would never have had the opportunity to do what they did. While that is a fair point, I do think this is a somewhat pedantic and unimaginative approach to take to the idea. I personally use 2 categories to resolve this kind of issue 1. I look for a fulcrum individual, someone who very clearly marks a radical alteration in the way history is progressing. 2. Uniqueness, a somewhat harder to substantiate idea, not that the 1st is easy. In this I try and evaluate how likely it is that other people would have done what the individual in question would have done, or something similar to what they did if the individual in question never existed.

 

Whilst saying all that, I still have to pick two people, one from the ancient world and one from the modern. I do this because the person from the ancient world has less overt impact on the modern world but set the direction in ancient times that helped us come in this direction. While the modern leader has had a greater impact on modern times and has shaped the world we live in a very direct and a slightly more easily quantifiable manner. My candidate from the ancient world is Julius Caesar and from the modern world Adolph Hitler.

 

I picked Julius Caesar both for what he did in his life and for what followed after his assassination. The split of the Roman world between Anthony and Octavian was directly attributable to Caesar and the system Octavian created was the kind of system that Caesar had laid out. Octavian differed more in his approach than his objectives to Caesar but his actions are directly attributable to Caesars

[Antiochus III]

Well, there really is so much that these people have changed and ideas that changed as a result of them that it is difficult to compare them. Hitler, however, did influence our modern world and ideas and governments that exist. However, Mussolini is being over looked, since he had some influence on what ideas Hitler helped spread. Pretty much any idea about these leaders can be justified.

 

Antiochus III

[Antiochus III]

Sorry, accidentally reposted.

 

Antiochus III

 

P.S. Why isn't Suleyman the Lawgiver on these lists? He definitely had influence on the Muslim world.

Edited January 16, 2008 by Antiochus III

[Antiochus III]

Mmmm what about Benito Mussolini?

 

Are you kidding me? That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard.

 

Antiochus

[Adelais Valerius]

I picked Adolph Hitler because I think more than most historical leaders he fits my 2nd category very well. In that if you removed him from history I really don

Edited March 22, 2008 by mikeal1917

[Antiochus III]

You really don't have to be "good" to be influential. I think you're making some decisions based on the good they made for humans. Influence can be good OR bad. Hitler definitely is hugely influential despite the atrocities committed by his government. People that caused much change for bad or good are influential. However, you act like Augustus was very great and "progressed" mankind, and was a good man. Do you really believe that? I also would like to bring up the fact the good and evil is just something that we recently came up with in the greater scheme of things.

 

Antiochus III

[Adelais Valerius]

I also would like to bring up the fact the good and evil is just something that we recently came up with in the greater scheme of things.

 

Antiochus III

 

i agree with this. The actions that the Romans took to create such an empire they had would be similar to the genocides in Darfur and things like that. Society has changed greatly since the times of most if not all of these people.

 

as for the actual good and bad argument, i believe that since yes, we as a society has changed, we can't help but pepper in some morality into the equation on who was the most influential. We base our judgement on great leaders nowadays by how they helped there people, not how they killed this many people or how good there propaganda worked on brainwashing people into commiting genocide, it just isnt in our nature anymore. of course those were great achievements, but i can't help but think they were great achievements for the WRONG reasons, and therefore i can't put those people higher than people that did great things for the RIGHT(morallly, from my pov) reasons