WI: The Diadochi followed Alexander III's Last Plans

What if the Macedonians had actually tried to execute the will of Alexander?

Specifically Alexander's instructions included:

-A Pyramid be constructed in Macedonia for Phillip II

-Creation of six great temples in Greece and a monument to Athena at Troy

-Conquest of Arabia

-Construction of a road from Egypt to the Pillers of Heracles and conquest of Carthage and Sicily

-Circumnavigation of Africa

-Development of more cities named Alexandria

Historically the diadochi dismissed the will as impractical but their actions demonstrated they had the capacity to afford and carry out some of those instructions. Especially if they didn't spend 20 years fighting each other.

Some necessary PODs probably include:

-Perdiccas is unsuited as regent, so needs to be replaced for stability. Maybe an alternative regent tries to build legitimacy by surrounding themselves with the mysticism of a cult of Alexander?

-Alexander doesn't issue his Exile Decree that let demagogues and mercenaries return to Athens, averting the Lamian War or making it much shorter.

-Give Ptolemy a dayjob invading Arabia and building ships or something to distract him from bodysnatching Alexander. Although I'm pretty certain that Ptolemy was intending to secede from the start. He'll probably need to be assassinated.

-Cut corners a bit so this is physically possible. Scale back the planned budgets of the Great Temples (15,000 talents each). Cut back on the number of cities planned. Bury Alexander in the Great pyramid to avoid building a second tomb. Ignore the part about building a road since the Romans will do it better anyways.

-The entire premise is really only possible if Alexander's empire stays united

Discussing the conquest of Arabia and Carthage isn't too interesting as that basically makes this another WI Alexander lived thread except without Alexander, and we do that all the time. They could help with the financing however.

But could the Great Pyramid of Alexander survive into the 20th century? Imagine the tourist draw. Could the great temples permanently orient religion in Greece towards Alexander worship? What would be the results of focused Hellenistic exploration of the Red Sea and Eastern Africa?
 
I think it could be interesting if you had the Generals decide to respect Alexander, but work on establishing a system that balanced each other and the Satraps.

So if we agree Perdiccas is unsuited as regent, you could have Roxana act as Regent-Mother for Alexander IV, but in a way that makes her largely a figurehead, effectively an arbiter for a stratocratic rule of the Generals, and an oligarchy of the various Satraps.

It might work if we see it as a deviation from the traditional Macedonian system.

So the King (in this case Regent-Mother and later Alexander IV) stays the head judge for the Kingdom, but the Regent is powerless other than to represent the Kings interests, later the King could have more powers.

So the Satraps can assemble in Babylon so they can highlight their concerns to the King and Generals - allowing the Satraps and Generals to balance each others powers. As the Generals need someone to handle the Satraps (and avoid effective division), Roxana can handle that. (Its not like she could overthrow them right.)

Meanwhile, whilst the Generals may not be willing to fulfill the will, the Satraps, seeking to bring the future King to their side could support him doing so. Especially since this is a Macedonian Kingdom. Why wouldn't the future King become a General?

So basically - Roxana, then King as figure head. The Generals Assembly handles power and foreign affairs and makes demands of the Satraps, who make demands in turn of the Generals.

It might be wise if we put a PoD where Alexander started putting this together before he dies, but the Generals use his death to effectively usurp many of the Kings powers rather than give them to Roxana.
 
Wasn't Stateira/Drypteis (can never remember which one was married to Alex), also pregnant when Roxana's coup took place? Why can't she outwit Roxana/Perdiccas and get appointed regent? Or did Alexander specifically name Roxana's child as his heir?
 
Wasn't Stateira/Drypteis (can never remember which one was married to Alex), also pregnant when Roxana's coup took place? Why can't she outwit Roxana/Perdiccas and get appointed regent? Or did Alexander specifically name Roxana's child as his heir?
She may or may not have been pregnant, though she didn't seem to figure into the Babylon conference at all. Her ties to Achaemenid royalty (as opposed to Roxana only being Bactrian royalty) did mean she was important enough to get offed rather early, though. I'm not sure what her rise to power would change though, aside from perhaps slightly more support from the traditional Achaemenid elite for the regime, which wasn't really necessary.

The main obstacle here is the diadochi themselves. Macedonian successions were almost always contentious and violent-Alexander's relatively uncontested ascension to the throne after Phillip's death was a rare exception. This was true even in the best of times, so it's doubly true here, without any male adult heir in place to succeed him. The scale of Alexander's new empire just further exacerbates things. More importantly, many of the diadochi simply just did not get along-the thing they were united by was their loyalty and friendship to Alexander, and now that is gone.

So there's going to be some sort of civil war. Most of the potential successors here, A.) don't really have any long term interest in maintaining the fiction of an Argead monarchy beyond its immediate political usefulness, and B.) Don't have much interest in carrying out any of Alexander's grandiose plans. So a few things have to be dealt with right off the bat--Craterus, Perdiccas, and Antigonus. Ptolemy is his own problem, but he's isolated, doesn't seem to have greater ambitions for ruling the whole realm, and frankly is militarily weak-so his immediate offing isn't really necessary. Lysimachus will be tied down in Thrace for the relevant period of time, so he mostly doesn't factor in. And Antipater is old and about to die anyway, so he can be useful.

So after ruling out potential successors who might carry this out, there is really one name left who I think is both capable, willing, and has the political necessity to tie himself heavily to Alexander's wishes: that wily Cardian, Eumenes. Eumenes is not Macedonian, so he any ambititions for crowning himself as monarch are out of the picture. He's also best pals with Olympias, and just so happens to have a long record of being fiercely loyal to the Alexandrian line. In addition, he has a history IOTL of appropriating Alexander The Great for his own political ends-famously keeping control over a hodge podge of strong and independent personalities such as Antigenes, Peucestas, and Eudemus who had little inclination to be bossed around by a Greek, by having them, among other things, confer in the presence of Alexander's spirit. And of course he has the military brilliance to successfully prosecute the civil war to its conclusion.

In the event Eumenes wins and serves as chief regent/advisor to a young Alexander IV, it would make great political sense to continue to tie himself as closely to Alexander as possible. A scaled down version of his plans-a great mausoleum to Phillip II back home in Macedon, a similarly great Mausoleum to Alexander in Babylon. Some money might be diverted to assist Ilion in constructing a temple of Athena (maybe a paired down version, again). Other things might wait until Alexander IV fully matures into his own and Eumenes-probably as good an administrator as any of the potential successors, given his career at the top of Macedonian bureaucracy-finishes stabilizing and reorganizing the administrative structure. Alexander IV will probably be just as, if not more so, interested in tapping into his father's legacy for legitimacy-so with additional money, he might go through with some of the temple constructions. More intriguing though, he might see "fulfilling my father's dreams" as a nice justification for launching some military conquests of his own in Arabia and North Africa. Same goes for the resettlement plans that were among Alexander's supposed last plans.
 
I think instead who for having the Diadochi follow the plans of Alexander, his son and heir need to be born (shortly) before his death by Stateira (her younger sister Drypteis was the widow of Hephaistion) and recognized as such. An Alexander's IV who is son of a persian princess (Parysatis as mother can also work well) is in a much stable position than the son of Roxane and is unlikely to become a puppet. Plus if he is the son of Stateira he has a very strong great grandmother who will likely be his regent for the first few years and will not be a figurehead but instead will be able to solidify the kingdom (or at least the oriental half) around the king while ending to train Stateira and Drypteis as rule for the your king and learn who are their allies and who are the enemies and who can be trusted, who need to be surveilled and who need to be feared... Naturally Olympias is busy trying to do the same thing to the other side of the sea (but her being replaced by her stepdaughter Cynane with Philip Arrhidaeus and Adea Eurydice as rulers/regents of Macedonia is not unlikely) Without big fight for the powers and the regency Eumenres can easily be put in a position of power and the other generals kept busy as satraps or carrying Alexander's will
 

althisfan

Banned
I would like the idea of a TL that the Successors (or Diadochi if your language of choice is Greek) would take Alexander's son and make him the start of a line of alt-Caliphs/Popes, with religious authority and maybe some minor political statesmanship like a Holy Roman Emperor. We could see a codification of an Alexander cult and maybe a religious institution that would be centralized just enough to move to Central Asia, India, Rome, Carthage, Sicily, creating a global religion that butterflies away Christianity, and a syncretism with Buddhism that butterflies the reemergence of Hinduism in India. It's not a likely scenario, but far from ASB and would be a neat "Alexander as god wank". Heck, if there's any real life character from history who deserves a world religion based on him it's Alexander (sorry Caesar, you still get credit for being the root of "emperor" in lots of languages, that's something).
 

Kaze

Banned
What about Alexander's son? His last plan would include his son succeeding him wouldn't it?
 
Africa was already circumnavigated about 300 years before, Cabo Corrientes still becomes Prasum Promontorium and Rhapta still likely remains Solofa (spelling?) though Madagascar is potentially colonozed earlier.

Conquering Carthage and parts East might push it into a life-or-death alliance with Rome and have Hannibal Barca leading Roman Legions with Elephants and equipped with Spanish steel Gladii or Falchatas. That *alone* could be worth seeing.
 
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