melkor the first

This is a toughone to call because to be legendary makes for a sense of disbelief or of disproportion in the making of one's history. It is not enough to conquer great stretches of land, I believe the first quality that must go into this must be a worthy opponant and of course the second is actually conquering-thus Hannibal the great General falls a little(?) short here because he failed to conquer his prime opponant-Rome-and not necessarily because of the circumstances apparantly faced only one first rate military mind-Scipio Africanus and lost to him. Since I'm assuming that "good" in this context is not based on moral qualities, then names like Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar would leap to mind. Napoleon and Hitler would in the end seem more like losers because they failed to conquer all-although Napoleon after 1805 almost seemed to have won all but like Hitler later failed to finish Britain and invaded Russia. General Guderian fits the category of a great General, not a great conqueror, the differences are to great to compare- he fought and won for Hitler-Alexander, Caesar and Napoleon fought for themselves. The Duke of Wellington would thus be a better fit in this that Guderian because I believe him to be a superior general than Guderian but he was not a conqueror in the sense of the other three. In the matter ot the opposition one is reminded that the boxer Muhammed Ali is remembered more for his epic fights with Joe Frazier than almost anything else, like Alexander vs Darius or Caesar vs Pompey the Great-epic stuggles (the rope-a-dope against Foreman- is this Wellington vs Napoleon forces in itsuse of defensive mastery?). Napoleon often faced worthy opponants also but its the final battles that always seem to be the defining point-you can look to the battle of Eylau as the turning point in his fortunes despite many later successes. Okay, that's enough of me at this point. Am I on the right track? Best JWC