Alexander the Great isn't poisoned

Matt I submitted this double, I think


Okay, here I go again.

This is about what might happen if Alexander discovered a possible conspiracy against him and the events that followed. It covers an empire that ultimately extends from Gaul to India, and which lasts 130 years, and in one form, beyond that. Here's the link to the discussion thread to it, and enjoy!

Outside of Babylon
323 BC
As Alexander arrived at Babylon, a man known as Demetrius came out to greet him. Alexander knew him as a mid-ranking officer who had served in the conquest of Persia. "My King, I have been sent to invite you to a celebration hosted by Medius. However it is a trap. I am forever loyal to you, and in awe of your accomplishments, and so I don't believe you deserve to die because some generals are mad at you.
Alexander knew immidiately it could not be a lie. There were several of his officers who were angry at being forced to take Persian wives. "Tell me who is behind this." he said heatily, with a voice that could've broken glass. Demetrius told him and Alexander asked him to lead him to the palace. He did so, and Alexander and the rest of his men entered the palace. As Medius attempted to greet him, Alexander raised his hand for silence, and had the room surrounded. "All of you are under arrest." Everybody in the palace looked very scared, except for Cassander, named as the top conspirator who's face was a mask of fury as much as Alexander's. Alexander would have no doubt ordered everybody in the room at the time he entered executed on the spot. But then, Antigonus, whom Alexander trusted, whispered something in his ear. At first, Alexander slapped him roughly away, and even stabbed him with his sword. But even though his blood was boiling very hot, what Antigonus said somehow sank in. He told evrybody to stop, and had the trial of the conspirators convened within the hour.
.

The Life Of Alexander the Great
Ptolemy Agrippa
published 275 BC

Chapter 8: The conspiracy,and the Arabian conquest

......And so Alexander had executed most of those who conspired against him including Cassander, Iollas, and Phillippus. He, however, gave Medius and a number of lesser figures lesser punishments by having their hands chopped off in public showing after they agreed to give information in exchange for not being executed. Demetrius, the one who notified Alexander of the conspiracy, was promoted. Alexander then embarked on his plans to conquer Arabia. Leaving Antigonus in charge of Babylon after he was told to find out out about the exploratory fleet of the Caspian Sea,
Alexander and his army, much of which consisted of a Bactrian corps that
had recently arrived,set off in ships that had been built in a month or so.
They sailed down to the Persian Gulf ,and to Dilmun, an ancient trading post which surrendered without a fight when the fleet arrived. Alexander left some men to secure it and continued sailing for two and a half months to the Southwest corner, where the Arabian kingdoms were located. The armies disembarked and defeated the Himyartic and Sabean kingdoms in a few battles. Like Persia, Alexander kept several high officials in power, showed respect for Arab ways, and made a number of his generals take Arab wives.
After hearing that the Sinai was a month or so to the north, Alexander left a small Macedonian garrison and sailed up to the Sinai. Strong winds blew him and his fleet into the gulf in the west. Alexander and his army again disembarked. Some of the men were given instructions to build a port at the location, and they camped their for the night, only to get attacked by raiders from the east. Some of them were captured and proved to be Nabataens, from a kingdom to the east.
Alexander desparately wanted to conquer it, but he had just survived an assassination attempt on him by one of his own guards. He would have likely died, if the assassin hadn't made excessive noise, and allowed the other guard to put a sword in his back. Alexander had then ordered an execution of the men he believed responsible for the attempt on his life. So he had Demetrius take a fifth of his army[1]to the east, while leaving a company to oversee the construction of the port, and he marched north to Tyre, where he awaited messages on Nabatae and what the Caspian Sea fleet had found.
After a month or so, Demetrius arrived in Tyre, with the news that the Nabataens had submitted to Alexander's authority, despite that the army had been subjected to stiff hit-and run attacks before marching on main cities like Petra. Most of the army had been left to occupy Nabatae. A messenger arrived at the same time, saying the Caspian Sea fleet had only found lands inhabited by uncouth barbarians, who had nearly wiped the landing party out.
Though Alexander was troubled by this, he was much more concerned about Antipater, whom he had expected to meet at Babylon instead of his sons.
[1] I'm don't think it would have taken that many men to conquer the Nabataens, but I can't say for sure.


Chapter 9: Antipater, and the Reconquest of Greece


Alexander had known that Antipater had had bad relations with Olympias, who had written letters to Alexander, saying that Antipater was formenting discord. Alexander had asked Antipater to show up in Babylon to answer these charges. When Antipater sent his son Cassander instead, it convinced Alexander that his mother had not been lying.
After Cassander's and Iollas' execution, Alexander had initially sent messengers telling Craterus to capture Antipater. By the time Craterus got it, however, a revolt had broken out in Greece, known as the Lamian War, and Craterus decided this threat had to be contained before going off and arresting him. He assembled a fleet at Cilicia. In the summer of 322BC, Alexander reached him, and the revolt was mostly defeated a couple of months later at the battle of Crannon. There were still some problems with the Aetolians, but Alexander was finally able to get Antipater to meet him for a council of war. Antipater, however, suspected a trap, since he had found out not too long ago that his sons were dead, and fled after a failed muder attempt that left his reamning son, Philip, dead.
Figuring out that the Aetolians would not ally with him, and knowing that Alexander had the stronger position, Antipater fled north and west. He was quickly caught, though by a party Alexander sent after him, proving that the weak and cowardly can never escape justice. Craterus was left to take care of the Aetolians, while Alexander dealt with Antipater personally...​

Northern Aetolia
322 BC

"I tell you, I did not tell Cassander to arrange your murder!" shouted Antipater. "Why, in the name of Zeus would you send him then?!" bellowed Alexander twice as loud.
Antipater was exsaperated. Though he would have gladly have Alexander assasinated when he found out his sons were dead, the Lamian War had distracted him from that. And Craterus kept people he sent from leaving the country.
But the fact remained that Antipater never would have approved of Alexander's murder otherwise, Cassander and Iollas had exceeded his instructions, and decided to get rid of the potential threat. He ought to have realized that there were many soldiers and officers in the Macedonian army loyal to Alexander, thus ensuring he would be found out.
But Antipater knew there was no arguing with Alexander. Once he had made up his mind about something, he could not be argued with. "My King, I am forever loyal to you! I would never betray you in such a way!" "LIAR!!!" screamed Alexander at the top of his lungs.
At last, Alexander grew tired of arguing with Antipater and said. "You have obviously wanted to have me killed, so I wouldn't check up on the situation here. It is far past time for your execution to come." And with that, Alexander waved a hand for a man to come forward with poison. Antipater did not resist as his mouth was forced open, and the poison went down into his throat. Shortly, Antipater knew no more

Chapter 10: The period after and the conquest of Carthage

And finally, after nearly 20 years of military campaigns, Alexander returned home. He had to get to the tough work of consolidaqting his empire.

First, he had to come up with an effective taxation system for his vast lands. He mostly used the system of the Persian Empire, keeping the silver taxes based on the amount of land the satraps being taxed had held. Based on a number of his advisors' advice, however, he instituted a number of original taxes, designed to keep control over the ever-large territory.

First, there were indirect taxes, which taxed the amount of goods, and direct taxes which taxed the propiety of how many land products have, they had, which included livestock and crops. A slave tax was added later, because of the continiunuing need for econimic control over the empire.

He also instituted a messenger system similar to the eyes and ears of King Darius I, where messengers went on surprise inspection tours, and reported on whether the satraps looked up to no good

This system helped uncover a plot in Arabia to throw out leaders loyal to Alexander.Unfortunately, it did not help when a messenger disappeared in the province of Parthia. About a month after he was supposed to have returned, Bad news arose in the spring of 319 BC, when yet another revolt by Persian satraps succeded in spreading throughout much the east-central part of the country. Luckily, quick action by Antigonus in the east crushed it in a few months. The Bactrians also helped, but alone they could not have helped the loyal satrapies much, because news of a great ruler out of India caused the army commander to order the pass between Bactria and India[2] fortified with most of the Bactrian corps. Alexander would later hear about this, and dispatched Craterus to help Antigonus, who had went into Bactria when hearing about this. Needless to see, the messengers always had bodyguards, and scouts to warn them of any sudden changes, from then on.
This latest revolt convinced Alexander that some of the Persian satraps could not recognognize a king nearly a thousand miles away. He decided that the capital should be moved closer to where they lived, and thought on Babylon. This raised a howl of protest from none less than Olympias, who said the capital should remain in Greek lands and Perdiccas, a general who had fought with Alexander in Persia, said it would be traitorous to move it to the land of their recent enemies. Alexander almost killed him, but he was cautioned by his advisors that the capital should also have access to Greece. He then decided on Tyre. Depite having more of liking for Alexandria, Egypt, he knew the capital should be closer to the Persians.
So finally it was decided that Alexander would only reside in Babylon for the winter, since he still felt the need for as close as contact with Persia as possible, to discourage the revolt. Tyre would be the capital for the rest of the year. Pella would remain as the ceremonial capital.
Meanwhile, Alexander having only recently fought off a challenge, was in danger of revolt in his homeland and in Greece. There needed to be a way to score a victory, that would keep his enemies from causing trouble. And that would arrive on June 12, 319 BC, when an emissary from Syracuse arrived in Pella, as Alexander was about to depart for Egypt, to remind the people their that their pharoah still existed. He had heard of this great conquring king, and he requested aid in mopping up the Carthagnian settlements on Sicily. Alexander agreed to this, but he decided to use this opportunity to take Carthage for himself. He had, in fact a fleet of ships reayd to sail before he got to Babylon, but the Lamian War had caused their mission to be aborted. When Alexander heard of this, he saw an opportunity to resurrect this, but as a diversion.[1] He agreed to send a small amount of troops in aid, and gave them permission to attack when they wished.

So, Alexander decided to sail for Egypt. On July 20, he arrived in Alexandria, to the great cheers of the Egyptian people. The Egyptians had of course heard of Alexander's great victories, and been waiting practically since the dawn of time for him to show up. There were celebrations for several days,as Alexander traveled to all the major Egyptian towns, and participated in religious ceremonies at the time. Needless to say, this did not make generals like Perdiccas happy. Luckily, an Egyptian officer in Thebes mentioned the kingdom of Kush to the South. Alexander then sent Perdiccas south to bring this land under the king's sovreignty. Perdiccas would go on to get killed in a guerilla fight 4 months later.
Taking some Egyptian troops with him, which brought the total of his army to about 25, 000 men. he got more reinforcements in Cyrenaica. He arrived near Carthage on August 9 Near Carthage, he saw the city was walled, and could see from far off, so he decided to look for natives who would help in exchange for a vassal kingdom. He then was able to enlist the support of the local tribe of Numidians, the Massyli agaisnt the Carthagnians. The Massaesyli, to the west, though, refused.
Realizing that the Massaesyli would likely notify the Carthagnians, Alexander decided to attack Carthage almost immidiately. He had some crude siege machines constructed, and proceeded to surround the city. The Massaaesyli, who tried to arrive to defend Carthage, were attacked by the Massyli. The Carthagnians fired arrows to try to distract the Massili. At this point, Alexander showed up and effectively surrounded the city. The Carthagnians, enraged, were now caught in a trap. They would have sent a message to Hamilcarwho had been sent to Sicily, to defend against the attack of their lands there. But the fleet initially sent sent by Alexander as an invasion force haad effectively blocked the harbor after destroying messenger ships that attemmpted to break out. The Massyli line was close to breaking at this point, so Alexander sent a number of companies under Demetrius to keep the Carthagnians from scattering the Massyli. He himself made a roundabout attack on the Massaesyli, and succeded in routing them. The remainder was taken prisoner. As he then reinforced the weak Massyli line, he was hit by an arrow in the side of the chest. Alexander was then rushed into camp to deaprately have the arrow removed, and close the wound. At one point, Alexander thought he saw a white light, but luckily he happened to have good doctors, and he eventually recovered.
Despite what seemed like a minor victory, Carthage were covinced they were eventually doomed, so they decided to go down fighting with a battle for the ages. A large consignment of troops then charged out of the city at the west line. Surprisingly enough, it was making it's way through holes in the Macedonian-Massyli line. But Ptolemy brought some extra troops from the south of the city, and crushed the Cathagnians. Unfotunately for the Carhagnians, this in the end only ended up shortening the siege. On November 13, Carthage surrendered. Leaving a company of troops there, Alexander then sailed for Sicily, where the sofetim or kings told him there was still a Carthgnian armyin Siciily. Alexander, after ensuring his control of Carthage, and leaving a Numidian vassal kingdom decided to sail for Sicily.
[1]A fleet that was ready in OTL, but I initially did not know of it. It was mentioned on the old board.






Somewhere south of Meroe
November 17, 319 BC

Gray mist greeted Perdiccas as he rose out of camp and looked into the forest. It had all seemed so easy at first, and now they were fighting an often-unseen enemy. Damn that Alexander for sending him down here!

At first the campaign had gone quite well. Perdiccas' troops had marched to Napata and inflicted a decisive victory against the Kushite army. At Meroe, the capital, the fighting went even better, as the mixed-Macedonian and Egyptian force sacked the city, and capturing the king Nastasen, and captured and killed what a captured Kushite officer was roughly half of their men.

But after that, as the remainder scattered into forest, it had quickly gone south. Karkamani, a fairly high-ranking general, had convinced the scattered Kushite forces that they could not win in open-battle. As Perdicus left Selucus in charge of Meroe's occupation, with a little less than half of the army, and pursued the enemy forces, he started to become quite irritated at the fact that fair amounts of casualties were inflicted on them with small forces, and before more troops could be concentrated to defeat them, they would retreat. Perdiccas spent many long nights agonizing over the lack of a decisive battle.

One day, last October had been the worst. There had been heavy rains, and Perdiccas was unfortunately being led all over the place by Nubian forces. Than they had come under mass attack. The Kushites, hiding in bushes, had attacked them suddenly, inflicting heavy casualties, about a quarter of the army.

Perdiccas got fed up at this point. He had started burning down villages, and killing the people, while leaving small companies to hold down areas he thought were succesfully pacified. But of course, contact had been lost with a number of them particularly in the east.

And yet, Perdiccas was convinced victory would come in another month. The Kushite forces, as far as he could tell, were mostly concentrated in the south-east. Despite the fact that they were recruiting villagers, he thought most of the country would have a hard time attacking in the west, because he had burnt down a good part of the jungle there, and didn't expect anyone from there to attack him. His brain, however always felt like it was going to explode these days.

All of a sudden, from the edge of the camp Kushites started appearing out of nowhere. The mist was slowly clearing and he could tell that about half of them were not dressed in army clothes. And worst yet, they had come from the opposite bank of the river they were camped on. "No this cannot be happening!!" screamed Perdiccas. And then, they were attacked on the forest side by Kushite regulars. But the village people looked way more angry than the regulars. Armed with bows and spears, they had such venom in their look that Perdiccas's heart felt faint. He almost regretted destroying a lot of their country. But the weak feeling was replaced by hot rage, as he saw Kushites dismembering and castrating the corpses of the soldiers, who, being more professional, were starting to counterattack, and were killing about as many of the villagers, as the villagers were of them. And his army still slightly outnumbered them.

"Uncouth barbarians!!" Perdiccas's rage caused him to charge at the villagers himself, armed with his big sword. But about 30 seconds later, a villager who looked more like a monkey than a man impaled a spear through his chest. Perdiccas could feel feet tromping on him for a while, leaving greater pain, then, surprisingly, some of his men were escaping! And then... nothing.
https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=29246
 
The life of alexander the great
Ptolemy Agrippa
published 275 BC


Chapter 11: The Roman-Samnite campaign


Alexander arrived in Trabbani on November 24. After brief resistance he took the city. He then had Hanno, a Carthagnian officer whom Alexander had taken with him, write a note to Hamilcar,[1] the commander of Carthagnian forces in Sicily, that their city had accepted Alexander as their King, and that his army would be subject to annhilation if he didn't surrender. Despite the fact that Hamilcar had successfully pushed the Greek forces away from Trabbani, they were still strong, and Hamilcar did not wish to face two enemies at once. Reluctantly, he surrendered. Alexander than split up his army through the corners of the empire to prevent him from reneging. Alexander marched through the Greek cities one by one, where he was able to negotiate tributes to be paid to him every year. At last, he arrived at Syracuse, where he met with Aphistocles, the tyrant of Syracuse. Aphistocles told him about the cities of Magna Graecia, and the two hostile powers possible to threaten her, Samnium and Rome. Rome however, had recently been handed a defeat, and a five-year treaty had been signed in 321 BC. Alexander decided this would be a good oppportunity to take advantage of, but because of the coming winter, and more troops to take Italia, he decided wait in Syracuse, and send ships for news in the rest of the empire.​

In mid-January, he received his first news from Nubia. Apparently, a protracted guerilla campaign had nearly forced withdrawal of the forces there. A paticularly nasty battle in November had led to the death of Perdiccas, but luckily, Seleucus had grown tired of waiting in Meroe, and had sailed south with the bulk of his forces. At his arrival, a brave Egyptian known as Natemhotep, had rallied the troops, and they succeded in cutitng through the unarmored irregulars. The regulars were then fought off.
Seleucus, acknowledged as the commander from that point on, and who was anxious to avoid making the Kushites more angry, offered amnesty, which was of course refused. He then built a fleet of ships to keep irregulars from crossing the river, which isolated the regular forces to the east side. He then tried to hold down the east territory closest to Meroe, in the hope of isolating the army. To try to starve them, he ordered farms in their area of active operation burned down, but not to discrminately attack civilians. These were often ignored.
But the Kushite army had been isolated. Only brigands and rogues operated on the other side of the river apparently. Seleucus predicted the war would be over in another month.
Alexander had been outraged and sickened at the atrocities that he heard had been inflicted on both sides. He felt like going to Kush himself, but luckily one of his old friends pointed out the unfinished work in Italia.
Then 6 week later, another ship arrived with news from Bactria. The great Indian ruler, Chandragupta Mauryan had apprently succeded in seizing all of western India, depite Craturus' best attempts to hold him off. He then apparently had concluded peace with him, not wanting to risk a long war with Alexander. This didn't change the news from Arabia, where apparently Indian pirates had taken to disrupting shipping there, and occasionally raiding the ports. Alexander was able to assemble troops from Greece, Phonecia, and Persia to augment his troops strength.​

Before sailing to Magna Graecia, Alexander then sent a message to the consuls of Rome, asking for an alliance against Samnium. The two consuls at the time Marcus Folius Flaccinato and Lucius Plautius Venno were desperate for a way to beat the Samnites and they agreed.​

At Magna Graecia, he was greeted with cheers in Tarentum, and was able to get all the cities there to pay tribute, and leaving small numbers troops
there. After getting small augmentations of his forces there, he began his march up the peninsula. The exact details of his campaign, I can't tell you. If you want that go read "Great Military commanders of History" by Ahmed al-Sadr. But suffice it to say that the Samnites proved tough nuts to crack. Despite Roman attacks from the north, Alexander had to concede that the Samnites were tenacious fighters. They tried to hold off his advance at several points, but Alexander saw through it all, and had taken all of Hirpini by June. The Samnites initially gained momentum by launching fierce counterattacks against the Romans, at one point invading Volscia. But finally, the advance of Alxander so far into the heart of their territory, forced them to withdraw their troops from there. The Romans seized their chance,and invaded and conquered the Sidicines. At one point, the Samnites seemed to
succeedin driving Alexander back at Campania, but it turned out ot be a trick,as the Samnites were enveloped by troops under the command of Eumenes, wiping out more than half of their forces. The Samnites still continued a stubborn resistance for a few weeks, until Alexander had completely occupied them. They then sued for peace, agreeing to have half of their territory taken by the Romans, and the other half by Alexander.​

Not long after this, Alexander made a demand to the Romans, demanding the surrender of Neapolis as a free city. The Romans refused and Alexander declared war. The initial advances by Alexander were frenzied, taking all of Volscia, Marsia, and Palignae within a month. The Romans made a a surprising counterattack in the northeast region. Alexander calmed down and sent Eumenes to deal with this, while he himself waited several weeks before marching through Latium. The Romans had most of their troops tied down in Marscia, and were somewhat surprised. At this, several Etruscan cities defected to Alexander, and together, they marched on Rome. Rome, suprisingly enough, took longer to fall than Alexander expected, just long enough for reinforcements to arrive. The Romans at this point had decided to abandon the northeast, but it was too late. On September 5, Rome surrendered. Alexander than "rewarded" them by burning their city to the ground, and selling their citizens off for slavery. He managed to get most of the Etruscans to submit to his authority by thretening the same thing. The ones that don't, were shortly taken care of.
At this point, there was an invasion from Cisalpine gaul tribes who had come to take advantage of the war. Alexander was able to fight off the tribes with his outnumbered army. After reorganizing, however, he headed north and defeated the Gauls in a few big battles. When the Gauls came to surrender to him, it was clear he inspired respect in them. They agreed to submit to his rule, while Alexander took one of them to be his wife.
......So on December 18, Alexander then headed south from Cisalpine Gaul. He left several men with the instructions to build a port on the east coast. He tried marching along the coast. After wintering in Neapolis, he then set sail for Egypt. The situation he was to encounter in Nubia was so convoluted, he would be at a loss at what exactly to do.

Chapter 12: The Nubian situation
Alexander arrived in Alexandria on April 11. After getting some provisions, he sailed south until he got to Syene, just below the first cataract on April 27, then he marched the rest of the way, along the river. He and his group of companions arrived in Meroe on June 4.
Seleucus would be there ,apparently having defeated Kushite remnants, after chasing a small amount into the eastern highlands. Seleucus had forced the last ones to surrender, however, on September 17 . When Alexander arrived, Alexander would than all of the Kushite prisoners he captured executed. And any soldiers that were found to have indiscriminately killed Kushites were executed. Also, he was somewhat troubled by Seleucus' ambitious manner, so he tranferred Selucus to a governorship of Dilmun. He hoped this would limit Seleucus' ability to serously challenge him.
Alexander at this time was extremely frustrated and angry. Despite that Meroe itself had given little resistance, the stories he was hearing told of vicious attacks by Kushite irrregulars. He then decided to check out this land himself to see what sort of 'atrocities' a Macedonian private had meant had been committed agaisnt the Kushites.

To say he was shocked and enraged would be an understatement. Though the statement that 'all of the jungles on the west side of the Nile have been burnt down' proved to be an exaggeration, the patches that were missing were, needless to say, highly noticiable. One soldier estimated that about one-sixth and one-eigth of the jungle had been burnt down, though that still might be considered an exaggeration from the reports of a Greek geographer with Alexander's companions. He said it was closer to one-eleventh. And when Alexander got to see some villages, he was quite angry to see productive farmland burnt to a crisp. After running into some starving Kushites, they would then start screaming about how their land had been destroyed and how they were forced to raid larger towns for food. They were found to be unarmed, except for hunting knives after being searched. Apparently, all of their arrows had been spent. Alexander would than spend quite a lot of time on the east side, since nearly everybody on the west side was hostile, to say the least, to try to return to their farmaland. Needless to say, this was not easy, as news of atrocities had spread, and it had had its fair share of massacres as well. But after finding some people willing to help the west farmland become productive again, with the help of a few agriculturists, that would arrive in a month, a lot of the villages were again said to be settled. The west side would prove to be rather troublesome. Alexander had fought off a number of brigands while on his course there, and gave orders for them all to be executed. So that continued, as the west side was struggled to be settled.

Alexander tried to show that he had great respect for their culture, as he did in other places by visiting the royal burial grounds at Napata, and worshipped at a number of shrines of Nubian gods. This took quite a while, and Alexander finally left the country in September, not wishing to go through an unessary red-hot sun, and left Natemhotep in charge, who was one of those who realized that cooporation would hurt the least if at all He then sailed for Thessaly, so he could assess how things were going in Macedon.


near a Kushite village
317 BC




Alexander was possible more enraged then he had ever been, and that included the sacking of Persepolis. He was looking at burnt patches in jungles that were simply beautiful. From what Seleucus had said, the Kushites had often mutilated troops that had been captured, so that when they retreated, and companies of troops tried to pursue them, there would often be dismembered. Of couse, the way Seleucus had looked at Alexander while speaking to him had a way of making him rather nervous about Selucus's wanting of power. Despite the fact that Selucus was one of the few officers who had been happy with his Persian wife, and despite his fairly good conduct of the Kushite campaign, Alexander decided he might end up dangerous in the future, and had sent him with a small group of solsiers to Dilmun, a place where it would not be in Selucus' best interests to go against Alexander.

But in any case, what had happened here was simply too much, even for people that had since than done things to deserve it. Alexander's blood was boiling hotter than it ever had, even before the sackings of Thebes, Persepolis, and Rome. Despite the fact that the Kushites were more dark-skinned than any people he had seen, which had attracted the ire of quite a few of his northern soldiers. Alexander had these soldiers thrown in the brig, awaiting further punishement for their remarks, because the truth was, he would never discriminate against someone based on skin color. Ever! Even if their level of civilization wasn't quite as advanced as the Greeks and Persians, there was still no right to degrade them because of it.
None of this changed Alexander's anger at atrocities inflicted on the Macednians, as no brigands and rogues found to have attacked them were taken alive. But Alexander, nevertheless, saw the ruins of a village and could tell, that at one time, the land had been quite prodcutive, and had had a fair amount of people working it.
After about 30 minutes, of leaving the village, they ran into a group of half-dozen Kushites, whose leader started to rant ". You scum have destroyed our land. You all will rot in the underworld. You all are a bunch of rapists, fire-freaks.... We have had to raid places closer to Meroe to get food, since no one will come here....."


"WAIT slow down!!" shouted Alexander and gave the speaker a nasty cuff across the forehead. "The people who did this have been taken care of." "You think that's enough!!" shouted another Kushite. "Do you have any idea how tired we are running and hiding every day. We want our damn country back!" "To the best of my ability, you may eventually have your villa...." But more of the Kushites cut in, and Alexander talked with them for a long while before covincinf a few of them to help rebuild their country. Thankfully, they didn't have weapons other than hunting knives, and bows only good for hunting, and nearly all of their arrows had been spent. So Alexander than continued on his occasionally hearaching but mostly enraging jouney.

 
Chapter 14: The Inter-war period
Alexander arrived in Pella on November 10, where he was greeted with great cheers. News of his 'liberation' of Magna Graecia had spread fast,and there had been marches, parades, and festivals held for several weeks. Upon Alexander's arrival, more parades would commence for a week. Alexander would than have his six year old son, sent to Tyre to
get "more exposure to other cultures" afraid of him being too Hellocentric. It was
mentioned that a son, Philip, was born to Alexander and Ricni[1] a couple of months prior. Disputes between Philip and his older half-brother Alexander, relating to Alexander's supposely Hellocentric behavior
helped ignited tensions that have continued to the present day, but the great king, Alexander[the Fourth] shall prevail in his campaign in South India.
Alexander longed to conquer more lands, but after finding out another campaign could trigger a revolt, what with taxes still high, he decided he could wait.
And now, there was many more olives and grapes availble to be made into olive oil and wine to be shipped to Arabia and Persia from the west. In turn, dates and spices flowed into Greece and the west without much fear of trade restrictions or piracy, at least at first. But we'll get back to that. First we must talk about an explorer, whose stories of regions seemly out of reach, would enchant Alexander, and establish an outpost which would later become a place where Philip would attempt to recruit soldiers from, and where prophecy says an explorer will eventually discover the land rumored to have been seen by Phonecian sailors and more than thrice increase the importance of what he had discovered, a real "land of milk and honey".[2]

A more detailed biography of this explorer Pytheas is written by Dionichus. It gives a real insight into the man, what he explored, and why he did it. Pytheas' own deacription of his travels On the Ocean isn't half-bad
either.But anyways, here's a brief summarization of his travels Pytheas had discovered these islands apparently even far northwestward than the land just west of Italia. He named them Prettanike, taking the name of the locals. He reported that the southwest corner of the eastern island was a major source of a metal known as tin. He also mentioned the inhabitants of Thule, who made a drink from wheat and honey, drank milk, and ate fruits. The grain grown was threshed in barns because of the cold. He also reported about the icy far north, the forbodiness of it of which Alexander was amazed, and of a small island that was a source of amber.
Alexander had been organizing a campaign at the time Pytheas had returned to Greece in 320 BC. As Alexander returned though, he would the hunt him this man whose exploratons he had partly funded
down and demand the whole story.
Needless to say, Alexander was quite amazed, but rather disappointed at the distance of these lands from the rest of the kingdom, and that these people weren't apprently too civilized to be worth conquering. Nevertheless, despite objections relating to distance, Alexander ordered a trading post constructed in the Damni area, as it was known to the natives, later asceratined to be related to the people of North Italia, and the area just north of Thrace.
And now, it must be said that all was not well. Commerce was slowly starting to pick up, but was apparantly being subject to the depredations of Illyrian pirates. Alexander would take this opportunity in 313 BC, to lead a sea-based invasion, since a land campaign was likely to drag on longer than Alexander wanted. The Illyrians were expecting more of a land campaign and were defeated in roughly three weeks. Alexander than announced that the frontier of the empire extended to the Ister[Danube] river. He would order fortifications developed to defend against any hostile tribes that migth cross the river. While returning, Alexander would come across pyramids. When asking what they were doing here, he was told some practiced sun worship here.
After securing Illyria, Alexander turned his attention to Bithynia, a kingdom that was able to assert it's independence in 322 BC only because Alexander was distracted by a revolt, and continuing instability. Bithynia hadn't been foolish enough to pick a fight with Alexander, but it prevented the Bosporus kingdom, on the northern shore of the Pontus, from becoming a client state of Macedon. Rather niggling, but Alexander decided the western Greek cities were more important. And the officer stationed in the region had unfortunately failed in an attack on Bitynia, setting it back a little while
So Alexander launched a campaign that lasted nearly two weeks, and with the small size of the kingdom, the leaders Bas and Zipoites were quickly defeated. Alexander would, around this time, also take his younger son Philip to Tyre for a few years. And there was still India Alexander was thinking about. He would have waited another two years, but word would reach him in 10 months the death of Seleucus in action agaisnt pirates, and action would quickly speed up from there.....

[1] Unfortunately, the only Gallic name I know is Vercitognix( spelling it wrong) which is why this a shortened form of a Latin lookning name.
[2] This is referring to America of course. I couldn't resist sticking that in:D
But it's genrally thoughtat this time it's Atlantis


Deep Cover - Dr.Dre feat. Snoop Dogg


Tonight's the night I get in some shit, [yeah]
Deep cover on the incognito tip.
Killin' motherfuckers if I have to,
Peelin' caps too, cause you niggas know I'm comin' at you.
I guess thats part of the game,
But I feel for the nigger who thinks he just gonna come and chance things
With the swiftness, so get it right, with the quickness,
And let me handle my business, yo.
I'm on a mission and my mission won't stop
Until I get the nigger maxin at the top.
I hope you get his ass before he drops.
Kingpin kickin back while his workers sling his rocks.
Coming up like a fat rat.
Big money, big cars, big body guards on his back.
So it's difficult to get him.
But I got the hook up with somebody who knows how to get in contact with
Him.

outside a tavern
Hecamptylos
Parthia Satrapy
January 17 313 BC

Tagiralcipaltra Nasigracharips (hereafter to be known for brevity's sake as Tagira) was about to enter the tavern known as the Dancing Iranian[1]. It had been a quite cold journey, barely getting over the Indo-Bactria Pass[OTL Khyber Pass] before winter, and getting through freezing blizzards elsewhere, on top of being attacked by an opportunistic gang of theives and barely escaping with his life.
He snorted with disgust. Why the hell would Demetrius want to meet him somewhere that wasn't close to India? There would obvously be difficulties, but Demetrius had insisted on this well-known Parthian tavern. The Taxilan was glad in any case, that he would be spending the night in a decent, warm bed, not the hard ones in the third-rate inns he had slept in in Bactria and Aria.
Tagira contemplated the title of the tavern as he entered and felt the warm air from the fireplace Depite that it the people of Parthia and Persia were more commonly known as Persians, he had heard from a Bactrian in Alexandria that the people of this Zorastrian region called themselves Aryans or Iranians, and were rather irritated at all the Greeks calling them Persians. Indians had used a similar name for centuries, so TN thought there was no complaining.
Tagira got a beer, and was given it by the barmaid, whose big and surprisingly white breasts were quite tintillating. Then he sat down at the table where he saw Demetrius sitting. Demetrius was a tall handsome-built man who in every way reflected the image of his father, Antigonus, the govenor of Babylonia
"Do you have the report, Tagira?" requested Demetrius in a sharp voice. "I do, m'Lord" said Tagira. He sipped his beer, which he found to have a rather interesting taste before continuing. "Chandragupta Mauryan knows that Alexander will strike agaisnt him sooner or later. So he is preparing for a preemptive strike sometime in the next few years."
"Why doesn't he try to control the piracy that disrupts commerce in the Arabian Sea?" Demetrius than demanded. " He thinks it will help slow down economic activity, leading to higher taxes and a slower mobilization in the event of war. And now, back to the subject. Chandragupta knows the Indo-Bactrian pass will be heavily fortified, so he is thinking of a
sea-borne invasion of Carmania through Gedrosia.""Well, it sure makes sense. From what other spies have said, this Chandragupta sounds like an clever commander. I'll try to give notice for the the amount of ships in the Harmozia harbor to be increased." responded Demetrius in a reasonable tone. "And here is your pay." said Demtrius, pulling out a gold bag from behind him, and giving it to Tagira. "Farewell, and may the gods smile down upon you." He went to the front door and left.
Tagira took a big swig of the beer, and suddenly erupted with laughter. Demetrius had no idea he'd been played. As soon as the satrap of Carmania received this report, he would likely pull many of his troops into the satrap capital Harmozia, thus leaving minimal resistance for the land-borne invasion. Let Alexander try to stop them when they have already advanced halfway into Persis. And Tagira was pretty sure that his real boss, the govenor of Taxila would agree with Chandragupta that Alexander would likely think of Mauryan as just another opponent, but with big elephant armies. And he figured Alexander would not think of Chandragupta to march through the same desert as he once did.
All this Tagira was thinking as he stumbled out the wooden front door, and being quite drunk at this time, headed the wrong direction to the inn, and instead of going on a street, he went into an dark alley. There, he suddenly cursed, as he was attacked by two men. He would swear even more when he would find out the next morning that his money was gone! He would however get back okay.​



 
Chapter 15: The Campaign Against Chandragupta


Let us go back a bit before moving on. In the years since Arabia had fallen under Alexander's rule, pirates from South India had taken to much disruption of commerce. For various reasons Alexander had not been able to launch a punitive expedition against them. But finally, Dilmun would be sacked in 312 BC, with much of the wealth from the thriving spice trade being taken away, and some of the women being carried off. At this Seleucus would immidiately set off in pursuit of them. After about 2 days, they were caught up to, and a surprisingly fierce battle ensued. Seleucus would end up in a swordfight with the captain, who had an eyepatch over one eye. Unfortunately, Seleucus was foolish enough to let his guard down at just the wrong moment, and the captain would push him over the edge, off the same wooden board that Seleucus and his men had used to board the ship. After fire arrows had nearly caused retreat, and the captain's ship had been sunk, Seleucus's men would take their prisoners, head back to Dilmun, only to be searched and have their cargo seized by the Indian Navy.

Alexander was outraged when he heard about this. He demanded a personal apology from Chandragupta, and demanded more be done to control piracy. He would get no reply. So Alexander prepared for an invasion of India.
He would organize a force composed of his finest generals Antigonus, Ptolemy, Eumenes, and Craterus. Also coming along was the 16-year old son of Seleucus, Antiochus, who looked for a chance to avenge his father. The army had recently been refined so the phalanx would work more effectively, and also had certain elements of the Roman legion.
So Alexander would sail from Babylon on Novemeber 24 and arrived at his destination, the port Gwadar on December 16. He defeated the Indian Navy and sailed up the Indus.

It was rather unfortunate that he had miscalculated for perhaps the first time in his career. Chandragupta, knowing that Alexander would expect absolutely no one to attempt a crossing of Gedrosia like he did, did so. Because of winter, and the army not being forced like in the case of Alexander, there weren't many casualties. Chandragupta had set out on November 8, and arrived at the port of Harmozla on December 10. It quickly fell to him, and right after that he would attack the forces of Demetrius. Demetrius was unfortunately rather inexperienced, and was annhilated. He amazingly escaped. Chandragupta had therefore elminated any immidiate threat to the west. He then set out to control commerce to cut off the flow of supplies to Alexander, not exactly a hard thing since his supply lines were so long.

Alexander would slowly realize that he wasn't getting the reinforcements he was needing, while waiting for the rainy season to abait. Despite the fact that he had several successful battles in northwest India, he knew he was rather exposed being as Indian armies could surround his roughly 80,000 force if he stayed.So finally, Alexander would, on April 28, head for the Indo-Bactrian Pass, and rescue the remnants of the Bactrian corps from certain defeat.
Hearing that Chandragupta was apparently behind this, Alexander would march his army southwest through Bactria while finding Demetrius near Propthesia, alive but starving, and his clothes in rags. He had apparently found shelter with Gedrosians who had given him food, and let him go in March. Unfotunately Demetrius had wandered in the wrong direction and barely found enough food and water to keep himself adequately nourished.
Chandragupta had become aware of Alexander marching through his territory, and had figured, correctly, that Alexander would eventually come to deal with the threat from his rear. So Chandragupta had started marching northeast on May 1. And he would then encounter Alexander in northeast Carmania May 17 311 BC, and from then, the first battle between the two would unfold.
Unfortunately, neither side could deploy it's elephants effectively, due to the mountainous terrain, and so Chandragupta attempted to have his infantry out in front. Unfortunately, though he had superior numbers, he was not able to deploy them effectively, and Alexander eventually broke through the lines, and made him retreat. This, however, would be the last ever time that Alexander would expect to get so lucky with Chandragupta, who would then circle around Alexander's forces. Chandragupta would circle around into Drangiana, and would end up intercepted by Alexander again, who had followed Chandragupta's movements, and decided to cut him off. However, despite that Alexander too had elephants, some from Africa, some taken from Indians, it would be effective use of them that would ultimately determine the outcome of the campaign.....


small room in the main palace
Taxila, Taxila
April 27, 311 BC



Alexander was deciding what to do, in a palace that had served as the home for the kings of Taxila. There was great frustration. Despite being a highly self-confident person, he had never expected to be outwitted, and had done things like punch walls and shout "Curse the gods!". His arm was still hurting from yesterday. Anyway, he knew with his lack of reinforcements in a hostile teritory, he knew he would have to do something.
Alexander and his forces had at first been highly successful, managing to fight off Indian forces, but they were taking heavy casualties. But mostly because the rain was coming, Alexander made the army disembark from their ships, just south of the boundary of Taxila. A great battle was fought outside the city, which due to ineffectual chariots was won fairly easily by Alexander, and Taxila ended up falling. He was pretty sure that the immidiate threat had been dealt with, and that he could hold off any Indian attacks. And he was thinking about the conversation he had had with his main generals a few hours upon entering this palace

"We should attack them!" shouted Craterus. "Don't forget Porus and the Hydaspes. They would never expect an attack from there. "Foolishness!" shouted Antigonus. "The rains are so ridicously heavy, it would never work. We are still strong and can hold off an attack for potentially a long while."
"It's been done before" insisted Craterus furiously. "Listen" said Ptolemy asertively. "I've checked on that and it appears that the rains are even heavier than in 326 BC and will continue to get worst. If our King were to die in this, it would be disaster."

"Forget that!" shouted Alexander. "We can hold them off easily, but I want their damn king Chandragupta, and I have a nasty feeling where he his. And Im sure his men likely know as well.
Bring me one of th officers captured in the east!" This was said by Alexander, and guards were sent and brought whom had been a chariot commander. "Tell me where Chandragupta is!" shouted Alexander. "You'll never get anything from me." the officer said defiantly. Alexander then had him whipped, and said "How about now?" This continued until the officer gave a sneering look and said,"You have been a fool all along." You're saying that Chandragupta attempted a land invasion?" questioned Alexander, the tip of his sword on the man's throat. "Yes, through Gwadar, going around Bactria, and sending someone else to attack it!" the officer was saying through great pain, as his voice clearly showed. Alexander then cut his throat for his refusing to answer his question the first several times it was asked.

So, finally Alexander walked out of the palace and said."We could keep their line here, but it is the king I want to meet and defeat. It may reduce our control here but at this point, I don't care! We're going to fight this Chandragupta," and with that, his forces started to get ready for the march the next day​
 
The life of Alexander the Great
Ptolemy Agrippa
published 275 BC





Alexander would then meet Chandragupta north of Lacus Ponticus on May 28
The battle would then proceed with Alexander attempting to use his smaller elephants to break through the Indian lines, while the regular calvalry fought with the chariots. Though outnumbering Alexander, Chandragupta was having difficulty containing these attacks, and his elephants were spread too far apart to make a lot of difference. He tried to bring them close together, but a potion of his army had managed to get itself nearly surrounded. Knowing he would be likely be driven back anyway, Chandragupta ordered a retreat, but unfortunately the pocket of 25, 000 soldiers had fallen into the hands of Alexander.

With the next battle that happened, Chandragupta realized that he ought to use his elephants more aggressively, but Alexander had some elephants of his own, as has been mentioned before. His army held firm with these, but eventually had to make an orderly retreat, but the battle had basically ended with a draw.

With this, Alexander was starting to realize he was fighting a much greater foe than Darius III had ever been, who had been defeated in two battles years apart. So he decided to try something really clever. He led his army out of the camp he was at, and left a fairly large ambush force of about 12,000 or so. Then when Chandragupta was to approach the campfires, he would find nobody, and then be suddenly attacked out of the forest by the ambush party led by Craterus. And Alexander would envelope Chandragupta with the bulk of his army, and inflict a major defeat on it, that would end up with a moderate part of it escaping, but hopefully leaving Chandragupta with lack of good use of his elephants and cause an eventual surrender.
Unfortunately, on the night of June 1, when Chandragupta initially saw the empty camp, he would send scouts through the surrounding forest, which, luckily, knew to be quiet. They would see Craterus's force scattered through the forest, and into a nearby meadow. Chandragupta, upon hearing this, would leave his elephants to guard against an attack by Alexander, and would immidiately attack Craterus's force. Craterus was completely caught by surprise, and was quickly surrounded. Meanwhile Alexander was atttacking the Indians when he realized his plan had failed, but the calvalry was harrying his efforts, and the Garuda, or eagle formation was used to great effect. The whole thing ended up with Alexander being forced to retreat.


Alexander was highly pissed off by this. He realized with a clever foe who could use his superior numbers effectively, he could easily lose. So he sent for the remainder of the Parthian corps, and the Median corps, along with some elephants. Thankfully, Chandragupta was to the northeast at this point, so the messenger wasn't intercepted.

The next few battles basically played out where the infantry of each tried to distract the calvary. Sometimes, it worked if there wasn't much room for the calvalry to move. Othertimes, they would not succeed, and in the case of Alexander, prepare for a chariot attack. Alexander had scored one victory against Chandragupta, but he was starting to get the losing end. That would change, however, in the next battle......

near Alexander arion
June 3, 311 BC

"Damn!" Alexander shouted. They had just concluded another battle against the Indian forces, which, thankfully, ended in a draw. Now Alexander was starting to cool down, but he remained extremely confused by the Indian army formations. They had essentially charged at his forces in such a way to make him retreat.

Alexander thought back to the battle. It had all seemed so easy when he had thought about, and he had thought it was a surefire way to defeat a commander who had a way of anticipating his movements as well as Alexander anticipated his.

Alexander had left Craterus in charge of an ambush force of 23,000, which he thought would provide enough numbers to put some pressure on the roughly 150,000 Indian force. The problem is, Alexander had never expected to meet such a foresighted commander. Chandragupta had descended on Craterus's forces with about 35,000, and would inflict a near-total defeat on them, leaving about 3,000 to escape. Craterus was still recovering from chest and leg wounds inflicted by chariot archers, and could still be heard moaning in pain occasionally. Alexander truly felt for him, and doubted that he could live much longer, as Craterus was approaching his third score of life.* And indeed, Craterus could be heard gasping like he never would again.

But this could never compare to the frustration that Alexander felt when the elephants of Chandragupta descended on him. Despite being somewhat prepared, he was left with about 60,000 troops to face an immidiate attack of slightly more than 100,000. Alexander held for a little bit, but when the rest of the Indians came back, he was suddenly faced with the so-called eagle formation, apparently meant to be strong and deadly. It ended with Alexander being pushed back. How could this have possibly happened?

Despite Alexander being highly frustrated, he sent his own calvalry to skirmish with the enemy. In the end thanks to the ever courageous efforts of Ptolemy and Antigonus, the Indian pressure slackened, and Alexander was able to get away with most of his army intact. But the screams, grunts, and the noises of the elephants still rang loud in his ears, as real as the battle with another Indian King, Porus, in which he received heavy wounds. Or the Battle for Rome, where Alexander came under incessant and unceasing attack from the Roman legions, and felt himself tiring under the efforts of fighting the legion in the hills. And there was the triumphant look in Chandragupta Mauryan's eyes as his elephants descended on Alexander, who had most of his forces driven into another meadow. By the Gods, he could not stand such a smarmy look like that! At all! Alexander felt the rage coming back into him, and he ripped part of the fabric from Craterus's tent, and he abruptly heard a scream. In the midst of him yelling "May the gods curse you, Chandragupta!!!" he heard the noise of Craterus jumping up, and the thought drifted into his head. "I hope I haven't caused him to have a heart attack and kill him." was the trembling thought that entered his head, which caused him to shake even more, on top of the rage he was feeling.

Alexander suddenly shouted,"I want an immidiate advance and more marching actions to find that thrice-cursed fool, Chandragupta!" "But my King, we still need some rest..." Alexander slammed the foolish officer who spoke against another tent and screamed in such a way that everybody around Alexander shook. "NO DAMN ARGUMENTS!!!!!! Now get organized!!!" Antigonus, Ptolemy, and the other officers went off without a word, and slowly started to dissemble the tents for another march.

Alexander was slowly starting to think the troops could have used a few more hours of rest, but he was sure they would do okay. The time he had forced them to march across the Gedrosian desert as payment for not conquering India when it likely would have been somewhat easier, when it was divided, had been much worst. The army was already in bad shape, and everybody was moaning and complaining when they got to Carmania, and safety and food.

And then it occured to him to check on Craterus. He went inside the red tent, and found Craterus lying still. He touched Craterus' neck and felt no pulse. "Craterus. Craterus, are you okay? Craterus, I hope you can hear me. Is something the matter? Craterus. CRATERUS!" Alexander then realized Craterus was dead, and knelt over his gray head, and felt like weeping worse than a weeping willow. But then it turned to rage and he said "May the Gods curse you many times over Chandragupta. You will pay for this. By Zeus, I swear you will pay!!" He didn't even consider that he was the final trigger, as he grabbed Craterus' sword and threw it against one of the pegs of the tent. The tent then started to lean over as it became clear the other pegs couldn't support it's weight, and Alexander ended up under the fold, shaking the tent and yelling. "I really need some help here!!!"

*Craterus was born in 370 BC


 
The Life of Alexander the Great
Ptolemy Agrippa
published 275 BC


After Craterus's death, Alexander would immidiately march the army towards Chandragupta's general location. The two met near a small river, and, luckily, Chandragupta couldn't deploy his superior numbers effectively, otherwise Alexander's basically suicide charge at his elephants could have ended up with Alexander annhilated. As it was, Chandragupta had the higher ground, and Alexander recognized it was fruitless and retreated to the southeast.

Chandragupts chased Alexander into more mountainous country, and skirmished with him a few times. Each time, though, Alexander was able to slip away with minimal casualties, through clever use of his refined phalanx. He was slowly starting to calm down, and await a chance to strike at his enemy. His patience could probably only tolerate another month of this.

Chandragupta eventually chased Alexander to a place where he thought Alexander could be trapped. After Indian scouts told him there were about three different passes and small valleys he could send parts of his army through. So Chandragupta deployed the elephants as a distraction force, and while the main phalanx could try to hold it off, have the calvalry swoop in and crush him, like a hammer and anvil

It seemed like a good strategy, but Alexander would prove why he was such an audacious commander. He would attack up the middle path, where he was the least outnumbered, and totally turn back the assault there. Chandragupta had unfortunately choses a careless officer Grabhigtla, in charge of that particular force, and he didn't bother to send any furter recon to check for suspicious Macedonian movements. His force was slowly pushed back, and then suddenly, in a sort of valley, Alexander deployed the needle formation that had been used by the Indians in one battle. The elephants used in this had a very devastating effect on the force. The other Indian divisions had been a bit slow, so after Grabhigtla had been sufficently disorganized, he was able to escape to the northwest, after skirmishes that ended up with higher casualties than Alexander would have wanted.

Then the next battle would be a big victory for Alexander. After leaving the mountains, Alexander would turn back under the cover of darkness on the night of June 11. He would be able to do this because there was a forest nearby, and it was the dead of night(about 11 p.m or so). He left some false tracks for Chandragupta that were supposed to make him think he kept heading more of a northwest direction. The scouts chosen to help drive this home knew they were on a suicide mission. They wished the luck of the Gods was upon them, and went on their way. Oddly enough, it accomplished what it was supposed to, completely fool Chandragupta. He took the bait, and almost immidiately after catching the force, realized it was too small. But it was too late. Alexander had the higher ground by this time, and the effects would be devastating.
The chariots had been busy chasing the scouts, and were unable to move by the sheer mass of the Indian army. And, most devastantingly of all, the elephants had started running around, and squashing much of the Indian forces. Antiochus, son of Seleucus has taken this opportunity, jumped on a captured Indian elephant, and attempt to kill Chandragupta, who had fell off his own elephant, and was busy crawling toward where the elephants weren't. A stray arrow was unfortunate enough to hit Antiochus, and he died after his own elephant stomped him. Chandragupta was, miraculously, able to escape with a lot of cuts, bruises, and a broken arm. Nobody got that close to him again, and he retreated with maybe a little more than half of his forces. Unfortunately, he had left enough elephants behind as to make them almost uneffective in his army, but he still knew how to use effetcively what he had. Alexander took the elephants when it looked safe to do, and moved on as quickly as possible.

Realizing Chandragupta would likely not fall for something like that again, Alexander anxiously maneuvered and waited for the reinforcements of what was about 60,000, thus bringing his total to about 105,000 men to face what was likely 120,000. Not too good, but Alexander refused to back out. Not at all the sort who was likely to spend much time in inaction, he skirmished with Chandragupta a number of times, and Chandragupta, eventually figured out what was happening and tried to cut off Alexander. Alexander then tried to go around him, but Chandragupta got about as much of his army as the terrain would allow, about 70,000 and prepared to meet him. Alexander had the elephants once again at the front to ward off the assault, and he had Antigonus to guard against the rest of Chandragupta's force. Chandragupta, remembering his last majot defeat, spread out his forces. Alexander found it difficult to use formations, as they were in more or less a plain, and Chandragupta had superior forces to better anticipate these movements.

Chandragupta had at this time held back his remaining elephants, having used some of his chariots to disrupt Alexander's movements. But the calvalry was efficient at stopping the chariots where they stood. Alexander was still considering retreat, when suddenly, Chandragupta unleashed nearly all the elephants he had, probably around 1/4 his original number They came to support the officer henceforth known as Pukara in beating back Antigonus. Antigonus was already giving way, and when it looked like he was done for, the elephants immidiately came around to confront the beleagured Alexander. The officer in charge of that force managed to get behind Alexander, at this point trying to hold off a mass melee of the infantry that arrived in the chariots, and effectively surrounded him. At this point Alexander realized his only option was essentially to flee north, and he was east of Bagae on the Oxus, and he knew he ould get into the country of the Massagetae, Saka and other barbarian tribes that would effectively destroy an army weakned from runnin from battles with Chandragupta.

Luckily, he wouldn't have to make that decision. Mithridates, the commander of the Parthian corps had marched at lightning speed arrived when the desperate-looking Alexander was just about to run for it. Mithridates had intially wanted to wait for the Medians to arrive, as he knew that total defeat of the Indian would only be possible if they had more archers. A young officer, Chosroes, however, saw the desperate situation and decided not to wait. He took about 2/3(about 35,000) and immidiately set the archers to shoot at the mass of infantry, while he attacked from another direction. The other sub-officers of Mithridates would soon join him. The Parthians, luckily, brought more African elephants, which was used to scatter Chandragupta's elephants corps before Chosroes swept in with the main infantry, and Orodes with the calvalry. Chandragupta had boxed in Alaxander to effectively to be defeated by a force that was only slightly more than what Alexander had, but it proved to be enough for Alexander to make a bold attack on the chariots trapped that tried to go fight the Parthians. Alexander thus broke though, and managed to mostly avoid the elephant corps. Needless to say, the whole battle was one big bloody morass, especially when the elephants started running around and causing general havoc, causing Pukara to fall off his horse and be killed by Alexander, who running by, lodged a spear in his chest. The casualties were horrendous, Alexander suffered about 25 to 30,000, miraculously, and the Parthians suffered around 15,000 with the Indians having about the same but only a little more than half killed oddly enough. Chosroes was promoted after the battle, and Alexander would agree to meet Chandragupta at a place called Pura in Gedrosia to settle the matter of territory claims no
dount to come from this.

Needless to say, there has been many alternate histories written about this battle, including one where the Median comander Cyragorxas didn't decide to take a break in Hecamptompylos, for a few hours and get drunk and get laid, and enjoy the sun and thus Chandragupta was effectively defeated and gave Alexander a free ride into India, conquring it, and somehow having the dynastic strife that has weakened the empire avoided. But this one, written by Demotrates, is rather a lot optimistic...

Cypress Hill How I could just Kill a Man (1991)


It’s gonna be a long time before I finish
One of the many missions that I had to establish
To lite
My spliff ignite
You with insight
So if you ain’t down, bullshit!
Say some punk tried to get you for your auto
Would you call the one-time and play the role model?
No! I think you’ll play like a thug
Next you hear the shot of a magnum slug
Humming coming at ya
Yeah ya know I’m gonna gatt ya!
How you know where I’m at when you haven’t been where I’ve been?
Understand where I’m coming from
When you’re up on the hill in your big home
I’m out here risking my dome
Just for a bucket
Or a fast duck it
Just to stay alive, yo I got to say ’fuck it!’​





in a small dingy room
Pura, Gedrosia
July 24, 311 BC


Chandragupta Mauryan crossed his legs and waited impatiently for Alexander to arrive.The builiding was a small trading post, with bags of wheat and other supplies scattered through the room. A dusty wooden table, where Chandragupta and a half-dozen of his bodyguards were sitting, stood in the center of the room.
The Greek fool was not capable of cowardice, that was for sure. And he knew Alexander's empire was quite worn out from the fighting with him, but at the same time was rather uneasy, thinking Alexander might try to kill him, but he knew his bodyguards would be ready with a sword in his back if Alexander tried anything. He, himself, had no wish to kill Alexander, even though the thought had crossed his mind of poisoning the wine that was sitting on the other side of the table. But that would have led to renewed war, and Chandragupta did not want to advance any deeper into enemy territory, and being in a land where people worshipped "Ahura Mazda" was much too disconcerting. He simply could not conceive of one god for everything, it was too much of a cultural shock, and preferred to think about multiple gods.

And that led to another thing Chandragupta was uncomfortable about. He, unlike most of the Indians he commanded was merely heavely-tanned, and that had gave rise to rumors about his Scythian origins, despite that genealogy clearly established him coming from a respected clan in northwest India. But he knew there were parts of it that were fragmentary. It made him think way too much of foreign culture, and the fact of having foreign origins made him crawl out of his skin.

Oh, he had the greatest respect for foreign culture, and for some of their ideas It had been Alexander who had inspired him to unite all the little petty states in northern India and make them submit to his rule. He enjoyed Persian dates and Italian grapes. The only problem was, he was the sort, who, raised in a certain culture, could not consider how any other culture could be the 'right one' except for his own. The fact ruling over too many foreign lands had been Chandragupta's main factor in not pursuing Alexander into Parthia, knowing how restive ruling over cultures in many ways different than his was likely to be.

After several weeks, which included consulting his prime minister, Chanyka, he was able to get Alexander, who was in Babylon, to agree to a meeting here. Surprisingly enough, he had received word just yesterday that Alexander would be here.

And, true to his word, Alexander would walk in the door, very red faced, and with a look that showed that he wanted to pummel Chandragupta into next week. Not like he would have much of a chance, bacause Chandragupta estimated himself to weigh 50-75 more pounds than him and was two inches taller anyway.

"Just tell me what in the name of Zeus your damned cursed terms are so I don't have to suffer your presence any longer than necessary." Alexander said while gritting his teeth. in a manner that suggested he would yell "I'll send you to Hades!!!" if provoked anymore. Chandragupta knew, though, that he had the advantage, and was wearing a cool smile on his face. "Just acknowledege India's sovreignty over Gedrosia, Bactria, Aria, and Sogdiana." Chandragupta said in a rather supercilious tone. "Listen bitch, I thikn just the western.....!" Alexander said,while more obscenities came out of his mouth. "Want to try for Carmania? It's quite generous not taking that away, and besides, Indian ships will have the same trading rights as any ship in your empire." Chandragupta replied with a self-satisfied look on his face. Alexander, enraged threw a sword agaisnt the wall striking the owner of the trading post, who promptly fell to the floor dead. Alexander than looked in that direction and was silent though shaking with anger for ten seconds. "Alrght, I'll take your thrice-accursed terms. Don't you ever think for a second that you've seen the last of me!" And with that, Alexander stood up and walked out of the post with his two bodyguards.


Chandragupta watched Alexander go. It had taken a lot less time than he had thought, and he hadn't had to kill Alexander, and thus start a fight with his small company right outside the building. In any case, however, when Alexander had recovered, he would no doubt invade again. So Chandragupta was having Pura and the towns of Bactria heavily fortified in the case of another attack. And there was still South India to consider.......

P.S. I'm going to start updating twice a week a few times now, so I just wanted to ley you know
 
The Life Of Alexander the Great
Ptolemy Agrippa
published 275 BC


....After the treaty was signed, Alexander would return west to Babylon, and when he arrived, he found of an insurrection in Arabia. Though he thought he had taken the ambitious leaders with him, apparently a number of the people had gotten tired of paying higher taxes, and some more pro-independence people would then take the opportunity to revolt agaisnt the Macedinian garrison and their Arabian allies. They had just recently been driven out.

Alexander would then head to Tazon Gebir, sail a 35,000 man army down to Arabia, and defeat the badly-outnumbered Arabs,scattering them in the first battle. Alexander, like in so many other places had the leaders executed, publicly, so to make sure there would be nothing of this sort again. Then he put his supporters back in charge, and headed back to Tyre on September 17.


The Life Of Alexander the Great
Ptolemy Agrippa
published 275 BC


....After the treaty was signed, Alexander would return west to Babylon, and when he arrived, he found of an insurrection in Arabia. Though he thought he had taken the ambitious leaders with him, apparently a number of the people had gotten tired of paying higher taxes, and some more pro-independence people would then take the opportunity to revolt agaisnt the Macedinian garrison and their Arabian allies. They had just recently been driven out.

Alexander would then head to Tazon Gebir, sail a 35,000 man army down to Arabia, and defeat the badly-outnumbered Arabs,scattering them in the first battle. Alexander, like in so many other places had the leaders executed, publicly, so to make sure there would be nothing of this sort again. Then he put his supporters back in charge, and headed back to Tyre on September 17.

The Rise and Fall of the Alexandrian Empire
Demetrius Dionysus
c) 1998 Green Sea Publishing, Neo Damnoplis

Chapter 5: The subjagating of the peripheral

Peace would slowly return. Alexander would make a trip to Egypt and Nubia in 310, where the agriculaturists were making good progress. And, finally, after taxes went down again, Alexander decided to launch a minor campaign agaisnt the tribes of the Caspii and the Caducii to the north of Mesoptomia in 308 BC This was an area, like Bithynia, that had fallen outside the control of Alexander while he was defeating the Persian empire. And, for the first time, his sixteen-year old son Alexander was accompning him. Though it was basically mop-uo work, Alexander(the younger) was recognized for his leadership and daring during the campaign.
In 305 BC, Alexander, confident after that , decided to put the young Alexander in charge an expedition to conquer the vast land to the nortwest, known as Gaul, becuase of their similarities to the people norht of Thrace and northern Italia. His objective was to conquer any and all contiguous teritory that would establish closer contact with the trading post in Prettanike, while at the same time, he sent some troops to seize land in the area of the Iberian tribes. With this, he would have great success. He proved to be almost as able a tactician as his father. Despite the fact that they were outnumbered in at least three out of the nine major battles, he pressed on, even after the battle of the Bloody River*(March 1 306 BC.) He had estabished good supply lines, but there was talk that his father would have had the teritory in seven months*

A good part of it may have been his personality. He was regarded to be such a cold person, a soldier whose cousin had served at the Prettanike trading post and had gone to get amber in the east, referred to him as the "human iceberg" He more or less expected people to follow his commands and not question them. An Arab serving with him mentioned that whenever Alexander looked at him, it was with disdain, as if he wasn't fit to be in his presence. This would become important later, though not really in Arabia. In other words, not many of the soldiers, not even the Greeks and Persians, were partcularly motivated to follow him, though they slowly acquired respect for him, through the battles he won. This had been given as an explanation for part of the reason why it took two years for Alexander to conquer Gaul and reach the Prettanike channel. Other resons given was that he had a slower-working mind then Alexander, he sometimes was disinterested while be instructed by his teachers when he was young. Another was the fighting quality of the Gauls themselves. They were ferocious, and one senior officer said they far exceeded the tenacity of the Sammnites of Italia. Even the unemotional Alexander was reported to be a little shaken after the last battle with the Belgii. Forseeing that Gaul would be ripe for invasion almost immidiately, especially when it started to become civilized, Alexander had fortifications constructed on the river bordering the Belgii and Frisians, and requested reinforcements so he could launch a campaign agaisnt the Pretannikes, since most of his other troops were tied down in garrison duty.

Alexander, when he received it, flatly refused, because he had already raised taxes high enough for the Gaul campaign, and he was hearing rumors of some of his satraps and the Greek cities plannng of revolting. Grumbling heavily, the younger Alexander refused to leave and was dragged onto a ship by his own troops, a group who believed they had been mistreated and even the ones who had dispproved of their actions believed that the king's wish was his command,even if it involved the heir to the throne, who wasn't the king yet.

So Alexander returned home, and was reported to be very moody and withdrawn. At one point, there is a rumor that he tried to kill himself. But that would be alleviated when his father announced a new campaign agaisnt India, the land that he had failed to conquer ten years ago. The younger Alexander intitially sneered at the idea, because of his resentful attitude of being pulled from the last campaign, but immidiately, surprising for him, he realized that it could be more of a challenge then fighting "uncultured barbarians". So he followed his father out of the room and was briefed on it later....

*The Rhine
*of course, it's an exaggeration and not really practical




near the Palla River
10 miles north of the homeland of the Parisii, Gaul
October 13, 306 BC


The future Alexander the Fourth had jsut obtained a surrender from a local tribe in the area. But, as he moved north, he would have a big battle with another massive tribal confederation of uncouth barbarians known as "Gauls" from some loose translation of the name for these peoples.

"Hang back!" shouted Alexander, in a somewhat huskier voice than his father, but without any of the smooth flowingness of it "Their forces like to hide in the cursed forests, and harry us, because they are cowards, do not fight like men, and are certainly the children of Hades, because of their nasty and vicious ways." All of this, he uttered in a flat and unemotional voice,with a touch of sharp anger. that did not bespeak of a somewhat flamboyant appearance, healvily tanned, and with a mustache that seemed to twirl. One of the officers, a Persian leaned over to his closest companion, a Greek, and muttered, "That man behaves nothing like a Aryan from my land should. In fact, I doubt even any of the peoples of the far north could possibly be as cold as he. "

"Better watch where you say that." the Greek replied cautiously. "He can't stand people criticizing him. It can't be denied, however, that he may be one of those rare people that are cold and hot at the same time. "Yeah, and I've been around him often enough to know he thinks he's better than everyone, and can't imagine how anybody, including the Gods, could be higher than him. Except for maybe his father. They have had many loud and vehement arguments, but the boy seems less in charge, especially when his father launches some vitrolic insult at him, he seems shameful, and rather withdrawn." All of this was said by an officer who had come up to them. "Now, come on. We may not like Alexander, but he'll surely have our heads if our unit fails to advance to support the main phalanx.

And so they did. Now we must get back to Alexander. Though he was obligated to advance in the front as he was the leader, he did not enjoy the thick of battle like his father did, and tried to hang back as much as possible, since he rather detested the idea of close-quarters combat, with a quarter-dozen or more half-naked, leaf-clothed, dirty barbarians*. And besides that, he would go insane if he was less than a foot away from the blood of, oh say 5,000 men, and wouldn't be able to hide the fact that he just wanted to run away.

Alexander was hit by a number of arrows as he sought to break through the crude barricades the barbarian scum had set up. He tried to leave his Companions around the barricades, and when forced to stop to await the advance of more troops, he had to admit that the crude barricades were working well. And his education had, at least shown him, if not taught him, that primitive peoples like these with not much culture except for odd, shamnistic rituals, could in fact, be assimiliated and taught the ways of civilized people. He could still not stand, however, of treating someone with darker skin as him as his equal.

All of this he was thinking as he waited, and then advanced on the barricades in the places where forest opened out to meadow. It wasn't long before Alexander's army advanced into a larger field, but with many bushes and groups of two or three trees. Alexander looked at this, realized that his forces would likely be chopped up if he tried marching through here, decided to call up a weapon that he was always afraid to use.

Elephants had scared Alexander from the moment he saw one, around the time he was eight or nine years old. His first experience had been visiting an elephant farm in Susa while having to learn more about his good Persian, but not as good as his Hellene, heritage. Being rather curious at that age, he had walked up to one of them, which was the largest, attempted to touch it, whle listening to the caretaker tell him. "Stay away, these animals are dangerous!" Then the elephant had launched a foot at him, and landed a kick that sent Alexander flying about half a foot, and forced him to stay in bed a while. It took him a while before he could get used to having elephants around to possibly help

That was one of the main reasons why Alexander had hesitated to use the elephant corps his father had gave to him for his campaign in Gaul. That, and the thick forests didn't exactly offer good opportunities for their use. So he issued aspecial call to the commander of the elephant corps, a Bactrian exile, who then led his elephants, charging, towards the barricades. Alexander moved a little to the side, since the loud elephant noise they made, made him quite nervous. But of course, the cowardly barbarians who had never seen elephants before, started screaming about evilmonsters, and fled as fast as they could, and the phalanx immidiately advanced in the elephants's wake to take prisoners of the Gauls hiding under heavy shrubbery. Alexander silently laughed to himself as he saw Gauls being pulled out from under it, shaking heavily, and praying to their wicked gods that they would be all right...

*A minor exaggeration, but some of their bodies are rather exposed...
 
The Life of Alexander the Great
Ptolemy agrippa
published 275 BC

Chapter 16 The
begnning of the second Occident-Indianwar and last years ofAlexander's life


Alexander, after crushing the Arab revolt, sat tight for a while and made a number of trips to places like Egypt, where he participated in a number of local religious ceremonies, and the former kingdom of Kush, where he found that the land was on a good way to being restored thanks in part of the effort of an Aphistocles who was in charge of devising experimental growing techniques to make the farmland more productive. Then finally, he would head to Pella, Athens, Sparta, and Corinth to remind the Greeks that, in fact, he was still their King, even if that meant he was the King Of many other peoples.


Then not long after this, he would look at a map, and realize yet another piece of territory, this one north of Mesopotamia, had fallen outside the control of the Persian Empire, and had yet to swear alliegience to Alexander. So Alexander would embark on a minor campaign there, and defeat the Caspii and other local tribes rather easily.


Alexander would sent his son to conquer Gaul which would last from 305 to 303 BC, and in the end would be largely succesful, depite some grumblings about the younger Alexander's aloof personality and lethargic leadership. Alexander would participate in the 304 BC Olympic Games like he did in the 312 and 316 games, which he won prizes in javelin throwing, running and discus in, but unfortunately would win nothing this time since he was 52 and not having as much energy as he used, causing him to remark that he had "surely shortened his life by at least another 5 years by doing this"


One like Alexander could not get over being beaten by Chandragupta and long sought a future and successful combat with him. The reasons Alexander had waited so long were the ever-high taxes, and a desire for a little bit of leisure time, but one like Alexander could not wait forever to redress his supposed grievance. In 302 BC, Alexander would travel to Nubia, and was able to get a commitment of a large part of the Nubian corps for a future campaign on India, and had some of the iron, which was very important to Meroe's economy, shipped to Babylon, which had been agreed on for an embarking point. Alexander would pray at the shrine of the elephant-like war god Apedemak with a number of Nubian troops, before heading to Pella, where his oldest son was to bring him alongfor the new Indian campaign, and also bring his younger son Philip.


In Babylon, Alexander would meet with the finest officers of his army, Antigonus, the aging but still effective loyal general, Ptolemy another veteran, and a newer generation; Demetrius, Antigonus's son, who vowed not to let another disgrace like Carmainia happen, Chosroes, the heroic officer whose efforts saved Alexander from almost certain annhilation, and Nicomedes, an admiral from Cilicia.


These generals Alexander would mobilize in his recurring effortd to conquer India known to some historians as the "Second Hellene-Indian war" and to others as "The War of the Two Giants" . Alexander would sail from Babylon on March 22, and have Nicomedes, when they left the Persian Gulf, sail to take the ports of Barbaricon and Gwadar, and had a 75,000 mancontingent led by Antigonus to take thenand defend it agasinst Indian attack.
Nicomedes would then be able to box in the west Indian fleet and defeat them before the port was taken on April 22. Antigonus was confident that with the monsoon season approaching, the Indians would not be able to launch a strong attack. And he was right.


Meanwhile, Alexander, not being bad at naval warfare himself, had just defeated the commanders of the other two fleets Indricuplagujap, and Nacrirjira, in a major battle with some tricky maneuvers and was able to mount a blockade of the west Indian coast. Now came the somewhat tricky part, convincing the south Indian rajahs or princes to accept an alliance agaisnt Chandragupta in exchange for local independence and some territorial concessions when Chandragupta was defeated. Alexander would land in Musiriz in Chera on May 2. He was able to get that, kingdom, Panda Chola, and Kalinga to ally with him. Anhara and the Cyngalese kingdom, however, refused. Andara would go so far as to attack the Chola kingdom and place heavy pressure on it. Chandragupta at this time had to put down a revolt in Bactria sparked by Alexander, but was still able to send some troops to attack Anhara. Alexander sent his son Alexander to conduct delaying actions, but a nasty rainstorm would cause withdrawal, and Anshara forces would likely have had control of most of the kingdom, if Chandragupta hadn't come back and realized the unstable situation. He would then launch an attack into the lack of Andhara, which was promptly defeated, because of Chandragupta's lack of knowledge about the area. This would however give an opportunity for Chsoroes, together with the rajah of Kalinga to launch a major counterattack at Anhara and eventually force a peace on them. The situation for the next several years
, for the most part, still remained uncertain, and often in limbo, though Ptolemy would suceed in capturing Anuradhapura, the capital of the Cyngalese kingdom in Februry 299 BC. Alexander, not long after this, would once again desire personal combat with Chandragupta, and would make another expedition at the area controlled by him not long after the monsoon season was over. Alexander would suffer a number of naval losses before capturing the port of Sopora in on November 17. He would then continue to advance northwest, capturing Barigiza, and Uljani before finally meeting Chandragupta. Having a larger force this time, Alexander was able to hold his own in foreign territory, and managed to make Chandragupta withdraw, but the result was anticlimatic when Chandragupta died barely a few days after the battle. His son Bindusara would come to the throne. Under the advice of the still prime minister Chanyka, he did not seek a direct engagement with Alexander, and instead attacked Kalinga, which fell to him in September 297 BC.


Alexander, at this point, was able to conquer at least most of west India, with Bindusara moving his capital east. In September he was starting to feel very sick, so he retired and sent Antigonus to temporarily take charge of the situation, while he went to stop the Cyngalese of Ceylon from revolting. The revolt was crushed in December, and Alexander was organizing another camapign agaisnt Anhara. He lay on his deathbed with his two oldest sons by his side. His last words were supposedly "So many worlds, and I may have nearly conquered them all!" He died on Janaury 13 296 BC at the
age of 59.One rogue doctor beleivs that the autopsy shows he died of a tropical diseases, possibly one transmitted by a flying bug2]but much more likely, the Gods figured that such a mighty man like Alexander's time had come, and not before he was too old.


Alexander acheived many great things in his life, possibly coming closer to being a god than any man has ever been, showing virtue in all of his actions, being a highly intelligent personand showing acceptance for foreign ways no matter how strange they seem to others, like having a bust of the multi-armed
Hindu god Krishna, and abstaning from eating beef in his time in India.
[2] Some form of malaria probably, but his liver disease was quite severe at this point also
 
The Rise And Fall of the Alexandrian Empire
Demetrius Dionysus
c) 1998 Green Sea Publshing, Neo Damnoplis*


Chapter 6:Growing Problems in India


After Alexander's death, his son, known to history as Alexander the Younger would be unofficially be proclaimed king in Barygaza, a city seized from the Mauryan Empire. Alexander, after this would then march north to Mathura, an imprtant place, because it was the crossroads between the south, east, and west. at this time, Antigonus, who was in taxila, decided to march into Bactria since winter was over.
Alexander would march east from Mathura, and would end up engaging Bindusara between Kanauj and Kausambi. Bindusara was not the tactician that his father was, but he knew how to use his forces effectively It would be a bitted fight, and would end when Bindusara managed to drive through Alexander's exposed flanks, which cause Alexander to order an orderly retreat to Kanauj.

Before we go on, a little bit must be be said about the treatment of the Indians serving with Alexander's army. Alexander had delberately excluded them from high positions, and had often used harsh words agaisnt them. He also placed high restrictions on the times and places they could practice their religion, which offended the Hindus greatly, and also offended the small number of Buddhists, though there was slighlty less to interfere there.

Because of this and other reason's, a small group of disaffected Indians would go to Bindusara and tell him of weak spots in the makeshift fortifications that Alexander had set up at Kanauj. Bindsara would then, when launching his attack, send calvalry to distract the main part of Alexander's force, while the rest of the army would break through the weak spots.

This was only partially successful, as the calvalry commander was incompetant, and only on two of the spots would the attack succeed. Alexander was thus able to make an orderly withdrawal with only sbout 17,000 killed and 25,000 wounded out of about a quarter of a million. Around this time, the monsoon season would start, which would make campaging impractical. So Alexander would head to South India and reach it on May 14.
Meanwhile, Antigonus had succefully invaded Bactria, and the Indian garrison surrendered, after dealing with a fire set by a pro-Alexandrian bactrian group. After that, Antigonus would head to Mathura
Alexander had found out about the Indians that had collaborated with Bindusara, and had grown even more suspicious of them, casting several of them into prison. Chola did not have the power to object, as the occupying garrison was strong. In Pandya, howver, when word reached the prince of this, the garrison there would be tossed out. On Ceylon, when news was heard of this, the Cyngalese kingdom was shortly reformed So Alexander marched into Pandya and defeat the Pandykans in a battle on June 8. However, the simmering anger of the populace was quite evident from the way stones were thrown at Alexander when he marched through the city.
Around this time, a ship would arrive in Musiriz. Macedonia had heard that Alexander was dead, and now wanted his son to come to Pella to be "officially" coronated. There were also threatning gestured of a Greek revolt if he didn't. Well, Alexander would have come anyway, since he was heavily pro-Greek, and had no wish to offend his native homeland. He would leave on June 12, get to Tyre on August 15, spend half of the month there, before heading to Pella and arriving there on September 22.
In the official ceremony, Alexander was officially proclaimed king of Kings by Olympias, who was around eighty years old at this time. Greeks, Persians, Phonecians, and Latins flocked to see the coronation. Many of them spent their time getting drunk and causing ruckus, which caused many complaints from the citizens of Pella, about the foreigners'"disgraceful behavior" even though Greeks were getting drunk about the same amount.
Alexander's first act as King was to procllaim an end to the was between his state and the Mauryan Empire, because he was feeling a lot more comfortable now that he was home, did not have the same personal drive as his father,and because the situation in southern India was rapidly turning against them....

Before we can say what followed, we must first address the situation in India. Alexander had left an officer, Mithriades, who supported his hardline policies against the Indians. He would not last long, and a group of Nubians, disgusted at being shut out of pretty much anything but menial tasks, would ambush him as he was on his way to a meeting with other officers, and stab him five times before he collapsed in a pool of blood.

The Nubians knew they would not last too long in a strange land without some sort of strong leader, as the situation would likely collapse. The didn't really have any high-rankign officers either. So they would support the candidacy of Antigonus, probably the most senior general and probably the most respected in the army as interim govenor.

Antigonus would then take steps to keep the situation from spiraling any more out of control. After sigining a treaty with the Mauryan Empire, recognizing his annexation of western India, he would remove the restrictions on the local religious practices remove troops from the main palace of the rajahs of Chera and Chola to ease their paranoia and possibly incurring the wrath of other high-ranking offcials, and gave them much gave compensation, if small, to soldiers and officers who felt they had been mistreated, in the form of larger salaries. After promising better treatment for Pandya, they again came back into the fold. Anhara, once again, confident in their power, even though they received a sizable defeat five years earlier, thought that the various states would not necessarily act in cooporation with the foreigners. So Antigonus fortified the border.

After his death on Decemeber 23 294 BC, unfortunately, the situation would start to degenerate. His successor, Sataxarxes, a Mede, knew the importance of working with local rulers, but lacked tact, and would make the mistake of insulting the rajah of Pandya, a cousin of the previous one that was overthrown in the last invasion. This man would then mobilize nationalist forces in late 292, and fought a five-month conflict that would end up with the defeat of the Alexandrians, because Satarxarxes decieded they had taken too many casualties. He would, from that point on, use tact while meeting with high-ranking Indians.


Chapter 7: Tying up loose ends, and the problem of Philip

Alexander would then settle down to the governing of his kingdom. But then, a revolt would start in Greece in January 295 BC, because Alexander had lowered taxes by only ten percent of their pre-war levels, and commerce was greatly hurting. So Alexander quickly occupied Thessaly, and would sail navies down to Athens and Corinth, both of whom were active in the revolt. His naval superioity was quickly established with the capture of Piraes Athens would fall after a five-month siege, all while attempts at smuggling food from unoccupied areas succceded in bringing food, sometimes literally right next some of the soldiers. It would eventually be discovered by a sentry who noticed the odd behavior of one of the ordianry citizens and Athens would last only another month before falling. At this time, Corinth was also being sieged, but would fall quicker due to being surrounded on four sides within seven weeks. The troops from that would then go to Sparta. Sparta, having a strong warrior tradition, fought like they were possessed, and tried to keep the forces of Demetrius, the general in charge of occupying the Pellaponnese distracted by attacking other places like Argos, remaining loyal to Macedon because of their traditional hatred for Sparta. But Demetrius would not be distracted, reaching Sparta by April 14, and occupied Messina on April 22, depriving the Spartans of a major source of their food.

It was, admittedly taking a big risk, but Demetrius had enough troops (about 45,000) to where he could spare some for Argos and other cities. The Spartans were strong, and defeated the reinforcements in a couple of places, but, upon the arrival of Alexander with around 30,000 on June 2, pulled troops from all other fronts to meet him. Alexander would reoocupy Messina, which had been retaken in a countterattack on May 12. He would then demand a surrender from the oligarchs of Sparta around this time, who promptly refused. But they were having a hard time holding out, and the reinforcements were trying to fight off by attacks by cities loyal to Alexander. So Alexander, not thinking of the reinforcements, and only thought the Spartans could hold out another five days, would offer surrender again on June 15, and once again would be rebuffed.

Then the reinforcements would arrive two days later. Being as they arrived from about three different araes, they would select Leonidas, named for the heroic king who died at Thermopylae, as their leader. Leonidas would try to find Alexander's weak spots and exploit them, even though he about half as many troops(about 35,000) as Alexander. Alexander, desperate to find a way to deal with the fierce Spartans, decided on a number of bold and tricky maneuevers which were somewhat out of character for him. It worked. Leonidas was routed, and his forces scattered. It would take about ten days to find and surround these forces. And even then, there were still stories of bandits who wandered the mountains, and attacked anybody that looked like a barbarian, and did so with remarkable efficiency.

Sparta would be occupied on June 21. Alexander was not a man like his father to destroy any city who would piss him off. But, at the same time, he knew a message had to be sent to the other Greeks cities not to think about ever revolting again. So he razed several buildings, had the two kings executed each in Athens and Corinth, and sold anybody who had fought agaisnt him into slavery. Needless to say, the fall and near-total destruction of the most fierce city in Greece would shock the Greek citizens into submission, and there were to be no more revolts during the duration of Alexander's reign. There were also revolts in Latium and Persia, but they were put down in roughly three and a half months,and didn't have any of the same heroic efforts of resistance

Philip would then pull his brother aside when he retuned to Tyre on July 7, and tell him that he though there should have been better treatment for some of the Latin revolters, who had been forced to watch a statue of their first king Romulus defaced. Alexander would brush him off and say he did not know the proper way to rule a kingdom. And at the same time, he thought Philip was interested in more power for himself. So he payed one of the sevants at Philip's house in Pella to keep watch on him. He would get reports of occasional meetings between Philip, some scruffy-looking barbarians, and a couple of people that might have been Arab or Egyptian, from their skin and facial features. Philip apparently was telling them how dissatisfied he was with his brother. Alexandee was not excessively paranoid, and so did nothing else, but it would raise his suspicions.

Alexander, however was starting to get reports from loyal satraps that collecting taxes was placing too much strain on them. Alexander throughly trusted these men, and so lowered taxes, since their was no huge reason to keep them so high anyway.

But, in the spring of 293 BC, Alexander would be bit by the conquering bug, and would decided to conquer a kingdom in northern Asia Minor known as Cappadocia . It's ruler, Ariarathes had been left alone by the older Alexander, since the had given him no trouble, and had acknowledged his sovreignty nominally. Alexander the younger was not happy about having a foreign ruler so close to his control, however. So Alexander would lead an army to Cilicia and then invade Cappadocia from there. The kingdom would fall under his control in about three and a half weeks. Ariarathes would walk out of the gate of the main capital to offer his kingdom to Alexander after it became clear the Capapdocians did not have the forces to resist for any longer.

So then after this. Alexander would impose a more authoritarian rule than his father. Taxes would remain at a constant high level to officially raise money for such things as better roads in Gaul, which had several cities built, but otherwise, not had much of it developed. And Alexander would also impose a tax on the Jews of Judea to practice their religion. This would lead to a revolt in Sepember-November 292 BC, which would prove surprisingly hard to put down. Despite that many of the Jewish leaders were on Alexander' side, they put up tenacious resistance agaisnt the armies that converged on them from three sides. After holding these armies off, from the area around Jerusalem, Jericho, Alexander would come himself and enflict a decisive defeat on the rebels. On advice of the leaders Alexander agreed to lower the tax on religion by half, but refused to abolish it altogether.

Meanwhile, Philip was using this as an excuse to pressure Alexander more to relieve the tax burden. Philip, guessing correctly that it was causing problems would travel around the empire and hear complaints from merchants and farmers that the taxes were preventing them from having many essential comforts, and that they were barely keeping their famlies fed. In Nubia, there even seemed to be talk of revolt, having many bitter feelings about what happened thirty years earlier.

Alexander, by this time was getting more and more suspicious. Then he would get what confirmed in his mind that his brother was plotting to overthrow. The servant he paid to spy on Philip's nightime meetings revealed that Philip had a number of officers including Chosroes, who had been set to succeed as satrap of Parthia, simce the current one, Mithriades was expected to die in the next few years, and Menelaus, an officer who had served in India. Apparently, Philip was trying to convince these men that Alexander was a bad king, and to try to not carry out his policies effectively.

Alexander, when he heard this news was not happy. Philip was essentially fostering division of his empire, and advoacating decentrlization of a ridiculous order!:mad: It sounded like Philip hadn't convinced eevrybody but Alexander was starting to get ever more paranoid. So he would order the watch in Pella to arrest Philip, sometime in the evening, when it was known he always had dinner. Unfortuantely, for Alexander, a friend of Philip's happened to be walking by, and leaned in the open door to overhear him. The events that followed would prove tragic......

*Either OTL New York or Phildelphia. it could be any major Eastern Seaboard city, I haven't thought that much far ahead, but I'll only continue the TL another 100 years or so at the most, anyway.​



main bedroom
main palace,
Pella, Macedon
September 23, 296 BC


The now-king Alexander IV paced around the room. He had just had to get away from that huge crowd, but he was glad that things turned out the way they had, and that his reign was now official.

He thought back to the first couple years of his life, . He could not recollect it, so he went further, to when his father arrived in Pella by the time he turned five. He could recollect having many joyous and woderful times with him until some months later, he would go to put down a revolt in Persia, and he wouldn't return until about five years later.

During this time, he would get courtiers that had been ordered to pack him off to Tyre to have a better view of the wider world. Alexander, unfortunately, was not acceptable of other cultures like his father was, and he could not understand why they ought to be given their due.
Upon being exposed to other cultures, while two of his instructors took him on a number of trips to Babylon, and one time to Bactria, he immidiately decided that he was not used to their odd ideas. Like in Judae and Persia, the religions were different, but they were the same in that they only worshipped one god. Alexander could not think of one god having charge over everything, and was convinced that Dionyses was in charge of wine and merriment, Artemis of hunting and so on. But some things he absolutely despised. And that incident with the elephant had not helped matters either. He was more careful to listen to his teacher Polythemes from then on.

And something must be said about his education. His father had provided for the best teachers for him, but, as they said themselves, they could not educate a boy that had a minimal interest in learning. Alexander had tried to pay attention, for, at this point, he had heard about his father being educated by the great scholar Aristotle, and how he was the greatest man ever to have lived. So he tried to pay as much attention as he could, but when it came to trignometry, grammar, and other such droll classes, his mind wandered and he could see himself on the front, fighting Africans, and stabbing them to bits over and over again. It reveals a dark mind, but the excessive blood made Alexander shake badly at the same time. Only the desire to live up to his father would make him want to fight later.
Then there would be that long period 316-314 BC where he would see the most of his father out of any time. His father would see him ride a horse, lift 150 pounds at ten years old, and win an archery contest. Those are all things tjhat would seem to make a father proud. But there was the fact that Alexander would resent not having his father around and taking it out in various ways by saying that "Father you are a weak fool. You dare hesitate to fight our enemies?" Of course, that sort of thing would get him fired up, and cause him to shout obsenities about his courage being questioned, and it would make the young Alexander quail up.

Not to mention their views on different cultures. When his father tried to make Alexander try some olives, he flatly refused saying that he would never eat "that accursed black fruit from some empty land in the west!" And while making a crack about how black Africans were nothing but glorified monkeys, his father would become enraged and tell him that Africans, though primitive in some respects including religion in some cases were not to be disrepected like that.

Alexander's opinion would harden even more in that category, and would help mold a personality that hated to have his decsions questioned, and one that fantizised becoming greater than his father. Oddly enough, in his father's presence, such thoughts disappered, replaced by ever growing shame and doubt.

He would finally get his chance to fight when his father in 308 BC decided to bring the tribes of the Caspii north of Media under control again. There, he would feel empowered after the weak primitives were driven back. By the Gods, he felt good there! In charge of a small unit, he charged straight at the enemy's main village and helped to cut off their supply lines, thus ensuring their defeat.

Not long after this, he would find a wife, marry and have a daughter and a son, thus ensuring dynastic continuity, though he had a feeling right that moment that he would have to struggle if his brother tryed to stir up more trouble, like when he expressed reservations on how he treated those dark-skinned, cow-worshipping, belief in reincarnation, dirty Hindus.

He would, however, not right away, get a chance to see his children born, for Alexander, confident in his abilties would put him in charge of a camapaign to conquer the land to the northwest of Italia reputedly inhabited by people related to tribes north of Thrace and northern Italy. His father, in essence, had decided to give Alexander a test, which his success would be based on for a future campaign in India.

And it was not easy. Alexander was convinced that anybody with such a low level of civilization had to be dirty, stinking, cowards on top of being savages. For the Gauls did not always seek open battle, instead taking advantage of their extensive forest to use hit-and-run tactics and barricades where it suited them. Not to mention the fact that his men weren't always as cooporative as they could be. After one dared to complain about attacking over a heaviy forested river, Alexander would have him whipped and then confined to the tent. Morale after that seemed to have gone down since then, since it took him roughly 8 months to reach that center part of the country, and his advance slowed down dramatically.
He would, however attribute that, to the battles getting bigger and more bloodier, and that the sneaky bastards getting more clever. He would slowly start to modify his views, and believe that anybody whose skin wasn't too dark could be treated as an equal, given that they would learn proper Greek ways.
Then came the crusher. After asking for reinforcements to take Prettanike, mostly because he found he needed to keep much of his army tied down throughout Gaul in garrison duty, he would be turned down, based on high taxes were causing some opportunists in Hellas to try to plot to reassert their independence from Macedon.

After returning home, he would have many violent arguments with his father, who would tell him ruling was much more than winning battles and seeking glory. It was about keeping the people happy, and trying to keep their support was vital to ruling a stable kingdom. Alexander's face turned red, and he started to run while his father yelled "Hey! Come back here!" His wife, wrote in her hidden journel that "doing my arrogant husband feels more like doing a corpse every day" . Needless to say, sex would stop altogether a few months after Alexander returned from Gaul. Alexander would feel so ashamed after that, he would go into a corner and cry often, but while no one was around. He would avoid attention.

One day, he was feeling so depressed,that he attempted to hang himself on a clothesline. He would fall off before succeding and somehow avoided breaking his neck. He would no doubt have made another attempt, but his father would tell him they were about to embark on the long-awaited campaign to India, and his spirits would immidiately lift his spirits...







Philip's house
small street in Pella
March 23, 288 BC


Philip was at his modest Greek-villa on a small street that went off into the country. He was eating dinner, roast turkey, and some wild berries from Gaul, coupled with olives, and wine from Italia.

He was feeling much anxiety about his brother's policies. He was starting to realize that he would never get through to such a thick-skulled creature like him. So he had attempted to convince some fairly powerful people, and Africans unhappy with what they felt like was inferior treatement that they should let their concerns be heard. Though there were mutterings about being persecuted, Philip's magnetism, sincerity, and lack of fear of speaking his mind, made many of them say they would consider it. And the other said they would think about it.

But looking back, Philip thought this would overall make things more unstable. He had said, essentially, that the satraps in areas in particularly affected areas should work together, and it slowly started to dawn on him he was essentially asking them to act like they could control the king's actions. But Alexander was such a stubborn man that he would never listen to another's advice, unless it was relating to a serious problem staring right at him in the face. Philip sighed. Despite their disagreements, he never thought Alexander would try to have him killed. So maybe he could invite Alexander to his house and poison him if things got much worst....

All of a sudden, his friend, Aridiccas, who sometimes went to Tyre, burst in the door of the dining hall, causing Philip, his wife and children, and his servants to stand up from the long, wooden table. The look on Aridiccas' face had a look of great urgency on it, and Philip knew not to disagree with any look like that, on top of shaking.

"Philip, I must tell you your life is in danger! Bad men sent by...!" Aridiccas shouted very quickly. "Whoa, whoa, slow down," Philip commanded, trying to sound casual. "Is it that urgent?" "Just let me tell you. Your brother Alexander has sent assassins to kill you. I went to his palace to ask for some gold to buy wine, since I had none on hand, and the palace was the closest place to go. Then I heard him telling these half-dozen men through a door in the palace that they were to alert the Pella watch to arrest you for plotting insurrection agaisnt the empre. I bumped into a wall in shock, and managed to duck in another room when the guards came looking for me,and they luckily concluded they were being too nervous. I got on the same ship as the assassins, and was trembling all the way. Good thing they didn't see me. They probably are a few minuted behind and....."ENOUGH!!" shouted Philip. "But you said..." "No more talking!" snapped Philip. "The nearest watch station is about two and a half mnutes from here. If we don't act quickly we'll be surrounded!"

So Philip would take Aridiccas, his servants, and his guards, and flee the manor. And none too soonn. For the watch were quicker than expected, and could be seen a couple of blocks away. "After him!" shouted their commander. Philip and his followers ran through the streets toward the west gate of Pella, dodging arrows and spears all the way. Philip himself would receive a spear wound, but would keep going.

They would spot the watch coming at them from in front, so they were forced to go a more roundabout direction, by wooden little houses, and a couple of temples, one dedicated to Apollo, another of Dionysus.

Then they would reach the gate which was blocked by about eight soldiers. "We are so screwed....." muttered Aridiccas. "We're done for!" "Not so fast!" replied Philip boldly. (Break to OTL, .Cue A-Team music) He would charge straight toward the gate guards, dodge arrows miraculously, and threw his sword in an angle like a boomerang. It would end up beheading the heads of the captain and three of his guards. "Great, now you've disarmed youself!"shouted Aridiccas in disbelief. But Philip had always been good at mathematics when he was younger, and correctly predicted the angle of the sword would end up back at him. Aridiccas and the other companions of Philip gasped as it looked to aim toward his chest. But Philip caught the sword by the blade, swung it around, and deflected the watchmen's sword hits. He was possibly, an even better fighter than his legendary father. Aridiccas, and the others, given courage by this, would attack with their daggers and swords in some cases. Ultimately, all the guards in front would be dead. But the watchmen in back had caught up, and five of Philip's company had been slain with arrows. They were too late though, as Philip and his remaining companions fled out the gate(end A-Team music), and didn't stop running until they were in a mountain village at probably twelve at night

While Philip laid on a bed to have his wounda treated Aridiccas would say"I never thought such a great warrior could exist!" cried out Aridiccas. "Hey, you obviously never saw me spar with my father"said Philip in a calm but at the same time bold-sounding voice. "Well, this has taught me one thing" said Philip in a normal sounding voice but growing louder and more forceful."There is no use trying to make Alexander give up by peaceful means anymore. From now on, we will fight, to rid the kingdom of that tyrant, and restore it back to the people! Are you all with me?" "Yeahhhhhh! shouted his original companions and the farmers in the hut he was in. They had ben hit hard by the taxation of Alexander, and they were not going to take it anymore.....


 
Chapter 8: The Philippian War

The civil war would start with another Illyrian uprising. The general Cronoas had put down a revolt there while Alexander was still traveling from India, and it was known to be quite a volatile area that harbored lots of discontent. Even in the older Alexander's time, there had been mass discontent harbored by the local populace. Now, rallying under the leadership of the courageous and charismatic Philip, they revolted yet again.

Alexander had already sent more teams of assassins out to search the mountains between the border of Macedonia and Illyria. He would gather 75, 000 men to start with, and have the same number arrive as reinforcements lately run under the command of Demetrius, Antigonus' son, who had helped put down the Greek revolt. But he had to act fast, because on April 9, the occupying Macedonian garrison had been surrounded and defeated so fast, it would seem highly insurmoutable. On April 12, Alexander would move his forces north, and they expected to reach the Illyrian border in about a week because the rugged terrain helped make things difficult.

On April 17 would come his first action with Philip. The hilly terrain helped slow down Philip's forces, but he had managed to assemble around 150,000, many composing of ordinary farmers who normally didn't fight. Unfortunately, with them, you got the miscreants who were essentially shiftless losers. Some of them could get quite violent, and were known to help start the waves of violence that had plagued Illyria for years. Needless to say, they were difficult to control, and often got drunk. Philip, a fairly common drinker himself, didn't help matters, but at least he never got drunk before a battle. The same could not be said of his men. On the other hand, they were more aggressive after having had some alcohol, but Philip's charisma helped render that unneceassary

Regardless, Alexander narrowly avoided suffering the fate of the Macedonian garrison , and he was forced to retreat back south. Unfortunately, the area was hilly all the way down through Greece, so Alexander would head south to Epirus, which was still de jure independent and start building a fleet at Corcyra while awaiting for Demetrius to arrive. As it would turn out though, not everyone would want him there. These would include the current heir to the throne, Pyrrhus[1], who was then of twenty-three years of age. He had been among those that had met with Philip, and had believed Alexander's policies were only hurting his land, partly because his father, Aeacides had been forced to pay a tax to keep his land as still de jure independent He tried to persuade Aeacides to join Philip, who was at this time, besieging but he had declined, partly because he was certain it would be his immidiate death if he accepted. Needless to say, Pyrrhus was not pleased. He would send a courier to assassinate Aeacides. After being proclaimed the new king of Epirus, he would attempt to convince the local army to side with Philip.

Most of them would go along with him, but about 35 percent, led by a man named Ptolemy, still insisted that they has no reason to revolt. Fighting would ensue in Enphyra, but in five days,from April 21 to April 26, Pyrrhus was able to surround Ptolemy, and annhilate him. Alexander, at this point, still trying to escape from Philip's army, barely got away when he heard Pyrrhus had won. Attacks by Pyrrhus would make him suffer 10,000 casualties, even though Pyrrhus had only something like 32,000 himself. The pressure by Philip would also help Pyrrhus to be so successsful, but Pyrreas' own tactical skills could not be discounted here, especially when relating to the many other battles he would fight in the future.

Alexander was constructing strong fortfications on Corcyra. Thankfully, the drunk rioting in Philip's army would help slow it down. Pyrrhus, however, would remain hot on Alexander's tail, but the mounntains would slow him down. But still, they would arrive at Corcyra on May 7, while Philip would arrive on May 15. The channel, seperating would however, prove a great defense, as Pyrrhus was frustrated to figure out a way to make a succesful crossing, as the regular ferry boats had been removed to the other side. So hewent to Ephyra with about 25,000 , and uses the boats there for a naval assault on Corcyra They would come just in time, to help destroy a task force, sent by Alexander to deprive use of their ships. As one soldier, known as Pytheas would say


"It was sure a a close one. The local guard was attempting to destroy it, but they had been taken by surprise, and they weren't doing it fast enough, and the fire that was set was spreading, but slowly. But we were a much larger force, and quickly threw our units at the task force, which made their prospects at success quite limited. They have to be commended for trying to do their mission, as fifty of them were able to set some ships off in another area on fire. We thank the Gods that the winds were not blowing so much that night, and that we arrived when we did. Otherwise, the coming of Demetrius would have put us in a very hard place indeed"*
As it was, about a dozen were destroyed, and Pyrrus was barely able to fit his troops on the boat. On May 26, they would land on Corcyra, and succesfully tae Alexander by surprise. Some good tactical maneuvers by Alexander would manage to hold him off, but it wouldn't work forever as Philip was able, at this point, to get a number of his forces through the barricade.

Alexander would be saved on May 29, by Demetrius, who landed on Corcyra, and engaged Pyrrus in a fierce battle, in which it looked like he might be unsuccessful. Alexander, would though, wheel the main part of his phalanx forward to help Demetrius. This would end up in a rout of Pyrrus' forces, and around 12,000 got away in their ships, and headed for Italia, which was also said to be under insurrection in a surprisingly static front. They would attempt to set the ships that Alexander had built, and Demetrius' on fire to prevent them from escaping from Philip, who had brought about half of his forces to bear at this moment, which were making good progress agaisnt the Macedonians, and coming close to smashing them at this point. Alexander and Demetrius were skillful generals, however, and they took advantage of the drunkeness of a large part of Philip's army to lure them into traps they would have otherwise spotted, including spiked barricades designed to run through the pursuing Illyrians. The Macedonians would suffer only about 10,000 casualties, while Philip's forces would lose more than 35,000.

Alexander and Demetrius would commence their invasion of Illyria on June 3, heading a little ways north to escape Philips' small ships. But the Illyrians would prove why they were so fierce. They would harry Alexander at every turn, and as Alexander would say himself "There was no way to tell who was friend and who was foe. They would camp outside one village and see the women working casually with the older people. And next thing, you know, at night, they were harried by these very same people who had looked like innocent peasants." Besides all the false directions they were given to the main roads. Philip would confront Alexander on June 11, and bolstered his fighting strength by about 50,000 by finding more people

For the nextsix months, fighting would continue fiercely, as Alexander struggled to bring in reinforcements from areas under his control, because there were a number of small insurrections going on in regions like Bactria, and Aria, so the corps there loyal to Alexander was having to exert it's resources to put it down, which would take nearly two years. Philip would have a much easier time as reinforcements were streaming in from Italy, as Pyrrus, with his brillant generalship, had subdued the entire peninsula. At one point, Philip's strength would number at 300,000

Time would tell Philip that he was not using his superior numbers effectively. Much of his army was in the hills and Alexander was heavily dug in on the coastal plain. The situation was quite uncertain.

Alexander would not sit back forever. He still remembered Pyrrus, the general who had nearly defeated him, and he was starting to hear rumors of a possible seaborne invasion. So in January 287 BC, he would sail with about 200,000 and leave about 100,000 to confront the new agressive strategy of Chosroes, who had joined Philip.

He landed at Tarentum about a week and a half later and took that city in slightly less time. The Greek aristocracy, who had a lot of it's wealth stripped away by Pyrrus in compliance with Philip, who had detested their behavior, welcomed Alexander. The poor people, on the other hand threw stones, which cause Alexander to order them to be beat.

After placing the rest of Magna Graecia under his control in two weeks, he would send a large navy north to confront Pyrruso had set sail by this time. It would succesfully establish control, and force Pyrrus to head back to Phlipia[1]. Both sides would wait out the winter, and then they would head through the Italian peninsula to confront each other.

For the next two years, Pyrrus would score a number of major
victor agaisnt Alexander. He would fail however, to make Alexander withdraw, despite getting a 100,000 man boost by Philip. This would prove to be one of Pyrrus' major flaws: he had a harder time controlling large numbers of men, and After a number of indecsive battles, Pyrrus would score a decisive victory against Alexander on December 2 287 BC at Lake Regulum, and cause Alexander to withdraw south.

But in February 286 BC, the Bactrian revolt would be declared crushed, and Nicomedes, the Hellene commander
e west to aid Alexander in the period of about five months. Despite that Pyrrus had driven Alexander almsot into Campania at this time, Nicomedes would be able to attack from behind with about a quarter of a million men. He reconquered the Etruria area in about a month, and would quickly move to attack Pyrrus from behind. In about two and a half months, Pyrrus would fight desperately to keep himself from being closed in, but in the end he would fail. He managed to survive with about a thouand men for a while, but he would be captured by a Greek patrol on November 15, upon which Alexander woulld order his summary execution, despite professing admiration for his skills.

Alexander by this time, had around 350,000 men to face Philip's army of around 500,000. The conflict would drag for a good three and a half years years without any headway being made. Both sides were proving to be exausted. Philip was failing to break through Alexander's fortresses in Latium, and Alexander was unable to acheive a good victory against Philip's massive force.

Finally in December 283, Alexander would manage to keep and hold much of Etruria. He held much of the plains, and he would then have a message sent, which taunted Philip, calling him a coward, and saying that he was afraid of flat places. Philip, enraged, launched an immiadiate attack on Alexander, but he didn't outnumber Alexander by enough to totally drive him back. And Philip was completely unexpecting a charge of 250,000 to come right after him. Phlip, would in the end, lose about half of his men. Many of his best officers, including, Chosroes, an Egyptian known as Ahmosi, and Glaukias, an Illyrian, would be killed, thus severely limiting his ability to carry an effective defense agaisnt a force that now slightly outnumbered his own(about 270,000)

Fighting would continue bitterly for a year and a half. In the next six months, Alexander sent some troops to hold the route to Illyria. But when Philip was nearly defeated near Phlipia, he would take his remaining 130,000 man army to Gaul instead. It would prove to be hard, as much of the populace there supported Philip. Needless to say, reoccupying this large country would not be easy, and fightin would continue another year, before Alexander, in mid 281 BC, won his last battle agaisnt Philip's Gauls.

But victory was by no means a sure thing. If there hadn't been an attack over the Bloody River by a tribe calling thimselves something like the Tetones, Alexander would have had to settle for a peace with Philip controlling northern Gaul. As it was, Philip would escape to Prettanike, and attempt an unsuccesful invasion five years after this. But more immdiately, Alexander would be set upon by the Tetones, who would succeed in driving him back to the land of the Parisii. After the neighboring occupying garrisons came to aid him though, the Tetons were driven back, and annhilated in a battle in the same area they had attacked Alexander. Alexander, by this time, very tired of battle, headed back and arrived in Tyre on September 19, while leaving a large occupying garrison


* from A Private's Account of the Phillpian War, written in 279 BC
[1]It was only twelve years after the POD, and I concluded the divergences were pretty minor, as Epirus would be left to govern thimselves. But seriously, I've found out people like OTL figures, and I may try to insert a few more of these or their analogues, depending on the events that unfold
[2]Located where Ravenna is
 
Chapter 9: Cleaning up the mess and the third Indo-Hellenic war

As Alexander settled back down again, he was reminded by Demetrius that the west, partuclarly Italia and Illyria had been devastated by the brutal fighting and combat between him and Philip. The grape fields, considered for a while now to be the joy of the world, and big farms, had been burned down by Alexander to keep Philip from getting food from there. Philip, not wanting the farmers to starve, had failed to do so, a big factor in his defeat, that and failing to dislodge Alexander from the fields he controlled, even though his numbers were superior.

So Alexander, eager to ingratiate himself back into the hearts of Latins, Samnites, and others displaced by the fighting, gave enough money to several thousand farmers, so they could replant their crop with minimal difficulty. Though poor farmers were technically supposed to be included in this, their money was snapped up by the middle farmers and high farmers. The rich farmers would sometimes use extortionist tactics to get the money. In some cases, the poor farmers would be told they had to work to earn the right to be left alone. But, somehow, however much work they did was never enough, and they would remain for many years to come, and though their situation would improve under the Alexandrians Perseus, and Antipater, and the Italian Federation, established in 352 AD, there wouldnt be full aleviation, until the Samnite reformer, Pontius, came to power in a 1458 revolution, and succefully compromised to keep the country together.

Then Alexander would give small funding to public works projects designed to improve the quality of life in Gaul, Italia, and other places. Clinics, designed to help sick people, were opened. Some of them became known for using herbal remedies and other things ordinary people hadn't heard of. Needless to say, many Greeks scorned the remedies as ridiculous, and many kept to their own treatments, which we can safely say now, were often, completely ineffective. The Latin physician, Flavius Cornelius, once scorned in his time, for example, is now looked on as a great doctor.

Anyways, Alexander had been planning another campaign in India for quite some time, but would have waited about seven years, if he hadn't received news from Satarxes that Andhara had recently fallen under the control of Bindusara. Apparantly, not long after that, Bindusara decided that since Chera, Chola, and other southern kingdoms still remained officially in Alexander's orbit, he decided to invade them as soo as he could muster the forcs. The inavasion held about fifty miles south of their border, but Satarxes knew that Bindusara, who was a highly popular emperor, could likely mass the forces to eventually crush them, probably within the year

Alexander would hear of this in late 278 BC, and would organize force of about 200,000 within a month, so that on November 14, they would head to India and reach Matura on January 13. Deciding this was a good opportunity, Alexander would march eastward, taking the Kosala region where he had been defeated before, and woulo end up driving the Mauryan forces in the region farther and farther east. Despite valiant effort, including a failed plot to set a fire in Alexander's camp, Pataliputra, one of Bindusara's msot important cities would end up falling on September 17, not long after the moonsoon season abated. The next battle, near the town of Bodh Gaya, saw the death of Suseema, Bindusara's eldest son, who was probably even more unpopular than Alexander had ever been.

Needless to say, supporters of Bindusara that belonged to the Hindu sect Ajivika, basically what we would think of as socialists today, started riots and pointed out Alexander's poor treatment of Indians in his previous campaign there. Any resistance in recently conquered areas would prove to be disorganized and quickly isolated, if not crushed.

Bindusara, who was realizing he was likely in very big trouble if he didn't take his 200,000 man army, and confront Alexander, quickly sailed northeastward, but would have bad luck, as a storm sunk a small portion of his fleet, and the rest would end up beached south of Kalinga, a territory that had seen little of Alexander's initial maladministration, and thus were prone to revolts by local leaders who felt disempowered.

Despite that the last rajah's family had been completely massacred in
one 288 revolt, the popular local officer known as Vanhara, would rally a fairly large group to attack Bidusara, who was down to 150,000 men by this time to face 175,000. After initial bloody battles resulted in a defeat for Vanhara, Bindusara would be able to press north to the Ganges delta to confront Alexander, who had nearly boxed in the remaining 75,000 Maurya troops in Vanga. Bindusara, when he reached the western Vanga town of Tamalipitri, was able to relieve the siege of it by Aeacides, an officer of Alexander on October 28. This would add 25,000 more troops. Bindusara would then commence a bloody battle with Alexander on November 9, who due to being in a bad strategic position, narrowly withdrew through the Ganges, until Vanhara arrived. Bindusara would end up completely routed, and captured by Alexander. Bindusara would make no secert of the fact that he hated this man, who was essentially his oppposite:aristocratic and aloof, while he was affectionate and a general believer in quality. An officer known as Demostrates recalls the meeting between the two men in his memoir.


"They.... were glaring at each other with other anthema, as if though they could not understand the other's point of view. Alexander, dressed in a fine Macedonian' officer's uniform, with a mustache grown in an aristocratic manner sneered on, while Bindusara, wearing a simple robe, was clean-shaven, and was highly put off by his attitude. But in the end, we all knew he would have to surrender..."[1]

And indeed it was. Bindusara gave up his kingdoms's sovereignty, and agreed to go into exile in Dilmun, in a place Alexander felt like he could
easily be watched.The newly refomed Kalinga, and the Alexandrian Empire would each get a bit of the delta region, but Vanhara would feel resentment on not having gotten more. This would flare up six months later
into conflict.

But in the meantime, Alexander would sail south to stablizie the situation in Chera and Chola, which were on the verge of falling into chaos. The remaining Mauryan forces there immidiately recognized the surrender, but the Chola and Chera forces woudl attempt revolt. resulting in a surprisignly three-month conflict in which Alexander secured his position in Panhya while struggling to hold on to the situation in Chera and Chola. In the end, he would have to recognize new rajahs, but in Pandya,he had managed to secure his position, and had officially annexed it.

Barely a month after he conquered the Cyngalese kingdom in August
he would receive word of an invasion of the Ganges delta by Vanhara, whom while in a conversation about the inferior treatment he had received from Alexander, suddenly swore an oath to take the territory that was righfully his, after his friend, Meriganya called him a coward.

So Alexander would sail with a force of about 150,000 on September
15 276 BCto confront Vanhara. Vanhara could be almost said to be a better military man than Bindusara, so the battle on September 22 was by no means a sure victory. And indeed it wasn't. Vanhara was on the verge of driving Alexander from the delta when a charge by the calvary Companions helped break through holes in his lines and saved the day. Needless to say, Kalinga was annexed after the battle, with the previous Mauryan political divisions being restored.

Then trouble flared up in Anhara. The region had been under the tenious control of about 75,000 men, but that was no where near enough, and Indian nationalists would soon react quick and revolt, nearly driving them out, but the Alexandrian forces were able to take secure positions in the north, but as the govenor, Khosrau, mentioned, they would driven out within three months, if reinforcements weren't sent immidiately. So Alexander would then head south with his army, and requested reinforcements from Satarxes and Setimosi, the govenor of Taxila and marched south to andhara.....
[1] From "Journal of the Third Indian war" written by Pytheas Saleh in 269 BC







in a misty jungle
somewhere in Anhara
December 13, 276 BC

"Damn these bastards!" remarked Demetrius, Alexander's most trusted officer, who had just ordered Egyptian laborres with the army to cut through the fallen trees. "They are determined to stop us to no end!" His particularly weathered face(he was around sixty years old) showed more than ever. He had fought in many campaigns streching back to Italia, where action agaisnt the barbarian scum from the north who had descended to loot a land they recognized was in disorder, proved him just as much a hero as his father Antigonus.

This, Alexander would look on, as he recognized in Demetrius's face, the face of an aristocratic man like himself, one who had no respect for the ordinary people, who were, in all honesty, uneducated and lacking a proper sense of manners that people in higher society cherished.

He though back to the recent battles in Andhara. It wasn't surprising when it turned out the Andharans had been expecting him, after he won two battles agaisnt them in the north, immidiately relieving Khosrau as it was reported the Andhrans retreating into the forest. What was surprising was with the veracity they had attacked on October 30, where the dense jungle had made fighting difficult, and the calvalry and elepahnts ineffective and traveled to the side, unless there were battles in open fields.


Which there were rarely, Alexander thought, as the pressure in his brain thretened to crush him. After being driven back, Alexander had sent units led by himself, Demetrius, and Orodes forward, realizing the enemy no doubt held several different positions. The problem was finding them, and guerilla warfare could be a truly trying exercise, as a senior officer, Ptolemy, whom he was pretty sure was older than Demetrius, recalled the hardships of the Nubian campaign. "But," he had said "there wasn't so many positions and so much land for them to hide."

Anyway, they had advanced forward in certain places, and had captured most of the main cities, but were simply failing to penetrate the hiding forces of the Andharans. Villagers giving false directions to swamps and other places were common, and trees, like then one that stood before them were also common. But slowly, they were starting to cut off the Indians' lines of supply, and making their task of resistance much more difficult. That would be confirmed from a captured Indian who said. "We are operating under much more limited capacity than we you first arrived, since you burned farms in areas of enemy activity, but you will regret it in the end!"

Quite suddenly, he would spot indian troops coming at them from lower ground. "Attack!" shouted Alexander. Afraid of being at the front as he often was, he only cautiously moved forward. He was surprised at the force which the Indians were attacking them. Their secret lines of communication were still effective, and they had moved a lot of troops to fight them.

There was much bloodshed, before Alexander himself was hit with a stray arrow through the chest. It was so close to the heart, he knew he would not survive, and his men were too busy fighting off the encouraged Indians. He knew then he would never surpass his father, and that he was just another mere mortal, and one who should have appreciated the contributions of all humanity more. These thoughts and more came rushing to his head, oddly enough, but he thought, why ought he to think this? Why should he change, since death was in his face, and his belief in the Gods was slowly declining? Then there was the other part of him that felt that reflected a certain amount of excessive pride on his part. As he faded away he muttered "Father, please forgive me.." as something came to his head that he did not recognize. It was probably those mushrooms that he had eaten an hour ago, but now he was starting to hear something that sounded suspciously like the uneducated people he so depised trying to sing. Even why Alexander was trying to ponder this, his thoughts were fading."father...

Lynyrd Skynyrd: Free Bird

If I leave here tomorrow
Would you still remember me?
For I must be travelling on, now,
cause theres too many places Ive got to see.
But, if I stayed here with you, girl,
Things just couldnt be the same.
cause Im as free as a bird now,
And this bird you can not change.
Lord knows, I cant change.

Bye, bye, its been a sweet love.
Though this feeling I cant change.
But please dont take it badly,
cause lord knows Im to blame.
But, if I stayed here with you girl,
Things just couldnt be the same.
Cause Im as free as a bird now,
And this bird youll never change.
And this bird you can not change.
Lord knows, I cant change.
Lord help me, I cant change


 
deep in a remote, mountainous, meadow
southern Andhara
March 13, 275 BC


The scene was horrendous. There was much blood everywhere. It was far, far, worst than Argaeas could have imagined. His father had been visibly shakened by a similar scene in the battle whcih led to his untimely end, but personally, he had been sickened. The messy entrails of the Indians and Alexandrians were strewn through the meadow, buried beneath stumps and hanging off branches.

It had all seemed so glorious at first. Though Argaeas had felt a little shamed by his father's authoritarian policies, besides not having seen him for the first ten yeard or so of his life, there had always lain the desire in his heart to seek glory, and become known as a great hero. The guerilla campaign had shaken him up, and convinced him that battle was not all glorious, partcularly where the Andharans used some hit-and-run tactics, and managed to injure many of their forces before retreating.


But still, even after many of these battles, he still had hope of scoring a great victory, perhaps by finding a way to trap them, and trap them in a corner. This process was already underway, since Alexander had started to limit their movements, and figured out they likely had one central supply base, and if that could be neutralized, taking out much of the enemy, that would severely incapitate ineffective enemy resistance, and they were much too holed up to recover. At first, Argaeas thought that must have been the chief reason for the desperate assault that killed his father, even though there had been two other attacks similar to it.

But he would realize how sorely mistaken he was after this awful battle. Arigaeas had been expecting ambushes, and traps, but he could not possibly conceive of how fanatical an enemy can get when it has no hope and has some cause to sarifice for. Some of the infantry would stay near the swamps and the trees that were on higher ground than the main battle to keep any Andharans from escaping. They would succeed, but only the ones closest to the field in the center had any idea of the horror that followed.

Argaeas would lead a big elephant charge, while Demtrius provided support with calvalry, all while infantry engaged in the majority of the combat. The mass melee that followed was too horrendous to be described. Everybody was basically slaughtering each other in a valley that sloped from the surrounding jungle. At one point, Argaeas was ready to upchuck, but the basic instinct of self-preservation kept him from acting stupid, since several spearmen on elephants had nearly flanked him. He would be knocked off his elephant by an arrow, but luckily, he didn't break his neck, and victory was slowly starting to be within their sight, since the Andharan's elephants had been effectively taken out, they weren't able to finish him off. One of the elephant calvary officers Thutmose, had been able to organize a withdrawal of the elephants, which had kept Argaeas from being stomped into the ground by them, just before he was knocked out.

He was feeling utter despair at the moment, and thought that as soon as his arms were working again, he would run it through his jugular. Who cared that he had a kingdom to run, a three-year old son, Perdiccas that would surely be displaced with no strong leader to take command? He would give anything not to fight again, even if it meant a one-way trip to Hades.

Argaeas would at this point tell an Indian that was in Thutmose's calvalry, taken as a spy when Alexander wasn't looking. "I can never live with myself! To deal with this slaughter seems so utterly inane to me, I must die!" "Have you ever heard of Buddhism?" said the Indian Dahara. Argaeas vaguely recalled his tutor telling him about it twelve years back, and it had sounded to him, for the tutor was Hellocentric, like some odd, Eastern mysticism crap. But now, he though that might be just what he need. His memory was a little rusty at the moment. "Tell me more" requested Alexander "Buddhism is meant to keep a soul at peace, with themselves, with the universe, and help an individual achve enlightenement..." Dahara would go on to tell Argaeus so much about Buddhism, including tolerance was a main factor in it. By the end of the conversation, Argaeus had made his decision.

The next morning, Argaeas would get up, on his good leg and hobble outside. "Everybody, come out!" he shouted. All the men would shuffle lethargicaly out of their tents that hadn't woken up."What is it?" asked a common solider in a clearly irritated voice "Just so everybody isn't shocked later, I am announcing my conversion to Buddhism!"




Chapter 10: The Reign of Arigaeus the Peaceful

Even before Arigaeus went to Pella to be officially crowned Arigaeus III at 30, there was heavy opposition within his army to converting to some 'nutty eastern cult'. Demetrius, in particular, would protest at this. Arigaeus, however, was able to convince most of the rest of them that it wasn't blatantly contradictory to the Greek or Egyptian religions like Hinduism, and that, at it's most basic, it was more or less a guideline on how to live. Thankfully, almost none of the men wanted to hurt this fair-haired, sunburned man, and there were no big plots againstt his life.

After Arigaeus was offcially crowned in Pella on May 26 275 BC, he would immidiately have to contend with trouble in Gaul. Philip had launched an invasion of Gaul in the winter, and much bitter fighting had ensued. Reinforcements had been shipped in from the pacified east coast of Ibera to turn back the assault. The general in charge, a Latin Alexander loyalist known as Lucius Cornelius, was able to pacify the uprisings inspired by Philip, but Gaul was so big, it would take a long time and spend much men.

The result was, by 275 BC, Philip was still in control of much of northern Gaul, and a temporary peace had been called. Arigaeus would then head north, and in October, was able to arrange a meeting with the forty-two year old Philip, and offer him full amnesty if he and his troops would just lay down their arms and promise never to fight again. Philip, naturally, would not trust just anybody who made him this offer, but according to a letter written later to a friend.

"...I was so impressed by Arigaeus's sincerity, his gentleness, and total conviction in his odd peaceful beliefs, that I thought, why not give this man a chance, one who obviously is shamed by his father, to rule a truly just kingdom."
Philip to Arimlyn Janaury 13, 275 BC.

Philip would agree to the terms, even though his one son would tell him they were likely to be stabbed in the back, especially considering they were laying down their arms. But Argaeus would remain true to his word, and imprison Demetrius and other known to be opposed to him. But Philip would nevertheless be murdered a few years later, along with his two gay lovers Hestocles, and Rametrius at his home in Gaul. This would trigger a bitter blood feud by his children against his murderers, known to be working for rich landowners. This, as many know, would mark the start of what is known as the True Sons of Alexander[1], the secret criminal organization that really emerged in the 500s marked by brutal killings, and endless slaughter.

Buddhism, as a religion, had already been making some headway into Persia, where about 3 percent of the population there was Buddhist by 296 BC. Alexander would quickly suppress it, but it remained as an underground cult, and even started to be practiced in Babylonia and Arabia. But now, with the official encouragment of the king, Buddhist monks started to travel abroad, and spread their message to the masses to places as far away as Gaul. Needless to say, they were often greeted with hostility, and murdered, despite edicts by Arigaeus promising death to any who killed them. There were sporadic revolts,, which were put down, but many were inspired by the kings message. In Persia and Mesopotamia, where the anethema wasn't as strong toward the monks, they would prove to be more succesful and eventually convert around 10 percent. This would later become the average in the empire, as the West would slowly start to accomadate more to it, as the hostility ceased, while in Persia, it would reach as high as 20 percent, even though the Zorastian elite tried to suppress it. Needless to say, as many of you know today, this would have incalculable political effects.

Arigaeus IIIs reign would thus prove to be among probably the most peaceful and blissful of any reign. But fear of atagonizing the Italian landowners would prevent him from making any major reforms. All in all though, the vast majority of the population would be in support of him, except for the revolt, by Arimaeas, a Greek stationed in Africa upset by Arigaeus' policies. But his isolation would prove to be his downfall, as he would be defeated in Magna Graecia on June 13 269 BC. Other than that, it was known for an increase in learning and the arts, which would help set the stage much later on.

Arigaeus III would die on January 17 236 BC. He would be given a massive funeral and everybody would turn up, and give many eulogies even thorugh many protests. His son, who had recently ascended to the throne as Perdiccas IV, would openly speak sadly about his father's passing and how he would be greatly missed. Privately, though, there was much disagreement on several issues.




[1] I was curious if anybody knew a Greek word for ' avengers' as that might be a good name for a mafia-type organization​
 
Chapter 11: The Decline and fragmentation of the empire

After the death of Argaeus III, several centrifugal, decentralizing, and regionalization forces, long held in check by the tolerant reign of Argaeus, would come to the fore under his son Perdiccas. It is generally agreed that an incompetent would eventually come to the throne, but even without that, the Alexandrian Empire would have eventually started to wear at the seams due to the massive amount of territory that it controlled, more than any other empire in history.

When Perdiccas IV came to power, he would not be too happy with his father's policies, and instantly try to rule with a more heavy hand. He would attempt to send a large force to India to retake the Vanga area, and also reconquer the kingdom of Chola. But his persecution of Hindus would arouse great dissent in the South, and the invasion force, led by a descendent of the great general Ptolemy, named Koronos was attacked from behind, when they tried to take Chola, and were severely defeated at Amarhiti in Andhara. Perdiccas, after exiling Koronos to Prettanike, conceded Andhara's indpendence with disgust in in June 235, seeing the leaders of the rebellion as little more than scattered rebels. Though this assumption was partly correct, Jangara the king of restored Andhara would be assassinated in 12 years by the far more capable Vangara, who would go on to conquer all of South India.

At the same time, Perdiccas was also persecuting Buddhists, which led to the imprisonment of his brother-in-law Aridiccas, his younger brother Craterus and several people in Persia and India. In India, this would lead to a civil war, where some of the more favored Hindus backed Perdiccas, but they found themselves incresingly under siege by Buddhists and Hindus who felt they were being deprived of their rights. In Persia, there were a number of riots, and the Buddhists there ended up severely persecuted and forced to go underground. They would help cause the split of Persia twenty years later.

It seemed nothing could stop Perdiccas' tyranny. He however, had one weakness. He had a certain foolishness in refusing to see the future because he wouldn't marry, and instead, insisted on staying with his gay lover. Homosexuality was tolerated then in Hellenistic culture, as is now, but powerful Greeks, Latins, Egyptians, Persians and others were unhappy about his refusal to father a child. Knowing that Perdiccas would never abdicate, they would invite him to a dinner in Alexandria in February 234 BC , to talk about the general state of things. Little did Perdiccas know that his wine was poisoned with hemlock, and he dropped dead soon after drinking it after a reign of just two years

Right after this, top officials such as Seti, Khosrau, Brutus, and others would invite Antigonus, the youngest brother of Perdiccas to take the crown. Antigonus would accept, and his reign would prove to be the last with any sense of normality, and even then, he had to deal with a number of civil wars and rebellious brothers.

In Kosala, in east-central India, the Hindu-Buddhists forces had ended up at the city of Kausambi, where the Alexandrian loyalists were giving stubborn resistance. Antigonus was no great general, and did not go, for fear of one of his other brothers overthrowing him. So he sat back, as Kausambi defended itself surprisingly well against superior forces, but finally an officer named Chanaga distingushed himself through good strategy, and broke the siege in October 234 BC, while fighting off reinforcements from west India. It would take another year before the rest of Kosala was secure.

Then there was the trouble with Amyntas, his youngest brother. After learning of a plot against him in 232 BC, Antigonus would try to have him executed in Persia, but Amyntas would escape to Bactria, and start a seven-year rebellion that would initially end in defeat, but would later be succesful in 198 BC, not long before he died.

Then there was the problem in Italia, which led to his assassination. At the time, Italia was probably one of the worst places for the poor to be in the civilized world, due the sharecropper system described in a previous chapter. Antigonus would begin a series of policies in 230 BC, known as the Antigonus Codes. They would, essentially, give a poor farmer the right to start their own farm without having to 'earn' their freedom from a rich landowner. It also gave a useful papyrus scroll of agricultural information to help a poor farmer get started.

Needless to say, the Latin landowners were not happy, and immidiately convinced the Etruscans to send militia to help fight the troops sent to enforce the code. Worst yet, the aristocratic Archelaus, another brother of Antigonus, would openly argue about that. His murder in 228 BC would not settle matters, as his son was taken to Gaul by his father's loyal servants, and there manage to proclaim independence in 207 BC. Then, a cousin, Demetrius, would start a long and protracted civil war in 227 BC that would devastate the land, in addition to ocassional acts of extreme brutality from the True successors of Alexander.
Antigonus would stubbornly attempt to hang on to India, but Chanaga had managed to conquer eveywhere but the coast and the srongly Hellenistic Taxila by 222 BC. The ports on the Indus were able to keep it from totally falling, and eventually, Taxila, would procliam independence in their own right on 217 BC, when they could no longer depend on the Alexnadrians for protection, and after a revolt in Kalinga forced Chanaga to withdraw.

Several attempts were made agaisnt Antigonus's life by Illyrian assassins, who had become known as highly successful, following the murder of a Volscian leader who had supported the Antigonus Codes. But the landowners grew tired of the Illyrian' continued failure, who so far had stabbed Antigonus several times on at least three occassions, but he had either been rescued by his bodyguards or limped away to safety. Antigonus had in turn, paid several people to turn the asssaissins in. So, reluctantly, and afraid of the consequences, the landowners, led by Julius Claudius, selected an archer of the notorious TSA,(True Sons of Alexnader), who had recently done operations in Iberia*, and Italia to kill Antigonus, as he was leaving his palace in Tyre. The archer, a vicious Gaul known as Vercigtorix, was totally succesful, and killed the forty-nine year old Antigonus on September 4 220 BC.

His son Perseus, twenty-one
ould have normally succeeded him, but he fled west to Macedon.
eece, when his uncle Antipater, aged forty-three, and the second youngest child of Argaeus III ged to secure his ownsupport. A plot against him in Greece, where he was trying to overthrow his father failed, when the assasin ended up drinking too much while in Athens, and gave warning to Perseus to stay away from the palce.

Perseus would mobilize a 75,000 strong force, sail easward to Tyre, and take it after a three-month siege. It proved to be hard, but thanks to the brillant generalship of Peracles, an ally of Perseus, the walls would quickly be breached. But unfortunately,Perseus discovered that his uncle, unfortunately, had escaped again, this time to Africa, where he was eventually killed in 211. His son, Amyntas, would eventually fight a war against Egypt, when the self-proclaimed pharoah, Tutankhamen, claiming
to be desecended from Alexander, took over in 199 BC.
Perseus would continue the land-reform policies of his father and sent more troops to guranteed the farmer's rights. Needless to say, Perseus never left his palace, or ate food he had observed being made. He lasted surprisingly long, but after speaking out agaisnt polytheism, a small groups of Greeks in Tyre, led by a Polythemus, would walk into the palace, upon being invited by a friend of Perseus' and disembowled him where he died five hours later on April 19 209 BC.

 
Chapter 12: Fall of the Alexandrian Empire, and immidiate warfare that followed it


After the murder of Perseus, and his son Amyntas, his brother, also named Amyntas, who had hid behind a dresser. would take the throne as Amyntas V at thirty-two. The rather small Amyntas (he was believed to be around 5 8" and 130 pounds) would quickly prove to be an agressive ruler. He would order an invasion of Taxila in 208 from the port of Barbaricon, which still was under the hegemony of the Alexandrian Empire, after Surashtra, in alliance with Taxila, failed to break the Alexandrians' control of the Indus River. Surprisingly enough, Amyntas was successful in taking control of Taxila for about three years. And the navy of his friend, Hasdrusbal, had scored a major victory agaisnt Surashta. Andhara took this opportunity to join the fray, and launched a sea invasion of Surashta. Surashta had its navy annhilated by this, and was forced to fight for its life on land. It would manage to score a narrow victory outside of Barygaza, and drove Andhara about fifty miles from the city, before the Andharan army got smart and formed a semi-circle in the general area. But no general could figure a out a way to break the siege.
As it would turn out, luck was on Taxila's side, as a large army from the east and north, forced the withdrawal of the forces there. This would end up with a pursuit all the way to Barbaricon, where Arab sailors would temporarily suceed in saving the city after a battle on April 12, 205 BC. But eevrything would quickly turn against them, when Nitomedes, the general Amyntas had left in charge while going to put down a revolt in Egypt, got impatient and led a charge in November that would end up disastrous and in a new push by the Indian army, took Barbaricon after about five months, thanks to reinforcements from Surahshta, which had been able to make a peace with Andhara.


After this, some disgruntled Arabians would not be happy at this, and they would start planning a revolt that they launched in October 203 BC. Armed with weapons from India, they managed to launch a surprise attack on the local garrison and nearly wiped it out. Amyntas would arrive on October 31, and try to break the Arabs' fortified positions. His method of simple charging would prove to be a failure, and the garrison was annhilated with Amyntas manging to escape on ships with his troops
After Amyntas debarked from southwest Arabia, a group of disgruntled Persians, enraged by the recent bungling of what have should been solid victories, stabbed Amyntas in the throat several times until he was dead, and even several times after that
After this, the Persians, who were normally behind the Greeks in most things, quickly started to turn away from them. After the ships arrived in Tazon Gebir, there was an immidiate dispute over who should be Amyntas' successor. Despite the fact that Amyntas' son was technically in line for the throne, the Greek and Phonecians insisted that Amyntas' younger brother, Demetrius be allowed to take the position of king of Kings. The arguments were very fierce and they eventually came to blows with each other. The Persians would end up being forced back to Mespotamia, and the Greeks and Phonecians, lacking the forces to follow, organized a force of Jews and others, after imprisoning the son, once again name Amyntas. They would reach Mespotamia, where the Persian satraps had mobilized, and fought a fierce war against them. By 199 BC, the Persians, though de facto recognized as independent, with the king had been forced to give up their claims to suzranity in Mespotamia. This would trigger a revolt and invasion by Amyntas, who, after fighting off the garrison invaded Parthia, and defeated the satrap, Ariarathes in March 198 BC, as he had not been expecting a winter attack. Amyntas's son, known as Shapur , would take over, as his father was getting weak, and manage to defeat the Persian subjugation force on June 21.


In the remaining Alexandrian Empire, the various realms that constituted it were splitting at the slightest provacation. Demetrius, who had been confirmed as king in 201 BC, had to concede the independence of Egypt in December 199 BC, after mismangement of an army that arrived from the west failed to capture Tutankhamen. By this time, the Italian landowners, knowing that Demetrius was lacking the power and desire to enforce the Antigonus Codes, attempted to reform the old sharecropper system. Surprisingly enough, this whole thing would end up in chaos, as for the next seven years, from 197 to 190 BC, civil war would rage, and the Alexandrians would be ejected from the peninsula. Eventually, a compromise between the Latin landowners and the subjagated people (poor latins, Volscians, Marsians) would emerge, partly brokered through the secret society that still continues to be a plague on the world today, the True Sons of Alexander. Apparently, from accounts of the era they had terrorized the landowners into a peace.


"He[the TSoA leader] had shook his finger in our direction, and told us, though they believed in law and order, that they would end up regretting not abiding by certain concerns of the poor for land if something wasn't done. I wanted to reach and choke him, but I knew that would end up in an instant, totally cruel, and humiliating execution, if I ever murdered a Son of Alexander.1]


Needless to say, Italia was let go unofficially, and right after that Greece and Macedon itself would revolt in February 194 BC, upset by the failing wars, over-heavy taxation, and that Demetrius was taking to hanging around Jewish temples, and starting to believe in a monotheistic entiety.


Demetrius would immidiately head for Pella, ,long the symbolic capital of the Alexandrian Empire, and engage in battle with his cousin Amyntas, who had been freed in a August 195 BC raid on the Tyre jail. There was a stalemate for about nine months or so, before Thessalian and Epirote troops were able to break the siege. Demetrius was killed during the course of the siege, and was replaced by a Phonecian half-brother with the name Hannibal. Hannibal would sail southward and attempt an invasion of Greece instead. Hannibal would turn out to be a great general, and utterly destroy the force guarding Athens. Unfortunately, he had it sacked, and he would be surrounded and murdered by a mob after returning from parlay. Then the youngest brother of Demetrius, known as Archelaus II, would become the king. But he was only seventeen, and virtually powerless to counter the power of the generals trying to crush the revolt. After many years, it was clear that they were making no more headway, and they were forced to sign a peace with Amyntas, confirming him as the king of Greece, Macedon, and Epirus.


In 185 BC, Archelaus would attempt to prove his worth by attempting another invasion of Greece. This one would once again fail, and this time, Amyntas would invade Asia Minor and seize thw western half. In 182 BC, Archelaus was forced to recognize him as indepedent, and would promptly be decapitated by a bitter descendant of the great Alexandrian genral Ptolemy, who was completely insane, and very angry about the depredation of the empire that his ancestor had helped to build. Then a group of Phonecians, encouraged by the weakness of the new Argaea ruler, Philip IV, would murder him and his entire family in their sleep, by smotherinbg them with pillows, and set up an oligarchy of sort. This would, in effect, mark the end of the alexandrian empire.



The conclusion is that the Alexandrian empire would be successul in having Hellenistic culture having a strong influence in lands like Persia, and western and northern India to this day. It would also end up with mass cultural diffusion, which would help to creat so much of the friction that chracterizes our world today....




[1]The Journal of Cornelius Scipio. written in 188 BC
 
Epilogue:The Twilight of the Argaed Dynasty?


December 31, 1999
Chorasmia, Turka
Argaed dynasty remnant


"Hello?" said the main technician, known as Ptolemy, in charge, pushing the button on the comm, and pressing his earphones to listen. "What? Shit!!. Okay I'll warn the boys." He let go of the button. "I just got a communique from the commanding Archon in Turka. He says China is going to use the nukes they got hold of a while back. Apparently, those now good Sons of Alexander co-opted the military of Gaul to get their hands on some, and got a whole lot of money from it. Their top leader, Julius Argaed, was jailed after hiding in America for two years, but the damage has been done. Boys, prepare for a preemptive strike!"

Orodes a minor technician, one of those people who got their position more to having an influential family than a good degree of intelligence, than said. "Okay, so that means that we make war on India also? I heard they had an alliance with China." Ptolemy clutched on the button of his energy knife impatiently thinking "Please God, cleanse this utter stupidity before I kill myself". "What are you, insane, you nitwit?! It's only an economic alliance, and you can't even conceive of the consequences India is much closer to us than China, and thereby also has longer-range missiles. We have much fewer bases to lose than the Indians. If we traded nukes with them, we would be annhilated, and the argaed dynasty would be gone, with no hope of returning.

Orodes, unfortunately, had managed to sink a swig of wine in before, and, encoraged by the drink flowing through his body, acted on impulse on said."We must destroy them all!!..." and in small giggles, jumped on the nuclear computer, moved the mouse to "Mauthura" and pressed the Big Red Button. Ptolemy managed to knock him out with a taser, but by that time it was too late. "Activate stratgeic defense systems!" "Sir, we can't access them. The computer says they're not responding." Ptolemy, once again, was about to run his energy knife through his throat. God, why did there have to be so many problems? But slowly he calmed down. "Theyve been destroyed! Evacuate!" . Ptolemy at this point turned on his portable music device to listen to a song called 'el finis' by Las Tranquils. It was based on the story of Oedipus he was pretty sure. He pressed down on it, and ran out. He started to think about how hard it was for the Argaed Dynasty to operate if their main base was destroyed. Though they were nominally allied with Neo Hella, Chinoka*, and Nippon, he knew that was irelevant as they were too weak to provide a good defense. About the only good thing they had was nukes, and he knew agaisnt a powerful country like India, that would do no good. "This is the end, my friend" the singer continued.
"Yeah, really?" ,muttered, Ptolemy, and he ran through gray corridors, through crowds of blue-jacketed maintenance workers, and red-coated scientits past weapons labs with small but lethal chemical bottles towards the exit. He, and all the other technicians were able to get outside, and look at the brown bulidings around them. A couple of blue trucks were nearby. To the north was the main city, with some gray industrial plants in the main vicinity, and a shopping mall a little farther off. He looked at the main building where Chosoroes XXIII made his home. If he had gotten the warning, he should be safely out of the city with his family. Ptolemy, knew however, that he would not be so lucky. What kind of hair-brained idiot made this base so close to the main Argaead city he had no clue, but he knew it would lead to their death."In a desperate world.." the song continued. Ptolemy continued to run into the desert, as he continued thinking, will the dynasty he pledged his life to survive? Just as he though he was going to make it, he saw a bomb come down about a half mile away, towards the city. "Mother... i want to fuck you!!!!!!" Next thing Ptolemy knew, was a shockwave and a blinding flash of life, then the agony of his insides being ripped apart then... nothing


KABOOMM!!!!





Is this truly the end of the Argaead Dynasty. What happened between 182 BC and 1999 to cause such a volatile situation? What's the status of Greece.



To be continued.....(yeah, right) Seriously, I just wanted to teaser you guys, no continuation I think.:rolleyes: Who knows?

 
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