If Alexander the Great had gone south

[jkaler48]

Into central Africa rather than east to India? What would be the result today?

[Dan Howard]

The European imperial armies would still have come in and carved pieces out for themselves in the 19th century. The only difference would be more African towns called Alexandria.

[Epictetus]

Could the result have been something like the Seleucid Empire in Africa? I suppose it is possible, but there would be some significant problems to overcome.

What about contact with a wider Greek world? Trade and other contact would have to go through the Sahara, through Egypt or perhaps along one of the shorelines. If such routes were difficult, the growth of material wealth and the transmission of culture would be stunted.

Then there are societal problems. I don't know about the urbanisation phase of central Africa at the time. For a Greek-influenced urban society to develop, would the area first have to go through a proto-urban phase?

[Robert Vermaat]

Into central Africa rather than east to India? What would be the result today?

To what possible end would he have done that? To find Hi Brasil or something? While Persia was *the* opponent to beat, after which a natural move into Asia presented itself, what reason would Alexander have had to go south after pacifying Egypt? A move West into Europe would be a more logical course (but with hardly a worthy opponent, other than perhaps the Greek colonies scattered around the Mediterranean).

[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.