A Historian Reacts | What if Alexander the Great Never Died Young? | Alternate History Hub

hey youtube i'm mr terry a high school history teacher and welcome back to another history teacher reacts video all right today's video was chosen by our awesome patrons over at patreon and they kept with a theme that i had from last week and that is staying on alexander the great now last week i uh reacted to a video about alexander the great in afghanistan and this follows along that theme now the channel is alternate history hub and the title of the video is what if alexander the great never died so that is a very interesting question because he died at the peak of basically the conquests um that he had just kind of finished up conquering persia and had died at a young age back in babylon he was never able to actually rule this giant empire that he has now conquered so yeah there's a question of what would this empire have been like had he been alive to be able to actually run it because what ends up happening is the empire ends up getting broken up amongst his close generals so he never directly got to rule over that so the question would be would he do things differently i don't know um one thing i would possibly think is a hypothesis maybe you'd see even more hellenism happening so more spreading of greek culture into these regions maybe not though because there's plenty of that going on but i'm interested to see what they say over here alternate history hub's a great channel for alternate histories kind of what ifs and it's fun to talk about and debate about and see you know based on what i know and you know as you watch um can see if it's you know things that you would agree with so we'll check this out in just a second the original video link is down below they do awesome stuff over there so make sure you support the channel by giving it a view like subscribe and if you like what we're doing over here and want to sub love to have you around hit that button down there enable those notifications also some links to some other fun stuff down there all right with that let's go ahead and get started [Music] [Music] before we talk about alexander the great and empire and changing the course of history i wanted to say this video has been sponsored by the new strategy game humankind as any history nerd would you give a game i've been excited for this game ever since it was announced a few years ago but coincidentally they offered to sponsor this video to promote the launch to find this core click the link in the description but as for now let's talk about a man who built an empire of his very own i love that the humankind game game just recently came out and i've played it uh once or twice and very cool very uh it's it's very um kind of like civilization you get to take these ancient civilizations but then you get to play as different ones as the game goes on that's pretty cool that they sponsored them love it when uh the cool video games you know out there really will sponsor people that's awesome history ones you know in the span of a decade his empire had grown from a small peninsula to the entire world as far as anybody knew not once ever being defeated on the battlefield his only weakness was the will of his own troops tired and sick of campaigning for so long after returning back to babylon the center of his new empire and mourning the loss of his friend alexander died at the age of 32. yeah so if you want some context i don't know again what they're going to get to eventually with how things stopped or whatever but check out the video i reacted to you can go to it's invicta's video about alexander in afghanistan and the difficulties that his military had in afghanistan which put in a context that you know many different groups have had difficulties in afghanistan with with conquest for various reasons but definitely check that out um i think if yeah it gives you some good context as well but yeah the famous story of losing his his friends that a lot of people think he was romantically involved with and because he died within a few months i think after that and could have been tied to it in some way with grief or whatever in his mind believing that he was a demigod that his own men had failed him and that there was more of the world to explore and conquer which is why it's always one of the great what ifs in history the question of what if alexander the great didn't die so young it's relatively unclear on how that happened he could have died from malaria or some other disease he could have been poisoned by his own men after having them march across asia for years no matter what the cause what say in this alternate timeline alexander continues to live on okay cool that by the way the whole demigod thing definitely would have been could have been created or or or just expanded in a way in his mind after his conquest of each of egypt where he became like pharaoh after he he conquered uh egypt and uh from the persians and yeah he became pharaoh and you remember with pharaoh you're basically seen as part god and i would think an egomaniac like that if you tell him he's a god he's one that's going to believe it it seems like that would be the case all right so let's see what they think happens if alexander lives and doesn't die at that young age i mean he could probably still be ravaged by alcoholism grief and a deteriorating mental condition but he happened to always defy the odds and so he defies this there were a few ideas on where he wanted to go after babylon you want to go back down to that timeline alexander decides to follow through with a plan to invade arabia or at least the coastline of arabia this would be one small victory before then heading back home i'm going to be honest a lot of what you're going to hear is just a creative guess i will however be basing this whole scenario on one concrete fact alexander the great love to conquer so while the specifics of where he would go and what he tried to conquer are left to interpretation alexander would always continue on fighting that that seems very logical um you know it's his troops that wanted to stop and you know not go into india more but yeah it you know a lot of ways i've heard that you know he returns to babylon you know not as it's just like it's finished and he's going to live his life but to regroup and that's where he's going to be operating from now but eventually go back possibly back to india he can go in a lot of different directions that said a leader is only as good as those that follow him and much of his generals and army were not in a mood to continue the war the persians were defeated most of the world that mattered was under their control and all many wanted to do was go back home and enjoy the riches let's say enough time passes and enough enemies are determined to be around then alexander's military and generals could be up for another invasion but where to already went east can't really go further south and macedonia despite controlling so much of the world still had the savages on their doorstep it's not the craziest thing to imagine that the homeland would need a buffer or some other reason i don't know alexander needs to convince everyone to go invade the barbarians not me there's some evidence that alexander wanted to go west greece at this time already had multiple colonies across the mediterranean sea so i mean we'll set up there's not the rome that we think of quite yet it's still materializing there so yeah i was wondering were they going to get to the east versus west my initial thoughts were that it would still be somewhere east but yeah i'm interested to see what they got here why west i mean west makes a lot of sense for the fact that it's near his homeland right he's uh from macedon over here in northern greece and there's a lot of resources territory it would definitely make sense to go left so let's say we got everyone on board somehow alexander is in good shape and there's a decent enough reason to go fight the illyrians or anybody else off we go while fighting in the mountains especially in the balkans is always a risky move alexander's military had experience through mountainous terrain the illyrians are quickly stunted and alexander's army goes north until reaching the danube going west fighting celts gulls rations and venenti along the way well i mean we know later on how difficult this stuff was for the romans only had little success in this part of eastern europe so here's the main question who would win a greek phalanx or a celtic horde luckily we actually have a way to figure this out it's got to be the favorite alexandria's death in our timeline there was a series of invasions from the north by the celts the celts spread fast however they were beat back by the greeks after only a few years celts could go all over north never really to be seen again or fight against the greeks so alexander with some luck and strategy would make good work of any opposing force that tries to resist going west into an open crossing to danube has always been difficult for groups to go through italian peninsula this would be so early in italy's history that latin is not a commonly spoken language at all in fact it's only in one specific region the rest of the peninsula yeah it would be a lot easier to take over than in a you know few cent couple centuries when the rome we know are gonna know is gonna really develop but yeah it's the if you're gonna take the italian peninsula it's now it's not later it's a collection of cultures and languages we'll get the boot not yet yeah with the etruscans southern italy was also populated by greeks these various italian cultures of the ancient world including the latins are slowly assimilated and eventually lost to history their language and culture forgotten from here i could imagine that carthage would be next and unlike italy carthage's culture and civilization would continue to live on from this carthage wait why did via a new so they'd go after them but they wouldn't uh succeed road from the city of alexandria now keep in mind we're assuming this whole time that he never loses a battle nor finds himself with a large amount of casualties you don't have to assume that driven by a need to reach at least some end of the world alexander and his army continue to push on wishing to reach the atlantic so cool yeah you can see a kind of like the romans are going to have their showdown with carthage that the greeks definitely would have too because it's like with with the romans they were going to compete for you know the mediterranean they're both uh civilizations that want to dominate the mediterranean and yeah so you probably would have a like a punic wars right but not between the romans and the carthaginians but you know alexander's group the greeks macedonians whatever multicultural uh group he would come at him with alexander could have conquered more territory and also prevented the roman empire from existing we get it cody ah yeah it looks like the byzantine empire doesn't it you know like like uh time of justinian almost tori and also kind of make sense roman empire from existing we get it cody ah well you see this whole territory conquering would not actually be the greatest change in our timeline it's time we discuss royal lineage and the importance in pre-enlightenment societies of divine rule okay yep he's gonna achieve god-like status after egypt and continue it right timeline following the death of alexander he was deified in ptolemaic egypt this was a political action as well as a religious one perpetuating alexander's divinity well it's got to be more political come on the greeks didn't believe the deification of their temporal rulers also coincidentally linking the royal family with the greek slash egyptian pantheon to the people the right of absolute monarchs to do whatever they wished zoroastrianism alexander said at least that he believed he was a demigod for the sake of their own rule the descendants of alexander may prop up a cult to worship him even generations after his death in the west the mediterranean do you think there's a naivety enough to for that to happen outside of the egyptians at least where you've had a continuity of sort of uh uh demigod worship as the the whole nature of the pharaohs had been like that for millennia but outside of the egyptians i mean maybe by some some fringe extremists right is only further solidified as a greek pond with italy and carthage assumingly under macedonian control the only interaction any barbarian tribe might have with a prominent civilization is through the greeks and never the romans right without latin the writing system of western europe is instead based on the greeks no shock that's fine but without such a blatant genocide with people we'd see a writing system that blends celtic and greek forming a wide range of alternative writing systems we can't even imagine slavic people adopted writing from the byzantines taking their form of greek and transforming it into what's known as cyrillic today without rome looks all wacky it's cool looking though for the spread of christianity nor the adoption of any middle eastern religion that's an interesting one no christianity probably right there's no roman empire um i don't know i mean it comes within the roman empire through the jewish community you'd have to you'd have to you know uh try to think of what potentially the greek policy towards religions would be you know um and what they would do specifically with the jewish community that's an interesting thought right there we'll see if they come back to that a little bit more atheism is not the norm pagan pantheons of any region still remain there is no vatican which seats itself in rome right there is no continuation of rome the whole roman empire was coveted and respected throughout the middle ages even after the empire itself fell instead we're in an alternate world where the bedrock of western civilization is one conqueror and any ruler coming after him would just be like the generals of our own timeline and try to claim legitimacy through alexander i'd imagine his legacy and achievements may be worshipped in the same way as say the emperor of mankind from 40k and his son of god status being a militaristic alternative to jesus keep in mind it's unknown how long a cult of alexander would exist for sure depends on longevity of greek civilization in west europe yet if europe remains to be polytheistic it's likely alexander would remain a deity across multiple pantheons true a strange religious mythical bedrock for the west instead of rome no democracy or even roman republic just alexander sorry democracy just dies i mean democracy in greece had already died yet i'm gonna be honest this is still the best case scenario is it kind of interesting because people love to go back to ancient greece and specifically athens to talk about origins of um democracy right and the greeks end up abandoning the athenians end up abandoning that and greece as a whole ends up abandoning that after the peloponnesian war really and it's the romans that really solidified that idea that's kind of interesting yeah it's like it it needed it's like it needs the romans for whatever influence we're trying to say democracy directly comes from but it's not like it needed to happen in greece for a democracy to exist that there's nothing exclusive about what the greeks were doing that made yeah a democracy exist in the future it's not contingent upon greek or romans carrying on democracy that could have developed anyways for a the great ending in a more realistic alternate world where alexander the great had not died when he did it's most likely that his keys to the kingdom his generals and his followers would have just been done with him if they didn't do away with him in our timeline why they wanted to retire rich and with their new spoils of war the persians were defeated and that was the main thing that mattered it's true alexander over the years had become increasingly that was the door erratic and less greek dressing in persian clothing and even wishing yeah he ended up learning to speak um persian married a persian woman that's what he wanted he wanted an assimilation of these cultures meant to address him like a persian god king by which they outright refused if alexander had the love of his military like he did when they first set off to persia then sure his army could have conquered the mediterranean yet by this point after 13 years with his closest friend dead and his mental state deteriorating he was more of a liability than anything had alexander not died in babylon he probably still would have led an invasion into arabia it probably would have been successful and then he would have retired into macedonia simply maintaining the land that he had conquered while also alienating his own guard by being such a weeb for the persians as you see alexander would have wished for persian in greek culture to blend his new empire yeah whether or not that would have been a success we'll never know had he been successful it was successful with him dying it was still it was still successful and continued to live on this area of the world might have become far more unified and culturally linked without his generals ever taking over had alexander lived just a little bit longer there was a chance that his dynasty might have continued far after his death but we will never know how alexander iv would have ruled as he was killed along with his mother in a purge of alexander's heirs gee thanks generals is that really such an assured thing though that they would just revolt against him and take him out completely especially when they said that they would he'd basically be deified and worshiped as a god and religion would start around him those seem like opposites but you know even though alexander's generals did divide the empire amongst themselves and could never imagine mixing greek and persian cultures or greek with any culture for that matter there is a way for you to be able to right now like i said before this video was sponsored by humankind a turn-based strategy game where you can build a civilization of your own but here's the twist just like alexander you don't need to pick one single culture there are over 60 plus historical cultures to pick and choose from but if you like this game come over to our discord server and i know there's some people that like to play this i'm joined up with the the gaming section on the discord server uh link down below and as you transition from each stage of history you can incorporate the ideas and cultures of other groups to blend and build a civic that's what's cool about this entirely your own go from a neolithic tribe of greeks and incorporate the ideas of ancient persia maybe move into medieval mayans and then transition into the french of the modern period each culture and faction comes with historically accurate elements that evolve the gameplay test your skills as historical events shape your civilization and see how each moral decision you make affects your people six eras of human history and you can mix and match through all of them like i said i've been excited for this game history game for a while but if you want to check it out or haven't gotten it already click on the link in the description to become your own alexander in humankind now available on steam every game store xbox gameplay geforce now ironically i've been wanting to play it this whole time but i've been working on this video so now that i'm finished i guess it's time to destroy my egyptians the egyptians colonize the moon all right let's talk about the video all right so what did you guys think of the sort of the timeline that cody had created over here the the things i again i was kind of confused i guess a little bit of was you know i'm thinking about was the whole like he would have been assassinated or whatever like within three years of his rule i mean if he had stayed put and not done all that extra conquering it seems like that would be the opposite of what would happen i think the most intriguing thing was to me was what potentially the future for two things would be christianity and democracy and that's when i gotta kind of flush out because again i don't think necessarily democracy had to be exclusive is it exclusively related to the greeks doing it and then the romans doing it because it's not really necessarily a direct connection there anyways um so that could you know foreign democracy can come in a lot of ways right look at the the reason why athens basically became a democracy and you'll see why what the conditions usually are when a democracy is created but yeah i think the christianity question is really interesting because you would have to go into what the religious policy would be in greece in this greek empire i guess um specifically with the jews because that's what it kind of comes out with but it's you can't separate the history of christianity without the context of the roman empire either and in this scenario there really isn't a roman empire so that is a very interesting thing to think about and love to hear what you think so comment down below what do you think of these different ideas do you agree with what's going on here do i have other hypotheses out there about what you think could happen if alexander the great had not died at such a young age i'd love to hear it all right and with that thanks for uh hanging out and thanks for checking out the video definitely give it a thumbs up if you liked what we got there check out the alexander video i did a week or two ago if you want to see more about what happened with him and his conquests and with that we'll see you next time bye [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Mr. Terry History

Views: 16,837

Keywords: react, history, alexander the great, alternate history

Id: rQtvYY5KP_c

Length: 23min 26sec (1406 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 21 2021