AHC: Re-unite Alexander the Great's Empire

A challenge i've been thinking off for a little while now to post.

Your challenge, should you choose to accept, is to create a feasible way to re-unite Alexander the Great's vast empire at any point after his death. You may choose who could potentially re-unite it and at any point before, say, 150B.C.
 
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Razgriz 2K9

Banned
Yeah Seleucus Nicator is probably the best bet, although even if he had taken Macedonia and Greece there'd still be Ptolemy II in Egypt... plus he was already in his late seventies anyways....

^This, and I don't think any of his successors were anywhere near capable of such a task.
 
Hephaestion survives and marries Alexander's sister Cleopatra and his widows Stateira and Roxana, perhaps after briefly ruling as vizier on behalf of Arrhidaeus or Alexander IV. With Olympia's help he secures Macedonia and Asia Minor while focusing his attention on retaining Egypt, Mesopotamia and Bactria.
 
Yeah Seleucus Nicator is probably the best bet, although even if he had taken Macedonia and Greece there'd still be Ptolemy II in Egypt... plus he was already in his late seventies anyways....

Well wasn't he planning on using Ptolemy Keraunos as a pretext to invade Egypt after securing Macedon? It shouldn't be too much of a stretch to have him live a few years longer, long enough to take Egypt.


Of course, everything is going to collapse spectacularly when he dies.
 
Of course, everything is going to collapse spectacularly when he dies.
Why?

Alexander's armies had fought themselves to exhaustion for all the various Diadochi, so no easy supply of troops there and the initial Seleucid dynasts were reasonably competent (certainly no worse than the later Achaemenids who also kept the empire afloat). It also helped Antiochus I was half Persian.
 
Why?

Alexander's armies had fought themselves to exhaustion for all the various Diadochi, so no easy supply of troops there and the initial Seleucid dynasts were reasonably competent (certainly no worse than the later Achaemenids who also kept the empire afloat). It also helped Antiochus I was half Persian.

Because managing an empire that large is extremely difficult, especially considering that extra attention would have to be devoted to Macedon if he wants to keep it-between Pyrrhus, the Greek cities, the coming invasion of the Celts, Macedon would be worth far too much time and effort to hold when its really the fringe of an empire that a lot of time and energy needs to be devoted to to maintain. They simply will have to reconcile with the loss of Macedon, perhaps hoping to obtain it again at a future date.

Phileraerus in Pergamum, although nominally under control of the Seleucids, has a lot of autonomy and freedom of action, so is essentially independent in all but name. Then there's the east to deal with, and the fickle and independent minded satraps in the east, who would prove troublesome-I can see Baktria at least still retaining at the very least virtual autonomy.

Saying collapse spectacularly is perhaps an overstatement-what I meant was, the Seleucids would not be able to hold these additional provinces for much longer after Seleucus' death(with perhaps the exception of Egypt, though assuming Seleucus isn't alive for too much longer, Ptolemy Keraunos could end up ruling Egypt as a de facto separate entity after its conquest).
 
Well wasn't he planning on using Ptolemy Keraunos as a pretext to invade Egypt after securing Macedon? It shouldn't be too much of a stretch to have him live a few years longer, long enough to take Egypt.

Keraunos complicates things; the man tried to gain his own kingdom his entire life. As I recall, he thought Seleucus was going to grant him that by conquering Egypt for him, but it seems that he realized that Seleucus was trying to reconquer all of Alexander's empire for himself and decided that he had a better shot of gaining a kingdom without Seleucus than with him and got the go-ahead from Ptolemy II to assassinate him. I think it'd be better for Seleucus just to have Keraunos as a factor eliminated. He doesn't need a claim to justify conquering Egypt, especially when he controls 90% of the original empire.
 
Hephaestion survives and marries Alexander's sister Cleopatra and his widows Stateira and Roxana, perhaps after briefly ruling as vizier on behalf of Arrhidaeus or Alexander IV. With Olympia's help he secures Macedonia and Asia Minor while focusing his attention on retaining Egypt, Mesopotamia and Bactria.

Hephaestion doesn't need to marry Alexander's widows... or at least it wouldn't fill any purpose, since he was already married to Drypetis, Stateira's sister and daughter of Darius III. Marrying Alexander's widows too would be a dangerous step that would be sure to backfire, since many of the nobles would have been suspicious (or outright hostile) towards him anyways and marrying all of the Achaemenid princesses would have been seen as acting far too much as a monarch ruling in his own right rather than a non-Argead regent. Adding Cleopatra to that would be far too much. Hephaestion might have tried (I doubt it but it's possible), but I would bet it'd get him killed very quickly - he already had a ton of enemies at court, doing all of this just makes it too easy.

EDIT: To clarify, my main point in the paragraph above is that marrying Stateira and Roxana and Parysatis would be a bad move, and that in that context marrying Cleopatra too would "be too much". Just marrying Cleopatra could very happen and help Hephaestion; it'd be a fairly bold step, but it would give him a strong alliance with Cleopatra and the staunchest Argead supporters, and the idea has roots IOTL, since Perdiccas (the man who Hephaestion would most mirror in this ATL) was offered Cleopatra and a number of the of the other Diadochi generals tried to win her hand, although she refused all their offers. This still doesn't help shore up his position where it really would need it though - with men like Craterus and Eumenes, who absolutely despised him. There was a large faction within the Macedonian military aristocracy that hated Hephaestion for being so close to Alexander, and were jealous that his closeness got him promoted all the way to chiliarch. With Hephaestion ruling as regent without Alexander I believe there is a great chance this bubbles over, most likely in the form of a coup d'etat. If Hephaestion can be one step ahead of his enemies, however, there is a chance this could work in preserving the empire. We don't really know if Hephaestion would have been more competent in dealing with the many factions that emerged after Alexander's death than Perdiccas was; he might have been, but he might not have been. I feel like he probably wouldn't have been, but I could very well be wrong.
 
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Seleucus is killed by a rock to the head before he reaches the East. Antigonus' invasion of Egypt is succesful. Without Ptolemy or Seleucus, Cassander is doomed vs Demetrius and the Greeks and Lysimachus won't be able to withstand Antigonus. Antigonus marches east to re-assert his authority among the satraps and ends up ruling a unified Antigonid Empire.
 
Seleucus is killed by a rock to the head before he reaches the East. Antigonus' invasion of Egypt is succesful. Without Ptolemy or Seleucus, Cassander is doomed vs Demetrius and the Greeks and Lysimachus won't be able to withstand Antigonus. Antigonus marches east to re-assert his authority among the satraps and ends up ruling a unified Antigonid Empire.
This works too. Antigonus was tantalizingly close to realizing this goal, and he certainly could do it.


Hephaestion doesn't need to marry Alexander's widows... or at least it wouldn't fill any purpose, since he was already married to Drypetis, Stateira's sister and daughter of Darius III. Marrying Alexander's widows too would be a dangerous step that would be sure to backfire, since many of the nobles would have been suspicious (or outright hostile) towards him anyways and marrying all of the Achaemenid princesses would have been seen as acting far too much as a monarch ruling in his own right rather than a non-Argead regent. Adding Cleopatra to that would be far too much. Hephaestion might have tried (I doubt it but it's possible), but I would bet it'd get him killed very quickly - he already had a ton of enemies at court, doing all of this just makes it too easy.

EDIT: To clarify, my main point in the paragraph above is that marrying Stateira and Roxana and Parysatis would be a bad move, and that in that context marrying Cleopatra too would "be too much". Just marrying Cleopatra could very happen and help Hephaestion; it'd be a fairly bold step, but it would give him a strong alliance with Cleopatra and the staunchest Argead supporters, and the idea has roots IOTL, since Perdiccas (the man who Hephaestion would most mirror in this ATL) was offered Cleopatra and a number of the of the other Diadochi generals tried to win her hand, although she refused all their offers. This still doesn't help shore up his position where it really would need it though - with men like Craterus and Eumenes, who absolutely despised him. There was a large faction within the Macedonian military aristocracy that hated Hephaestion for being so close to Alexander, and were jealous that his closeness got him promoted all the way to chiliarch. With Hephaestion ruling as regent without Alexander I believe there is a great chance this bubbles over, most likely in the form of a coup d'etat. If Hephaestion can be one step ahead of his enemies, however, there is a chance this could work in preserving the empire. We don't really know if Hephaestion would have been more competent in dealing with the many factions that emerged after Alexander's death than Perdiccas was; he might have been, but he might not have been. I feel like he probably wouldn't have been, but I could very well be wrong.
It would be interesting to see Eumenes perhaps pair up with Antigonus against Hephaestion. IIRC, the two had been on fairly friendly terms dating back to before Alexander's invasion of Persia. They would make quite a team, being (arguably) the two best Diadochoi generals.

Though at the same time, Eumenes was also fiercely loyal to the Argead dynasty and was friends with Olympias IIRC as well. Is there anyway these two contradictory connections could be reconciled?
 
Hephaestion doesn't need to marry Alexander's widows... or at least it wouldn't fill any purpose, since he was already married to Drypetis, Stateira's sister and daughter of Darius III. Marrying Alexander's widows too would be a dangerous step that would be sure to backfire, since many of the nobles would have been suspicious (or outright hostile) towards him anyways and marrying all of the Achaemenid princesses would have been seen as acting far too much as a monarch ruling in his own right rather than a non-Argead regent. Adding Cleopatra to that would be far too much. Hephaestion might have tried (I doubt it but it's possible), but I would bet it'd get him killed very quickly - he already had a ton of enemies at court, doing all of this just makes it too easy.

EDIT: To clarify, my main point in the paragraph above is that marrying Stateira and Roxana and Parysatis would be a bad move, and that in that context marrying Cleopatra too would "be too much". Just marrying Cleopatra could very happen and help Hephaestion; it'd be a fairly bold step, but it would give him a strong alliance with Cleopatra and the staunchest Argead supporters, and the idea has roots IOTL, since Perdiccas (the man who Hephaestion would most mirror in this ATL) was offered Cleopatra and a number of the of the other Diadochi generals tried to win her hand, although she refused all their offers. This still doesn't help shore up his position where it really would need it though - with men like Craterus and Eumenes, who absolutely despised him. There was a large faction within the Macedonian military aristocracy that hated Hephaestion for being so close to Alexander, and were jealous that his closeness got him promoted all the way to chiliarch. With Hephaestion ruling as regent without Alexander I believe there is a great chance this bubbles over, most likely in the form of a coup d'etat. If Hephaestion can be one step ahead of his enemies, however, there is a chance this could work in preserving the empire. We don't really know if Hephaestion would have been more competent in dealing with the many factions that emerged after Alexander's death than Perdiccas was; he might have been, but he might not have been. I feel like he probably wouldn't have been, but I could very well be wrong.

The royal widow was a powerful figure in both Argead and Persian courts, traditionally neutralized by the successor or regent with marriage (either to her or her daughter). The unstable structure and sheer size of Alexander's empire, the multiplicity of war-hardened grandees and the uncertain succession to a new entity (not that the Argeads and Achaemenids didn't have their own succession dramas) only to serve to complicate the situation further. Allowing these women to remain unmarried or be distributed among Alerxander's generals is way too dangerous - far more dangerous than marrying them himself as a means of concentrating legitimacy in his person and eventually sidelining the Argead males as Alexander's successor.

Marriage with Roxana would secure Hephaestion's position as Regent for Alexander IV; marriage with Stateira consolidate him as the legitimate King of Asia; marriage with Cleopatra legitimize him as King of Macedonia and Epirus and "son" of Olympias. A bloodbath would inevitably follow but I'm confident in Hephaestion and Olympias' combined ability to prevail over the rest.
 
The royal widow was a powerful figure in both Argead and Persian courts, traditionally neutralized by the successor or regent with marriage (either to her or her daughter). The unstable structure and sheer size of Alexander's empire, the multiplicity of war-hardened grandees and the uncertain succession to a new entity (not that the Argeads and Achaemenids didn't have their own succession dramas) only to serve to complicate the situation further. Allowing these women to remain unmarried or be distributed among Alerxander's generals is way too dangerous - far more dangerous than marrying them himself as a means of concentrating legitimacy in his person and eventually sidelining the Argead males as Alexander's successor.

Marriage with Roxana would secure Hephaestion's position as Regent for Alexander IV; marriage with Stateira consolidate him as the legitimate King of Asia; marriage with Cleopatra legitimize him as King of Macedonia and Epirus and "son" of Olympias. A bloodbath would inevitably follow but I'm confident in Hephaestion and Olympias' combined ability to prevail over the rest.

The question begs itself: if this is such a good idea, why didn't it happen IOTL? Perdiccas was, essentially, in the role we're casting Hephaestion in here. After Alexander died, Roxane grew nervous that Stateira or Parysatis would suddenly become pregnant and thus be able to challenge her baby as Alexander's successor. She then collaborated with Perdiccas to have both killed. Perdiccas never aspired to make Roxane his wife, working to protect her and Alexander IV but never once trying to become the boy-king's step-father, even while he set aside his Susa bride (as I recall, the daughter of Atropates) and chased Cleopatra and Nicaea trying to find the best alliance. As I recall, polygamy was only practiced by kings in Macedonian society. Note that most of Alexander's successors never picked up the practice, and that the most obvious one that did, Ptolemy, only did so once Alexander was dead and his position secure and unchallenged in Egypt. He married Antipater's daughter first, then a few years later married Berenice, all the while maintaining the Athenian prostitute Thais as a de facto but not de jure consort. I could be wrong on this, but I think it was the case prior to Alexander's death - I can't think of anyone besides the king having more than one legal wife at a time in his army or in Philip's army before that point.

If Hephaestion takes Roxane and/or Stateira and Parysatis, he is essentially declaring himself king over Alexander's brother and child, almost to the point of declaring himself to be Alexander. This wouldn't be horribly surprising given his history with Alexander. However, in other Argead/Achaemenid examples, the regent was always an Argead or Achaemenid and had a claim to the throne himself. Hephaestion is a minor noble who owes his entire position to being Alexander's (probable) lover and a competent general in his own right. He wouldn't be allowed to declare himself king so easily, not at this stage. While he might be ruling in fact, his many enemies would surely capitalize on the obvious grasps for power in these moves. Perdiccas' story was one of compromise, trying to keep a huge number of factions pleased, until it turned out no one was happy with him (except Eumenes) and finally he picked a side and lost. It didn't work, but blatantly picking one side won't work much better than Perdiccas' blatant decision to pick Olympias unless of course he actually wins, unlike his OTL counterpart. And I'm not sure that Hephaestion and Olympias together are stronger than Antipater, Craterus, Perdiccas, Ptolemy, etc. etc. Hephaestion was not the most beloved officer in the army (Craterus was), and Antipater holds Macedonia. He wasn't as good a general as either of those men.

Even if Hephaestion marries Roxane, Stateira (somewhat redundantly as a sister of his wife Drypetis, but you do have a point that it does prevent another from trying to marry her, although a man in Hephaestion's position should be able to prevent that anyways), and Parysatis, I feel it's almost certain that Roxane seeks for help in eliminating all of the women who might be able to claim their son has a better claim than her own to the throne. Hephaestion wouldn't do it, being married to all of them, including Darius III's two daughters. So she must seek his enemies. Working with Craterus or someone else, she eliminates at least Stateira and Parysatis like she did IOTL, and maybe Drypetis too, if she's extra paranoid (and I think there are rumors that Drypetis was part of the purge anyways). There goes all of Hephaestion's nice claims. Or, she uses her newfound closeness with Hephaestion to murder him (preemptively protecting herself), and then go on to purge the other wives and protect her position as the next king's mother.

There are only two ways that this goes well for Hephaestion: one, he outschemes Roxane and has her incapacitated before she kills Alexander's other widows and his wife (or himself), and then somehow manages to gain the support of enough of the army and defeats Craterus and Antipater and Antigonus and anyone else that might rebel; or two, literally have Alexander's dying wish to be for Hephaestion to marry his wives and proclaim his unborn son with Roxane to be his heir, which should be enough to calm most, at least for the time being.

In short, I don't see this scenario working out well for Hephaestion or for the preservation of the empire. I'm not wholly sure whether it would have been accepted for Hephaestion to take more than one wife, but taking on all of Alexander's widows would have been seen as the blatant power grab it would have been, and the already hostile aristocracy would have been glad to see a reason to pounce. Hephaestion would have to maintain his crown with force, and there isn't much reason in my view to see how he would've been successful without most of the key members of the aristocracy supporting him, those aristocrats usually being seen as greater generals than him. It's not that complicated to make sure that Alexander's widows don't marry one of his rivals - just keep them secure in his court under close supervision. He's the one in control here, he'd have the power to do that. He doesn't have to marry all of them himself. And even if he wins a civil war, he's have a great deal of reconquering to do in the east, which if it's anything like OTL will have fallen from Macedonian control.

Even shorter: Hephaestion probably isn't the one to keep the empire together. He's too divisive and probably not strong enough to maintain order or to conquer it back. Seleucus had a much better shot forty years later, even in his late seventies, to at least rule the entire empire for a year or two before that likely falls apart simply due to the empire's sheer magnitude.

EDIT: I forgot to make one other point, that I meant to make at the beginning: marriage alliances with easterners weren't worth nearly as much after Alexander died IOTL. Hephaestion as a supporter of Alexander's integration policy might have tried to preserve that policy, but really the old Achaemenid court didn't provide much power once Alexander had purged the eastern satrapies of old Achaemenid loyalists, and the death blow was when nearly all of Alexander's generals ditched their wives in favor of Greek and Macedonian wives almost as soon as he died. He's going to be dealing almost entirely with Macedonians, and its with Macedonians that Hephaestion would need to make allies with in order to preserve the empire, not Persians. Perdiccas never once considered marrying Alexander's wives. Why? In part I think for the reasons I've already stated (no polygamy for non-royals IIRC, assumption of too much symbolic power, etc.), but also because they really don't actually improve his position that much. If he thought that marrying the last Achaemenid princesses would strengthen his claim to be "Lord of Asia", why did he assist Roxane in killing them? And if he was working closely with Roxane, why didn't he marry her instead of worrying about Nicaea or Cleopatra?
 
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All valid points, but I do believe Hephaestion and Perdiccas would have been perceived radically different and thus have had different options to hand.

For one, Hephaestion was already Alexander's brother-in-law and the husband of royalty: much like Seleucid princesses bestowing upon their husbands the aura and glory of basileia a few generations down the line, I would imagine Alexander purposefully arranged the union so as to raise Hephaestion to semi-regal status. As such, Hephaestion was not only already part of the royal nucleus, but indeed the only capable, adult, war-hardened (semi-)royal male at hand. Perdiccas on the other hand was one of many, perhaps not even an exact peer of the other diadochi; unable to assert himself as regent for Philip Arrhidaeus, he resorted to working in conjunction with a lower-ranking royal widow who had struck lucky but was still vulnerable to her senior counterparts. As events unfurled and the diadochi's ambitions ripened, Cleopatra was the eminently superior marriage alliance: the support of Olympias and a solid claim to the Macedonian throne (and Argead heirship) being far more precious a dower than whatever Bactrian friends Roxanne could muster. My guess is he didn't dare go so far as imagine himself as Alexander's heir, at least not in the immediate aftermath of the latter's decease.

It's possible Ptolemy I may have been a serial monogamist: either way, I think at least in part the monogamy of the diadochi can be explained by the urgent nature of their marital alliances: Olympias was not about to place her only daughter as some secondary wife, nor was there any sense in Antipater giving Nicaea to be someone else's concubine. At least in the moment the marriage alliance had to mean something and that required exclusivity which would, perhaps, have been less crucial in times of peace.

If Hephaestion survives, I wouldn't be startled by a scenario in which he assumes the regency (with complete guardianship of the royal harem) and quickly assumes a joint rule with the infant King (who is soon sidelined, in keeping with Argead precedent). Roxanne as mother of the crown prince (that is, the demoted infant King) enjoys a seniority at Hephaestion's side that ensures her against her enemies in the marriage bed: Stateira, Parysatis and any other brides Hephaestion picked up are ensured continued safety and rank, in appropriately Persian fashion, with the perspective of fathering the eventual successor (Stateira's son might mount a mean legal challenge to Alexander IV's title, Xerxes-style) or at least his consort (half-sibling marriage being the obvious solution to such dramas frequently employed by both Argeads and Achaemenids).

Hephaestion's position would be a difficult one and he'd have a tough road ahead of him, but I do think it's possible for him to pull off. He might lose Parthia, Bactria, etc, but the Achaemenid core plus Egypt, Asia Minor and Macedonia could be within reach.
 
Hmm... I think we're going to end up agreeing to disagree. I don't think Hephaestion would have been seen by most as semi-royalty, even though Alexander married him to an Achaemenid princess. If Alexander lived longer that might happen, but if he's still dying in 323 I doubt most of the players then would be willing to see Hephaestion that way. I can see Hephaestion thinking of his position in the way you describe, but I also think it would backfire far beyond what he would be able to control and in the long run be worse for the empire's unity.
 
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