I’m about to finish a historical novel about Alexander the Great. In hindsight his whole career seems a tragically wasted effort – he conquered an empire and on his death his generals tore it to pieces. Perhaps because he was too young and warlike to just settle down and rule and build a stable state. His father Philip II, at the time of his death, was preparing to invade the Persian Empire; Alexander simply stepped into his shoes. If Philip had lived, how would he have done it differently? (One obvious difference comes to miind: After Philip died, Thebes took the opportunity to revolt against the Macedonian hegemony, perhaps assuming Alexander was not the man his father was; and Alexander immediately retaliated by razing Thebes and selling its population into slavery. If Philip had not died when he did, that might have been avoided.)
I just read this last month, and enjoyed it.
I fall for Alexander’s version … only he could have done it. I guess it’s possible Philip could have. Alexander gives him full credit for creating the weapon that he wielded. I guess the best reason for not believing in Philip is the very fact that he was assassinated. It’s one thing to be the best fighter, but you had to be the best politician too.
The thing I kept wondering when I read it was “Could Alexander have made it to the Pacific?” I decided he could have, if not for the same failing as his dad … keeping the people behind him. China was pretty divided at the time. I think he’d have taken them out piece by piece.
Meh, I bet he would have broken down on the edge of modern Burma. That’s rough country.
Nobody knows who was behind the plot, but it was probably Darius for obvious reasons; no failure of political judgment on Philip’s part, only a failure of security. And the question is not whether Philip could have gone on conquering all the way to the Indus in one continuous expedition but whether he would have. It would have made more sense, once Mesopotamia and the Persian heartland were secured, to set down to politically reorganizing the empire, leaving later expansion for later. It might even have made more sense to leave Persia proper alone and settle, in the short term, for all the much richer lands to its west.
No way. Every mile would have taken Alexander further from his secure base and surrounded by greater and greater numbers of enemies. India would have swallowed him up. He only conceived the idea because he assumed the Ocean was just a little past the Indus; like all Greeks of his time he did not know how vast India is, and he was completely ignorant of the existence of China – which is separated from India by such geographic obstacles that the interaction of the two cultures was largely limited to the transfer of silk westward and Buddhism eastward.
Ancient India and China traded pretty extensively. both through the Silk Road and through Indian ports. Even Persian-Indian trade was pretty extensive, and I doubt that Alexander would be ignorant of the existance of China.
Still, by the time a bolt of silk was passed from one merchant’s hands to another’s several times and got as far west as the territory Alexander thought of as “India” (what is now Pakistan), it is likely no one would remember where it had come from ultimately. Even travelling merchants in those days led rather insular lives by modern standards. Also, it is a matter of historical record that Alexander believed the Ocean lay just beyond the horizon from the Indus. He did not understand how big India is, let alone Asia further east.
Well it dose actually lie just beyong the Indus, to the South to be accurate.
I can’t remember which text documents it, but up until Alexander hit India he conquers people. By the time he reaches India, he starts to make treaties. Alexander realises he can’t go further, because his army is starting to rebel - they have become homesick, they are tired of Alexander using Persian customs, they suffered miserably in the deserts east of Persia, and elephants freak them out. Alexander decides to turn around and head back. Philip would have had most of the same issues.
But would Philip have even bothered to strike so far to the east on his initial expedition?
Who knows? Quintus Curtius Rufus says Alexander was keen to go west because he’d been hearing about a rowdy place called Rome. This is very likely a fabrication to make Roman readers feel good about being Roman, but the point is that if we can’t know what Alexander’s real thinking and aims were because of the passage of time and our limited sources, let alone the actual cause of his death, then we’ve got little chance of gleaning what Philip might have done if he hadn’t been assassinated.
Having smashed the Spartans, the Athenians, the Thebans and everyone else worthy of smacking amongst the Greeks, he might have been willing to challenge Persia, but maybe not. He might have just been happy with his patch. Philip strikes me as having been around the block a few more times than Alexander - Philip lost an eye in battle, and may have had some more realistic opinions about the nature of mortality than his son, and might not have wanted to push his luck.
But, he was already gearing up to invade Persia when he died. That was the whole point of conquering Greece, it was a necessary stage in the long-term plan.
Yes, but “Persia” here has to be put in quotes. He was planning on invading Greek-speaking western Anatolia and had cloaked the whole enterprise in an aura of panhellenism. Just how far Philip had planned on pursuing his war beyond Ionia et al is a complete unknown ( for that matter Alexander’s own grand strategy, if any, is also a cipher ). Considering his amply displayed pragmatism, you can at least make a plausible argument that Philip would have settled for far less than Alexander, who was pretty much the walking definition of megalomania.
Philip almost certainly intended to conquer all of Anatolia in order to provide a secure buffer for Greek territory, and might have gone into Syria and Egypt. If the Persians weren’t willing to cry uncle and let him keep his conquests, he might have gone into Mesopotamia to cut out the heart of their empire. I don’t see him going any further east than that; it was more trouble than it was worth.
Wasn’t he starting to do exactly this when he died?
Yes, precisely. Security/unity for Macedonia and the Greeks was a lot different as a concept compared to assuming control of the entire Persian Empire. The League of Corinth, of which Philip was hegemon, was intended to create hellenic hegemony, not supplant the Persian regime.
Yes, but he didn’t have time left to accomplish much, because he had spent so much time conquering.