12. Alexander the Great’s Early Death Might Have Saved Rome
Alexander the Great conquered the Persian Empire, then pushed beyond through Central Asia and into India, before his soldiers finally had enough and refused to march any further. Thwarted from further conquests in the east, Alexander began planning to conquer the west. Reportedly, he sent the pioneering Greek geographer Pytheas to the West on a scouting trip and spying mission. Some Ancient sources contend that Alexander planned to march westwards from Macedonia to Ilyricum, thence into Italy, before continuing on to Gaul and Hispania. Others claim that he planned to circumnavigate the Mediterranean by land, marching west from Egypt to conquer Libya, Carthage, Numidia, and Mauretania. He then intended to cross the narrows near the Pillars of Hercules to invade Hispania, then Gaul, before turning east to conquer Italy, then finally back to Macedon. In either route, Italy, and the small but rising Roman Republic therein, were on Alexander’s agenda.
Rome could have been Erased
If Alexander had invaded Italy, he probably would have extinguished the Roman Republic in its infancy. In addition to brilliant generalship, Alexander had in the elite Macedonian phalanx and Companion Cavalry the world’s best infantry and cavalry. Rome at the time was simply not in Alexander the Great’s league (see map above). A century and a half later, Roman legions bested the Macedonian phalanx in the battles of Cynoscephalae and Pydna, but the Roman legion of the 4th century BC had not yet evolved into the Ancient world’s best military unit. In Alexander’s day, the legion was still a spear-based force, a mixture of Greek and Samnite influences. The force was more akin to the traditional phalanx of Sparta, than it was to the 2nd-century sword-based legions that conquered Macedonia. How the world might have looked if Alexander had not died so young is one of history’s greatest what ifs.