WI Cyrus the Younger had won at Cunaxa

At Cunaxa, Cyrus asked the Greek commander, Clearchus, to take control of the right flank. Clearchus refused, and Cyrus was forced to take command. The flank was in a desperate situation, and Cyrus was killed.

The greeks had pretty much won, and had dispersed the opposition at the time. What if Cyrus had survived and been victorious?

Would we see better feeling towards the Greeks, or maybe a stronger Persian Empire? according to Xenophon, Cyrus was a great charismatic leader.
 
Cyrus lives to take Egypt, Cambyses takes over years later, and the coup against him is butterflied away. Darius and his descendants never rule. The Persian-Greek confrontation, if it happens at all, takes quite a different form.
 
Cyrus lives to take Egypt, Cambyses takes over years later, and the coup against him is butterflied away. Darius and his descendants never rule. The Persian-Greek confrontation, if it happens at all, takes quite a different form.

You mixed Cyruses... Cyrus the Great lived & ruled in 6th C. BC, Cyrus the Younger died at Cunaxa in 401 BC...
 

Sir Chaos

Banned
Perhaps relations between Persia and Greece remain amiable enough that Alexander directs his conqueror´s impulses north, or west, instead of east?
 
Perhaps relations between Persia and Greece remain amiable enough that Alexander directs his conqueror´s impulses north, or west, instead of east?

I personally think Macedon will just simply trying to find another excuse and justification for a war, and then the conquest will be more-or-less same with the OTL.
 
Ehem... butterflies, anyone? Instead of OTL course it was as possible, if not more, that Macedonia in mid-4th C. BC would end in a free-for-all struggle between different foreign factions. We may as well see a Thessalian hegemony instead. Or Theban. Or Spartan. Also, if Cyrus the Younger takes the throne, the Corinthian War of OTL is butterflied away -> so no Peace of Antalcidas either -> so Ionian Greek remains indenpendent from Persia -> no reason for Alexandrian-like conquest of Persia.
 
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