If Alexander the Great had gone south

[Ghostmojo]

His long term plan was to go west wasn't it? An aspiration Pyrrhos inherited. My view is that had he lived he may well have taken on Carthage (via Spain and from Egypt) and made the Mediterranean a long term Makedonian rather than Roman sea. Had Alexander not died in Babylon and survived into a ripe old age - returned to Greece and modified some of his more eccentric behaviour - developing lasting institutions in the western Hellenistic world, then the gradual Romanisation of Europe might never have happened ... well, not in quite the same way.