WI: Rome under an Hellenic Empire?

I'd say any succesful and lasting Hellenic Empire is pretty much going to be a Persian Empire. Persepolis would be the political center.
 
I'd say any succesful and lasting Hellenic Empire is pretty much going to be a Persian Empire. Persepolis would be the political center.

But Persepolis was too far from the Mediterranean area. If we understand 'Hellenic' (by the era) as a compund of Greek, Egyptian and Persian elements (even if based on Greek culture, Hellenism adopted things from the others), any eventual capital city that could rule successfully over this world should be placed in the crossroads of these areas, not too far from any of these parts.

That's why a city in Syria (in the crossroads between Greece-Anatolia, the Nile Valley area and Persia) might be the best option, in my opinion.
 
But Persepolis was too far from the Mediterranean area. If we understand 'Hellenic' (by the era) as a compund of Greek, Egyptian and Persian elements (even if based on Greek culture, Hellenism adopted things from the others), any eventual capital city that could rule successfully over this world should be placed in the crossroads of these areas, not too far from any of these parts.

That's why a city in Syria (in the crossroads between Greece-Anatolia, the Nile Valley area and Persia) might be the best option, in my opinion.

Yeah but you forget the starting point for Alexander's conquests - it was to destroy the Persian empire.

Rome is a minor city state in Italy which is a peripheral region to the Greek world.

Persepolis is already borderline too far away for centralised control to rule from the Indus valley to Greece and Egypt. Locating the capital away from Mesopotamia means that Parthia / Bactria and the Indus valley are ungovernable (too long a line of communication)

So for Rome to be a part of a Hellenic empire then everything east of Mesopotamia would be relinquished or vassalised. In which case the OTL Alexandria is as good a location as any to adminster a supersized hellenic empire. Particularly if a version of the "Suez" canal is constructed to allow sea travel to the south coast of Persia.

Alexandria is in a good position to administer Greece and Italy and even the Med littorial of Spain at a push.
 
There were roads in Persia, and the Achaemenids ruled more or less the same territory from Mesopotamia just fine. There can always be two capitals too.
 
In my temptative map I set Alexandria ad Issum (Alexandreta of today) as a possible capital city because Alexander the Great founded that city with the purpose of establishing a commercial point joining the roads coming from Mesopotamia, the Delta of the Nile and the Anatolian coast.

Additionally, it had a relatively safe port in the Mediterranean. From this point, traders or messengers could reach Greece by sea in a short time, as well as Mesopotamia and Egypt (by sea or land). Even if the Empire could have been expanded westwards through an eventual inclusion of Rome, the city would never have been too far by sailing.

I think that in the post-Alexandrian world, setting an imperial seat away from a sea port would have not been a good idea anyway.
 
If any political entity, heir of the Empire of Alexander the Great, would have remained strong enough to successfully support the Greeks of Southern Italy against Rome and Rome would have been eventually defeated, is it possible that Rome could have fall under the direct or indirect rule of this Hellenic entity and become more Hellenized than IOTL, ending like a satellital Hellenic-Latin state of an eventual Hellenic Empire?

And, if this scenario could have been possible, this could lead to a later all-Mediterranean Empire like the OTL Roman one but governed from the Greek East and more overwhelmingly Hellenic in its whole totality?
With all due respect to heirs of the Empire of Alexander the Great they were able only to hold the territories which Alexander's father and Alexander himself conquered.
With a few minor exceptions.

So by definition the Hellenistic entities are entities squabbling among themselves on the territories of the former Macedon Kingdom and Persian Empire.
Which makes any permanent conquest in Central Italy impossible. By definition.
 
I'd say any succesful and lasting Hellenic Empire is pretty much going to be a Persian Empire. Persepolis would be the political center.
I don't see why. No ancient empire in the region set up their capital at Persepolis after the Achaemenids-the Seleucids had there's in Syria and Mesopotamia, the Parthians in Ctesiphon, and the native Persian Sassanians in Ctesiphon. The likely seat of power is going to be in either Syria, Kilikia (due to it being at a vital crossroads) or Mesopotamia.

Yeah but you forget the starting point for Alexander's conquests - it was to destroy the Persian empire.
The stated goal of his conquests was to return the greek speaking regions under Achaemenid control to independence. After that it became destroy the Persian empire. In actuality, Alexander's goal from the very beginning was to essentially become king of the Persian Empire, not destroy it.
There were roads in Persia, and the Achaemenids ruled more or less the same territory from Mesopotamia just fine. There can always be two capitals too.
But there's no reason for it to be the capital. It wasn't the capital for the Seleucids, Parthians, or even Persian Sassanians. Even for the Achaemenids it quickly just became one of a few capitals (at first the others being Susa, Ekbatana, and Babylon, but after several Babylonian revolts, the others being Susa and Ekbatana only). Furthermore, any greek empire is always going to be more western oriented than east, by nature of where they get their troops from and just by nature of that being where most of the greek members of the empire lived. It wouldn't make sense to have a capital as far east as Persepolis when Mesopotamia and Syria would do fine. Especially when we consider the Hellenistic rulers had a tendency to found their own capital cities and start from scratch rather than use existing cities as their capitals even when prestigious ones existed (see Seleucids in Mesopotamia).
 
The best capital would be Alexandria in Egypt because its sort of a compromise between the Indus Mesopotamia Greece and southern Italy and Sicily. You can reach all of it with a ship and if they build the Pharaos channel it's even better.
 
Top