As we know at the battle of Granicus river Alexander nearly died and only escaped from death by a millisecond. Well what if he did die on that day. With no Alexander what would have happend to the Macedonian-Persian wars?
He DID have an untimely death.
Yeah. It's not like the whole of Greece is a walkover--pulling that off took some serious brilliance on Philip's part."If" the Macedonians, with a history of bloody civil war when a king dies, can get things together . . . well, their first problem is holding the parts of Philip's conquests that will be taking advantage of this.
"If" the Macedonians, with a history of bloody civil war when a king dies, can get things together . . . well, their first problem is holding the parts of Philip's conquests that will be taking advantage of this.
I' not aware of "bloody civil war when a king dies" before the death of Alexander... And that was possible because the Macedonians were long away from their homeland and its ethics, and there was a huge empire to split.
I' not aware of "bloody civil war when a king dies" before the death of Alexander... And that was possible because the Macedonians were long away from their homeland and its ethics, and there was a huge empire to split.
Then take a look at the history of what has happened on the death of a king in Macedon before Alexander and Philip.
Its a pretty consistent problem.
King dies, violence and instability until the next king secures himself, repeat the process ten years later.
please do not misinterpret my responce: I do not say that there could not be any inter-Macedonian conflicts over Alexander's death at Granicus, nor that there were no succession conflicts in Macedon before. I just noted that there were no civil wars...
violence and instability yes, clashes between rival wannabe kings and their supporters yes, no civil war though.... These conflicts were neither escalated enough, nor too often to justify a statement like the Macedonians had the habit to make civil wars when their king died...
497-454: Alexander I's rule
454-430: The kingdom breaks up
430-413: Perdikkas II's sole rule
413: A royal bloodbath
413-399: Archelaos's rule
399-391: Royal succession dispute
391-370: Amyntas III's sole rule
Five years and four rulers later, we get Perdikkas III - Philip II's older brother.
Source: Alexander the Great Failure: The Collapse of the Macedonian Empire, by John D. Grainger
Huh, both Macedon and France get great kings under that name. Interesting. Anyway.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/civil%20war
"Clashes between wannabe kings and their supporters" is very much a civil war. And conflict happening every time a king dies over the course of more than a century is more than often enough to merit the statement.
Macedon is an unstable kingdom. Kill Alexander off even more prematurely than OTL and you'll get exactly the same kind of problems as happened on his OTL death, because that happened because of the instability of the Macedonian proto-state, not because they were in foreign lands and influenced by those creepy foreigners.