Alexander lived to 80 years old... what changes?
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  Alexander lived to 80 years old... what changes?
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Blue3
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« on: June 22, 2019, 02:45:39 PM »
« edited: June 22, 2019, 02:51:47 PM by Blue3 »

Let's say Alexander didn't die in Babylon at the age of 32, 12 years after rising to power and soon conquering the Persian Empire.

Instead, he survives and lives another 50 years.



Would he be able to hang on to power, and to his empire?



Would the plans to conquer Arabia and Italy come to fruition? How would that change world history, to have Rome as a Greek province and the Arabs hellenized?

Would he return his forces to India to try to conquer it again?



Would he try to expand into Ethiopia, or China, or expand into the rest of northern/western/eastern Europe, or to Carthage and Mediterranean Africa,  or the steppes of the Caucasus region and Central Asia?
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RINO Tom
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« Reply #1 on: June 24, 2019, 11:34:04 AM »

Cool thread!  I am very novice in this area, but I fear he would have put way too much effort into India and weakened the western part of the empire, potentially leaving it open to attack.  If he had been content with his Persian acquisitions and headed back to the central part of his empire, I have little doubt he would have curbed the rise of Rome significantly.  As far as Hellenization goes, I remember reading that Alexander was fascinated with a lot of the native cultures he encountered - specifically Persian culture - and was very willing to create hybrid traditions.  Didn't Greek culture start adopting the idea of reincarnation after encounters with Buddhism?  I think regional cultures in different divisions of the empire would have developed, all with a main Greek influence.

One thing is for sure, we would have gotten a lot more epic of a "Rome vs. Greece" showdown than we ended up getting ... what sounds like, at first, one of the most epic clashes of all time was somewhat anti-climactic due to how divided the Greeks were (with many city states supporting Roman intervention against Macedonian encroachment) and how relatively little attention they payed Italy as Rome rose to power.
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Frodo
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« Reply #2 on: June 24, 2019, 12:52:59 PM »

I think after getting reinforcements, he would have tried to conquer Arabia for sure, which would most certainly had happened had he not died so soon.  And then turned his attention once again to India given he had unfinished business from the last time before his armies forced him to withdraw, with the intention of consolidating his Indus river valley conquests.  Which would bring him and Chandragupta Maurya face-to-face on the battlefield.    
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True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)
Ernest
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« Reply #3 on: June 24, 2019, 08:06:16 PM »

Actually, I think Alexander would have realized he needed more strength before heading east once more.  More importantly, an uppity Italic city-state had conquered Neapolis in Magna Graecia while he'd been busy in the east.  I think he would have tried to regain strength by incorporating the Greek colonies, including those in Magna Graecia, into his Empire. Then of course, to be able to fully protect them, he'd need to take control of the complete Mediterranean Sea.  Alexander's will. assuming it was not a forgery supports the idea that he'd leave India for later.  Perhaps send his son(s) off to conquer it when they came of age.
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Kingpoleon
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« Reply #4 on: July 16, 2019, 02:14:13 AM »

Yeah, Alexander the Great probably either takes Arabia or the Balkans. I imagine he’d be most likely to face defeat in battle in Arabia by the Qedarites, if only due to his lack of experience in quite possibly the most hostile of hostile territory - desert warfare.
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Frodo
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« Reply #5 on: October 05, 2019, 02:11:48 PM »
« Edited: October 05, 2019, 02:50:20 PM by Grand Mufti of Northern Virginia »

Also, in addition to what I said earlier, if Alexander had lived longer, he would have had time to consolidate and institutionalize his goal of syncretizing Hellenistic and native cultures with his commanders marrying and having families with the local nobility (particularly the Persians), and founding his own Heraclid dynasty that would outlast him while ruling a vast and united empire (with its capital at Babylon) stretching from Egypt and Macedon to Bactria and India.  Or at least the Indus river valley portion of the subcontinent.  

And perhaps one of his successors would conquer northern India itself sometime in the future, with the area conquered approximating that won by the Kushans in OTL.  

And given a couple of centuries, the empire would derive much of its revenue from the Silk Road (both the overland and sea routes), further filling its treasury for future conquests. 
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