Alexander the Great goes West

NIK PARMEN

Banned
On the map you see the size of Alexander's empire the day that actualy died. If Alexander the doesn't die in 323 BC but in let's say 299 BC how far he could expand? We know that he had plans against Arabia, Carthage and Italy is it possible to go far more????

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It is just one of the most fascinating 'What Ifs' of history ever this one! :D

I think, if he had lived in 323 B.C. and turned West, Alexander would have found war galore and challenge in the Mediterranean basin for years and years to come!

The Carthaginians, and, of course, the Roman Republic, would have given him a really, really good challenge - if they actually fought him! Something tells me that an Alexander returning unconquered from the East, with the most experienced, tough, flexible and motivated army the world had ever known...PLUS the riches of the East, PLUS almost infinite manpower reserves...I think Carthage and Rome would just have given Alexander their 'bread and water' and then regular tribute to leave them alone (Carthage in particular won't have forgotten the fate of the Mother-City of Tyre after it defied Alexander...)

But Alexander would still have gone on, looking for a worthy, near-impossible, challenge. I think the tribes within the interior of Spain, the Gaulish tribes in 'France' and the tall Keltoi of the Danube valley would have provided Alexander with the sort of endless warfare he loved - until one of those battles finally killed him.
 

AINDF

Banned
He'll probably have to return to his old stomping grounds more than once to quell incursions and rebellions.
 
Alexander the Great provides his own wank! Him just living longer just keeps the wank going. Alexwank!
 
If he survives in 323 BCE, I see Alexander sailing around the Arabian Peninisula's coastline, where he will spend much of the next year either conquering or impressing his military might on the indigenous potentates. Certain key places may be settled by Graeco-Persian colonies to maintain trade and communications with Alexander's Arabian vassals.

All this perhaps occurs before he returns to Egypt, and spends months touring his earlier conquests in the Levant and Asia Minor before returning to Macedon and dealing with Antipater and his supporters.

After that, military ventures could occur in the next twenty or thirty years as far as the Greek colonies in the Crimea, Sicily and southern Italy. Rome will be difficult, but probably not beyond Alexander's strategic skills. While Carthage will need to be matched in naval warfare before troops could be landed in North Africa. Maybe the powerful Greek city-state of Syracuse actually solicit military aid from the Macedonians in order to contend with Carthage?

I think Alexander will be too old before he could move against the Getai, the Celtic Boii and Scordisci, and the Gauls. By the reign of his son, the Delphic Expedition of Brennus might not penetrate as far as it did.

Given the sheer size of his empire, political decentralization would pull the whole ediface apart within one or two generations.
 
Off-Topic question. But how many troops did the Macedonians have protecting Macedonia while there main military was busy in Persia and Central Asia.

Looking at the map would think that Macedonia proper could have been vulnerable to attack from the North and West.
 
Um, weren't Alexander's armies essentially in a state of mutiny?

How likely is it that he could have compelled them to keep going?
 

HJ Tulp

Donor
Off-Topic question. But how many troops did the Macedonians have protecting Macedonia while there main military was busy in Persia and Central Asia.

Looking at the map would think that Macedonia proper could have been vulnerable to attack from the North and West.

An attack by whom? Before going East Alexander dealt with some threats on his borders.

The big question remains, why would Alexander go West? He will have a tough job waiting for him in the Levant for years to come probably. The West wasn't nearly as richt as the Levant was.
 
I'll agree that if Alexander invaded Italy at the start of his career, he would have won. However, Livy is postulating an Alexander who completed his conquest of India. The Magadha Empire (which was right in his path) was an decrepit nation under the Nandas, so let's assume this takes the year it would have taken him to conquer the Indus. Given his track record, he would have then moved south and conquered the princedoms and city-states of the Deccan, so let's say that's another one or two years. It then took him a year to get back from India to Babylon, so that brings us to 323 BC. After spending a year in Babylon tying up loose ends, he invades SE Arabia, and, because he feels like it, Meroe, taking another year. We're now up to 321 BC, the time the battle of Caudine Forks took place. Alexander, however, would first move against Athens and Sparta, for prior slights - both cities, though past their prime, were tough nuts to crack, and that would be another year, which he also spends building up his fleet. By now, 320 BC, he would invade Italy (a relative of his had been killed there sometime ago, so he has a cassus belli). However, it would not be like when Hannibal invaded and built up an anti-Roman alliance. Alexander proved to not care about gaining allies - he invaded the Sogdianans even though they rebelled against Persia and would have been useful allies. His goal, from everything he did, was to rule the world -allies had no place in that belief. He would have conquered Magna Graecia for his kinsman's death, Syracuse to prove himself the better of Athens, the Samnites because they were nothing more than "barbaroi." In short, it would be Rome who builds up a coalition against Alexander, not the other way around. And invading Syracuse would bring Carthage, and its powerful navy, against Alexander. So, in the end, it would still fall down in favor of Rome.

This. Filler.
 
Um, weren't Alexander's armies essentially in a state of mutiny?

How likely is it that he could have compelled them to keep going?

They were mutinying in India after they had been continuously fighting for many years. Presumably before launching new campaigns in the west he would rest for a while, recruiting new troops and letting the old ones rest
 
Well, Titus Livius, a Roman philosopher in the 1st century BC, wrote an analysis of Alexander's invasion of Italy. That was longer than 2 pages.

Yes, but the analysis in question is, like most of Livy's work, laden with inaccuracies and hopelessly, hopelessly biased.
 
I thought, judging from the first few lines in your post, is that you wanted Alexander to conquer the same amount of territory, except in the West instead of the East.

An Alexandrian Empire that extends no further than the Bosporus but that extends to the English Channel would we a very interesting TL, and one that I've never seen before.

Begins a preliminary outline.
 

NIK PARMEN

Banned
I thought, judging from the first few lines in your post, is that you wanted Alexander to conquer the same amount of territory, except in the West instead of the East.

An Alexandrian Empire that extends no further than the Bosporus but that extends to the English Channel would we a very interesting TL, and one that I've never seen before.

Begins a preliminary outline.

No am clear in 323 bc according to his own documents was planing to attack ARABIA, CARTHAGE AND ITALY and my question is if it was possible to conquer these places and to go far more even to Britain or Germania.
 
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