What if Alexander accepted offer from Darius III

Darius offered Alexander land west of Eupharates: Asia Minor, Egypt, and part of the Fertile Crescent.

I noticed that later empires with such territorial combination: Greece + Egypt + Asia Minor, such as Byzantine and Ottoman Empires, would generally be quite stable. Moreover without exhaustion during the expeditions, both Alexander and his army would be in a better shape consolidating the empire.

Would Alexander's Empire last longer if he accepted such an offer? And we would see a forerunner of OTL's Byzantine and Ottoman Empires?

Or would its internal strives make it collapse just like his empire did ?

(This is a "what if", not an AHC)
 
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I don't think Alexander the Great would accept Darius' offer given his delusions of grandeur. He saw himself as not only taking vengeance against the Persians for their actions in the Second Persian War as was the official goal of invading Persia but he wanted to unseat the Achaemenid dynasty and establish Macedonian rule in its place with him at the head. Accepting Darius' terms would keep him from fulfilling his goal of becoming the undisputed Lord of Asia and there's no guarantee that Darius wouldn't just take his time raising a new army and take the fight to Alexander at a more opportune time. It was not just Alexander but his senior commanders were against the idea of making peace with the greatest enemy of Greece. It just wouldn't happen.

I can see Alexander's father Philip making that deal but not Alexander.
 
I don't think Alexander the Great would accept Darius' offer given his delusions of grandeur. He saw himself as not only taking vengeance against the Persians for their actions in the Second Persian War as was the official goal of invading Persia but he wanted to unseat the Achaemenid dynasty and establish Macedonian rule in its place with him at the head. Accepting Darius' terms would keep him from fulfilling his goal of becoming the undisputed Lord of Asia and there's no guarantee that Darius wouldn't just take his time raising a new army and take the fight to Alexander at a more opportune time. It was not just Alexander but his senior commanders were against the idea of making peace with the greatest enemy of Greece. It just wouldn't happen.

I can see Alexander's father Philip making that deal but not Alexander.

I can't see Phillip making the deal in those circumstances either. Just recap the immense success Alexander had had at this point: He crushed the original force sent against him at the Granicus and then crushed Darius's royal army at Issus-as far as he was concerned, the Persians had proved easy to defeat at this point. Now whether Phillip would have achieved as much easy success up to this point is debatable but if he did, I don't see him accepting the offer-since Darius wasn't really giving him anything, considering most of that area was in the process of being subdued anyway.
 
It was not just Alexander but his senior commanders were against the idea of making peace with the greatest enemy of Greece. It just wouldn't happen.

I can see Alexander's father Philip making that deal but not Alexander.
Parmenion: I would accept such a peace, if I were Alexander.
Alexander: So would I, if I were Parmenion.

Assuming Parmenion was the wiser of the two, that would have been the way to go, but Alexander may have been more interested in conquering and campaigning than ruling.
 
Actually it could be simpler, have Alexander tasted defeat... Once, preferably when he still in his early pacification campaign against the Getai tribes in the north of makedonia... So Persians will still mark him as undefeated threat against them.

A defeat, not too bad, but still clearly a defeat anyway, may actually tamper his illussion of grandeur, and value stability and peace.
 
It wasn't really in character for Alexander to accept this peace with Darius. We know that because obviously that's exactly what he did IOTL... plus all the other mountains of evidence as to what kind of personality Alexander had. However, that said, that reasoning can prevent discussion of a lot of alt history scenarios, so it seems kind of unreasonable to just say "nope, would never happen". It's not impossible, it just requires an Alexander with a different mindset. (edit: Son of Leman Russ has a good potential POD for changing Alex's mindset)

Anyways, I think the most beneficial change as far as the survival of the Argead empire goes is that Alexander probably looks to marry and father an heir - not that the subtraction of territory doesn't help a lot in that respect as well, but the Macedonian royal family was infamous for its long, bloody succession conflicts. As Mary Renault said, "the earlier history of Macedon makes it plain that his successors simply reverted to the ancestral pattern of tribal and familial struggles for the throne; except that Alexander had given them a world stage on which to do it." Now part of the terms that Darius offered were that Alexander would marry his daughter Stateira, whom Alexander would later marry IOTL. If the two have a son within a couple years, that not only simplifies the Argead succession, but it also gives the Argeads a stronger claim beyond right of conquest to rule the entire Persian Empire. I would think that later on down the road, when Alexander finally decides to finish the job (which I imagine he would), that this claim would come into affect, since he declined the use the right of conquest claim by accepting the terms in the first place.

As far as governing goes, Alexander probably maintains his OTL policy of maintaining the old Persian system except with Macedonians oftentimes usurping Persian satraps and officials. This had positives and negatives in real life, and would here too. He probably still founds his Alexandrias too, especially the one in Egypt. I'd imagine he'd be even more drawn to Egypt ITTL than he was IOTL. While he wouldn't do it right away, he might down the line consider setting up his court in Egypt.

As I brought up earlier, I still see it likely in this scenario that Alexander eventually conquers the rest of the Persian Empire. Or at the very least the Macedonians do under his son, if for whatever reason Alexander dies young and with the east unconquered ITTL. But doing it in stages like this should significantly help the stability of the empire, not only because it gives Alexander time to consolidate his rule over the very large conquered regions of Anatolia, Syria, and Egypt, but also because he should leave behind a much older son should he still die around the time he died IOTL - which by all likelihood he should live longer.
 
I don't think Alexander the Great would accept Darius' offer given his delusions of grandeur. He saw himself as not only taking vengeance against the Persians for their actions in the Second Persian War as was the official goal of invading Persia but he wanted to unseat the Achaemenid dynasty and establish Macedonian rule in its place with him at the head. Accepting Darius' terms would keep him from fulfilling his goal of becoming the undisputed Lord of Asia and there's no guarantee that Darius wouldn't just take his time raising a new army and take the fight to Alexander at a more opportune time. It was not just Alexander but his senior commanders were against the idea of making peace with the greatest enemy of Greece. It just wouldn't happen.

I can see Alexander's father Philip making that deal but not Alexander.

I can't see Phillip making the deal in those circumstances either. Just recap the immense success Alexander had had at this point: He crushed the original force sent against him at the Granicus and then crushed Darius's royal army at Issus-as far as he was concerned, the Persians had proved easy to defeat at this point. Now whether Phillip would have achieved as much easy success up to this point is debatable but if he did, I don't see him accepting the offer-since Darius wasn't really giving him anything, considering most of that area was in the process of being subdued anyway.

As far as Philip goes...

I think we tend to underestimate his megalomania since it pales in comparison to his son's. Philip was by far the most successful general in Greek history up to that point, and commissioned statutes of himself that basically proclaimed him a god, which probably helped reinforce that idea to Alexander - after all, he was more successful than his father, and if his father could basically declare himself a god, then what did that make him? I would tend to agree with slydessertfox: assuming that Philip would have the same success Alexander did (which isn't necessarily a good assumption, since Alexander had a genius for sieges that his father lacked - cities like Halicarnassus and Tyre might be harder to take for Philip), I would imagine that Philip would keep going, because there really wasn't much reason not to for a general with a large ego and the army to back it up. Darius wasn't giving up anything that wasn't going to be conquered quickly anyways, and Philip would know he could crush Darius on the battlefield. But again, this is assuming that Philip has the same level of success that Alexander did in all his battles against the Persians. Tyre in particular might prove frustrating enough for Philip that he agrees to the terms anyways.
 
As far as Philip goes...

I think we tend to underestimate his megalomania since it pales in comparison to his son's. Philip was by far the most successful general in Greek history up to that point, and commissioned statutes of himself that basically proclaimed him a god, which probably helped reinforce that idea to Alexander - after all, he was more successful than his father, and if his father could basically declare himself a god, then what did that make him? I would tend to agree with slydessertfox: assuming that Philip would have the same success Alexander did (which isn't necessarily a good assumption, since Alexander had a genius for sieges that his father lacked - cities like Halicarnassus and Tyre might be harder to take for Philip), I would imagine that Philip would keep going, because there really wasn't much reason not to for a general with a large ego and the army to back it up. Darius wasn't giving up anything that wasn't going to be conquered quickly anyways, and Philip would know he could crush Darius on the battlefield. But again, this is assuming that Philip has the same level of success that Alexander did in all his battles against the Persians. Tyre in particular might prove frustrating enough for Philip that he agrees to the terms anyways.

As for Tyre, I feel that Phillip would have more tact diplomatically with Tyre to avoid a situation where he's forced into sieging it to begin with.

But that is straying too far away from the OP methinks. Otherwise, I agree with your previous post and this.
 
Accepting Darius' terms would keep him from fulfilling his goal of becoming the undisputed Lord of Asia and there's no guarantee that Darius wouldn't just take his time raising a new army and take the fight to Alexander at a more opportune time.
How much greater would such a Persian threat be than OTL's Romans v. Parthians, or Byzantines v. Sassanids, or Ottomans v. Safavids?

But that is straying too far away from the OP methinks. Otherwise, I agree with your previous post and this.

Thank you.
 
As for Tyre, I feel that Phillip would have more tact diplomatically with Tyre to avoid a situation where he's forced into sieging it to begin with.

Good point.

How much greater would such a Persian threat be than OTL's Romans v. Parthians, or Byzantines v. Sassanids, or Ottomans v. Safavids?

It would be less of a threat. Darius would be in a horrible position politically, one that someone is likely to try and take advantage of, and the empire was already on tough times anyways. The Achaemenid Empire can be robust again even with a POD in the 330s, but that POD isn't Alexander accepting Darius' terms. It would take the perfect storm of events and/or completely different characters to get what you seem to want: a long-standing rivalry between the Argead and Achaemenid Empires at those borders. You would need to change Alexander's personality a lot, or incapacitate him, to prevent him from wanting to conquer the rest of the empire at some point. And if he doesn't, then you're going to need his son to be completely indifferent to the fact that he'd have a strong claim be the Emperor of Persia. It's just very unlikely. That's why the Philip discussion was relevant to what you were looking for: he's more likely than Alexander to stop his conquests early, and to not try later to conquer the rest of the empire (although still unlikely I would say). But I digress....
 
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