A History of the Mediterranean, Europe, and Beyond

Didn't Carthage have a fairly firm hold on Sicily later (around the time of Hammilcar)? That had to come from somewhere - probably mercenaries, but still.

You have to mindful that Carthage's dominance over Sicily was the product of Rome's rise.
 
Carthage never had the manpower base to fight confidently back against the Silicians. Often, they held them back, but only just. Syracuse isn't going to fall to Carthage; it's the strongest state in the western Med.

Syracuse did fall to Carthage, practically, if not for Agathocles escaping. Here he doesn't escape.
 
Where is your proof? Darius II had some political victories, yes. He put an end to the constant seesaw of Royal intrigue for a time, and took back Egypt from its incompetent satrap. Hence why I call him mediocre, instead of good.
There goes an analogy (parallel) with boxing:
If some fighter was beaten by Muhammad Ali this does not necessarily make this beaten boxer mediocre.
My opinion is that Persian empire was not doomed. It just so happened, that Alexander the Great with his tremendous military genius and incredible luck smashed it.
Darius resisted irresistibility and while doing so he showed himself an excellent crisis-manager (or better catastrophe-manager).

How long the Achaemenidian empire would live with Alexander's death at Granicus is another issue.
The least life expectancy - 15-30 years.
The best life expectancy - 100-200 years.

In a battle against the Getae Darius is killed
That's one thing I do not believe. We all know that in OTL Darius is extremely cautious and very good at running away. :D

I guess after the death of a reckless upstart Macedonian youngster The Great King, King of Kings Darius would live a healthy happy long life and he would die surrounded with mourning children and grandchildren.

Even at the very beginning of his reign he had not had troubles with controlling his empire, so no troubles within, no expected troubles outside. I just cannot see who could challenge the most powerfull man alive.

How would he spend his long and untroubled life?

- Actually I don't know. Maybe he would dissipate, build enormous palaces and gardens, enjoy his harem.
Maybe he would reform his empire, make it stronger economically, politically and military; watch over the potential enemies abroad and would try to prevent them become dangerous - help them fight each other using his enormous treasure (like his predecessors did with Greeks).
Who knows? :confused:

Bollocks is to express disagreement, yes.
Oh, thank you. So 'bollocks' is British equivalent for American word 'bullshit', ain't it?
Also, please stop placing an image that is only slightly relevant to the topic at hand under every post. Thanks.
I see. Would you prefer an image of bollocks? Sorry, I did not manage to find a nice photo of hard grey ones.

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A History of the Mediterranean, Europe, and Beyond
Volume I

The Way of Things

The world had changed since 350 BC. Nations had risen, others had fallen, as is the natural course of human events. One such nation to fall was the Achaemenid Empire which once was likely the greatest nation of its time. It’s split was characterized by the rise of the Kingdom of Cilicia, the Neo-Babylonian Empire, and the Bactrian Emprie taking up most of Persia in the east, with a semi-weak Arachosian Kingdom as well. The Bactrian Empire would claim to be the succesor to the Achaemenid’s, though control was limited to Bactria in the east, and Medes in the west.

The Getae, which had reigned as the strongest power in the Balkans as of 300 BC, fell to Civil War at the death of their leader in 296. By 288 the “Kingdom” was split into Western and Eastern Getae. The Eastern Getae, ruled by the older King, would continue to see dominance in the Balkans as he centralized his rule. His younger brother would find harassment from the Illyrians and the Spartan controlled Greek-League. The Eastern Getae Kingdom would officially fall apart in 270 BC when the Illyrians united under Agron of Ardiaei. Agron would kill Mezenai, the West Getae King. Agron would secure his contorl of the Adriatic coast by bribing other tribal leaders, or placing family members as heads of tribes. Often times he killed tribes out. This period, from 270-261, is called the Agronian Era of the Adriatic and ended with the establishment of Agrons Empire, spanning the Adriatic coast.

In Greece, Deizados of the Getae, decided to focus on stabilizing the Kingdom. This allowed for the ‘King’ of Macedonia, Amyntas VI, to retake full power, pushing out the Greek-League’s Influence unless it had representation on the level of the Spartans. By 269, Amyntas had establish firm control of much of north-western Greece, sparking fear from the Spartan King, Areus I. The Areusian War broke out, which would ultimately claim the life of Amytas VI, crushing Macedonian dominance. However this was only due to the invasion of Macedonia in the west by the Epirusian king, Pyrrhus. Pyrrhus had proved himself in stopping Agron from taking the Molossian tribe. He then came out on top as ruler of Epirus. Now he held Macedonia after kicking out Areus.

In Italy, the death of Gaius, who had held control of Samnium, led to a collapse of the Federation, much to the exploit of Hamilcar III, whose grandfather, Hamilcar II had taken control of the Greek City-States. From Hadiic Qart-hadsat(New Carthage)* Hamilcar III marched into the core of Samnite territory. Carthaginian General Mago led a campaign from Sicily. This effectively broke Samnite rule in Italy, and brought the entirety of Southern Italy in Carthaginian rule. The Etruscans to the north look in awe, wondering if they would fall to Carthage next.

Another notable conquest was that of the Greek colony of Massalia, establishing itself on the continent outside of Iberia and Italy. Hamilcar also gained more power to the Monarchy, establishing his rule more effectively. However, all was not easy. The Latin Revolt of 260 caused trouble throughout Latium. The Celts posed a threat in the mainland, and the Etruscans seemed more and more united in Northern Italy.

And to the east, the Greek-League seemed poised to curb Carthaginian expansion.

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I'm going to put up a small nitpick right here rather than at the bottom, so that it doesn't look like I'm just adding on shit for no reason whatsoever, but Carthage isn't going to name a city "Hadiic Qart-Hadast" - and yes, I do know why you used Hadiic (linko). They would've called it just plain old Qart-Hadast - that's what they did with Cartagena, and that's what they would've done there. Founding a new city as "Qart-Hadast" by Carthaginian settlers effectively makes it "New Carthage", just as founding the Carthage we all know and love by Tyrian settlers effectively made it "New Tyre", despite its literal name being closer to "New Town" - New Town implies the new version of the mother city. They wouldn't have called a place "New New Town", just as much as you wouldn't name a new New York as "New New York".

Carthage never had the manpower base to fight confidently back against the Silicians. Often, they held them back, but only just. Syracuse isn't going to fall to Carthage; it's the strongest state in the western Med.

Didn't Carthage have a fairly firm hold on Sicily later (around the time of Hammilcar)? That had to come from somewhere - probably mercenaries, but still.

You have to mindful that Carthage's dominance over Sicily was the product of Rome's rise.

Syracuse did fall to Carthage, practically, if not for Agathocles escaping. Here he doesn't escape.

A useful analogy (IMO) for understanding Carthage's situation in Sicily compared to the Greeks is to look at a much more recent in example, in the English/British and French empires in North America during the 17th and 18th centuries, where the Carthaginians equate to the French, and the Greeks equate to the British. Carthaginian Sicily, much like French North America, wasn't settler based but rather trade based - they had settlements, yes, and important ones at that (Lilybaeum, Eryx anybody?), but the primary goal was to control trade routes and as many as possible, not to export mass populations from the homeland, whereas the Greeks had left home in larger numbers to a smaller area, largely to escape overpopulation issues, and controlling trade was somewhat less of a priority than it was for the Phoenicians/Carthaginians. Trade is always a factor, but the Phoenicians and the Carthaginian settlements that followed them up spread out along much of the western Med to help establish control over the major trade routes of the Mediterranean, whereas the Greeks mostly concentrated their colonies in Eastern Sicily and Southern Italy; this led to a vast difference in population between the two cultures in the region. Now, because of the great population density contrast between Punic Sicily and Greek Sicily, the wars that were fought between the Carthaginians and Syracuse often found the Native Sicilians (whom were a substantial population) on the Carthaginian side, as the Greeks were pushing them back off their lands and whatnot (sound familiar?). As time went on, the Greeks gradually pushed the Carthaginians further west, but the Carthaginians always managed to hold their own in wars and fend off Greek attacks.

Now, Sicily was more important to the Carthaginians than New France and Louisiana were to the French - obviously, the other major bonus to Sicily, besides it being a great spot to control trade routes, was that it was sort of a buffer to protect Carthage itself, and Carthage did send more men and resources towards defending Sicily than the French did NA - so it isn't a perfect analogy, but I think it does help stress the point that having Carthage conquer not only Eastern Sicily but all of Magna Graecia and various Italian cities is almost as difficult as, say, the French conquering the 13 colonies.

Now, to apply this to your timeline...

I don't care if Agathocles dies - not only is Syracuse still a tough siege, even with Agathocles out of the way, but there is an enormous Greek population throughout the rest of the island that doesn't want to be conquered by Hamilcar, and nor does Hamilcar want to deal with an enormous Greek population as new subjects. And he especially wouldn't go off and add more Greeks to his burgeoning empire that he's somehow put together, nevermind the great deal of difficulty he would have in being allowed to do that in the first place back at home, and how difficult it would be to conquer all of Greek Italy. Now, as I said earlier, the Carthaginians conquering all of the western Greeks in Italy and Sicily, and coastal Latium, is about equivalent (IMO) to the French conquering the 13 Colonies... imagine how much the American colonists would like to be French subjects, and that's probably not horribly far off how the Greeks might react to all being conquered by the Carthaginians (albeit less so due to the time period at hand), where they are ruled by foreigners and long time enemies at that. And now, with the Carthaginians invading Samnium... to continue the analogy, that's like the French then successfully conquering Spanish Florida and its Carribbean possessions after conquering the 13 colonies.

Carthage simply wasn't built to conquer like Rome, or even Syracuse, could - it doesn't assimilate, it doesn't have a huge citizen base. Carthage can get some breaks, but it isn't going to get enough to conquer eastern Sicily without any problems, let alone conquering half of Italy afterwards. The population is entirely hostile to them - they can win all the battles they want, how are they going to keep all those people to live with being under their rule? I'm not saying its entirely ASB for Carthage to conquer Syracuse - implausible for a long term conquest in this situation, yes, but not ASB - but it is basically impossible for Carthage to even want to conquer all of that territory that you have them conquer, let alone actually succeeding at it.
 
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Filler for that amazing critique :D

Wow, thank you so much. This information helps me out a lot. I guess I will have to restructure my TL in that respect. How about this though, would the Samnite's defeating Rome, and Carthage holding Rome(the city) for trade purposes, along with Sicily(of course with rebellious Greeks) be implausible?

And hows the rest of the Timeline? Like the situations in Greece, Macedonia, the Balkans, etc.

Thanks again for that great critique! :)
 
Wow, thank you so much. This information helps me out a lot. I guess I will have to restructure my TL in that respect. How about this though, would the Samnite's defeating Rome, and Carthage holding Rome(the city) for trade purposes, along with Sicily(of course with rebellious Greeks) be implausible?

*automatic "my opinion" disclaimer thing

Samnites can defeat Rome, that's fine - doubt that Carthage would see much need to occupy Rome though. Carthaginian Sardinia, Corsica, and Sicily was all Carthage really needed to control central Mediterranean trade, so adding Rome to that doesn't really add anything other than a province with a bunch of pissed off foreigners for Carthage. Rest of Sicily's fine if your goal is a Carthage wank, though I'd advise you to figure out a way to give the Sicilian Greeks enough benefits to want to stay with Carthage for any sort of long-term conquest - in my Hannibal victory TL I had Hannibal grant the Sicilian Greeks (and Romans I think) the same rights as the average Phoenician in the empire (not full citizenship, but right under that).

And hows the rest of the Timeline? Like the situations in Greece, Macedonia, the Balkans, etc.

The rest of it looks fine enough to me - TBH I wouldn't consider the Getae empire the most likely thing to happen, but having that's perfectly fine IMO... and maybe instead of Sparta taking the leading position amongst the Greeks, have Sparta absorbed into the Achaean League, as the Achaean League is a lot more likely to gain widespread support in Greece than the Spartans are and would be far more stable (the Spartans had been on the decline for a long time, their armies were completely reliant on mercenaries, as they didn't have the population to continue putting up a tough enough army to scare everyone like they could before). Other than that, as I said, everything else looks good to me - Persia falls, Macedonia falls into Civil War, barbarian invaders disrupt the status quo in Greece... looks good.

Thanks again for that great critique! :)

I'm glad you found it helpful. :)
 
That's what I was thinking in regards to Carthage and the Greeks.

Also, hmm, how about Sparta joins the Achaean League as a leader of it? Taking control of all of Peloponnese.

The thing with Sparta was that the fall of Macedonia allowed it to gain influence and begin to rise again from it's decline. Though I now question whether that is plausible.
 
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