Alexander in India and China?

I've seen threads where Alexander lives longer and turns his eyes west, but I can't remember ever seeing anyone talking about what would happen if he lived longer and was determined to continue east. So let's say that Alexander the Great lives to the ripe old age of 70. That would mean he lives an extra 38 years, until 286 BC. If he insisted on going further east, would his army mutiny against him again as they did in India? Assuming that they do go along with him, how far could he get? The Nanda Empire was overthrown two years after Alexander's death anyway, and according to Plutarch, Chandragupta Maurya (who overthrew the Nanda in OTL) approached Alexander about destroying the Nanda the first time he was in India. If he arrives after the Mauryans supplanted the Nandans, would Alexander fight the Mauryans or try to ally with them? Also, would Alexander getting all the way to China be plausible? China was in the Warring States Period, so would they have united to fight Alexander or could Alexander gobble them up piecemeal?
 

NIK PARMEN

Banned
I don't think that Alexander will continue east. There are documents by Alexander himself few mounths before he died saying that he went too far east (possibly he had in his mind the mutuny in India and Opis) he prefered to go with areas more familiar(Mediteranian Sea) than unknown terratories its army would have accepted more easily
 
I think Alexander himself did want to go further east - he had this burning desire to reach the Encircling Ocean that Aristotle had taught him about in geography lessons - but his army had just had enough.

I think, if he'd had lived, and, once Arabia was conquered in 323 B.C (that was the next port of call for him after his return to Babylon), he would have gathered together another army (this time of Persian phallangists) and gone with Nearchus' great fleet east again.

I really believe Alexander just couldn't live without battle, conquests, new sights, new adventures. Because he was often putting himself in incredible danger, I think he would have returned to India and probably have died there within a few years of 323 B.C. anyway - meanwhile making his Empire bigger in the Indus or Gangetic valleys. Personally, I just can't see Alexander getting tired of war and settling down to be a wise ruler into old age - that was Ptolemy's gig! :D
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
I tried my hand at an "Alexander Lives" TL awhile back. I should revisit it at some point (which is also true for about half a dozen other TLs I have started).

It seems pretty clear from the ancient sources that Alexander intended to mount a campaign against Carthage after subjugating Arabia. In my TL, I figured that after this was accomplished, he might want to return to India and push on into territory farther east. Having solidified his rule over his Empire, he might have been able to do so with an army as much Persian as Greek.
 
Thank you for an interesting contribution.

I agree Carthage was in Alexander's sights, when he was at Babylon, but I'm not sure it was certain that Alexander planned to go there after Arabia. If there is a reference to this (in Arrian, I presume?) can you direct me to it, please, so I can look it up?

My sense that Alexander would've gone East again, before he went west, is admittedly based on a sort of 'historical psych-evaluation' (which is of course not historical at all :)) - but hey, this is Alternate History, so we can muck about and have a bit of fun while we imagine what might have been...

Personally, I think Alexander would have had a tremendous sense of 'unfinished business' in India. His army stopped him, not an enemy. I think he was also following his 'pothos' (passion) to tread in the footsteps of Dionysus, the God of Wine, who in legend went on a campaign Up-Country (Anabasis) and conquered India. Remember, by this stage Alexander was comparing himself, not with other men, but with Gods. I think the obsession with Dionysus is revealed, not only in the claim he is descended from him, but also in motifs, associated with Dionysus (such as the elephant scalp), which appear in the so-called 'Alexander coinage' minted by the Diadochi after his death. I think, also, Alexander was especially intrigued by India, e.g. by his interactions with the 'gymnosophists' and their ideas. I also think the idea of India - this teeming, rich land, vast and varied, and which his hero Cyrus the Great had never subdued - would have challenged and excited him to conquer it. Lastly, by 323 B.C., I think Alexander was pretty much an Oriental Despot in the same vein as Xerxes or Darius - you can point at the luxurious clothes, the demand for proskynesis from courtiers, the eunuchs etc to prove this - so I think his future would very likely have been focused on the East rather than the West...

But, ultimately, who knows: it never happened; we'll always wonder at it and never know for sure...:)
 
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