samcster94
Banned
What would have happened if this man had lived longer??? By this, I mean nobody kills him and dies of natural causes. I do imagine it'd butterfly away his son's conquests and the Ptolemy dynasty.
A longer living Philip II would be a fun scenario...
Assuming things will go mostly like OTL we have some big differences:
1) He will not have trouble in securing the succession and Greece will not rebel against him so his army will depart earlier plus Attalus will stay in his position of power with the army instead of being killed.
2) The succession in Macedonia would be pretty uncertain as he would have at least three possible main heirs: a) Alexander, his son by his fourth wife Olympia of Epirus, b) Amyntas, his nephew and son-in-law and c) Caranus, his son by his seventh wife Cleopatra Eurydice.
3) If Philip had the same kind of campaign of Alexander he will not go for the full conquest of Asia but accept an offer like the one Darius made to Alexander during the siege of Tyrus (aka all the lands at the west of the Halys river plus money and the wedding between one of his daughters and Philip’s heir... well in this scenario Darius can feel safe enough also offering his niece as bride so one beyween Stateira, Drypetis or Amestris will end married to Alexander or Caranus. Likely will be a wedding between Alexander and Stateira as OTL)
I can not see Philip so interested in ruling more than the greek part of Asia or dragging the war for too long if he can stop it with a very good peace and a lot of lands who include all the Greek part of Asia so the Halys border would be fine for him.One point of disagreement, I'm not convinced that he'd accept those borders - I tend to think that he'd probably go for a Euphrates & Anatolia border. Potentially even going so far as to force the independence of Armenia to act as a buffer state for both of the Empires.
What is interesting is how it all evolves in the long term. Since we're not seeing further campaigning in the short term (except maybe against a Persian retaliation if it ever comes) Greek settlement will be much more dense in the Eastern Med. I can see Philip wanting to dissolve the Hellenic League into simply his own Empire of the Hellenes, which raises questions about where it would be ruled from. Pella seems the obvious one, but I wouldn't put it past Philip to do something like re-founding Byzantion, at least relocating there for all those lovely good reasons. (This timeline may use the term Byzantine Empire in a totally different way!)
The big question is Alexander - we have no Alexandria (at least no guarantee) in this timeline, which is sad, but we also need to consider the inheritance. Alexander at this point I think is the only one to have been a General, and that could win a lot of loyalty, and secures the alliance with Epirus. It may come down to how Alexander and Caranus get along. Alexander may well try and kill Caranus, but alternatively, without the burden of rule, Alexander may just decide he prefers being a General, being sent by Philip to conquer the Black Sea City States, and later asking only that Caranus allows him to take an army to campaign in Italy to continue uniting the Greeks.
Alternatively Alexander slaughters his brothers and relatives, takes the Empire and goes to town with a larger, organised, almost-a-generation-settled system of administration and conquers Persia.
I'd prefer an Alexandrian General, Caranus-King scenario myself, assuming Caranus doesn't grow up to be a lunatic.