We've had many WIs about nations, empires or peoples conquering, expanding or migrating in different directions or ways than in OTL before, I know. I haven't seen one about the Ancient Greeks, though. So what if the instead of conquering, expanding and migrating eastwards and southwards, the ancient Greeks instead went westwards or northwards? How is this going to effect Greek civilisation and the world? What about the uncivilised tribes in the north? What does this mean for any future Roman Republic or Empire, if that is at all possible now?
Greeks go West...
- Thread starter kojak
- Start date
Syracusae (Syracuse), Massilia (Marseille), Epidamnos (Durazzo), and Neapolis (Naples) aren't far enough for you? 
In all honesty when I was thinking of this WI I was mainly thinking about Alexander the Great and his conquests eastwards in to the modern Middle East, Persia and Central Asia. Is it possible to have something more substantial than the apoikiai of OTL in the west or north? I know the Greeks have to deal with the Illyrians and Thracians in the north and Etruscans in the west in this TL at different times, but they had the Persians to deal with in OTL.Syracusae (Syracuse), Massilia (Marseille), Epidamnos (Durazzo), and Neapolis (Naples) aren't far enough for you?
You'd need to have them find a damn good reason to go for Europe. The lands of the east were rich while the west was poor and undeveloped... Also, of course, you have the Greeks scared shitless of the Persian Empire looming on their doorstep. A common enemy is the best thing to bind a people together.
Maybe if you have Persia fall apart and lose all of their infrastructure and outlying satrapies in civil wars... and have Rome (or Carthage) get off to an early start and encroach on Hellas.
Maybe if you have Persia fall apart and lose all of their infrastructure and outlying satrapies in civil wars... and have Rome (or Carthage) get off to an early start and encroach on Hellas.
Burton K Wheeler
Moderator
You're not going to get more extensive than OTL. Sicily/Southern Italy were known as "Magna Graecia" and were largely Greek-speaking until very recent times. Other places had too many hostile natives to have extensive settlements. Perhaps Greeks instead of Phoenicians could settle Carthage?
Krall
Banned
Perhaps the Greeks could conquer the city of Rome at some point? Then, when/if the Romans begin expanding outwards, you'll have it being a hellenic [or, at least, hellenic-influenced] empire instead of being Roman/Latin.
It might make an interesting TL, with European languages being Greek-influenced instead of Latin-influenced.
MrP
Banned
In fairness, quite a bit of Greek has ended up in westerly languages by way of Latin. Even Welsh has a few words such as eglwys (church), which is from ekklesia, AFAIK. This is more of a clarifying digression than an argument with your point that with more westward Hellenic movement there'd be more Greek usage.
Greek influence on early Rome was so significant that an ancient Greek historian declared Rome to be a Greek city!
As for Alexander going west, he apparently had designs on the growing powers of both Rome and Carthage. If I remember correctly he was going to deal with them after his conquest of the Arabian Peninsula.
At this point wasn't Rome basically controlled by the Etruscans? I think it was until the 500s BC, and they would not be a pushover for Greek colonists.
Syracusae (Syracuse), Massilia (Marseille), Epidamnos (Durazzo), and Neapolis (Naples) aren't far enough for you?
Don't forget Barcelona, which started out as a Greek colony - there were Greek colonies as far as west as Spain.
Having the Greeks colonize *Carthage instead of the Phoenicians would propably work.
After the Carthaginians had become a major power, they were pretty much the main reason why Greek influence became so restricted in the western Mediterranean.
I suggest you begin by changing the outcome of the Battle of Alalia in which the Eutruscans and Carthaginians defeated the Phocaeans. A Phocaean victory here certainly would have allowed for the continued Greek colonization of Spain and southern France-at least for a time.
As has been said, you'll need to come up with a reason to go West, while removing the threat from the East. The treasure and the strategic threat were in Asia (Minor) and Persia, while there wasn't much of interest in the Western Med (in our hind-sight we see Carthage and Rome, but tey were of small concern at the time). Perhaps if Alex hadn't died so young, and had come back after his conquests of Persia, Bactria, India... he might have swept around the Med as well (propbably take his armies clockwise through Africa, Spain, Italy) to complete his conquest of the world. But such a wide-flung empire probably wouldn't be able to last long after his death in any case...
Rome was very hellenized culturally, economically, politically, philosophically and linguistically as it was in OTL, so the question is what are you looking for as a more 'Greek' world...?
Rome was very hellenized culturally, economically, politically, philosophically and linguistically as it was in OTL, so the question is what are you looking for as a more 'Greek' world...?
A defeat during the Second Persian War could lead to a massive migration of Greek refugees to the West, couldn't it?
It seems to me one of the main reasons Greeks settled from Egypt to Bactria was because of Alexander's conquests. If Alexander is butterflied or doesn't expand out of asia minor, I think the Greeks wouldn't have a choice of expanding into the established and settled nations of the east and south.
I think Bactria had a large number of Ionian Greeks living their for roughly a century before Alexander's conquest, since the Persians were interested in moving whole communities from one end of their territory to the other, to decrease the chances of an uprising against their rule. It was after Alexander's conquest of Bactria and discovery of the Greek colonists there, that would lead to further immigration from Greece, Macedonia and Asia Minor.