What if Alexander had not died at a young age?

Would there have been a more conventional empire or was it the nature of the culture/technology that such a large empire could not be ruled from a central authority?

Would the individuals that inherited Alexander's conquests have risen as independent rulers and rebelled against him? Were they too loyal for such treachery?

How long do you think it would have lasted? Would the lands to the west fallen to Alexander? Would he have thought them worth conquering? Would it just have been a colonization effort?

What effect would it have had (assuming it lasted) on later civilizations? Rome? India? Persia? Africa?

Thanks,
Bill

Quote from: HinterWeltWhat if Alexander had not died at a young age?

Would there have been a more conventional empire or was it the nature of the culture/technology that such a large empire could not be ruled from a central authority?

Would the individuals that inherited Alexander's conquests have risen as independent rulers and rebelled against him? Were they too loyal for such treachery?

How long do you think it would have lasted? Would the lands to the west fallen to Alexander? Would he have thought them worth conquering? Would it just have been a colonization effort?

What effect would it have had (assuming it lasted) on later civilizations? Rome? India? Persia? Africa?

Thanks,
Bill

I think that as long as Alexander himself was alive, his empire would have held, but I doubt that the end result would have been any different; he showed no signs of being able to plan effective governance beyond conquest. He would have ruled by charisma, and whether he died at 35 or at 85, after his death its likely that the empire would have fallen to pieces.
The macedonian/greeks lacked a few pieces of the puzzle that the Romans would later have to allow them to have such a vast empire; mainly relating around to beaurocracy and infrastructure.

Even if Alexander had adult offspring, I doubt they'd have had the charisma and authority to hold onto the entire empire, probably taking just a part of it, possibly squabbling with each other (if there was more than one) over it.

It does seem likely that Persia and India's history would have been very changed; and to a lesser extent the west might have been changed by longer contact with those cultures. These changes would have been largely social, and might have led to the weird kind of Hellenistic Buddhism that ended up happening in Parthia becoming a much larger phenomenon throughout the world.

So, under certain conditions, this may just have led to a Buddhist western-world, one where Christianity would possibly never have arisen, or would have been radically different because of arising in a Buddhist world (Christianity as the "Mahayana Buddhism" of the west?).

RPGPundit

Dude, this is an awesome question!  Imagine a Hellenistic society stretching from Iberia to Japan!

i was planning some sort of "ancient history"/prehistory fantasy earth campaign.  you've now totally derailed it with a great new angle!  back to the drawing board.

with all the alt hist stuff out there, has anyone touched on this concept before?  a fantastic "what if".  :raise: