A History of the Argead Empire - a TL

Onkel Willie

This is my first real TL in a while so I might be a bit rusty. Basically, it's about Alexander the Great not dying when he did and living to a reasonable age.

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A History of the Argead Empire, 334-107 BC


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List of the Kings of the Argead Empire and their Reign, 334-107 BC
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Alexander III “the Great” (336-301 BC)
Alexander IV “the Benevolent” (301-250 BC)
Demetrius I (250-218 BC)
Demetrius II “the Wise” (218-207 BC)
Demetrius III “the Child” (207-202 BC)
Philip III “the Proud” (202-182 BC)
Alexander V (182-179 BC)
Philip IV (179-177 BC)
Perdiccas IV (177-174 BC)
Amyntas V “the Tragic” or “the Last Great of the Argeads” (174-149 BC)
Philip V (149-138 BC)
Alexander VI (138-131 BC)
Perdiccas V (131-119 BC)
Alexander VII (119-108 BC)
Demetrius IV (108-107 BC)


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First chapter will be up soon...
 
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Cuāuhtemōc

Cuāuhtemōc

Banned
A timeline on a longer lasting Argead Empire? I like the sound of it, mostly due to my interest in Alexander the Great and his successors but I'll have to read the first chapter before I consider subscribing this. I wish you luck in doing this. :)
 

Onkel Willie

I have a request for those willing to help me. I need someone to make maps for this TL since I suck at map making.


Chapter I: Conquest of Persia, Conquest of Arabia, the First Indo-Hellenic War and Signs of Madness, 334-313 BC.


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Alexander III of Macedon, son of Philip II of Macedon and Olympias of Epirus, stood triumphant over the old, Achaemenid Persian Empire which had already long since passed its peak at the time of his conquest. In a series of brilliant battles and campaigns, the incompetent Darius III had been defeated and after the conquest of over half his empire, he was murdered in 330 BC by his own satrap Bessus for his incompetence and was subsequently the last Persian King of the Achaemenid dynasty.

After some delay in the Balkans, Alexander’s conquest commenced with Asia Minor in 334 BC with the crossing of the Hellespont, the body of water that separated his territories from those of Darius III. His army numbered 48.100 foot soldiers, 6.100 cavalry soldiers and some 38.000 crew members of his fleet consisting of 120 ships. Alexander first ran into Persian forces at the Granicus River in north-western Anatolia and here Persian cavalry was lined up on the ridge on the other side, a tactical mistake since the hillside was too steep for them to come down and push Greek-Macedonian forces back into the river. The centre of the Persian army was broken and the numerically superior foe fled from the battle, after which provincial capital Sardis surrendered and Alexander advanced down the Ionian coast and besieged Halicarnassus. By the next year, he had untied the Gordian knot and advanced passed the Cilician Gates.

He again met his enemies at the town of Issus, and this time King Darius had taken command of his armies gathered from the depths of his empire himself, but he would prove to be an incompetent commander. Alexander’s forces attacked the Persian centre over difficult, hilly terrain and Darius saw this as the main attack which led him to opt for holding his ground. But this move was a feint and the Macedon right attacked the Persian left with a cavalry charge led by their King that led to a breakthrough, and Alexander proved to be capable of holding his cavalry together and regrouped them to attack the Persian right wing. He broke through to Darius’ bodyguards and generals, butchering them, which led the Persian ruler to flee the scene and Alexander to chase him for about 25 kilometres while Darius’ army was disintegrating. After this battle, he proceeded down the coast of the Levant to the city of Tyre, hoping that it would surrender after learning of the defeat at Issus. It didn’t and Alexander was forced to lay siege to it by constructing a mole to the island and take it by force. Alexander, as the vengeful person that he was, had all men of military age killed and their wives and children sold into slavery as an example for those who opposed him. It didn’t scare Gaza, rather it made them resist fiercely and so they underwent the same fate, though not before Alexander was wounded at the shoulder. Egypt was conquered quickly and easily in comparison with Alexander being accepted as the new pharaoh.

Following this campaign, he went into Assyria where he again encountered Darius III, this time at Gaugamela which would be their last engagement. Alexander used an unusual strategy in which he and his cavalry rode to the very edge of the enemy army, forcing said enemy to redeploy his own cavalry there, and Darius did, which allowed the Greek-Macedon army to break his centre. Darius fled to Ecbatana while Babylon fell into the hands of his arch-nemesis who went on to storm the “Persian Gates” in the Zagros Mountains and take Persepolis by force. As Alexander moved on, Darius was assassinated by Bessus who was himself killed by Spitamenes in 329 BC who was also defeated by the invaders. The last remnants of the Achaemenid Empire fell and Alexander went on into India and conquered some bits in the northwest, but this time his soldiers, as much as they loved their leader, refused to march on into another lengthy and tiresome campaign.

Reluctantly, Alexander returned in 325 BC to find out how much the administration of his realms had not been carried out to his wishes and he had several corrupt satraps executed, something which was a symptom of a more dark side of erratic and violent behaviour which was becoming ever more apparent. An example of this was when he had discovered a plot against his life he had one of his guards, Philotas, executed for not bringing it to his attention and then had the man’s father and general in Alexander’s army Parmenion executed as well to prevent him from avenging his son. Shortly hereafter, he killed his friend Cleitus who had protected him at the Battle of the Granicus in a drunken argument. Besides this behaviour, he started to ever more style himself as an eastern ruler, as a Persian King, by marrying a Persian woman and having all his Macedon and Greek followers kiss his feet as was traditional in Persia which led to increasing irritation among many Greeks and Macedonians. A plot against his life was discovered and he had the conspirators killed while planning a new campaign to conquer the Arab peninsula. His sense of infallibility, superiority, paranoia, and general megalomaniac and egomaniac behaviour continued though his people didn’t get to know this.

He adopted certain types of Persian dress, some of its cultural norms and values, certain Persian traditions and so on in a conscious effort to assimilate his conquests by a cultural crosspollination, which included behaving like an eastern monarch as said before. Because of this, he was readily accepted by the Persian elites as the new king and the Argead Dynasty as the new ruling house. Many Greek adventurers, thinkers and merchants spread out across the empire and many veterans chose to settle down in these conquered lands, spreading the Greek language and culture. Many Hellenic settlements were founded as islands of Greek culture in a sea of barbarians, or at least that was the popular view among many thinkers who saw this as a civilization mission. During this period, Alexander had a great temple for Zoroaster built in Babylon and brought an offering one hundred bulls and fifty horses to please Ahura Mazda which in turn pleased many Zoroastrians and their priests. He also visited Egypt to remind the people that their pharaoh was still alive and brought a large offering to Amun-Ra who he referred to as Zeus-Ammon, his supposed father according to him.

Many of the Greek city states were not so pleased since they increasingly got the feeling that they were being ruled by a foreign, Persian elite which wasn’t surprising since Alexander had made Babylon his de facto capital city. The only way Greece knew the King was still alive right now were the new laws, decrees and new taxes imposed from distant Mesopotamia. This distant rule, as well as his worship of foreign, barbarian Gods, the perceived tyrannical nature of his regime and his, in the eyes of many, ludicrous claim of being the son of Zeus-Ammon provided what was needed for a new uprising. In 322 BC, Sparta under King Eudamidas I revolted and quickly several other Greek cities joined in, including Athens. The Greek armies marched north where Antipater, another of Alexander’s generals, defeated them at Larissa with two pincers crushing the weak Greek flanks, and he pursued the ravaged Greeks to Megalopolis where they were devastatingly defeated. Antipater deferred the decision on how to punish the rebels to Alexander who had Sparta and Athens burnt down since they were the leaders of the uprising, thus ending their obstinate resistance against his rule.

In the meantime, some Arab raids against border towns were enough to tick the highly volatile Alexander off and make him decide to punish the Arabs for their insolence and he first had a fleet sail around the peninsula from Basra to the Gulf of Aqaba in 322 BC for reconnaissance. Two armies, one under Alexander himself and another under Craterus, advanced down the east and west coast of Arabia in 321 BC. Alexander destroyed a 10.000 strong force near the town of Gerrha with his much larger army and looted the town, the inhabitants of which were sold into slavery. Craterus conquered Yathrib and Mecca with similar ease, but he and his King were both subjected to annoying guerrilla raids on their supply lines. Alexander was determined to let not a part of the peninsula escape his control, refusing to accept nominal rule and some kind of tributary relation, and waged a three year campaign into the summer of 318 BC against the Arab tribes, trying to end their hit-and-run effort. He decimated the Arab population at whichever town he came across, had ships with food headed for Arab ports sunk, had water holes poisoned and at oases destroyed to end the resistance in a scorched earth campaign. At the end of the campaign when Alexander thought he had broken his Arab opponents, he controlled the coast of the Arab peninsula and thus utterly dominated trade in the Red Sea and Persian Gulf, but he hadn’t subdued the inlands even though the Arabs themselves were very much weakened too.

Around the same time, he had received word that a new, young Indian ruler named Chandragupta Maurya who controlled northern India had attacked into his satrapies in north-western India on the Indus. Alexander’s desire to conquer India and reach the Ganges was rekindled and he was thrilled to fight someone who might be a challenge. He first encountered Indian troops under Chandragupta Maurya at Taxila in spring 317 BC after having crossed the Khyber Pass. There, the 100.000 men strong Macedon Army backed up by Greek, Persian, Bactrian and Arabic mercenaries encountered an enemy army of similar size. The Indian army was on the opposite bank of the Indus River and Alexander decided to use the same tactic he’d used in the Battle of Issus. He had his centre attack the powerful Indian centre which had the bulk of Chandragupta’s war elephants, and the majority of his cavalry would then attack the Indian opponent in his left flank, forcing said adversary to reallocate troops from the right and centre, thus enabling Alexander’s centre to break through and roll up said right and centre. Alexander made sure to use experienced, battle-hardened men who had seen war elephants in previous campaigns as his commanders so there’d be no panic.

The battle started in the early morning with Alexander’s feint advance into Chandragupta’s centre, but the latter was a much more cunning opponent than Darius III and his generals had been, certainly equal in capabilities to the King of Kings, Alexander himself. He withdrew and regrouped instead of falling for the trap and letting the Macedonians roll up his centre and split his army in two. He counterattacked with his centre which forced Alexander to reinforce his own centre with all of his cavalry and after several hours of fighting, there was no decisive winner and both armies retreated to lick their wounds.

Alexander was angered for not winning and resolved to attack the enemy as soon as possible, while in the meantime raiding his encampment by night as his army gathered strength in the shape of reinforcements. He attacked the Indian King at Bucephala on the Hydaspes River and this time did something quite differently of what he’d done at Taxila. His Greek phalanx focused fully on the left of the enemy with only some feint attacks in the centre and right to make Chandragupta think his centre was the main effort just like during their previous encounter. But instead of attacking the centre, Alexander threw the rest of his forces that he had kept in reserve at some distance from the battle onto the enemy left as well, surprising Chandragupta. Alexander devastatingly defeated the Indians and set up camp at Bucephala, but in his triumph he became overconfident and was defeated after his enemy had assembled a newer, larger army while incorporating previous lessons into his strategy. Alexander withdrew back across the Hydaspes and he settled in for the monsoon rains while in the meantime his troops were plagued by a malaria epidemic. Reinforcements arrived in the fall to turn back the gains of the clever and cunning Indian leader.

This became a pattern with Alexander winning sometimes and Chandragupta winning sometimes, but most battles resulting in stalemates. Alexander became frustrated and his men came to question his abilities now that he was finally facing an opponent worthy of him. Finally, after five years of warfare, the First Indo-Hellenic War ended in 313 BC when the two great conquerors met in a raft on the middle of the Indus River that separated their armies, and they came with no bodyguards accompanying them. They had a lengthy conversation the contents of which remain unknown. All that is known is that the two made peace and decided on the Indus River as the border between their two empires although they only did so out of exhaustion and were very much up for a rematch.


 
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EmmettMcFly55

Interesting story, although I prefer the TL's you make with POD's in the 19th or 20th Century because those have greater detail. This timeline looks very nice, but if you want it to carry on to the present day, it would have to be rather long. The premise is good, though.

I'd like to make a map, but I'm not sure whether there is any up to date map in the base map thread which is about 300 BC. I'll try to look for it tomorrow.
 

Justinianus Constansious

I like this TL. It reminds me a bit of the thread "Blood and Gold" from a while ago. Which brings me to my question, what does the term Argead mean? I've heard the empire Alexander created called "Alexander's Empire" and the "Macedonian Empire", but never the "Argead Empire". I was just wondering.
 

Lysandros Aikiedes

The Argeads were the ruling dynasty of Macedon. The house that Alexander was a member of. They considered themselves as descendants of the old old ruling house of Argos through Temenos.
 
Cuāuhtemōc

Cuāuhtemōc

Banned
I do wonder if the Argead Shahs will have a better handling of the situation when it comes to dealing with threats to the eastern satrapies such as the Parni in the third century BCE and the Saka and Yuzehi a century after that. I do expect more.
 

Badshah

Perhaps Chandragupta and Alexandros become friends or even have a dynastic union, in order to avoid wars. Frankly, Alexander wouldn't be able to conquer India at this time. Elephants and people. Lots and lots of people.:)
 
Cuāuhtemōc

Cuāuhtemōc

Banned
trollhole said:
Perhaps Chandragupta and Alexandros become friends or even have a dynastic union, in order to avoid wars. Frankly, Alexander wouldn't be able to conquer India at this time. Elephants and people. Lots and lots of people.:)
Click to expand...

Chandragupta aurya was offered by the Macedonian general Seleucus his Greek Macedonian daughter's hand in marriage in exchange for five hundred war elephants. If the two of them come into blows again, either Chandragupta or Alexander can offer a deal like that.
 

Badshah

Cuāuhtemōc said:
Chandragupta aurya was offered by the Macedonian general Seleucus his Greek Macedonian daughter's hand in marriage in exchange for five hundred war elephants. If the two of them come into blows again, either Chandragupta or Alexander can offer a deal like that.
Click to expand...
It would make sense. But frankly after Alexandros' death, the next ruler will have to focus on consolidating the captured lands.
 

Onkel Willie

Update time.


Chapter II: Alexander’s Last Years and the Second Indo-Hellenic War, 313-301 BC.


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Alexander had not succeeded in conquering India and reaching the Ganges which had been his lifelong dream, but he wasn’t about to give up. He spent several more years consolidating his rule over his vast empire, which was since then referred to as the Alexandrian Empire or more rarely as the Argead or Macedonian Empire. He left the old satrapies with their satraps in place since it gave him a core administrative structure though he limited the satraps’ terms as ruler of a satrapy to two years after which they would be sent to another one; this way they couldn’t build a powerbase against him. He also largely adopted the Persian bureaucracy which continued to function as it had under the Achaemenids. Religious structures and traditions were also preserved since Alexander respected them and didn’t impose Greek cultural mores which pleased religious authority figures that in return supported and legitimized his rule. He also toured his empire for several years so that his subjects would know who their King was and ensure they didn’t see him as a distant, invisible entity that they only came into contact with through tax collectors and new laws. The transition all in all went smoothly and so Alexander was able to control his empire through a framework of civil servants and nobles with administrative experience and had his kingship legitimized as well. Life continued as it had done before except with a different king and so there were hardly any serious internal challenges to the quite popular Alexander. Thusly, he consolidated his rule.

He issued new laws for the empire. One law he passed said that all veterans of his army were entitled to a plot of land large enough to feed them and their families which renewed his popularity among his men. He also issued a land redistribution law which limited the land a person could own and all the freed up farmland resulting from this was redistributed to the smaller peasants. He also fixed grain prices to make food cheaper, and this combined with the land redistribution led to a rise in affluence which in turn led to an increase in trade volumes and an increase in his own popularity. He actively stimulated trade with large road construction projects, the expansion of the Royal Road being the main one. The existing one built by Darius the Great went from Sardis to Pteria, and from there on to Gaugamela to end at Susa. Alexander expanded it eastward all the way to Bucephala and so it stretched across his entire realm, connecting the Aegean coast with the river Indus. It allowed for faster trade and more effective communication and thusly to A) economic growth and rising affluence and B) faster, more effective governing. Traders would continue to use this “Royal Road” for centuries after the Alexandrian Empire’s eventual demise into oblivion. He also built roads not only along the coast of the Arab Peninsula, but into its innards as well, mostly from one oasis to another. Many of these oases were now much easier to reach and were connected to one another, allowing Alexander’s armies to operate in the hostile desert interior of Arabia. New cities sprang up, becoming trade hubs even if they were local and certainly not comparable to Mesopotamian cities. Nonetheless, the Arabic population became urbanised and more sedentary, and they also came into contact with a plethora of foreign influences which led to a true Arabic intellectual culture. The other effect was that the semi-autonomous status that the Arab tribes had enjoyed now finally ended.

No major conquests took place except for some small campaigns that took the small kingdoms of Bithynia, Pontus and Colchis between 310 and 306 BC. The Alexandrian Empire enjoyed peace, economic growth, affluence and stability, but Alexander intended to finish what he had started in India, ending the peace which had lasted less than a decade. He assembled an army with soldiers coming from the far corners of his domain of some 155.000 men consisting of 110.000 heavy infantry (including Greek hoplites), 25.000 Peltasts (light infantry/skirmishers) and 20.000 cavalry units, including several dozen war elephants imported from southern India which had so far escaped from Chandragupta Maurya’s control. This enormous army with Greek, Macedonian, Persian, Bactrian and Arabian soldiers marched eastward in 304 BC, defeated several unprepared border defences and conquered a number of cities while under the command of not only Alexander but also his son (of the same name) who was now nineteen years old and who would prove to be a capable commander as well. This new war had not been preceded by any kind of declaration of war, nor was there a casus belli and therefore it caught Chandragupta Maurya off guard, more so since he’d been at peace with his neighbour empire for nearly a decade now. Alexander subsequently broke out into the Ganges Plain toward Indraprastha, taking the city, and he finally reached the Ganges.

By now, Chandragupta had amassed his own army and the two clashes famously in the Battle of Agra in northern India which was the culmination of three years of campaigning. In this battle, neither of the two gained the upper hand and so a bloodbath resulted in which Alexander, who was at the centre of the fighting, was killed by an arrow to the chest in spring 301 BC at age 55. Upon hearing that their king was dead, the soldiers’ morale dropped but his son proved his skill by keeping the army together and withdrawing. He tried to live up to his father’s wish of taking India for the empire, but was not successful and in the end made peace with Chandragupta Maurya.

At age 22, he was crowned Alexander IV in Pella, the Macedon capital and also underwent an enormous coronation ceremony in Babylon which was followed first by three days of mourning. According to many historians, it was perhaps a good thing that Alexander the Great died when he did considering his worsening mental state. He had become increasingly paranoid, egotistical, egocentric and megalomaniac in his last years, even more so then he’d been before and he indulged in decadent parties, substance abuse and homo-erotic sexual orgies (and bestiality as well, if rumours are to be believed). He had also begun to show symptoms of what was later identified as neural-syphilis. His eccentric, erratic, violent, decadent and sometimes outright shocking behaviour at the time of his had death taken on a grotesque size though it remained hidden from his subjects. His successor would prove to be a much more stabile and sane leader who could begin his reign with peace, thus ending a three decade long period of nearly uninterrupted warfare.

Peace and prosperity reigned over the empire founded by Alexander which would last less than two centuries after his death, but which left a legacy that still exists today.
 
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Monty Burns

Nice TL, I will definitely follow it - and I hope it lasts longer than the typical Alexander-survives-until-I-drop-my-TL-thing...:rolleyes:

Not sure though whether the interior politics are that realistic.

Expanding the Royal Road is reasonable, but I'm not sure wether it would be possible to expand it throughout the whole of Persia. Connecting the Syrian coast, maybe connecting the remaining Persian capitals, is feasible.

Similarly, I'm not sure whether Alexander would do a land reform. Whereas I do not doubt its benefits, yet I assume that this would alienate the local elites, which is at odds with othe rpolicies you cite. Maybe a colonization attempt in which some territories on the fringe would be resettled could reduce population densities in core regions, or new large-scale irrigation and cultivation projects could be undertaken now that Greek engineering could be used in all of Persia and Persian engineering could be used in Greece?
 

thekingsguard

Keep it up, will follow, I hope it lasts longer than the last few 'Alexander the Great surives to found a long-lasting empire that only falls once I stop writing the TL'
 
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