In an AH essay I've been re-reading about Alexander dying prematurely at Granicus, there's a brief section that talks about his father Philip's assassination, right as he's preparing for a campaign against Persia. Leaving out the debate over who was behind his murder (Pausanias due to a personal grudge, his son Alexander, his wife Olympias, or Darius III), how might a Macedonian invasion with Philip at its head have played out? Would it have been much more limited in its goals and achievements, or reached as far as under Alexander in OTL, or even further? And, presuming either of the latter two outcomes, how much different would a Greco-Macedonian empire have looked or fared with first Philip as monarch, then a still-living Alexander after his death? Or might Alexander not have waited for Philip's passing to claim the kingship--maybe even at some point during the campaign against Persia, thereby throwing it and the G-M empire outcome into doubt?
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Philip the Great?
- Thread starter MAC161
- Start date
TR1996
Well-known member
- Location
- Adelaide, South Australia
Depends on how long Philip lives, of course, but are there more credible challengers to Alexander's accession here? There's that shadowy half-brother who may or may not exist, Caranus, and perhaps the possibility of male issue from Cynane's marriage to Amyntas IV?
Worth thinking about, if there's tension between Alexander and Philip, and there's other potential successors around...
Worth thinking about, if there's tension between Alexander and Philip, and there's other potential successors around...
- Location
- Derbyshire
Philip is, I think, the sort of person who'd have accepted a peace offer for half the Persian Empire and set about consolidating that rather than pushing on for the rest.
Which particularly if Alexander is proving his worth as a general and wants to press onwards could lead to some interesting tensions.
Which particularly if Alexander is proving his worth as a general and wants to press onwards could lead to some interesting tensions.
Philip is, I think, the sort of person who'd have accepted a peace offer for half the Persian Empire and set about consolidating that rather than pushing on for the rest.
Which particularly if Alexander is proving his worth as a general and wants to press onwards could lead to some interesting tensions.
What would "half the Persian Empire" have constituted, most likely? And would this have satisfied the (presumably pan-Hellenic) desire to avenge the burning of Athens and other Persian depredations in the 5th century BC, as the OTL destruction of Persepolis is considered by some historians to have been intended to? If not, that might make things dicey for Philip--esp. if Alexander wants to keep going, as you say.
heraclius
Well-known member
- Location
- New Forest, Hampshire, England, UK
I remember there was an early Alt Hist article by the historian Arnold Toynbee on what could have happened if Philip had not been assassinated in summer 336 but had discovered or suspected that Alexander was involved in the plot and executed him, then had gone on to invade Asia Minor himself as planned. This more or less has the invasion developing as per Alexander's plan as far as the offer of half of the Persian Empire in return for peace by Darius in 331, by which time Macedonia has conquered Asia Minor, Syria, Palestine, Phoenicia (essential to cut the Persian fleet off from its main harbours) and Egypt. In OTL when this offer was made Parmenion, Philip's ex-lieutenant who was around P's age, advised Alexander to accept it - 'I would if I was you'. Alexander replied 'So would I, if I was Parmenion', rejected it, and went on to fight and win the battle of Gaugamela near modern Mosul and then take Babylon and Persia. In Toynbee's version, the offer is made to Philip and he accepts it - and the frontier between the Greek world and the Persian world is fixed at the Euphrates, more or less at the Roman/ Parthian frontier of the C1st AD. So we have a Macedonian-run and colonised Greek-led , Greco-Asia Minor/ Aramaic/ Egyptian kingdom from Macedon to the Euphrates, as a sort of proto-'Byzantine' state, acting as long-term hegemon of Greece; and Philip lives to his early 80s like Antigonus 'Monopthalmus' and Seleucus and dies c.300, succeeded by his son by his last wife, Attalus' daughter, who he had married in 337. (In real life Olympias had her and her child murdered once Alexander was on the throne - this 'Borgia-style' family saga would be great on TV, possibly adapting Mary Renault's novel 'Fire From Heaven'. The modern film version of the Alexander story with Angelina Jolie as Olympias was not much good in my view.)
This is more or less my guess as to how a Philip-run invasion and campaign would have worked out, as Philip was not a man to run risks unless , for one particular strategic feint to confuse an enemy, he already knew the landscape intimately (eg in his wars in hilly Phocis around Delphi with the Phocian league and later with Athens/ Thebes in 339-8). Strategically he needed to take Phoenicia with its ports to cut off the enemy fleet and deny it its bases, and also to keep the local fleet in his hands after the war so it could not be used by Persia to restart the war and attack Greece by sea - I think Alexander was already running dangerous risks as early as 333 by not bothering to respond to the Persian navy at sea whatever it did in the Aegean (and in risking his life at the Granicus), long ahead of his dubious strategy of marching his entire army across the Gedrosian desert from the Indus back to Persia in 325 without a Plan B in case he got cut off from Nearchus' fleet and their supplies. Possibly if Philip thought he could not trust Darius to keep to any terms , or had proof that D was behind the 336 assassination-plot, he would have sought out a final battle in Mesopotamia to smash his army and make sure that Persia would collapse - or even taken Babylon and gone on to sack Persepolis and break up Persia. (The 'Trajan strategy' of 116-17, four centuries early?). But I can't see him risking a full occupation of Persia; a Greek state running Mesopotamia and the entire Levant as far as the Bosphorus, a sort of proto-Seleucid realm (minus its Persian outliers) but with Macedon too, was feasible. Possibly Alexander would have done better to stop in 330 after overrunning Media and the Caspian shore, with Darius dead, or just to have tackled Bessus in Bactria in a swift 'dash' into the region in 329 then pulled out and left the Hindu Kush alone and never gone to India. The list of corrupt or incompetent governors who he left behind and had to get rid of in 325-4 (plus Harpalus looting the treasury)is an indictment of his governance that his fans tend to forget about; was Philip a better civil administrator if not general?
A revival of the imagined Philippan strategy for the Levant by Rome, eg by Julian in the 360s , is also an intriguing prospect: breaking up Persia but not ruling it directly.
This is more or less my guess as to how a Philip-run invasion and campaign would have worked out, as Philip was not a man to run risks unless , for one particular strategic feint to confuse an enemy, he already knew the landscape intimately (eg in his wars in hilly Phocis around Delphi with the Phocian league and later with Athens/ Thebes in 339-8). Strategically he needed to take Phoenicia with its ports to cut off the enemy fleet and deny it its bases, and also to keep the local fleet in his hands after the war so it could not be used by Persia to restart the war and attack Greece by sea - I think Alexander was already running dangerous risks as early as 333 by not bothering to respond to the Persian navy at sea whatever it did in the Aegean (and in risking his life at the Granicus), long ahead of his dubious strategy of marching his entire army across the Gedrosian desert from the Indus back to Persia in 325 without a Plan B in case he got cut off from Nearchus' fleet and their supplies. Possibly if Philip thought he could not trust Darius to keep to any terms , or had proof that D was behind the 336 assassination-plot, he would have sought out a final battle in Mesopotamia to smash his army and make sure that Persia would collapse - or even taken Babylon and gone on to sack Persepolis and break up Persia. (The 'Trajan strategy' of 116-17, four centuries early?). But I can't see him risking a full occupation of Persia; a Greek state running Mesopotamia and the entire Levant as far as the Bosphorus, a sort of proto-Seleucid realm (minus its Persian outliers) but with Macedon too, was feasible. Possibly Alexander would have done better to stop in 330 after overrunning Media and the Caspian shore, with Darius dead, or just to have tackled Bessus in Bactria in a swift 'dash' into the region in 329 then pulled out and left the Hindu Kush alone and never gone to India. The list of corrupt or incompetent governors who he left behind and had to get rid of in 325-4 (plus Harpalus looting the treasury)is an indictment of his governance that his fans tend to forget about; was Philip a better civil administrator if not general?
A revival of the imagined Philippan strategy for the Levant by Rome, eg by Julian in the 360s , is also an intriguing prospect: breaking up Persia but not ruling it directly.
- Location
- Derbyshire
Of course, I doubt that Darius would long outlive the loss of half his Empire regardless of what Macedon does. It's the sort of thing that leads to plots, assassination attempts and dynastic overthrows. Whether you end up with a new strongman emerging quickly (i.e. Darius quickly dispatched, outlying revolts crushed, rump Empire is under control within a decade), after several decades of strife or not at all in the medium term would have very different effects on how defensible the new Macedonian Empire is. Especially in the latter situation, I can see a conquest of Mesopotamia occurring if it's under a weak local breakaway governor- especially if Alexander is alive and wanting to prove himself- charging off and conquering Babylon, setting himself up as the local governor and creating a powerbase there would be very in character I think.