Some Ideas I have been throwing around...

[President Ledyard]

...but have had no time to adequately develop:

ancient Armenian Empire (some sort of Mithridates / Tigranes amalgamation)

Joseph Smith & Mormonism, one century earlier.

Cortez, Emperor of Mexico

Vikings introduce horse to North America before leaving

Classical Greek communism

Native Americans / Inuit "discover" Europe

Rhinoceros semi-domesticated

 

[maverick]

1. I like it, maybe if we have some sort of a civil war in Rome or get rid of Pompey the Great.
2. Without the Joseph Smith, although it is a common name.
3. Like it as well, although the natives might have some troubles accepting it, even if the Spanish put an entire army to help their puppet.
4. A bit hard. It's not that easy to bring horses on a boat.
5. How would that work?
6. They'd have to make contact with China, begin to build ships, and then do that. Can't be that hard, especially if they do this through the northern islands (NewFounland, Greenland, Iceland, Feroe, Scotland)
7 Not possible, lack of stamina and ability to be tamed.

 

[President Ledyard]

2. I was too lazy to make up my own alt-religion, but I kept thinking that a band of "Mormons" that were driven westward into the wilderness in the 1750's as opposed to the 1850's might germinate into something continent spanning.

5. Your guess is as good as mine. I was kinda thinking to retcon some OTL philosopher as a Marx-type to preach the idea and then have some other OTL tyrant serve as a Lenin-type to actually put it into practice.

6. Seems to me that a Haida / Nootka / NW Coast Amerindian style navigational package (whaling, seagoing canoes) on the NE Coast of the continent (Maritimes / New England) combined with the Gulf Stream would eventually put more than a few wayward Amerindians on a collision course with Europe. I suppose getting them back to America would be the bigger problem.

7. Yeah, Jared Diamond kinda rained on my parade on that one. Still, I can't think of a more "bad-ass" animal to put on a pre-gunpowder battlefield.

 

[Ran Exilis]

Well, if you wanna do a good ancient, pre-Christian Armenian Empire, then your best option is to reduce the influence of the Romans in the Middle East and make their invasion fail or just prevent it alltogether so that the empire of Tigranes II isn't conquered and reduced to a Roman vassal.

Under Tigranes II, Armenia the best chances of becoming and a great and lasting empire, especially if Pontus and the Ptolemeans are weakened by the Romans.

And I'd say that your best chance of saving the empire of Tigranes II, would be to somehow prevent the Third Mithridatic War, which could actually be quite easy.

Rome was in disarray at the time due to the unsuccesful Second Mithridatic War, the dictatorial reign of Marius and Sulla, and the revolt of Sertorius in Spain, and if Mithridates wouldn't have taken advantage of the situation by invading Roman territories in Asia, then it is very unlikely that the Romans would have bothered to invade the kingdom of Pontus at all, and since Tigranes only got involved in this war because Mithridates had taken refuge in the empire of Tigranes (even though Tigranes supported Mithridates in his earlier wars againest Rome, he was very careful not to get him or his empire involved in these wars), the only thing that would be required to avoid this is to get rid of Mithridates before the Third Mithridatic War breaks out and make sure that his successor is weak and uncapable, or at least not nearly as agressive.

 

[Tizoc]

Does it have to be CLASSICAL Greece? I'm asking, 'cause I think successful Kleomenes III of Sparta in late 3rd Cen BC may be a start point...

 

[Grey Wolf]

The problem with Cortes being an Emperor is that the King of Spain is only a king. The second problem would be the Pope who has to confirm titles, all Catholic monarchs holding their titles nominally by his appointment. If the Pope condemns Cortes then he faces excommunication and a potential crusade against him !

Best Regards
Grey Wolf