AHC : Alexandria, World-Capital

Skallagrim

Banned
Sorry, but this is just overrating Alexander way too much. With Arabia, I don't doubt that Alexander's armies are stronger than those of the local Arabs, but between overextension and the desertic environment plus the size of the Arabian Peninsula simply makes this conquest impossible. At most he is annexing a few northern territories, but nothing significantly.

With Carthage and Rome it's the same only worse since they're even further away from Alexander and have the added need for a powerful fleet, which are a further logistical problem for Alexander's massive overextended empire. He has the resources, but when you point out that he can't keep up with such a massive territory, said resources just become impossible to manage into an effective cohesive naval force.

Finally, it's clear Alexander's empire would have collapsed even if he had survived. It was simply far too big. Indian territories would be lost to Chandragupta, and internal rivalries would erupt, not to mention native revolts.

You raise points I have refuted (with argumentation), and do not counter my arguments refuting those points. In fact, you confirm the exact mindset I had described, relying fully on what one might call "OTL determinism" (he didn't do it on OTL, so surely he coulddn't do it in an ATL) and on weasel words like "it's clear that..." -- But no, it's not clear. It's only clear you believe that.

The problem with your mindset is that, had Alexander not existed, you'd no doubt proclaim that the existence of someone doing what he actually did in OTL would be impossible. I've heard the exact same about the exact maximum extent of the Roman Empire, you see. The argument is always that the maximum possible extent just so happened to be the extent reached in OTL. Anything beyond that? Impossible! But had Alexander conquered less, or had Rome's Empire been somewhat smaller, you'd be right here, telling us that any further conquests would be - you guessed it - simply impossible. There's a self-serving determinism to that approach.

Now, some more concrete facts:

-- Alexander was literally stripping the Levant of trees at the time of his death, with the intent of building no fewer than a thousand frickin' war-ships. One has to consider that the Levant still had more forest at that time, and was in OTL more slowly stripped of it (just as England and Holland were stripped of their ancient forests to provide wood for ships). Alexander was aiming to do it much faster, and to build three fleets (one for the Red Sea of c. 250 ships, one for the Persian Gulf of equal size, and one of 500 ships for the Med, which would make it by far the most powerful fleet on earth-- and something Carthage could not defeat.) Obviously, this was going to take time. But he already had ships ready. Enough to carry out a coastal expedition along the shores of Arabia, with the quite realistic aim of thoroughly impressing every port city, and then stationing garissons in all of them. He had zero interest in inland Arabia. Afterward, as his envisioned fleet expanded, it would supply and safeguard his garissons and the loyalty of the coastal Arabs, as well as secure the whole region from piracy. Oh, and give him the complete monopoly on the Indian trade, which was immensely profitable and would recoup the cost of the entire expedition + garisson-upkeep within a few years. But I'm sure he was an idiot who considered none of this and who I'm completely over-estimating. ;)

-- By the time he got back to handle the Western Med, a sizable portion of his Med Fleet would be ready. Carthage is doomed. The idea that it's somehow "too far away" is nonsense. The Med is a great conduit for effective military operations. Way better than overland marches. So operationally speaking, Carthage is far more "within reach" than anything close to the Indos ever was. If Alexander can project power all the way to the Indos via the overland approach, he can certainly project power all throughout the Med using a war-fleet.

-- As for Rome... it's a jumped-up city-state at the time. It doesn't even control the larger share of just Italy at this point. Alexander could curb-stomp Rome at this time with a fraction of his army. More likely, he'll offer them loose vassalage in return for happily crushing the Samnites together (enemies of Rome, also killed Alexander's uncle), and Rome will accept.

-- Alexander was not yet over-extended, because over-extension is primarily an issue of how (un)willing your subjects are to stick with you, and he was ironically loved most in Persia and least in near-by Greece (which had foolishly revolted once and had been crushed for it; wasn't likely to try again while Alexander lived-- especially not with him back in the West...)

-- Chandragupta will not be attacking, which I explained already. His OTL invasion was 100% contingent on OTL events which do not occur here. It was easy ickings for him in OTL. Given a choice between attacking the most powerful empire the region has ever seen and just annexing the Tamil states, Chandragupta will certainly do the latter. A matter of priorities. And also of being smart and sane and cautious, all of which Chandragupta was.

I will say again that the likely course of events is that Alexander dies young. But if we accept as the premise here that he is lucky and lives decades longer, then the successes I have outlined are within his reach. To say so is not to over-estimate him. Conversely, to deny it is to under-estimate him, to ignore the material realities, and to rely overly much on an OTL-guided determinism.
 
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With Arabia, I don't doubt that Alexander's armies are stronger than those of the local Arabs, but between overextension and the desertic environment plus the size of the Arabian Peninsula simply makes this conquest impossible.
But why does it make it impossible? An army marching along the coast, supplied by a large fleet following it. The Sassanian Empire was able to exert control along the entire eastern coast of Arabia, and that is while also having to manage a volatile border with Rome and the Kushan and later Hephtalite empires on their northeastern frontier. With bases in Egypt right across the Red Sea, a soon to be base in Nabataean territory, and control of Mesopotmaia and Persia as jumping off points for eastern Arabia, there's no reason to expect subduing the Arabian coast would be difficult.

With Carthage and Rome it's the same only worse since they're even further away from Alexander and have the added need for a powerful fleet, which are a further logistical problem for Alexander's massive overextended empire. He has the resources, but when you point out that he can't keep up with such a massive territory, said resources just become impossible to manage into an effective cohesive naval force.
I think you're conflating the chances of taking the territory with maintaining control. I absolutely agree that a unified Alexandrian empire is not going to hold on to North Africa or really anything to the west of Greece and Cyrenaica. However, conquering it is a different story. The Mediterranean presents a far smaller logistical problem than the land empire he just conquered does. It's far easier to supply by sea than by land, and the heart of Alexander's empire is the cities and ports that dot the Eastern Mediterranean, from Greece to Egypt. Greece itself, where he gets the bulk of his soldiers from, is a short hop away from the city-states of Magna Graecia and Sicily. It becomes far less logistically challenging when you consider that those cities might have a particular interest in facilitating Alexander's appearance in the area-whether it be in the hopes he'd help them out against the Italic tribes of southern Italy, as Tarentum might wish, or in a political calculation that Alexander destroying Carthage and then heading back east very far away to leave them in direct control as an enterprising tyrant of Syracuse might realize, he could very well have a ready base of operations in the region.

Carthage did indeed have a strong navy, but its not unbeatable and Carthage's long and proud history of hilarious military ineptitude, both at sea and on land, makes it far from a sure thing they could beat a larger naval force. It only takes one sub par commander for Carthage to face complete ruin early on, and given their knack for producing downright horrible military commanders (with the Barca family being pretty much the only exception) that's not all that unlikely.

Now Alexander will almost certainly be unable to maintain control of any of this-and is likely to face rebellions up the wazoo once he heads back, but that's a completely different discussion.
 

Skallagrim

Banned
I think you're conflating the chances of taking the territory with maintaining control. I absolutely agree that a unified Alexandrian empire is not going to hold on to North Africa or really anything to the west of Greece and Cyrenaica. However, conquering it is a different story. The Mediterranean presents a far smaller logistical problem than the land empire he just conquered does. It's far easier to supply by sea than by land, and the heart of Alexander's empire is the cities and ports that dot the Eastern Mediterranean, from Greece to Egypt. Greece itself, where he gets the bulk of his soldiers from, is a short hop away from the city-states of Magna Graecia and Sicily. It becomes far less logistically challenging when you consider that those cities might have a particular interest in facilitating Alexander's appearance in the area-whether it be in the hopes he'd help them out against the Italic tribes of southern Italy, as Tarentum might wish, or in a political calculation that Alexander destroying Carthage and then heading back east very far away to leave them in direct control as an enterprising tyrant of Syracuse might realize, he could very well have a ready base of operations in the region.

Very much this. No need for direct control. Why be tyrant when you can be hegemon? Nearly all the benefits at nearly none of the cost. Just have a strong fleet ready to make sure you can project power, and done. Syracuse and Rome will be quite satisfied to operate on your periphery, exerting direct control as your "valued friends". There may well be friction there later, but it's likely to go quite well for a long time.


Now Alexander will almost certainly be unable to maintain control of any of this-and is likely to face rebellions up the wazoo once he heads back, but that's a completely different discussion.

I'm not convinced of even this. The common rationale is that Alexander will face problems because his empire is so damned big. I would like to argue that it's not at all likely to face those problems (at a critical extent, at least) because his empire is so big. This sounds ludicrous, but bear with me: his empire is so big that he can't effectively control it (or rather: not all of it at once), and that's an advantage. Why do local lords rebel? Because they feel you demand too much, because they feel you boss them around too much, or because they feel it's better to be outside your empire and run their own show.

None of those apply to Alexander's Empire. They didn't in OTL. Alexander was a liberator to established local rulers, who just in that period happened to be fed up with Akhaimenid rule and Akhaimenid taxes (both intensified due to recent problems). Alexander promised (and delivered) much greater autonomy, and lowered taxes. Being within his Empire was a good deal for most local rulers, and replacing him with someone else was likely to make things worse for them (and indeed typically did, in OTL after his death). The only reason to revolt (for those Satraps ruling parts of the vast Persian lands) would be naked ambition: an attempt to be kings on their own. But that would likely bring retribution (not fun) and also... even if successful, that puts them outside the Empire! If there's one vast advantage to the empire, it's that it doesn't like invaders. If you're in it, and some group of bothersome barbarians launches an incursion, chances are Alexander will actually show up and kick them out. Also, the empire is set to vastly improve infrastructure and to make trade routes safer. That's a plus.

The cost of this? Low taxes/tribute, and formal loyalty to a very distant sovereign who demands very little (mostly that you make no trouble) and lets you "run your own show". The alternative is that you are alone, in danger of foreign would-be overlords likely to demand more and to be much closer and much more threatening to you. Also: less free access to the Empire's vast market. You'd have to be an idiot to want out. Only when the empire, over the ages, consolidates and starts centralising more power... only then does insurrection and secession become likely. (Indeed, what I describe is very much like the history of the Holy Roman Empire. The Reformation and its opportunistic support by secular kings and princes didn't happen in 1100, it happened after 1500, and there's a good reason for that. The later Empire was centralising more power - see Charles V - and local rulers objected.)

Meanwhile, being so very big means that even if unwieldy and highly decentralised, the empire can muster up forces greater than anyone else in the neighbourhood, so it's eminently safe from external threats.

tl;dr -- I think Alexander's Empire has far better chances than some think, and that it has those chances in part because it's essentially a loose hegemony.
 
Here's an answer to the challenge with a much later POD.

-POD: the Sassanian Empire survives the Arab expansion but the Byzantine Empire falls to the Arabs. Let's not get bogged down in ths details here.
- The fall of the Byzantine Empire results in assimilation of Greco-Roman culture, and a Hellenized Islam ends up dominating the Mediterranean.
- The Canal of the Pharaohs is never abandoned and trade routes from the Mediterranean to India and beyond via the Red Sea grow in importance. This is partly because Muslim hegemony in the Mediterranean directs trade towards the birthplace of Islam and partly because trade routes farther north are disrupted by ongoing hostility between the Islamic world and Zoroastrian Persia.
- Alexandria becomes a trade hub where Mediterranean ships transfer their cargo to barges for the trip by canal to the Red Sea. By 1000 CE Alexandria is the wealthiest city West of China
- As a large wealthy city and a major stop of Hajj routes from the West, Alexandria becomes the capital of a Caliphate. As Islam expands both West into Europe and East accross the Indian Ocean trade route, the Caliphate develops a loose semi-feudal relationship with the Dar Al-Islam. The various rulers of the Dar Al-Islam pay tribute to the Caliph in exchange for the Caliph arbiting disputes between the Muslim states and organizing campaigns of expansion
- eventually, Islamic states in Iberia discover the New World. Eventually, Islam becomes the religion of almost 50% of the world, with all Muslim rulers paying at least nominal tribute to the Caliph in Alexandria. The Caliph loses much of his direct temporal power as the Dar Al-Islam grows but remains an important religious figurehead.
- Alexandria is thus the recipient of tribute from most of the world making it the "capital of the world".
 
Did the OP actually specify which Alexandria?

POD: President Washington is more involved in the negotiations that led to the Residence Act, and as such a site on the Virginia side of the Potomac is prioritized from the beginning. (Alternatively, nobody thinks to include a provision in the 1791 amendment prohibiting "erection of public buildings otherwise than on the Maryland side of the river Potomac.") As such, all the federal buildings are of course built as close as possible to Mount Vernon (rather than in the new city of Washington across the Potomac), and it is the Georgetown area rather than northern Virginia which gets neglected by Congress and eventually retroceded to Maryland. This leaves the U.S. capital district with just the territory on the Virginia side, with a capital city of Alexandria, D.C.

The US taking over the world is left as an exercise to the reader.
 
Did the OP actually specify which Alexandria?

POD: President Washington is more involved in the negotiations that led to the Residence Act, and as such a site on the Virginia side of the Potomac is prioritized from the beginning. (Alternatively, nobody thinks to include a provision in the 1791 amendment prohibiting "erection of public buildings otherwise than on the Maryland side of the river Potomac.") As such, all the federal buildings are of course built as close as possible to Mount Vernon (rather than in the new city of Washington across the Potomac), and it is the Georgetown area rather than northern Virginia which gets neglected by Congress and eventually retroceded to Maryland. This leaves the U.S. capital district with just the territory on the Virginia side, with a capital city of Alexandria, D.C.

The US taking over the world is left as an exercise to the reader.

Whilst I like this - I do, it is a clever little twist. I did tag egypt :p I did mean Alexandria in Egypt :D
 
With Alexandria initial founding as the earliest limit, what ideas do people have to make Alexandria not just a major city, but effectively the capital of the world.

This does not mean that it is the seat of government for some world-spanning Empire, but is effectively the diplomatic, political and financial capital of the world. (as in, I'd allow a large Empire with many allies to count as meeting the challenge.)
Does it need to be the Alexandria in Egypt?:D
 
Here's an answer to the challenge with a much later POD.

-POD: the Sassanian Empire survives the Arab expansion but the Byzantine Empire falls to the Arabs. Let's not get bogged down in ths details here.
- The fall of the Byzantine Empire results in assimilation of Greco-Roman culture, and a Hellenized Islam ends up dominating the Mediterranean.
- The Canal of the Pharaohs is never abandoned and trade routes from the Mediterranean to India and beyond via the Red Sea grow in importance. This is partly because Muslim hegemony in the Mediterranean directs trade towards the birthplace of Islam and partly because trade routes farther north are disrupted by ongoing hostility between the Islamic world and Zoroastrian Persia.
- Alexandria becomes a trade hub where Mediterranean ships transfer their cargo to barges for the trip by canal to the Red Sea. By 1000 CE Alexandria is the wealthiest city West of China
- As a large wealthy city and a major stop of Hajj routes from the West, Alexandria becomes the capital of a Caliphate. As Islam expands both West into Europe and East accross the Indian Ocean trade route, the Caliphate develops a loose semi-feudal relationship with the Dar Al-Islam. The various rulers of the Dar Al-Islam pay tribute to the Caliph in exchange for the Caliph arbiting disputes between the Muslim states and organizing campaigns of expansion
- eventually, Islamic states in Iberia discover the New World. Eventually, Islam becomes the religion of almost 50% of the world, with all Muslim rulers paying at least nominal tribute to the Caliph in Alexandria. The Caliph loses much of his direct temporal power as the Dar Al-Islam grows but remains an important religious figurehead.
- Alexandria is thus the recipient of tribute from most of the world making it the "capital of the world".

Persia can still be conquer, but with have the Eastern Romans also fall in the 7th century. Basically, have a division between Hellenized Islam and Persian Islam. (Or it really does become a heresy branch of Christianity as the Europeans saw it as first.)
 
"Alexandria initial founding as the earliest limit, what ideas do people have to make Alexandria not just a major city, but effectively the capital of the world."

It was. Alexandria was by far the most important city in the world throughout at least the third century BC.

You can't give it the importance of nineteenth century London and late twentieth century New York without probably ASB technological changes that would allow classical Europe and the Middle East to establish more than intermittent communication with China, North America, South America, sub-Saharan Africa and Australia. And the world has never had a literal world government. But Alexandria in the third century BC was the largest city the world had seen up to that point, and the center of the larger cluster of civilizations in Europe/ Middle East/ India.

Alexandria remained really important, just behind Rome, for almost a thousand years, but you can get Alexandia wanks pretty easily with multiple alternative PODs. OK, the world empire of Alexander the Great centered on Alexandria posited in the interesting debate above is one. Or wank the Ptolemids. Anthony beats Octavian and recenters the Roman empire in the East three centuries earlier than IOTL. Or have no Chalcedon council and the patriarchs of Alexandria become the supreme pontiff of the Christians.
 
But why does it make it impossible? An army marching along the coast, supplied by a large fleet following it. The Sassanian Empire was able to exert control along the entire eastern coast of Arabia, and that is while also having to manage a volatile border with Rome and the Kushan and later Hephtalite empires on their northeastern frontier. With bases in Egypt right across the Red Sea, a soon to be base in Nabataean territory, and control of Mesopotmaia and Persia as jumping off points for eastern Arabia, there's no reason to expect subduing the Arabian coast would be difficult.

The Sassanians were also incapable of conquering the entire peninsula. The same goes for the Romans and Byzantines, and they came after Alexander. Doing it is as much a pipe dream as Napoleon conquering Russia during winter. At best he can take the western coasts of the Erythrean sea to circumvent the punishing desert if he invades from there with a fleet, but one then asks why the succeeding Ptolemaics in all their centuries of existence never did that despite the considerable riches there, including the rich commerce with India. You seriously underestimate just how difficult conquering the Arabian Peninsula is. There's a reason why non-Arabs have been unable to conquer the entire peninsula (with the possible exception of British in the 20th century, and even that is disputable). I can agree with Alexander conquering the northern frontier of what is today Saudi Arabia, but that's the most he can do.

It was. Alexandria was by far the most important city in the world throughout at least the third century BC.

And how pray tell was it the most important city throughout the world when most of the world didn't even know it existed. It may have been the most important in the Hellenic world, and even that is arguable when you also have Seleucia, Babylonia, Antioch and Pergamon in the third century. I don't see it having any more importance than Carthage, Pataliputra or Xianyang which were all in the third century.
 
The problem with your mindset is that, had Alexander not existed, you'd no doubt proclaim that the existence of someone doing what he actually did in OTL would be impossible. I've heard the exact same about the exact maximum extent of the Roman Empire, you see. The argument is always that the maximum possible extent just so happened to be the extent reached in OTL. Anything beyond that? Impossible! But had Alexander conquered less, or had Rome's Empire been somewhat smaller, you'd be right here, telling us that any further conquests would be - you guessed it - simply impossible. There's a self-serving determinism to that approach.

I can just as easily say you're guilty of Alexander fanaticism, given you ignore just how quick his empire disintegrated after his death, compared with the equally big Achaemenid Empire he conquered, which outlasted Cyrus's death for 200 years. I don't think that's just because Alexander died prematurely without a heir. His empire was unstable on its own, due to the rapidity of conquest, the brutality of it and the fact that it was clear Alexander was losing control of his army, as the mutiny in India and the wars of the diadochi show.

And no, had there not been any OTL figures like Alexander, I would still say someone like him would be possible, given the several empires that are frankly ASB in their existence, including the Achaemendids that Alexander conquered, originating in a pre-literate non-monumental culture that swept the highly literate and highly monumental Assyrians, Babylonians and Egyptians in about a century, or with Genghis Khan, who was even more impressive conquering from China all the way to Rus. That still doesn't change how unfeasible your scenario is, both the conquest, and the idea that the Greeks could have somehow kept the whole massive empire, because the conditions of the era just didn't allow it.


-- Alexander was literally stripping the Levant of trees at the time of his death, with the intent of building no fewer than a thousand frickin' war-ships. One has to consider that the Levant still had more forest at that time, and was in OTL more slowly stripped of it (just as England and Holland were stripped of their ancient forests to provide wood for ships). Alexander was aiming to do it much faster, and to build three fleets (one for the Red Sea of c. 250 ships, one for the Persian Gulf of equal size, and one of 500 ships for the Med, which would make it by far the most powerful fleet on earth-- and something Carthage could not defeat.) Obviously, this was going to take time. But he already had ships ready. Enough to carry out a coastal expedition along the shores of Arabia, with the quite realistic aim of thoroughly impressing every port city, and then stationing garissons in all of them. He had zero interest in inland Arabia. Afterward, as his envisioned fleet expanded, it would supply and safeguard his garissons and the loyalty of the coastal Arabs, as well as secure the whole region from piracy. Oh, and give him the complete monopoly on the Indian trade, which was immensely profitable and would recoup the cost of the entire expedition + garisson-upkeep within a few years. But I'm sure he was an idiot who considered none of this and who I'm completely over-estimating. ;)

Aside from the fact that Alexander not dying prematurely is pure ASB, as I stated to isabella before, the Ptolemaics and especially the Seleucids had enough trees too yet they still didn't perform a single sea invasion to conquer even the coastal areas of the Arabian Peninsula. As there was also yet no successful canal to link the Red Sea with the Mediterranean, the fleet Alexander was building with Lebanese trees was for the Mediterranean. Finally, where do you get that Alexander had no interest in the inland Arabian Peninsula? I'm pretty sure all Alexander historians like Arrian only say "Arabia" without qualification, and Arabia meant the entire thing.


-- By the time he got back to handle the Western Med, a sizable portion of his Med Fleet would be ready. Carthage is doomed. The idea that it's somehow "too far away" is nonsense. The Med is a great conduit for effective military operations. Way better than overland marches. So operationally speaking, Carthage is far more "within reach" than anything close to the Indos ever was. If Alexander can project power all the way to the Indos via the overland approach, he can certainly project power all throughout the Med using a war-fleet.

The Mediterranean was such a great conduit that the Persians failed in conquering the far closer Greeks by invading through it, the Greeks had to take Egypt by land instead of sea, struggled to take away closer Phoenician islands and coastal territories (see the Sicilian Wars for example) and it took the Romans a century and a half just to conquer Carthage. And yes, a state that has one of the most powerful fleets in the Mediterranean with centuries of experience fighting Greeks, is "doomed" just because Alexander had a fleet prepared for it.



-- As for Rome... it's a jumped-up city-state at the time. It doesn't even control the larger share of just Italy at this point. Alexander could curb-stomp Rome at this time with a fraction of his army. More likely, he'll offer them loose vassalage in return for happily crushing the Samnites together (enemies of Rome, also killed Alexander's uncle), and Rome will accept.

And you say I don't read your arguments. I've explicitly said that Rome is also protected by geography which Alexander just isn't going to overcome with the logistical problems he has. Also, like you said, he is going to have to fight his way through other nations and states, like Syracuse, as well as the Samnites. So he is most likely not even getting to Rome to begin with. By land it's even harder given he has to cross the Alps and fight his way through other Greek cities that escaped Philip II's unification such as Epirus. Moreover, if the Romans were capable of defeating Greeks in southern Italy, it's clear they're not as weak as you think, so that while certainly weaker than Alexander, they're not getting "curbstomped" either.

-- Alexander was not yet over-extended, because over-extension is primarily an issue of how (un)willing your subjects are to stick with you, and he was ironically loved most in Persia and least in near-by Greece (which had foolishly revolted once and had been crushed for it; wasn't likely to try again while Alexander lived-- especially not with him back in the West...)

>Ruling from Macedon all the way to Pakistan
>Not overextended

And he was so loved in Persia that he had to brutally suppress revolts, not just by Satraps but also by peoples like the Uxians, before entering India. Read "Alexander and the East" by A. B. Bosworth. Heck, his memory in Persian memory is as Alexander the Accursed, a tyrant who only brought desolation as can be seen with his burning and sacking of Susa and Persepolis, and his further destruction of temples and execution of Persian magi after Hephaistion's death. I guess that because Alexander forced Persian women to marry Greeks that he was therefore loved, which is as ridiculous as saying the concubines captured by Genghis Khan loved him.

That's also not even going into how he had to brutally suppress revolts in India as well led by Brahmans and other local leaders. Again, read Bosworth for this. His control over India was always weak, and he was never going to hold on to it.


-- Chandragupta will not be attacking, which I explained already. His OTL invasion was 100% contingent on OTL events which do not occur here. It was easy ickings for him in OTL. Given a choice between attacking the most powerful empire the region has ever seen and just annexing the Tamil states, Chandragupta will certainly do the latter. A matter of priorities. And also of being smart and sane and cautious, all of which Chandragupta was.

"Easy ickings", sure, I guess Indians can only defeat Greeks when the Greeks are weak, it's not because Indians actually had great armies that the army of Alexander was so scared off they mutinied just after seeing what Poros was capable of mustering. And no, Chandragupta's invasions was not "contingent" on things like Alexander's death. He definitely would have invaded the Greeks even if Alexander was still alive since he was just as expansionistic, and seeing his impressive defeat of the Nanda Empire, the same empire that made Alexander's men cower in fear despite previously asserting their undying loyalty to a man they considered a god, there's no reason why Chandragupta is going to be less successful than he was against Seleucus, especially when Alexander's control over his Indian territories was very weak and only nominal in the case of the massive territory Poros got to rule over as king.



I will say again that the likely course of events is that Alexander dies young. But if we accept as the premise here that he is lucky and lives decades longer, then the successes I have outlined are within his reach. To say so is not to over-estimate him. Conversely, to deny it is to under-estimate him, to ignore the material realities, and to rely overly much on an OTL-guided determinism.

Yes, it is to overestimate him enormously. You want him to conquer areas that are accessible only through deserts or by sea and also protected by mountain ranges, after creating the biggest Greek empire until that point, populated by millions of non-Greeks that spoke different languages and that were separated by thousands of kilometres, with a mutinying army and ancient pre-feudal or proto-feudal logistics on top of all that. Heck, just the driving point of the whole scenario, which is Alexander not dying prematurely from all his wounds and diseases, is ASB to begin with.
 

Skallagrim

Banned
@Essayist of History, I'm sad to see that the larger share of your commentary consists not of arguments but merely of you stating and re-stating your own opinions without any real backing. Below, I shall respond to what arguments you bring up, and I shall identify your numerous un-backed claims as and where they appear. My own statements, I will endeavour to support with sound and consistent arguments.

First of all, however, a general point. You repeatedly state (the opinion) that Alexander living longer is "ASB". It is not. ASB means supernatural elements in defiance of the known laws of physics (you may refer to the board description if you wish, which shall support my statement here as being factually correct). Mere improbability does not enter into it. Something may well be highly unlikely, but that does not make it ASB. At no point has anyone here claimed that Alexander living to old age (or even living more than a few years more than in OTL) is anything other than unlikely. In fact, I have explicitly described it as such. But that does not make it ASB. It merely means that if we assume the existence of infinite possible realities, only a small minority (even of those hypothetically revolving around the POD of Alexander living longer) would see lexander live decades longer. Improbable, however, is not impossible. It is not outside the scope of reasonable speculation. For you to define it as "ASB" is factually incorrect, and if you persist in defining what is very unlikely to be outright impossible, you merely serve to underscore the already demonstated evidence of your entrenched dogmatism on this matter.

With that established, let us consider both your arguments and your un-backed claims.


I can just as easily say you're guilty of Alexander fanaticism, given you ignore just how quick his empire disintegrated after his death, compared with the equally big Achaemenid Empire he conquered, which outlasted Cyrus's death for 200 years.

And here your argument at once collapses in on itself, simply because Alexander did die young, and others (such as Cyrus) had time to get their affairs in order. Succession is always the big issue, and had in fact been the issue that had critically weakened the Akhaimenids at the time in question-- the very factor that facilitated Alexander's conquest.

For this reason, your next sentence is without argumentative value, and expresses no more than an opinion based on limited information.


I don't think that's just because Alexander died prematurely without a heir. His empire was unstable on its own, due to the rapidity of conquest, the brutality of it (...)

Statements of opinion, not of fact. You ignore such facts as the simple reality that the very mother of Darius III thad adopted Alexander as her own son, and literally starved herself to death in mourning after Alexander died. That doesn't sound like a hated foreign conqueror, does it? The thousands of willing Persian recruits who joined his army also speak volumes. There are people who want to make Alexander seem like a hated tyrant, and the man you quote (Bosworth) is one of them. You ignore the real-life context of their work, evidently. These scholars were responding to an earlier tendency to portray Alexander as "the glorious westerner bringing civilisation to the barbaric East". They attacked a caricature of Alexander created by jingoistic dung-heads.

They did not attack the actual Alexander, who wasn't a "superior Westerner", certainly didn't see himself as such (in fact Aristotle despaired that he didn't), and actually endeavoured to integrate his own culture with that of Persia-- which he evidently and explicitly admired. As conquerors and rulers go, Alexander was far from the most brutal Persia had seen even in living memory (which included a nasty succession struggle). The assertion that there was somehow a deep-seated enmity against him in Persia is based on nothing substantial. Because colonialist jerks used his name to legitimise their world-view, the image of "colonialist Alexander" was attacked and portrayed as hated by the Persians. But that version of Alexander never existed.


(...) and the fact that it was clear Alexander was losing control of his army, as the mutiny in India (...)

It wasn't "clear" at all. It's clear you're misinformed. Alexander faced a mutiny when he set out to venture into India, beyond the boundaries of what he had in fact set out to do a decade earlier. His men objected, he relented, they went back. So that's that solved. Going into Arabia or the Med was another matter completely, which is proven by the fact that no objections to that were noted at all. (If the army had grown tired of him, why then did his men clamour to be at his side as he died? To see him one last time, this man they loved so much?)

The only objection his men gave after he turned back West arose due to the misunderstanding that he sought to replace them with Persians. In fact, he was responding to their refusal in India by offering anyone who wanted it a very well-paid retirement indeed. The vast majority was shocked at the thought, and the confusion was cleared up with a great feast. What kind of mutinous soldiers are aghast the very thought of retiring? It does not fit!

At the same time, this feast initiated the new order, with Persian soldiers now to serve under Macedonian officers. Imperial integration was underway. All Alexander needed was more time, which he never got. Your claim that this is not the real issue is simply incorrect, and based on a deterministic belief that Alexander could not have succeeded.


(...) and the wars of the diadochi show.

The fact that Alexander had no viable heir, which led to his soldiers in-fighting after his death, proves that he didn't control his army during his life? That is in no way logically consistent. Again, you assume that what happened without Alexander there (like Chandragupta invading) would happen the same with him there. But what you fail to understand is... well, basic causality. Certain things happened, and were only ever in the cards, because he died at that time. If Alexander had lived long enough to leave his empire to an adult heir, there would have been no Wars of the Successors. In fact, even in OTL, they were all terrified to claim the title of Great King. Even when the soldiers literally offered it to Perdikkas, he rejected it and wanted to be Regent for Alexander's infant heir-to-be. That's not the mark of disloyal soldiers. That's the behaviour of soldiers who still feel great love and loyalty for a man who is already dead. (To provide you with an alternative source: Romm, Ghost on the Throne. It describes, without ever glorifying Alexander, just how the Wars of the Successors began and escalated. It's quite a bit different than you seem to believe.)


And no, had there not been any OTL figures like Alexander, I would still say someone like him would be possible, given the several empires that are frankly ASB in their existence, including the Achaemendids that Alexander conquered, originating in a pre-literate non-monumental culture that swept the highly literate and highly monumental Assyrians, Babylonians and Egyptians in about a century, or with Genghis Khan, who was even more impressive conquering from China all the way to Rus.

Again, this undermines your whole point, since both Cyrus and Genghis Khan got what Alexander didn't: more time to set affairs in order and to get a more stable succession organised. These comparisons underline my argument, not yours. (Although yours isn't even an argument, but a claim.)


That still doesn't change how unfeasible your scenario is, both the conquest, and the idea that the Greeks could have somehow kept the whole massive empire, because the conditions of the era just didn't allow it.

Statement of opinion again. No arguments, just rigid determinism. Poor show!


Aside from the fact that Alexander not dying prematurely is pure ASB, as I stated to isabella before,

Already proven to be factually incorrect, as you abuse the definition of "ASB".


the Ptolemaics and especially the Seleucids had enough trees too yet they still didn't perform a single sea invasion to conquer even the coastal areas of the Arabian Peninsula.

Good heavens, are you saying that warring states that have to closely watch out for rivals on all sides have fewer resources to dedicate to such a venture than does a universal empire that controls the wider region? I never would have guessed that! To even compare the two situations is laughable. But I'm not surprised, as once more you blithely assume that conditions as they were in OTL would be the same in an ATL, despite a radical divergence. This seems to be a running theme with you. We are, however, on AH.com -- some readiness to project divergences and their logical consequences is advised.


As there was also yet no successful canal to link the Red Sea with the Mediterranean, the fleet Alexander was building with Lebanese trees was for the Mediterranean.

He was totally not building ships and ports on the northern edges of Arabia! Except he was, and Arrian explicitly describes it, and even gives a detailed account of how Alexander went to inspect the progress, and how expeditionary ventures were already underway. That kind of tells me that what you believe is actually based on just your opinion, and the sources be damned.


Finally, where do you get that Alexander had no interest in the inland Arabian Peninsula? I'm pretty sure all Alexander historians like Arrian only say "Arabia" without qualification, and Arabia meant the entire thing.

I get that from the fact that he had plans for his invasion, which involved "flanking" Arabia with naval detachments and sunduing the coasts. Plans for invading inland Arabia would look vastly different, and would also make zero sense at all. No foreign overlord in history even tried. Not the Persians, not the Romans, not the Ottomans and not even the known-to-occasionally-be-a-bit-silly-about-these-things British. All of them understood that controlling the ports meant controlling that which mattered. If you want to assume that, in spite of what his military preparations indicated, Alexander for no reason desired inland Arabia... be my guest. But that means you have a far greater willingness to embrace the highly unlikely than you have hitherto demonstrated.


The Mediterranean was such a great conduit that the Persians failed in conquering the far closer Greeks by invading through it, (...)

The Persians steered their fleet into the one place where it could be trapped in an enclosed area, and saw their foolishness duly punished. I grant that if Alexander for some incomprehensible reason tries to face the Carthaginians at Salamis while they're there beforehand to set it up just as they need to... that'll be it for him. Game over. But is that likely? I'll happily grant that it's physically possible, of course! It's one of the many ways (albeit a particularly unlikely one) in which Alexander could die in battle just a few years after his OTL demise.

Far more likely in this particular scenario of war with Carthage, however, is a series of regular sea-battles without the surroundings particulary favouring either side. Well. That's not going to go well for Carthage, in all likelihood. Why? I'll tell you why...



(...) the Greeks had to take Egypt by land instead of sea, struggled to take away closer Phoenician islands and coastal territories (see the Sicilian Wars for example) and it took the Romans a century and a half just to conquer Carthage.

...it's because Alexander is neither representing a bunch of Greek poleis which also happen to be fighting each other all the time, nor is he representing fledgling Rome (at the time still a small statelet; no wonder it took them a while). He is representing the most powerful and most wealthy empire existing on earth at the time. His coffers are, for this purpose, essentially endlessly deep. He can out-spend, out-build, out-recruit and out-last Carthage. He has enough resources available to defeat any fleet they can build, ship for ship, and afterwards he has enough resources left to blockade Carthage and every one of its colony-cities on land and on the sea, until every last inhabitant of every single one of those cities has starved to death.

That's why he'll win.

Not that he'll have to, because once their fleet is smashed, they'll sue for peace. And as was his established pattern with those who submitted like that, he'd be very lenient. (As opposed to his pattern with those who were stubborn. He'd kill those to the last man, and sell the women and children into slavery. See: Tyre and Gaza. A very effective carrot-and-stick policy, incidentally, which was famously also the basis of Genghis Khan's success. It's almost like effective conquerors have some certain approach in common...)


And yes, a state that has one of the most powerful fleets in the Mediterranean with centuries of experience fighting Greeks, is "doomed" just because Alexander had a fleet prepared for it.

The above rather shows what a silly straw man this is. It doesn't make you appear pithy. It makes you appear misinformed.


And you say I don't read your arguments. I've explicitly said that Rome is also protected by geography which Alexander just isn't going to overcome with the logistical problems he has.

You've said it, but saying it doesn't make it true. See below.


Also, like you said, he is going to have to fight his way through other nations and states, like Syracuse, as well as the Samnites. So he is most likely not even getting to Rome to begin with.

In fact, I've said that he's likely to ally with Rome. Should Rome force a fight, however, he would win that fight. Because Rome c. 315 BC or so isn't Rome at the height of its power. It isn't even Rome at the real start of its power.


By land it's even harder given he has to cross the Alps and fight his way through other Greek cities that escaped Philip II's unification (...)

How fortunate that ships exist and that he was set on building so many of them. Almost like he had a plan.


(...) such as Epirus.

You mean Epirus where his mum's from, where his sister is queen, where the king killed by the Samnites (who he's going west to avenge) ruled and where Alexander was warmly welcomed into exile when he was at odds with his dad? That Epirus?

At this point, I'm beginning to suspect you're a troll.


Moreover, if the Romans were capable of defeating Greeks in southern Italy, it's clear they're not as weak as you think, so that while certainly weaker than Alexander, they're not getting "curbstomped" either.

Again, conflating OTL with the ATL. Alexander is not Megale Hellas, nor is he Pyrrhos. He is several orders of magnitude beyond them. Your statement is akin to saying "Hey, they could lift ten kilograms, I bet they could at least lift 2000 kilograms for a little while...."

But no. Rome would be curb-stomped. But it won't come to that. Because Alexander, and volunteers from Epirus, and Megale Hellas, and Rome, will be curb-stomping the Samnites together. I give the Samnites two months on the outside, and that's because they're recalcitrant bastards who tend to flee into the hills and start raiding. (That stops, of course, once you enact a really extensive campaign of burning down all settlements until they surrender. Which was Alexander's go-to strategy for this kind of campaign against hill-folk.)



>Ruling from Macedon all the way to Pakistan
>Not overextended

Do I see an argument? No, I do not. Have I written an extensive post underpinning my views? Yes, I have. Will I respond to this childish nonsense by repeating myself? Not a chance. You can look it up yourself.


And he was so loved in Persia that he had to brutally suppress revolts, not just by Satraps (...)

He had major problems with one Satrap, who had in fact usurped his position when his predecessor died, and had been oppressing and fleecing the population. Which is why Alexander was so mad. Because he aimed to make his administration beloved by the Persians. A broadly effective strategy.


(...) but also by peoples like the Uxians, before entering India.

My, local insurgencies of the sort every classical-era empire in history had to deal with on a yearly basis. Somehow, when this happened to the Akhaimenids, they dealt with it effectively. And Alexander did the same. But for some reason, if he survives, this completely normal thing that occurred in all classical empires somehow destroys his empire. Because he's uniquely unable to do what other empires could do every single year. (Literally. "Hey, spring is early. You bet the hill tribes will start raiding a month early this year! Better get the palisade up!")


Read "Alexander and the East" by A. B. Bosworth. Heck, his memory in Persian memory is as Alexander the Accursed, a tyrant who only brought desolation as can be seen with his burning and sacking of Susa and Persepolis, and his further destruction of temples and execution of Persian magi after Hephaistion's death. I guess that because Alexander forced Persian women to marry Greeks that he was therefore loved, which is as ridiculous as saying the concubines captured by Genghis Khan loved him.

Bosworth's claims I have already addressed, placed in context, and thereby disproven. Of course, you again conflate OTL (where Alexander's conquest was followed by a long period of wars) with an ATL (in which this is not the case). But of course, those wars, which wrecked the region, have nothing to do with his legacy being seen as negative. Quite impossible! (If you're pre-determined to paint Alexander as a villain, that is. Otherwise... you'd use some logic and see sense.)

Alexander was loved at his death. In fact, they way you portray him in the above paragraph is based almost entirely on slander and context-dropping. Just about the only thing mentioned that happened exactly as you describe was the burning of the palace at Persepolis, and he instantly regretted that deeply. It was certainly a mistake, but he was aware of that. Acting as if Alexander was somehow a hated ruler who did hateful things by the standards of his time is absurd, and can only follow from deliberate misinterpretation of the historical record.


That's also not even going into how he had to brutally suppress revolts in India as well led by Brahmans and other local leaders. Again, read Bosworth for this. His control over India was always weak, and he was never going to hold on to it.

Here barely moved into India, in fact he never even ruled there at all: there were client kingdoms who paid him tribute. I never claimed he would hold onto those, by the way. In fact I explicitly described his Empire as extending "to the Indos" The client kingdoms beyond that are barely relevant to the Empire.


"Easy ickings", sure, I guess Indians can only defeat Greeks when the Greeks are weak, it's not because Indians actually had great armies that the army of Alexander was so scared off they mutinied just after seeing what Poros was capable of mustering.

Wherefore this man of straw, so poorly formed?

I never said anything like this, in fact I described Chandragupta as very, very competent. And very smart. The kind of smart that recognised easy pickings. You know, like when a very big empire has fallen into civil war and you can grab up the eastern provinces with very little risk of meaningful retribution. I'd call that easy pickings, and that in no way implies the one doing it is somehow incompetent.

That same man will nevertheless be smart enough not to pick a fight with the biggest empire around. Because whoever "wins", both sides lose. The costs outweigh any benefit, and both rulers in question still need to consolidate. Invading Alexander's empire while Alexander lives would be stupid, and Chandragupta would see that, even though you don't.


And no, Chandragupta's invasions was not "contingent" on things like Alexander's death. He definitely would have invaded the Greeks even if Alexander was still alive since he was just as expansionistic, and seeing his impressive defeat of the Nanda Empire, the same empire that made Alexander's men cower in fear despite previously asserting their undying loyalty to a man they considered a god, there's no reason why Chandragupta is going to be less successful than he was against Seleucus, especially when Alexander's control over his Indian territories was very weak and only nominal in the case of the massive territory Poros got to rule over as king.

Chandragupta prodded further into the Seleukid Empire than you seem to think. What I'm saying is that he wouldn't do that in this ATL. He may well lean on the client kings east of the Indos and force them to pay him tribute, too. In fact, I expect no less.

But he would not invade Alexander's Empire proper. Because that action was only taken in the specific context of Alexander being dead and his generals being pre-occupied in the West, fighting each other. Without those conditions, the invasion would be foolish, and Chandragupta was no fool. He'd realise that he could do (coming from India) things in India that Alexander (coming from Macedon) could not do in India. It's something about logistics. Chandragupta had a bit of a home advantage there. Which is why he could defeat the Nanda Empire, and Alexander could not.

This is also why a second invasion of India by Alexander would near-certainly be a disaster. But if Chandragupta moves beyond the Indos, into the Empire proper, he loses more of his logistical advantage with every single step while Alexander correspondingly gains. He would know that, he would not cross the Indos, he would focus on other (OTL!) priorities that he delayed in OTL because the opportunity to strike at the Seleukids presented itself. In other words: he'd conquer Kalinga and the Tamil states, Get that squared away. Save (alt-)Ashoka some trouble down the line.

So you see, because Chandragupta had strategic awareness exeeding that of a parakeet, he would be extemely likely to act in this way. Which is why your assertions are so very wrong.


Yes, it is to overestimate him enormously. You want him to conquer areas that are accessible only through deserts or by sea and also protected by mountain ranges, after creating the biggest Greek empire until that point, populated by millions of non-Greeks that spoke different languages and that were separated by thousands of kilometres, with a mutinying army and ancient pre-feudal or proto-feudal logistics on top of all that. Heck, just the driving point of the whole scenario, which is Alexander not dying prematurely from all his wounds and diseases, is ASB to begin with.

You conclude, in style, by repeating your claims and providing no arguments or facts. Bravo. Nicely done. You're still wrong about pretty much everything, and I have provided arguments supporting that statement.


Here is a short list of books (besides the obvious ancient sources) you might consider to get a somewhat less biased view of Alexander than the one espoused by such authors as Bosworth or Ober.


-- Peter Green's Alexander of Macedon is one of the best books on Alexander, and Green is actually quite sceptical, too. Unlike Bosworth (and, on the other side of the spectrum, Tarn or even Renault) he does strive to be objective. He's not seeking to defend or attack, just to get what facts we may gather, and what views we may reasonably extrapolate.

-- Philip Freeman, Robin Lane Fox and Paul Cartledge have each written a book predictably called Alexander the Great. All worth reading.

-- Thomas Carol's Alexander the Great in his World provides some nice context, although Green is also pretty good at doing that.

-- Edward Anson's Alexander the Great: Themes and Issues looks at different facets. If you liked Bosworth's "thematic essays", you may well enjoy this. Provides quite some critical views, too.

-- James Romm has written the ultimate guide on the way the Successors fell out in Ghost on the Throne....

-- ...but Robin Waterfield's Dividing the Spoils takes a less Alexander-centric view. Great for complementary reading.

-- We come back to Peter Green, because Alexander to Actium: The Historical Evolution of the Hellenistic Age gives us an excellent overview of the Hellenistic age as a whole, and will no doubt illustrate to you why a living Alexander running his empire would yield us a vastly different situation than the Hellenistic Age of OTL.

-- Finally, a somewhat more lurid view of the same era in Daniel Ogden's Polygamy, Prostitutes and Death: The Hellenistic Dynasties, which is primarily important here in showing how the corruption of the age played a role in retro-actively painting its instigator (Alexander) in a negative light to some of those living in the Hellenistic Kingdoms. Again, this rather demonstrates (implicitly) how a living Alexander would alter this situation fundamentally.


I sincerely hope that this can help you get a different view of the matter, which doesn't rely on ill-advised biases.
 
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