DBWI: Macedon conquers all of Persia

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Deleted member 14881

I found this map online that showed this tiny Greek state conquered the largest empire known to man

pimp.jpg
 
The artist is quite imaginative, that's for sure. Persia would have to undergo some very drastic political decay to be so weak it falls prey to some Hellenes.
 
Holy Zurvan! You have to give Greekwankers some credit. Their TLs may not make much sense, but they keep believing--much like the Greeks themselves--that proving too difficult to conquer directly means that if you could just get enough troops over there--BAM--the best-run Asian Empire will fall like a house of cards.

I'm surprised they didn't add all of the Indias. And hell, Han too, while they're at it.
 
The Greeks could've accomplished a lot more then they did, but for something like this to happen, they would've had to have had a REALLY good military leader. There's a reason Persia and Rome are the oldest superpowers on earth: their governments are so airtight and well-structured that there's no way they'd fall without massive amounts of decay.

(OOC: I'm envisioning a Persia-Rome cold war; word with me here :p)
 
Personally, I think it's because after winning two epic wars against the Empire, having your vaunted independence collapse into interecine warfare, and eventually becoming a satellite of your hated foe feels like a gyp.

You know, I've done some thinking, and this MIGHT be possible--hear me out--if Philip II lived longer. IOTL, he was planning an invasion, and he was a talented enough commander to pull it off. The internal situation was probably the weakest it had been in years, so this was perhaps a golden opportunity. But then he got sucked into a war with his worthless son Alexander, and after he killed that obnoxious little momma's boy, he got assassinated by one Alexander's followers. The Macedonians were duking it out for the throne for the next five years, and by the time they got back on track, Persia had gotten things sorted out, and came to the assistance of its Greek allies when Macedonia invaded again.

And the rest, as they say, was history.
 

Deleted member 14881

that military leader would need luck a ton of it
 
As I noted, this was a MIGHT. Philip would still need to have everything go his way once he hit Persia. And even if he pulled it off, I doubt it would last.
 
This is very close to ASB. How can a bunch of squabbling islands conquer the mighty Persian Empire? Even Rome didn't pull that off!
 
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Again--the right leader at the right time--Philip II, during the early parts of Darius III's reign, when he was still trying to get this whole king thing down--it might come off.

And let's remember--the Persian Empire of Rome's day was highly organized and united in a way it wasn't in the time I'm talking about. Rome simply never had the manpower to conquer that Persia, even with Carthage's support.
 
[OOC: assuming you put the map's date at the OTL death of Alexander and told us when the invasion started]

Okay, sure, if the Persian Empire was in chaos they could bite off a big chunk given a healthy supply of vision and skill. Big conquests happen. But the whole thing? How would a vastly numerically inferior invader without any large technological or immunological superiority, take the whole thing? Really, were the Macedonians (who were having trouble holding onto their conquests in Greece!) even better than the Persians in either of those two categories?

It's not like they could decapatate the ruling structure and put themselves at the top. They were aliens, outsiders! Why would satraps safe behind the fracking *hindu kush submit to a bunch of overextended outsiders? Anybody could could just wall up *khyber pass with a minimal army? And when the revolts begin in earnest, take Persia back.

Then you have the steppe nomads, a bit of an unknown in that era, but always a threat.

Now the biggest problem: the Nanda empire. They're due for their greatest general ever in another couple of years, so this massively overextended Macedonian empire is in for a world of hurt. Even then, the Nanda armies Mayura used already existed. So let's assume they somehow sit on their hands and let all this conquest occur. Wouldn't they immediately be in an ideal position to take the Indus Valley? If not that, wouldn't they prop up a rump Persian state?

If you gotta insist on this, I'd say the whole thing falls apart like a house of cards. No lasting influence.

*in the DBWI ATL these geographical features would have a different names
 
I largely agree. Philip might--with incredible amounts of luck--pull it off. But, hell, look what brought him down IOTL--the Argeads were an incredibly dysfunctional royal family, ruling a kingdom with tons of powerful generals with too much power willing to swap loyalty at the drop of a hat. Once he's conquered it, his sons are probably going to backstab ol' daddy, then start squabbling, the generals are all going to grab what they can, and Nanda is going to come out of the Indias and probably retake most of the easternmost sections, and perhaps quite a bit more.
 
They could have pulled it off, provided Alexander was a better commander. He could have taken power at just the right time to conquer Persia. Who knows? Maybe he could have taken Egypt, too.
 
I found this map online that showed this tiny Greek state conquered the largest empire known to man
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Typical White European racism to think that one small European state can conquer a large Asian empire. Next people will say that a tiny island like say Britain could sail half way across the world and conquer India!!!

I thought modern politically correct liberalism had stopped this arrogant nonsense.
 
Heh, soon they'll be saying Europeans could take over the Greater Empire of Teotihuacan! PFFFFFT, I'd like to see that.

(OOC: I'm having too much fun with this.)
 
This is about hilarious a notion as saying some of those mountain tribes north of China could have conquered most of the Old world. What were they called again? Muggles? Mughals? Mungoos?
 
They could have pulled it off, provided Alexander was a better commander. He could have taken power at just the right time to conquer Persia. Who knows? Maybe he could have taken Egypt, too.

Alexander! HA! The guy who responded to his father's new marriage by starting a civil war, wherein he demonstrated his chief understanding of tactics was 'Charge! Charge more! CHARGE AGAIN!'? That Alexander? Trust me--we don't need him to pull something this crazy off. Alexander coasted for years on his father's good graces, but once he no longer had daddy's tactical genius to hide behind, he demonstrated how worthless he was in a war. Brave, certainly. But not the guy you want in charge of your armies. Your best bet to give Philip a chance to shine is to let Alex die during Philip's conquest of Greece...

Still... if it's a matter of Philip leaving it to the right son--well, then it's obvious. Philip formally acknowledges the only offspring he had with the brains, strength and guts to at least stand a chance of pulling off something this crazy--I speak of course, of the man, the myth, the legend, Ptolemy I Soter, King of Macedonia, Epirus, Illyria and Dacia.
 
Again--the right leader at the right time--Philip II, during the early parts of Darius III's reign, when he was still trying to get this whole king thing down--it might come off.

And let's remember--the Persian Empire of Rome's day was highly organized and united in a way it wasn't in the time I'm talking about. Rome simply never had the manpower to conquer that Persia, even with Carthage's support.

Philip is definitely the man for the job. He did win a fairly major war against Persia late in his reign, culminating with the sack of Antioch. However, Macedon took relatively little territory from that endeavor. True,Thrace was annexed, and both Phrygia and Cappadocia were consolidated a bit before being granted independence as buffer states. But Philips Persian war was more about plunder than conquest, he acted so swiftly, he never fought the main Persian army.
 
This is about hilarious a notion as saying some of those mountain tribes north of China could have conquered most of the Old world. What were they called again? Muggles? Mughals? Mungoos?

Mongols, actually. If they had been united under a good leader, like, say, the Temudjin guy who got killed bya bear in the wilderness. Before that, he had a great shot at getting them all together. Too bad, I would love to have seen what would happen.
 
Philip is definitely the man for the job. He did win a fairly major war against Persia late in his reign, culminating with the sack of Antioch. However, Macedon took relatively little territory from that endeavor. True,Thrace was annexed, and both Phrygia and Cappadocia were consolidated a bit before being granted independence as buffer states. But Philips Persian war was more about plunder than conquest, he acted so swiftly, he never fought the main Persian army.

I think you're mixing up your Philips. Philip II--the best Philip for the job--was planning a war against Persia, but he never got around to it--Alexander rebelled, there was a lengthy civil war, after which he was assassinated by a disgruntled follower of his late son's. And then another civil war.

Philip IV--Ptolemy I's son--had the war against Persia you're thinking of, during the reign of Darius IV. And as you note, conquest was never really the object--it couldn't be, as Philip never knew if his half-brothers Meleager and Ptolemias were going to come back from exile and try for the throne, so he could never commit to a full-fledged war against anybody, much less the world's biggest Empire.
 
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