Alexander's heir.

WI Alexander had gotten married when he was 18 or so and produced an heir before he left Greece, so that when he died the kid (he had a boy IOTL, so we'll say he makes enough Y chromosone to make a boy ITTL) would be about 14? Would the short time between his death and the kid coming of age mean he could rule Al's empire intact? Or would it fracture as IOTL anyway?
 
Al's empire was similar in size to the Achmeinid Persian empire which lasted intact for more than Als 10 years. A 14 y.o. would be beginning to exert himself and have some sort of following, many princes did at similar ages A 3 or 4 year regency isn't so long that usurpers could take the throne they way they could with a toddler. Perhaps the regency could be a time of consolodation for the empire.
 
Al's empire was similar in size to the Achmeinid Persian empire which lasted intact for more than Als 10 years. A 14 y.o. would be beginning to exert himself and have some sort of following, many princes did at similar ages A 3 or 4 year regency isn't so long that usurpers could take the throne they way they could with a toddler. Perhaps the regency could be a time of consolodation for the empire.

It's possible- the satrapy system and the Persian bureaucracy could pretty much run the empire day-to-day but you need to make damn sure you have the right man as regent. A 14 yr old is still young enough to have convenient accidents while out hunting or gaining experience at skirmishing.

"My lords I regret to inform you that the Great King "fell from his horse" while hunting today"

Trouble is I don't know if any of the generals was all that trustworthy.
 
He'd hardly be alone, he'd be the long standing centre of the future of the empire. He'd be backed by his mother's and grandmother's powerbases, and those who would have tied themselves to him in anticipation of the future. I could also see the generals vying to prove their loyalties in anticipation of him coming into his own. I think much of what happened after Al's death was because of a huge power vacum resulting in no heir being available for the better part of 2 decades. If he had a 14-15 yo son when he died there would be much legitimacy tied up in him, and only a short wait until he was old enough rule himself.
 
I think it depends on the boy. If he is a strong leader like his father, he might succeed in the power struggle. If he is a weak leader, there is not a chance he will take the throne.
 
I think it depends on the boy. If he is a strong leader like his father, he might succeed in the power struggle. If he is a weak leader, there is not a chance he will take the throne.

Well, by the time Alexander took over the kingdom of his father he had already lead an army to victory on a battlefield, and yet it wasn't easy for him to take over the kingdom.

But, yeah, this needs to be an exceptional person, like Phil and Alex, however a loyal general could be the thing that is needed the first year.
 
One of the things about the really large Persian Empires is that they weren't really strongly controlled by the center anyway. The Empire maintained a strong army that could deal with invaders or the odd independent minded governor, but on the whole most of the Empire was rather self-governing. With a 14 year old to succeed Alexander, then you could easily see much of Alexander's Empire split up as it was OTL, only under the auspicies of Alex's Heir's Empire. The boy would have the general's loyalty probably by dint of his lineage, and the Imperial ruling class is going to be pretty exclusively Greek ruling over a bunch of different groups, so this shared culture could provide the glue to hold the Empire together, a ruling culture based in the cities that Alexander has founded across his conquests. With an Empire this large, then I think that once trade restarts you're going to have a lot of tax revenue and thus wealthy governors, whose wealth is tied to the continuance of the Empire. Thus you have wealthy governors, who are happy governors, with a stake in a continued empire.

Alex's Heir is probably going to be married to a Persian princess in this TL, rather than Alexander himself, or maybe in addition to. The Imperial army, with its reliance on Macedonian infantry, could be an agent of hellenization, as OTL the Roman Legions were of romanization. Now eventually you're going to have barbarian invasions, regional powers nibbling at the edge of the Empire, and corruption at the center, all contributing to the collapse. However, in the meantime you're going to get a rather intense period of hellenization and a massive arena for the flow of ideas from East to West and vis versa that will have major knock-on effects in the Empire, and in the periphery of the Med, Central Asia, and India.
 
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