What if Alexander the Great reached Rome, China and came back for India?

True, while the nobility may have liked Alexander the rural class largely were isolated from Alexander and his successors. They largely made use of Greek Settlers to form a chain of settlements that could be used to call upon a reliable source of military men. Thereupon the Mobadan under the Sassanids 'rallied' the rural class to demonize the Hellenized Empires of Alexander, Seleucids, and Arsacids.
 
Alexander's own actions demonized himself quite sufficiently.

Look at the places breaking away as soon as they had the opportunity and tell me with a straight face this is broadly welcomed or even "new boss, same as the old boss".
 
"It is a tale of loss that begins with the greatest loss of all, the death of the Macedonian king who had held the empire together.

With his demise, it was as if the sun had disappeared from the solar system, as if planets and moons began to spin crazily in new directions, crashing into one another with unimaginable force."

Presenting this as a melodrama pretending to be an epic is no way to do justice to the period or the problems involved.
 
I think I read something similar in a book a couple of months ago. If memory serves, the book was called "Ghost on the Throne", by James Romm.

I've read Ghost on the Throne, but I don't recall that bit. I have it on me though, so I'll see if I can find that bit.

EDIT: I didn't find it in there. The only part I found about Chandragupta and Alexander's legendary encounter reads as follows:

James Romm said:
Chandragupta was in his mid-teens during Alexander's years in India and almost certainly living in Taxila, the university town that the Macedonians used as their base. Chanakya, perhaps thirty-five or forty at the time, had brought the boy here and enrolled him in one of the town's religious schools. It must have been here in Taxila that Chandragupta met Alexander, if we believe the brief record Plutarch made of the encounter. How the two leaders crossed paths, one ending his campaign of conquest, the other not yet having begun, Plutarch does not say. But he reports that in later years Chandragupta was known to laugh when he thought of Alexander and how great an opportunity he had missed. Had the Macedonians kept going to the Ganges, Chandragupta scoffed, they would have found the conquest of the Nanda Kingdom an easy matter. He knew whereof of spoke, having by then accomplished that deed himself.

"It is a tale of loss that begins with the greatest loss of all, the death of the Macedonian king who had held the empire together.

With his demise, it was as if the sun had disappeared from the solar system, as if planets and moons began to spin crazily in new directions, crashing into one another with unimaginable force."

Presenting this as a melodrama pretending to be an epic is no way to do justice to the period or the problems involved.

I actually liked the book: yeah, he tries too hard sometimes, and his insistence on ALWAYS calling Antipater "Old Man Antipater" is annoying, but nonetheless I found it a good read.

It felt like a TV miniseries in book form - for some that can be bad; for me, I don't necessarily mind it.
 
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I actually liked the book: yeah, he tries too hard sometimes, and his insistence on ALWAYS calling Antipater "Old Man Antipater" is annoying, but nonetheless I found it a good read.

It felt like a TV miniseries in book form - for some that can be bad; for me, I don't necessarily mind it.

It's definitely a taste thing. I trust your judgment on how good it is as a source of information.
 
Hm, perhaps I misremembered the Chandragupta bit.

The main failing I can find with Ghost on the Throne is how enthralled the author is by the figure of Eumenes.

Oh, and I wouldn't call it melodramatic. The word has an unfortunate ring to it. However, you can see that Romm, by the style of writing he uses, has certainly tried his best to make the book interesting to non-history buffs as well, and I don't fault him for it.

But then again, I adore Tom Holland, so there is that.
 
Oh, and I wouldn't call it melodramatic. The word has an unfortunate ring to it. However, you can see that Romm, by the style of writing he uses, has certainly tried his best to make the book interesting to non-history buffs as well, and I don't fault him for it.

If " With his demise, it was as if the sun had disappeared from the solar system, as if planets and moons began to spin crazily in new directions, crashing into one another with unimaginable force." is typical of how things are described, I would.

Trying to make something interesting for nonhistorians does not require such overblown description.
 
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If Alexander went West, would Rome even have been anything worth mentioning to him or to historians at that point? A quick perusal of Wikipedia tells me that Rome was just beginning its second phase of wars against the Samnites right around the time Alexander died OTL. If memory serves, Rome wasn't actually a conquering superpower during the first phase of that war and could easily have ended up as a junior partner to an Alexandrian effort to "save" Magna Graecia from the Samnites.

Even if Alexander survived long enough to arrive in Italy after the Romans won the Samnite Wars (is such a campaign even plausible by Alexander by that date OTL?) would he have cared? Would we remember Rome? The Romans at that time were not real big on history or literature or even much in the way of culture. Unless they weren't exaggerating about the loss of records after the Gallic sack, I could see no surviving Roman accounts of itself and Rome merely being a footnote to Alexander's campaigns in Italy, itself a footnote to his efforts against Carthage.

Am I wrong?
 
It's definitely a taste thing. I trust your judgment on how good it is as a source of information.

I've read two books on the First Gen of the Diadochi: "Ghost on the Throne", and "Dividing the Spoils" by Robin Waterfield. As I said earlier, the entire time while I read Romm's book, I felt like I was "reading" a miniseries on the History Channel, like I was watching "The Vikings" or something. It's a taste thing - some people love it, others hate it. I'm kind of in-between. Overall I'd say he did a good job in telling a complicated story from multiple perspectives.

It's very much meant to be popular history; he wants the great drama of the period to be appreciated, sometimes succeeding, other times eye-rollingly bad. All that said, from what I can tell, everything information-wise he claims is accurate, despite the admittedly melodramatic tone. He has the endorsement of Victor Davis Hanson (whom I respect from his book on the Peloponnesian War, "A War Like No Other"), and nothing in Waterfield's book contradicts Romm's book.

I've read better history books than "Ghost on the Throne", but it's definitely not the worst book I've read. I enjoyed it. It's certainly never boring, in any case.
 
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If Alexander went West, would Rome even have been anything worth mentioning to him or to historians at that point? A quick perusal of Wikipedia tells me that Rome was just beginning its second phase of wars against the Samnites right around the time Alexander died OTL. If memory serves, Rome wasn't actually a conquering superpower during the first phase of that war and could easily have ended up as a junior partner to an Alexandrian effort to "save" Magna Graecia from the Samnites.

Even if Alexander survived long enough to arrive in Italy after the Romans won the Samnite Wars (is such a campaign even plausible by Alexander by that date OTL?) would he have cared? Would we remember Rome? The Romans at that time were not real big on history or literature or even much in the way of culture. Unless they weren't exaggerating about the loss of records after the Gallic sack, I could see no surviving Roman accounts of itself and Rome merely being a footnote to Alexander's campaigns in Italy, itself a footnote to his efforts against Carthage.

Am I wrong?

Eh, Rome was a moderately powerful Italian city-state at the time, commanding Latium and looking to expand. I'd imagine that, should Alexander decide to conquer them (because all Alexander really has to do is decide that he wants to), and Rome does (relatively) little for the rest of its history, it'd be remembered kind of like how, I dunno, the Siege of Multan is in his Indian campaigns? A fairly powerful regional city-state that fought valiantly but was ultimately no match for the might of Alexander's armies? Rome wouldn't be a footnote for an Italian campaign, but they would be lucky to be an afterthought when thinking of the context of all of Alexander's conquests.
 
If " With his demise, it was as if the sun had disappeared from the solar system, as if planets and moons began to spin crazily in new directions, crashing into one another with unimaginable force." is typical of how things are described, I would.

Trying to make something interesting for nonhistorians does not require such overblown description.

Don't confuse what's on the description with the actual book. The actual book is nowhere near that dramatic and overblown.


If Alexander went West, would Rome even have been anything worth mentioning to him or to historians at that point? A quick perusal of Wikipedia tells me that Rome was just beginning its second phase of wars against the Samnites right around the time Alexander died OTL. If memory serves, Rome wasn't actually a conquering superpower during the first phase of that war and could easily have ended up as a junior partner to an Alexandrian effort to "save" Magna Graecia from the Samnites.

Even if Alexander survived long enough to arrive in Italy after the Romans won the Samnite Wars (is such a campaign even plausible by Alexander by that date OTL?) would he have cared? Would we remember Rome? The Romans at that time were not real big on history or literature or even much in the way of culture. Unless they weren't exaggerating about the loss of records after the Gallic sack, I could see no surviving Roman accounts of itself and Rome merely being a footnote to Alexander's campaigns in Italy, itself a footnote to his efforts against Carthage.

Am I wrong?

As far as I know, all the records pre-sack were lost. The Romans were pretty good at keeping records, so I assume they had a lot. Most of what we know about Rome pre-sack is fictional stories based on real events.

For example, Romulus is used as an answer to everything about the foundations of Rome, Cincinnatus is an extremely overdramatized figure (though he was real), the turn coat Roman general who joined Rome's enemies and defeated Rome in a few battles (because the Romans wanted to make it look like they couldn't be defeated by anyone but other Romans), making the founding date of the Republic in 509 (conveniently one year earlier than the founding of Athenian democracy, so as to make the Romans look like they invented democracy first), Cammillus saving the day during the sack and recovering the gold payed to Brennus (Brennus most likely just left after the Romans payed him his gold,), and we are not even sure if Tarquin The Proud was real, though I may be wrong there.
 
I still don't understand where Chandragupta going against Alexander comes from. I may be wrong here, but if Alexander conquers the Nanda Empire, in doing so, he will replace him with Chandragupta. That was the plan anyway until his soldiers mutinied, as far as I know. I don't think he would go any further than that regardless-his soldiers certainly wouldn't let him.

Now what happens when Alexander's out of the area, I don't know. I doubt Chandragupta is going to start up hostilities in India the second Alexander leaves-maybe not even while Alexander is still alive, or at the very least not until he's away fighting Carthage on the opposite end of his empire. To do so while Alexander is close would be fool-hardy, and would earn him Alexander's return.

Eventually though, I think Chandragupta could take over Macedonian controlled India.
What I meant is that scenario will occur only if Alexander remains in India on the other hand if he leaves India gives Alexander nanda as you said then nothing will happen. But in that scenario India wil not be part of Macedonian empire. Plus even if Alexander defeated the nadas do you seriously know how many powerful kingdoms each with vast resources of wealth, troops, huge populations etc that would stand in Alexanders way. What ccan his weakeaned army do in that situation. Plus how do you expect him pray tell to maintain control over so far a province. it is ASB really. Im sorry but a full conquest of india by Alexander is asb. Yes he can defeat many indian kings and in that sense beat the major kingdoms but actually holding the area is eyebrow raising and very very unlikely to happen. asically logistics are Alexanders downfall in India. Plain and simple. Even the greatest generals of history cannot overcome logistic failures or logistic feats of impossible magnitude plus with technology and resources available at that time period. Aftr all what use is a general when he cant supply his starving army or exhausted army. stuck in the middle of enemy territory?
 
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What I meant is that scenario will occur only if Alexander remains in India on the other hand if he leaves India gives Alexander nanda as you said then nothing will happen. But in that scenario India wil not be part of Macedonian empire. Plus even if Alexander defeated the nadas do you seriously know how many powerful kingdoms each with vast resources of wealth, troops, huge populations etc that would stand in Alexanders way. What ccan his weakeaned army do in that situation. Plus how do you expect him pray tell to maintain control over so far a province. it is ASB really. Im sorry but a full conquest of india by Alexander is asb. Yes he can defeat many indian kings and in that sense beat the major kingdoms but actually holding the area is eyebrow raising and very very unlikely to happen. asically logistics are Alexanders downfall in India. Plain and simple. Even the greatest generals of history cannot overcome logistic failures or logistic feats of impossible magnitude plus with technology and resources available at that time period. Aftr all what use is a general when he cant supply his starving army or exhausted army. stuck in the middle of enemy territory?
When did I ever say Alexander could conquer all of India? When did I even say he could go further than the Nanda? Maybe it wasn't specifically in that post, but I remember saying on this thread there's no way Alexander could do anything more than conquer the Nanda...
 
When did I ever say Alexander could conquer all of India? When did I even say he could go further than the Nanda? Maybe it wasn't specifically in that post, but I remember saying on this thread there's no way Alexander could do anything more than conquer the Nanda...
oh really then I guess it was a misunderstanding on my part, in that case yeah I agree he could have conquered the nanda
 
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