“Until 265 BC, Rome was still struggling to master its own backyard, and even then the Romans didn’t get all of Italy under their thumb until well into the first century BC.”Ī more tempting proposition for Alexander would have been Carthage, on the northern coast of Africa. “Not to Rome,” asserts Cartledge, though. His wish to head deeper east may have been stamped out, but there were many more targets for his ambition.

With his empire governed by appointees and client kingdoms, Alexander would have been able to focus on expansion.

He even named one, Bucephala, after his horse Bucephalas. In other words, Alexander would have anticipated, in miniature, the Roman Empire’s system of ‘client kings’ – subordinate, but largely independent local or native rulers operating at the fringe of the empire.”Īs his army swept across Egypt, Persia and farther east, Alexander celebrated by founding as many as 70 towns and cities, more than a dozen of which he named after himself. “Chandragupta Maurya then founded the Mauryan kingdom in 321 BC, something Alexander would not just have tolerated, but actively encouraged. Immediately after the Hydaspes battle, Alexander gave back to defeated Porus his own territory, and indeed added more,” says Cartledge, which meant maintaining a strong presence in the region via a proxy. “He had seen the wisdom of devolving some local government. Your guide to King Cnut: the fierce Danish warrior who ruled England.From conqueror to youth icon: who was Cyrus the Great?.“He wasn’t absolutely the world’s greatest administrator, rather a better conqueror,” says Cartledge, but the establishment of his empire utterly relied on effective administration, as adding further territories would stretch his resources and armies too thin to control.Īlexander seemed to prefer a wholesale reliance on elites from the captured regions, as opposed to Macedonians or other Greeks, to act as satraps (provincial governors or viceroys) and for chief military officers.Įxplore some of the other famous Greats in history: Had he lived, he almost certainly would have set about securing his conquests while preparing for another invasion, this time to Arabia. “But he does seem to have taken revenge: he had no need to return to Persia via modern Baluchistan along the Persian Gulf, where fighting and disease caused the unnecessary deaths of thousands of his own troops.” When did Alexander the Great die and how old was he?Īlexander returned to Babylon, where he died in 323 BC aged 32. If even that combination, reliant on his aura, didn’t do the trick, clearly there was to be no going on,” says Cartledge. “Alexander tried everything: threats, shaming, promises, self-flagellation, feigned or genuine illness.

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