What if Israel was never conquered by the Egyptians, Babylonians, Persians etc. but replaced them a the major power in the region? Is that possible? And how could that happen?
AHC: Israel - An Antique Super-Power
- Thread starter Barbarossa Rotbart
- Start date
I'm under the impression (although I may be VERY wrong, considering Ancient History is NOT by any means my area of expertise) that the Israelites, whilst proving to be a hardy people, weren't demographically very strong. A tiny population, poorer land and technology. I sorta think of them as a religious-zealot-version of the Samnites. Very good defensively, but hard to see them conquering many lands. A pan-Hebrew power could be a regional power, but with Egypt and Mesopotamia on either side, it's going to be a Poland, not a Russia.
They'd have to either become a militarily powerful overclass controlling a big part of the fertile crescent with a critical grip on valuable metalworking resources--as the Hittites were. Otherwise, demographics (the sheer numbers at the command of the Babylonians, Assyrians, Hittites, and Egyptians) works against them.
Well the Phoenician trade could (and did) help them finance such conquests, as long as they made sure to honor the Phoenicians independence.