DBAHC wank Macedon.

In the 300s BC an ambitious young general named Alexander tried to invade Persia. He was known to be an exceptional general, and may have succeeded, but his father exiled him after an assassination attempt. What if he took over persia, and expanded greek culture and religion and way of life all over?
 
In the 300s BC an ambitious young general named Alexander tried to invade Persia. He was known to be an exceptional general, and may have succeeded, but his father exiled him after an assassination attempt. What if he took over persia, and expanded greek culture and religion and way of life all over?
Taking over all of Persia and Hellenising it? I sense that's pretty ASB. The Achaemenids treated their non-Persian subjects pretty well and adopted some sort of federal system so Alexander's chances at gaining the loyalty of the many locals necessary to build an army the size of the Persian army fall to a point where not even that famous Italian general accompanied by other two or three of his kind could achieve victory. At maximum, I can see Alexander marching down through the Bosphorus and liberating the Greek Ionian cities and maybe stablishing control over Galatia and other territories in Asia Minor but I honestly can't see that Greek boy going further than the Taurus mountains. Also, it seems that his personality was pretty impulsive and unpredictable, maybe he takes some crazy decission that drives his whole campaign to disaster, possibly killing his own generals or taking a wrong path which leads the Persians to his rearguard.
 
Taking over all of Persia and Hellenising it? I sense that's pretty ASB. The Achaemenids treated their non-Persian subjects pretty well and adopted some sort of federal system so Alexander's chances at gaining the loyalty of the many locals necessary to build an army the size of the Persian army fall to a point where not even that famous Italian general accompanied by other two or three of his kind could achieve victory. At maximum, I can see Alexander marching down through the Bosphorus and liberating the Greek Ionian cities and maybe stablishing control over Galatia and other territories in Asia Minor but I honestly can't see that Greek boy going further than the Taurus mountains. Also, it seems that his personality was pretty impulsive and unpredictable, maybe he takes some crazy decission that drives his whole campaign to disaster, possibly killing his own generals or taking a wrong path which leads the Persians to his rearguard.

Sure, but what if he succeeds and conquers the entire persian empire, AND successfully hellenizes it, or if Hellenizing it is impossible, maybe merges Greek and Persian culture.
 
Sure, but what if he succeeds and conquers the entire persian empire, AND successfully hellenizes it, or if Hellenizing it is impossible, maybe merges Greek and Persian culture.
Oh well then. I'll assume he goes straight for Persepolis through Mesopotamia, so probably Egypt and the Levant scape his yoke, aswell as maybe Armenia and definetely the possessions in Bactria, Sogdiana and all that, which likely fall inside the Indian and Stepparian spheres. Probably Alexander integrates himself and his political apparatus in the ex-Persian Empire, possibly marrying a Persian princess to create a mixed dynasty. The resulting state would sustain most of the Persian ruling class but I'm pretty sure Alexander would crack on other ethnities far more brutally than the Achaemenids, likely facing a series of uprising across his empire which weakens it. It's not that hard to see a Greco-Persian culture emerging among the upper class of the empire but I guess cultural differences between Greeks and Persians would be too big for the two cultures to eventually become a single one like what happened during the Gaullish conquest of Germania just a few centuries latter. My best guess is that Alexander's descendants would rule an ever-decreasing empire which would suffer constant raids from Arabia, Thrace and the Caucasus. I can see it being split into a Greek-oriented Anatolian Empire and a Persian empire which owns the land between either the Zagros or the Euphrates and Bactria. Now, assuming both cultures completely merge, I simply can't see the empire survive further than 400 BM (Before Muhammad), too big and too unstable for it to survive.
 
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