Steve Forbes Video

Steve Forbes drags Julius Caesar into the current financial crisis in a video from late June 2009. He compares Caesar's hubris to that of those who led our financial system into disaster.

Hubris is a Greek word which is officially defined as either overbearing pride or presumption or arrogance. The word is used, in the context of our financial crisis, to refer to a group of financial elite, or "masters of the universe" who felt that they could manufacture unlimited speculative profits using almost unlimited leverage, without any significant risk.

I agree with Steve Forbes on this, but his historical knowledge is severely lacking. He states in the video that Caesar conquered more land than any military leader in history, and specifically mentions Alexander the Great. This is clearly not true, as Alexander controlled a larger empire as measured by land mass, than Rome at its largest extent. Look at the links after the video.




This is a map of the Roman Empire at its peak in 117 A.D., which is 150 years after Caesar was killed. Since Alexander has a larger empire than Rome at its largest,then he certainly had a larger one than at the time of Caesar.

This is a map of the land that Alexander conquered.

Wikipedia also has a list of the largest empires in history as measured by land mass. Rome is way down on the list.

List of largest empires.