Alexander the Great

[Leo Caesius]

Leo, would you be interested in doing a no romans timeline?

It's an interesting idea. I have a feeling that the Greeks and the Carthaginians might make up for the lack of Romans - Greek civilization spreading West through southern Italy and the Adriatic, and Punic civilization taking care of Spain, the islands in the western Mediterranean, and Northern Africa. France is a toss-up. Persia and Carthage often ended up on the same side together, so I would imagine that the Persians would eventually seize the Greek homeland in addition to the Phoenician Orient, as well as Egypt and most of the Black Sea region, before stopping at the borders of Carthage.

Right now, I'm working on a timeline where the Romans succeed in seizing North Africa from the Carthaginians in stages (first Africa, then Tripolitania, then Numidia, and finally Mauretania), but the Carthaginian culture survives elsewhere, much as the Phoenician states were overrun and assimilated to the prevailing Hellenistic/Syrian culture in the Near East. Procopius, for example, says that deep in the heart of Africa, on the borders of a nation once allied to Soloman and the Romans, was a land of fair haired and light-skinned people - the sort of legend that gave rise to all of those H. Rider Haggard novels.

 

[Alois]

Has anyone seen "Conquistador" by S. M. Stirling, just published in paperback? Appendix three describes Alexander recovering from his illness and consolidating the lands he had already conquered, instead of moving further East. Because of the dominance of Greece rather than Rome, Britain/western Europe did not advance past the rest of the world technologically and did not go exploring, leaving the entire Western Hemisphere open to exploitation from OTL when an accident opens a crosstime gate.

The spread of Christianity is ignored and there is a hint that Islam does not exist. There is no explanation for this but from a few statements in the Draka novels Mr. Stirling seems to dislike organized religion.

 

[Duncan]

He's got such potential. What could we do with him, if he didn't die so young?
As a romanophile, I ask that you don't have him conquer Rome (he can still try if you want). Please?

OK, my favourite solution, then - I'm sure I've posted this before on the old board. Alex survives his illness in Babylon, and sails to Arabia as planned with his new fleet. He spends a year or two subduing the Arabian coastlands. He then strikes West against Carthage, as detailed in the "Last Plans". The Carthaginians put up an initial resistance, lose a battle or two, and cut their losses. They accept incorporation into Alexander's empire as nominally-independent allies, giving up Sicily. Soon after, Alex is called in to Italy to protect the Italiot Greek cities against renewed attacks by the Lucanians and Samnites - the same tribes who killed his cousin, Alexander of Epeiros. Rome and her Latin allies, recently humiliated by the Samnites at the Caudine Forks, are pleased to join forces with Alexander. The Samnites are defeated and Rome is installed as hegemon of Alexander's Italian League.

By now it's about 310, and Alexander IV is 13. The big man only has to hang on a few more years to get an adult succession. The empire may last a generation or two before collapsing under its own weight.

 

[Abdul Hadi Pasha]

Well, there is really not much reason to think it would have held together. The reason it fell apart was not due to anything the Persians did, or due to the lack of a legitimate heir. Alexander's generals...none of them Persian...simply brushed aside the legitimate heir (and ultimately murdered him) and divided the empire among themselves. The only way Stateira's child...assuming it was male...could have changed that is if he inherited his father's force of personality and was able to build a base of support for himself before Alexander died. This would have been more difficult for him anyway, because he was half Persian (and thus would not have been easily accepted by Greeks or Macedonians).

I disagree. Alexander also made the entire Macedonian ruling class marry Persian women, and given another 20 years they would all have had children; he was also forming Persian military units trained in Macdonian tactics and creating mixed military units. As time passed, non-Macedonian elements would have increased in power and influence, and the presence of a legitimate heir to both thrones would have been a powerful unifying force.

Remember that his only surviving heir in OTL was very young, half Sogdian, and had a particularly nasty and poisonous mother. Alexander's failure to name an heir was also a big problem.

 

[Nonny]

My thread from the previous board if Alexander had struck West
https://www.alternatehistory.com/discus/messages/4/2177.html

 

[Prunesquallor]

As I pointed out on a previous occasion when this topic came up, it all depends on whether Alexander's death was natural or not. There is the old tradition that Antipater (who was governing Greece) and felt himself under threat sent his son Cassander to Babylon with poison which was administered by another son, Iolaus, Alexander's cupbearer. Whether this is how it happened, Peter Green in his biography of Alexander remarks that there is much circumstantial evidence and some direct testimony that the deaths of neither Alexander nor Hephaestion were natural. If this is true, he suggests the most likely culprits were a group of senior commanders increasingly worried about the way things were going. If so, then it's rather futile to discuss what would have happened had Alexander survived his "illness." Either the conspirators would have got him next time or (if he discovered what was going on) he would have tried a massive purge of the army which would have resulted in widespread revolt and the possible collapse of his empire.

 

[Abdul Hadi Pasha]

As I pointed out on a previous occasion when this topic came up, it all depends on whether Alexander's death was natural or not. There is the old tradition that Antipater (who was governing Greece) and felt himself under threat sent his son Cassander to Babylon with poison which was administered by another son, Iolaus, Alexander's cupbearer. Whether this is how it happened, Peter Green in his biography of Alexander remarks that there is much circumstantial evidence and some direct testimony that the deaths of neither Alexander nor Hephaestion were natural. If this is true, he suggests the most likely culprits were a group of senior commanders increasingly worried about the way things were going. If so, then it's rather futile to discuss what would have happened had Alexander survived his "illness." Either the conspirators would have got him next time or (if he discovered what was going on) he would have tried a massive purge of the army which would have resulted in widespread revolt and the possible collapse of his empire.

Hephaestion's death was pretty clearly the result of the incompetence of his doctor, not poison, and I don't see why anyone would poison him in the first place, since he was the only person that could successfully restrain Alexander. As for Alexander himself, we'll never know, but alchoholism can be deadly when you're esxtremely ill.

 

[Prunesquallor]

You can hardly blame his doctor for Hephaestion's death since if it were natural, it was the result of him abandoning the prescribed diet after a week and guzzling a boiled chicken washed down with large amounts of wine. "...I don't see why anyone would poison him in the first place, since he was the only person that could successfully restrain Alexander." The problem is, being a rather stupid and unpleasant person (witness his quarrel with Eumenes), I doubt very much that he would have used his influence in any productive fashion. But if I were moving against Alexander, I suspect I might have removed Hephaestion first. Whatever his faults, he was personally devoted to Alexander and not the sort of person plotters would want hanging around. Yes, we'll never know about Alexander's death. I merely raised it as a possibility. But if it were a natural death, a result of his life style, then sooner or later the same sort of thing would have recurred. Which makes discussion of how Alexander would have behaved had he lived past Babylon rather futile.

 

[Phaeton]

Here is my timeline for an greater Macedonian empire.

*****

325 BCE: Alexander the Great?s armies push into India (in OTL, they mutinied before conquering Magadhas). The Macedonian armies conquer to the upper Ganges Plain and the region where Delhi is in the modern day, before monsoons and rival armies from the kingdom of Bihar stop Alexander?s armies. Alexander and his troops stay there for several months, eliminating resistance and consolidating power there. The incredible wealth of India contents the previously unrestful soldiers, and several colonies of Greeks and Persians are settled in a new Alexandria upon the Ganges. During this time, Alexander becomes familiar with Buddhism, and becomes rather fond of it, considering its use as a legitimizing doctrine for the Oiekumene.

324-323 BCE: Alexander and his troops and entourage, now in solid control of Northern India, march back to Babylon. Upon his arrival in the city, Alexander proclaims the city his new capital, and begins planning the structure of his Oiekumene, restructuring the Persian civil service bureaucracy, integrating Greek culture with that of the Near East, and planning the his next conquest: Arabia Felix, the wealthy regions of coastal Arabia. The ports of the Oiekumene begin the construction of a massive fleet of ships to circumnavigate the Arabian Peninsula and conquer it.

322 BCE: The Alexandrian fleets sail to conquer Arabia. Many ships are lost in the shallow coastal waters, but many also make it through. The wealthy coastal regions are quickly taken by Alexander?s troops, but the push into the desert is much harder.

322-310 BCE: After ten years of fighting, Alexander?s armies establish loose control of inner Arabia and total control of Arabia Felix. Alexander, now too exhausted and battered to continue conquering, busies himself with matters of state and drunken binges. Construction on a vast network of roads is begun. A system of weights and measures is introduced and banditry and other outlaws are crushed. Alexander continues, with limited success to integrate Greek and Persian cultures. Alexander vigorously encourages Greek colonization throughout the Oiekumene. Bactria, Persia, Northern India and Egypt all gain a much higher Greek population.

310-302 BCE: Alexander patronizes Buddhism in the Oiekumene, though not converting to it himself. Buddhist monasteries and temples are sponsored in Babylon, Alexandria and Persia. At this time, raiding by nomads on the northern frontiers becomes a serious problem, causing skirmishes in many areas, especially Persia and the Macedonian northern border. Alexander also begins planning his invasion of Carthage, ordering the construction of another massive fleet to conquer the city.

302 BCE: Alexander dies with his son Philip III as heir. Philip is a ruthless and somewhat paranoid individual, and upon his ascension, he immediately executes or exiles Ptolemy, Seleucus and Antigonus and has several rival family members murdered. Philip then resumes his father?s project to invade Carthage. When the Alexandrian fleet arrives at the city, the Carthaginians simply surrender without a fight and accept vassal status.

300 BCE: The Alexandrian Oiekumene becomes involved in a dispute between Romans, Samnites and Greeks in Italy, leading to the Alexandrians annexing Sicily and the Greek colonies in coastal Italy, and ransacking Rome and several other cities.

300-280 BCE: The Alexandrian Oiekumene is now by far the dominant power in Europe and Asia, with incredible wealth and near-limitless manpower. About this time, the road network is completed, allowing a dramatic increase in trade and communication. Buddhism becomes increasingly popular in the ?fringe? areas of the Alexandrian Oiekumene, such as Bactria, India, Syria, Mesopotamia, and Arabia Felix. Buddhists also achieve some slight popularity in Alexandrian Egypt and Greece itself. Zoroastrianism is also becoming more powerful, supplanting the old Aryan pantheon in Persia.

 

[Proctol]

Alexander revisits Jerusalem. Becomes more Judaised than in OTL & spreads worldwide a Judeo-Noahide synthesis with pagan admixtures 400 years before the Romans spread Christianity.

http://www.livius.org/aj-al/alexander/alexander_t35.html
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=1120&letter=A

 

[DominusNovus]

Here is my timeline for an greater Macedonian empire.

No no no. Rome can't be conquered!

Duncan did it best, have Rome an ally of Alexander, not an enemy.

Of course, you only said Rome got ransacked, so I guess its possible they have a revival. Rome had been sacked before. However, with a nice stable huge empire next to them, I doubt it'll work.

Ally it is, until the Oiekumene's fortunes change.

 

[Abdul Hadi Pasha]

There are all kinds of speculations as to how he could conquer China, unite Eurasioa under some kind of enlightened rule, and bring peace to the earth (Toynbee, IIRC) or how he would attack Rome and be beaten (Livy), but personally I'll buy none of it.

Your post was a rather stunning display of hindsight. How many great leaders were not egomaniacs? And divinity in Alexander's time was not so far separated from humanity as it is today. Most kings were considered divine, including the Persian monarch. "Augustus" doesn't mean "Likes Late Summer". In his culture he would have been considered a woman if he held back and commanded from the rear.

Alexander had a quite far-reaching vision for the fusion of cultures; if he had lived another 20 years there's no telling what could have happened. For one thing, he would likely have an heir that was the legitimate ruler of both Macedon and Persia, and his policies would have had over a generation to take root. Not to mention that he would have smashed Carthage and Rome...

 

[Abdul Hadi Pasha]

You can hardly blame his doctor for Hephaestion's death since if it were natural, it was the result of him abandoning the prescribed diet after a week and guzzling a boiled chicken washed down with large amounts of wine. "...I don't see why anyone would poison him in the first place, since he was the only person that could successfully restrain Alexander." The problem is, being a rather stupid and unpleasant person (witness his quarrel with Eumenes), I doubt very much that he would have used his influence in any productive fashion. But if I were moving against Alexander, I suspect I might have removed Hephaestion first. Whatever his faults, he was personally devoted to Alexander and not the sort of person plotters would want hanging around. Yes, we'll never know about Alexander's death. I merely raised it as a possibility. But if it were a natural death, a result of his life style, then sooner or later the same sort of thing would have recurred. Which makes discussion of how Alexander would have behaved had he lived past Babylon rather futile.

There is no evidence that Hephaestion was stupid - that is just slander on the part of Alexander's detractors. Hephaestion was a respected general in his own right, and in any case, Alexander did not exactly suffer fools, let alone marry one.

 

[Chrispi]

The most important effect of an enduring Oecumene would have to be the survival of the Mouseion (Library of Alexandria.) In OTL Julius Caesar burnt the bulk of the Library down when he invaded Egypt and it never recovered (it was but a shadow of itself a few hundred years later, when the mathematician Hypatia was notoriously flayed by a Christian mob; it was dust by the time the Muslims came on the scene.)

Let's say Alexander's Oecumene endures, and there are lots of Mouseia throughout (Pergamon and so on,) without the Romans (and their bastard children) mucking it up. What sorts of scientific advances would the Hellenists come up with? Would Heron invent a large-scale steam engine? Would the heliocentric theory of Aristarchos win out? Will an alternate Archimedes discover calculus? In short, is it possible that humanity would be nearly two millenia in advance of ourselves?

Most likely not. Why? The great plagues...

 

[DominusNovus]

The most important effect of an enduring Oecumene would have to be the survival of the Mouseion (Library of Alexandria.) In OTL Julius Caesar burnt the bulk of the Library down when he invaded Egypt and it never recovered (it was but a shadow of itself a few hundred years later, when the mathematician Hypatia was notoriously flayed by a Christian mob; it was dust by the time the Muslims came on the scene.)

Let's say Alexander's Oecumene endures, and there are lots of Mouseia throughout (Pergamon and so on,) without the Romans (and their bastard children) mucking it up. What sorts of scientific advances would the Hellenists come up with? Would Heron invent a large-scale steam engine? Would the heliocentric theory of Aristarchos win out? Will an alternate Archimedes discover calculus? In short, is it possible that humanity would be nearly two millenia in advance of ourselves?

Most likely not. Why? The great plagues...

ahem.

Caesar did not burn the Museum down. He burnt a fleet down. The fire then spread to the Library and a warehouse of books, ready for export. Blame Ptolemy as much as Caesar, for parking his fleet too close to the library.

It was already gone by the time the Christians came on the scene, all they destroyed was a temple, with a large library attached.

Heron wasn't very likely to invent a drastically better steam engine, and his works were in what was left of the Museum anyway. Aristarchus was no more respected than Ptolemy, so his theory wouldn't win out until backed by the same proof that it was back by in OTL. Calculus won't come around until the number 0, in all likelyhood, and decimal numbers would help alot.

 

[carlton_bach]

Your post was a rather stunning display of hindsight. How many great leaders were not egomaniacs? And divinity in Alexander's time was not so far separated from humanity as it is today. Most kings were considered divine, including the Persian monarch. "Augustus" doesn't mean "Likes Late Summer". In his culture he would have been considered a woman if he held back and commanded from the rear.

Alexander had a quite far-reaching vision for the fusion of cultures; if he had lived another 20 years there's no telling what could have happened. For one thing, he would likely have an heir that was the legitimate ruler of both Macedon and Persia, and his policies would have had over a generation to take root. Not to mention that he would have smashed Carthage and Rome...

I'm not saying Alexander didn't believe he was a God. I'm saying that's part of the problem. He may well have had great visions for the future, but that's not enough to build an empire on, expecially not with a personality like his. If he had managed to continue East, where would he have gone, and what would he have left behind? Do you really think China would have been easy to conquer and assimilate into a Greek civilisation? Or India? He might well have conquered those lands and instigated cultural contact, but I don't think an empire that size, and so diverse, would have held together for more than a few generations, if that.

Turning west would have been the better option. He could very likely have beaten both Carthage and Rome - he was a gifted leader and had very good generals. Pliny is deluding himself if he thinks the legions of the Allia could have stopped the Macedonian war machine with its Persian auxiliaries. That war might even have become popular with the Greeks and attracted great support among those who were already becoming disillusioned with his expensive greatness. In italy, unless he managed to ram a kingdom down the throat of the Italiotes, he would very likely have strengthened Greek cultural dominance in the south to the point that the tribal federatuion eventually ruling the roost (the Samnites? the Oscans?) would be Greek-speaking. North Africa's cities, too, could become hellenised and the Mediterranean a Greek lake. But after ten years of campaigning there (and that's the minimum it would have taken even him - neither Carthage nor Italy nor the cenlts would be easy) hoqw much will be left of his Eastern conquests? How secure the loyalty of the Bactrians? The Guptas?

What Alexander would have needed was a consolidation strategy. it didn't even have to be a terribly good one (look what the Romans did in their provinces at first...). I don't see that aspect in his personality. He planted cities of Greek colonists and trained local recruits for his army on the Greek model, and once oversaw a mammoth wedding of Greek men and Persian women - but he didn't even come up with a unified command structure for the upper echelon of his empire. There were precious few inducements for locals to actively support the Empire. Unless he actually addressed these things, and hammered it home to his Macedonians that their concept of 'Spear-won land' didn't apply, he'd have a hard time making things work. My best-case scenario would be a Greek emopuire dominating the Med, centered on Greece, Sicily, Anatolia, Syria and Egypt, with Hellenised states in the immediate vicinity, nominally tributary nations in Central Asia, and regular contacts with India and China. And that's if Alexander lays off the conquering addiction and understands he's not a God.

Finally, the issue of the succession. Alexander's Persian subjects would probably have accepted his designated heir unquestioningly, the Egyprtians even feted him, but many ofhis generals were Macedonians, and the Macedonians had a very different tradition of managing successions. If he was strong, he could have held on. If not - other Macedonian kings have been disposed of. Or Persian Kings, or Egyptian Pharaohs for that matter. Look at the culture of the Hellenistic courts, God-kings, the whole lot of them. It didn't do them much good. As you say - divinity and humanity were closer back then. You could kill your gods.

The signs are bad for a millennia-spanning empire of peace and reconciliation. The last time someone tried something half this big was Genghis Khan, and that didn't last too long either.

 

[DISSIDENT]

For the record, my real name is Dan Fargis, and the timeline Phaeton has posted above is actually something I wrote for the old board, and I feel he should acknowledge the real authors of a TL in the future rather than passing off other's work as his own.

 

[bill_bruno]

Minor points

I don't have much to add to Carlton's excellent initial post. I would point out that the lung injury that Alexander received had debilitating effects (the scarring of the lung tissue would've made every breath painful). He might not have been physically up to as active a policy as he had been. I do think Carthage is in for a world of hurt, though, and Magna Graecia also would fall under his boot. As to his son, he was half-Sogdianan, not half-Persian (which would possibly be even worse in the minds of his more traditionally-minded Macedonian generals), by Alexander's wife Roxana.

Assuming Alexander lives long enough for his son to reach 17-18, one has to wonder what kind of headcase the son of an overachieving egomaniac with delusions of godhead would be. Also, Philip II and Alexander II had undeniable military talent, how likely is it to be passed on three generations in a row? I don't see a long, stable reign.

There was an incident where Alexander had tried to demand of his Macedonian generals a Persian form of prostration, it didn't go over well.

 

[Faeelin]

Aedh Rhua once posted a really neat idea on SHWI; namely, that the simulus of the huge expansion in trade that the formation of the Mediterranean into a hellenistic lake will stimulate the centralization of Gaul.

Something to consider.

 

[Anthony Appleyard]

324-323 BCE: Alexander and his troops and entourage, now in solid control of Northern India, march back to Babylon.

That would need no effective resistance in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan (Khyber Pass etc). Some Indian historians suspect that OTL Alexander in what is now Pakistan got trapped and could not leave the way he came, so he had to escape south and then west through the Makran Desert etc in Baluchistan and Sistan and there he lost so many men from thirst that that put an end to his empire-building plans.