Alexander lives

jeffking

Banned
Supposed that Alexander the Great lives until a ripe old age of 60, how far would his army have been able to conquer? They were on the outskirts of India at that point, could they have made it all the way to China?
 
No. Logistics were stretched enough as is. The more interesting question is how well he could have held the empire he'd already conquered together.
 
He was overextended as it was and his next targets were Arabia, Carthage and Italy anyway so China was not likely in his lifetime. 32 was a normal age to die of natural causes at the time anyway and Alexander was a horribly scarred alcoholic so it's a miracle he even made it to 32 at all.
 

jeffking

Banned
If he had left or will or a line of succession they could have easily defeated the Roman presence.
 
Alexander couldn't have made it to China. I'd say he could probably add the Arabian coasts to his empire, but beyond that, things become very difficult.

Plus, there'll be constant revolts. Alexander's attempts to plot a middle way between Graeco-Macedonian and Iranian customs tended to alienate both parties. His loyalists, of course, will stand by him, but there weren't too many die-hards by the time of his death. Outlying areas, whether under Iranian or Macedonian satraps, will be trying to break away for quite a while.
 
Search for the Blood and Gold timelines, which are all excellent. Alexander already had to come back from India due to the threat of mutiny, and it's unlikely he'd go all the way there again. If he lived longer, his future conquests would have been in Arabia and the Med.
 
If he lived longer, yes, he could have conquered more. But reaching China? That involves going even further from the Mediterranean, the ONLY reason the Romans could have such a swollen empire years later.

Alexander's descendants, if the empire hadn't collapsed, would still probably wind up losing the furthest eastern provinces.
 
His army was ready to revolt if he didn't start for home. China?

Not to mention the logistics. He was already stretched thin as it was. Arrian talks about how in his pursuit of the last Persian remnants, many of his men ended up starving as he marched away from his supply lines.
 
There's also the fact that Arachosia+Bactria (Afghanistan) and India had all been relative unknowns to him and his army, the Greeks+Macedonians were far more familiar with the Western parts of the Achaemenid Empire than with the East. And the less developed the infrastructure of a region, the more difficult it is to conquer; there's hardly transnational infrastructure going between India and China in this period in the vein of the Assyrian/Neo-Babylonian/Achaemenid/Seleucid Royal Road to make travelling easy.
 
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