Alexander Recovers

The historian Arnold Toynbee, a classicist who was the son-in-law of
another famous classicist, published "What If Alexander the Great Had
Lived On?" as part of his book "Some Problems of Greek History."

Recognising the enormous spread of Hellenic culture--carried all the
way to Britain by Roman legions, carried all the way to Japan by Indian
and Chinese Buddhisat missionaries--Toynbee sought to create a world
where the Hellenic civilization's political spread equals its cultural
spread.

As in your TL, Alexander recovers, but while he's recovering from his
illness, a triumvirate of his advisors govern on his behalf (birth of
constitutional monarchy).

Alexander circumnavigates the Arabian peninsula, and has the
Phoenicians establish trading cities on its Red Sea and Persian Gulf
shores, but doesn't really bother with the interior.

In the Mediterranean, Alexander allies with Rome and conquers Carthage.

In the east, both India and China are conquered.  Mahayana Buddhism
(the Buddhism practiced by China, Korea, and Japan) becomes the
universal religion.  After the conquests of India and China, the World
State expands outward peacefully.

Africa is circumnavigated both from the east (by the Phoenicians) and
the west (by the Carthaginians).  Hannibal discovers Atlantis (the New
World), and Hero's invention of the steam engine enables rail travel to
become possible at the time that Christ would have been a little boy.

The world ruler, c. 1968, when the essay was published, was Alexander
LVI.  Politically, the world state is made up of federations of city
states.

Interesting hypothesis but I won't follow Toynbee to the letter. Just Alexander recovers and consolidates his Empire with a succesful expedition in Arabia as he had planned. His dynasty continues at least for the upcoming centuries.

He finds the west divided between Rome, Etruscans (in decay), Carthage, many Greek colonies (specially in Italy) and the numerous Celtic tribes basically. We have to recall here that the last opposition to Roman hegemony in Italy came from the Greeks who, leaded by Pyrrhus, only 42 years after Alexander's death, had a good chance of defeating the Romans. I can imagine therefore that Alexander himself or his son alexander IV would come to help the Greek colonies and would (unlike Pyrrhus) had defeated them decisively.

Maybe they would have intervened decissively even before, during the Samnite Wars, for instance, and maybe Alexander himself would have lead that campaign.

Only once Rome had been subdued, would Macedonians find, maybe, necessary to deal with Carthage.

You can follow from here...

Important notes:
1. This situation would mean that Etruscans would have survived, as they would have been "liberated" from Roman control by the Macedonians.
2. Don't forget the Parthians, who since 250 BCE threatened the Asian part of the Hellenistic domains and evenually would become the arch-enemies of Romans.
3. Don't forget also that since c. 200 BCE, Celts were being threatened by Germans that invaded one after the other most of Celtic tribes. This was the main pretext for caesar to invade Gaul... but, without a solid Rome, Germans could have reached the Po and the Garonne easily.

If Alexander recovered he would simply have ended up killing himself shortly after with another of his mindless drinking binges. These binges, going for weeks at a time, were well noted for the stupid ideas and paranoia which they induced in Alexander, such as the unfounded charge of treason brought against some of his most loyal generals and the resultant execution of the men. For good measure their 6000 troops were also killed whose only crime was to have been serving under the direct command of some of Alexander's imagined enemies.

Brilliant as Alexander was on the battlefield, I cannot help but think he was just a ticking time bomb of self destruction.

Yes, Alexander burned down Persepolis during one of his drinking binges. Interesting how he critcized his father for excessive drinking when he excessively drank himself.

I would suspect superstition coming into play if Alexander was ever to recover, if he was poisoned. He believed himself a demigod, and so it would have seemed to the conspirators that he possessed divine powers.

Italian Greeks undoubtedly opposed Roman expansion and Pyrrhus went in their help... would have the Macedonian empire lasted, they would have intervened, no doubt, and it's possible they would have had more success than Pyrrhus - though this one was a great general, admired of Hannibal... maybe they would have failed and Alexander's empire would have crumbled after that defeat.  Or maybe there would have been a stalemate in southern Italy for decades or centuries. Still, I think that the most likely is that the very succes of the Macedonian empire would have aborted Roman expansion and left Rome as an irrelevant historical accident without major consequences.

I don't know how their relation with Carthage would have been, as Carthage used to be an ally of Persia and rival of Greeks.




Edited by Maju