What if Alexander the Great Never Died Young?

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 be 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 out more click the link in the description but as for now let's talk about a man who built an empire of his very own in the span of a decade his empire had grown from a small peninsula to the entire known 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. 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 let's say in this alternate timeline alexander continues to live on 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 in this alternate 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 loved 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 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 too 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 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 racians and venenti along the way 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 after alexander'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 driven back up 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 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 is a collection of cultures and languages not yet influenced by rome 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 would be connected via a new 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 perhaps 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 alexander could have conquered more territory and also prevented the 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 in our 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 while 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 came from the gods 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 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 without latin the writing system of western europe is instead based on the greeks no shock there but without such a blatant genocide of the gallic 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 think about how the slavic people adopted writing from the byzantines taking their form of greek and transforming it into what's known as cyrillic today without rome there is never the spread of christianity nor the adoption of any middle eastern religion monotheism is not the norm pagan pantheons of any region still remain there is no vatican which seats itself in rome there is no continuation of rome a title that 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 [Music] yet i'm gonna be honest this is still the best case scenario for a the great 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 already they wanted to retire rich and with their new spoils of war the persians were defeated and that was the main thing that mattered and alexander over the years had become increasingly more erratic and less greek dressing in persian clothing and even wishing for his own men 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 in his new empire and whether or not that would have been a success we'll never know had he been successful in his goals 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 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 and as you transition from each stage of history you can incorporate the ideas and cultures of other groups to blend and build a civilization 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 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 epic game store xbox game pass and wow even nvidia 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 own video schedule thanks humankind um

Channel: AlternateHistoryHub

Views: 1,084,413

Keywords: AlternateHistoryHub, What if Alexander the Great Never Died So Young, Alexander the Great, Greek history, alexander the great history, alexander history, macedonian history, macedonia empire, hellenistic world, selucids, alternate history alexander, humankind, humankind game, what if alexander the great never died, phillip II, alexander the great conquests, what if, what if alexander, alternate history what if

Id: 42Rw-L-7UUo

Length: 12min 33sec (753 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 23 2021