Timur (1336 – 1405): Marlowe's merciless military genius impressed Elizabethans through the acting of Edward Alleyn.

Though lame (hence Timur the lame, or Tamburlaine) Timur ruled over an empire that, in modern terms, extended from southeastern Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Kuwait and Iran, through Central Asia encompassing part of Kazakhstan, Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, North-Western India, and even approaches Kashgar in China. Timur's campaigns sometimes caused large and permanent demographic changes, northern Iraq remained predominantly Assyrian Christian until attacked, looted, plundered and destroyed by Timur leaving its population decimated by systematic mass slaughter. All churches were destroyed and any survivors forcefully converted to Islam by the sword. Such ruthlessness characterized his many campaigns. Marlowe's high rhetoric matched the physical scale of these conquests. Statue of Timur in his birthplace of Shahrisabz, Uzbekistan. Picture and some data courtesy of the Yorck Project, under Creative Commons Attribution-Share- Alike License (Wikipedia).