01-22-2009, 06:28 PM
Quote:Short Answer: History stays the same!hock:
Macedonia had no shortage of 'strong men' talented leaders ready willing and able to take over.....Attalus for one and not forgetting there was a 'legitimate' King whom Philip had ousted - his nephew Amyntas IV, son of King Perdiccas III (Philip's elder brother). And of course there was the half-brother of Alexander , Arrhidaeus ( who suffered some mental handicap) who would make a useful puppet for an Attalus, or someone else. In fact, thanks to the polygamy of Philip and other Macedonian kings, there were no end of contenders.... for example Leonnatus and Perdiccas ( both bodyguards of Philip, and eventually of Alexander! ) were of Royal descent :? As some of these men showed after Alexander's death in the wars of the Diadochi, they were 'strong talented leaders' in their own right.......
After a short internal Macedonian struggle for supremacy, the next 'strong man/ruler' builds on the advance force already in Asia in 336 BC and the invasion of rich Persia proceeds much as before, and thanks to the technological superiority of the Macedonian army - it's Torsion catapults allowing cities to be taken; Pike Phalanx superiority over Persian infantry; and new ( for Greek armies) Macedonian/Thessalian Cavalry strike force, Darius' kingdom falls as before.......
I agreee with this in general, but I think that the most important person in the kingdom would have been Parmenion. Whoever took power would have needed the man who, according to plutarch, was the only good general Philip had ever found.
Without Alexander's recklessness and overwhelming need to prove himself superior to Persia I think the conquest of Persia would have been a slower process. The Macedonians might have accepted Darius' offer of half the kingdom, before consolidating and taking the rest.
I doubt that anyone other than alexander would have bothered going on into India, but that made no significant impact on European history.
The most significant difference would have come in religion.
Alexander's decision to declare himself a god had no political worth and only served to feed his ego and alienate everyone around him. It is very unlikely that anyone else would have made such a bold and unprecidented claim.
Without the divine Alexander the hellenistic successors would not have been worshipped as gods and the hellenistic countries would have had no reason to ask permission to establish a cult to Augustus. Therefore there would never have been an Imperial cult.
The image of Jesus is also influenced by images of alexander as the son of Ra, with the sun behind him, illuminating him. It was this image of Alexander which was imitated by other hellenistic rulers and evolved into the halo of the Christian faith. Alexander also chose not to wear a beard, in order to be associated with Apollo, the god of the sun. Without Alexander there would be no reson for greeks and Romans to adapt an Egyptian image to serve their own needs.
Therefore if Alexander had been assassinated angels would not have had halos.
Colin
