What if Alexander the Great Never Died Young? | Alternate History Hub | History Teacher Reacts

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  • เผยแพร่เมื่อ 24 ม.ค. 2025

ความคิดเห็น • 91

  • @MrTerry
    @MrTerry  3 ปีที่แล้ว +50

    What changes if Alexander didn't die so young?

    • @TheMasonK
      @TheMasonK 3 ปีที่แล้ว +10

      He’s defeated eventually. Unless he somehow tempers his lust for conquest. Every great general in history eventually finds someone who can beat him. Alexander died before he got his.

    • @Longshanks1690
      @Longshanks1690 3 ปีที่แล้ว +6

      His empire may pass to his son, and grow in his later life, but it would eventually fall apart. It was far too large and diverse to be managed effectively by a Greek elite.

    • @shi9461
      @shi9461 3 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      I like your shirt a lot

    • @justsomeguy4517
      @justsomeguy4517 3 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      It's true. If there was a great general who this statement didn't apply to, than that general would've conquered the whole world!

    • @JorgeGutierrez-sr4if
      @JorgeGutierrez-sr4if 3 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      The world needs an internet historian reaction (Kony 2012 or fall of 76?)

  • @Strathaczar
    @Strathaczar 3 ปีที่แล้ว +28

    I think with this kind of thing, he's just picking what he thinks would happen and is taking a stand on it. He usually states, at the end of his vids, "this is just one possible timeline..." so chances are he's just putting something out there that could invariably have happened in the scenario outlined using empirical information that exists today.

  • @Thoray
    @Thoray 3 ปีที่แล้ว +26

    Alexander was just The Emperor testing mankind. He'll be back in 20k years

    • @Brother_O4TS
      @Brother_O4TS 3 ปีที่แล้ว

      Goes well with his lore. I also find it hilarious that he killed himself with excessive drinking

    • @Ad-ek3kg
      @Ad-ek3kg 3 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      @@Brother_O4TS Is this how he died? I read that as malaria.

    • @occam7382
      @occam7382 2 ปีที่แล้ว +4

      @@Ad-ek3kg, nobody really knows how he died, but one of the more likely causes was probably alcohol poisoning. Dude did drink a lot, especially after his "friend" died, so it's not impossible that his liver keeled over and took him with it.

    • @OGVade
      @OGVade 2 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      @@occam7382 they were just really good roommates, you see..

    • @occam7382
      @occam7382 2 ปีที่แล้ว +4

      @@OGVade, that's what Hollywood would have you think, isn't it?

  • @kurumachikuroe442
    @kurumachikuroe442 3 ปีที่แล้ว +2

    3:24 "Friend with benefits" is a more apt description

  • @v0rtexbeater
    @v0rtexbeater 3 ปีที่แล้ว +19

    Hey Mr. Terry, continuing with the topic of Alexander the great, you should react to "The greatest speech in history" by Epic History TV

  • @Longshanks1690
    @Longshanks1690 3 ปีที่แล้ว +51

    My guess would be that, long term, honestly the same as what happened in our timeline. The Empire was FAR too vast and unwieldy to be a coherent political force that lasted long.
    The difference is that rather than Alexander’s generals carving out parts of the empire for themselves, you could see native rebellions, so an ethnically Egyptian pharaoh could return to prominence, a distinctly Persian Empire or the Greek states could splinter again and Macedonia return to the obscurity it was in before Philip, just to name a few possibilities. All of this, however, does not affect the rise of Rome which would sweep over the area in due course no matter what. I think that the individual players of this time in history were largely irrelevant and that the general flow of history would have progressed as it did, with breakup and collapse. I think the only other possible consequence would be the hellenisation of these regions progressing much faster than in OTL, but again, these would prove largely the same as we know them with not many changes. Alexander’s empire was only held through his - comparatively short - life through his sheer force of will alone.
    However, there is one distinct change I think you would see in this timeline, namely the city of Babylon. Alexander had planned to make it the capital of his empire and if he had a definitive heir, this city would have been built up as one of the great cities of the east again rather than the Seleucids having a much more erratic administration. Assuming that it would have a Greek elite, and following the breakup of the other parts of the Empire, the region we now know as Iraq today, as well as Syria and Jordan as well possibly, could have been the heart of a merger state in Mesopotamia with a melting pot of cultures overseen by a Greek elite, comparable to the Ptolemaic dynasty of our timeline, with the direct heirs of Alexander making spurious claims about reclaiming the Empire but this state would soon have been annexed too either by Rome or Persia/Parthia. Alternatively, it could be the same as Armenia and be and effective buffer state between the two great empires…at least until the rise of Islam, which would surely have been the first great conquest of the Caliphate.
    Suffice it to say that there are doubtless a lot of short term interesting consequences that could have arisen out of Alexander being able to pass his empire onto a direct son, but in the long term, it would be remarkably similar to our own version of events with the Greek culture that was once so prominent in the region barely a footnote in history now, and the only real change being that Babylon would continue to be a city in the modern day having been built up by Alexander’s successors but not much else of genuine, time changing significance.

  • @celter.45acp98
    @celter.45acp98 2 ปีที่แล้ว +4

    10:29 he was saying Carthage would survive because it was already well established at that point where rome was not so it's culture would survive

  • @Great_Olaf5
    @Great_Olaf5 3 ปีที่แล้ว +47

    There's actually another alternate history channel that did a video on this topic, Whatifalthist. I can't quite recall what it was titled, but he has a very different opinion on what would have resulted (I think). He's also got an excellent series on modern geopolitics that's worth checking out, for your own personal watching if not to react to.

    • @Hotasianchick
      @Hotasianchick 3 ปีที่แล้ว +16

      No offense but Whatifalthist barely understands economics or geopolitics. Watch his video on inflation in the US and he just gets so much wrong.

    • @Dmcs1917
      @Dmcs1917 3 ปีที่แล้ว +5

      @@Hotasianchick plus, his videos are pretty poor compared to other alt history channels

    • @amberfarmer2869
      @amberfarmer2869 3 ปีที่แล้ว +8

      In my experience his channel isn't that great and he has a poor understanding of most of the things he talks about.

    • @TR7626
      @TR7626 3 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      @@Dmcs1917 I prefer MonsieurZ

  • @sarahellie4113
    @sarahellie4113 3 ปีที่แล้ว +5

    Hi can you please do more Extra Credits?
    I would really enjoy you doing there 1st crusade series

  • @jstrahan2
    @jstrahan2 2 ปีที่แล้ว +3

    Humankind is an OK game. "Humankind is an interesting but fairly safe riff on historical 4X that doesn't always rise to meet its potential." Fraser Brown of PC Gamer gave it a score of 71 out of 100. He wrote that he enjoyed the process of watching his civilization grow, but that he felt the gameplay was too numbers-focused and lacked the personality and narrative weirdness of Amplitude's earlier works."

  • @montiwajan
    @montiwajan ปีที่แล้ว +1

    9:15 nice reference

  • @calebpowers6119
    @calebpowers6119 3 ปีที่แล้ว +2

    Maybe divine rule in Italy would work for Alexander if it worked for the ceasers to a certain extent

  • @johnbooth1110
    @johnbooth1110 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    Paula Gott wrote a few books in this topic , revealing Alexander faked his own death,

  • @Wrath_Incarnate
    @Wrath_Incarnate 2 ปีที่แล้ว +2

    19:12 So I'm not seeing anyone else say this, so I'm going to anyway.
    You misunderstood what he meant by bringing up the purge of Alexander's heirs, it wasn't to say that he thought that it would happen again, he was saying it because due to that event, there's no basis to go off of whether Alexander's son and most likely heir would've been a successful or even competent rule thanks to the generals killing him before he could come to rule in order for them to secure their own power.

  • @andrewditton7226
    @andrewditton7226 3 ปีที่แล้ว +2

    As a shootout to Civilisation 6 there is a "scenario" (campaign) where you play as Alexander the great. You conquer Athens, Persia, some of the middle East and some of India.
    - Feel free to correct If I'm wrong -
    After 8 years of campaigning and I would be ready to go home too.

  • @bradenr867
    @bradenr867 3 ปีที่แล้ว +4

    You should react to drunk history Mr. Terry I think you’d like it
    I recommend
    Cleopatra or Al Capone

    • @MythosMaster1
      @MythosMaster1 3 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      Drunk history is great

  • @The_Alt_Vault
    @The_Alt_Vault 3 ปีที่แล้ว +3

    When you say it's not likely for religion based around a cult to alexandrite to exist outside of Egypt.under the Vatican they found some of the earliest depictions of Jesus in mosaics. And they depict his with a solar crown riding across the sky as well as looking far more like Alexander than you would think. A solar crown often being a thing given to Greek gods and Alexander which also existed on the collosus as well as busts of Alexander.
    So theirs more than enough evidence to say that Christianity at least in its early depictions had a much closer relationship to Alexander than you would think.

  • @user-nv6tc6eb9l
    @user-nv6tc6eb9l 3 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    You should react to The alexandriad by Malthius

  • @oliversherman2414
    @oliversherman2414 ปีที่แล้ว

    Time traveller: *Bumps chair*
    The timeline:

  • @delta2883
    @delta2883 3 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    You should React to Malthius' alexander vids

  • @tacobowler
    @tacobowler 3 ปีที่แล้ว +6

    I would expect that a Greek wouldn’t be knowledgeable enough to hold together such a vast empire. I expect he may have been able to hold it together for a few years, decade max, but eventually civil war tears it apart. He may have kept something resembling the Eastern Roman Empire after that, and that would have been powerful and may have stood up to Rome for a while. But this seems a little too best case for this what if.

  • @marcusharris3599
    @marcusharris3599 3 ปีที่แล้ว +5

    Alexander whole heartedly believed he was a son of a god, his mother even told him so and I do believe great heros in Greek religion could achieve Divinity

    • @occam7382
      @occam7382 2 ปีที่แล้ว +3

      Great heroes in Greek mythology usually were either demigods themselves, other supernatural beings, or really, really favored by the gods to the point that they essentially had cheat codes to the game of life.

    • @lavellelee5734
      @lavellelee5734 2 ปีที่แล้ว

      What powers do you think he had?

    • @gameover9390
      @gameover9390 ปีที่แล้ว

      @@lavellelee5734The most OP in existence, Main Character syndrome

  • @kubakornijenko1927
    @kubakornijenko1927 3 ปีที่แล้ว +20

    All hail the god emperror of man kind Alexander.

  • @Yichh
    @Yichh 3 ปีที่แล้ว +2

    Hew could you react to Sam o nella’s video called “weird laws around the world”?

  • @cxj810
    @cxj810 3 ปีที่แล้ว +3

    Without some sort of confederation built around a strong line of succession involving Alexander's own family, the Empire itself would have gone the way it did in the Original Timeline. Alexander was beginning to work on that when he died.
    Alexander was held in the regard he was by those who came after him because humanity had yet to see a conqueror of his imagination and talent. His kind would not come this way again. It was with good reason that Caesar himself wept at the base of a statue of Alexander in Iberia almost three hundred years after Alexander's death.

  • @MindToPage
    @MindToPage 3 หลายเดือนก่อน

    19:26 I think they were saying his Macedonian generals and people that knew him before probably never would’ve worshipped him as a God though. Just common people.

  • @MrGerrards23
    @MrGerrards23 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    As in all history you get a guy who wants to rule. People say democracy etc but no matter what it's just words

  • @friedrichnietzsche7376
    @friedrichnietzsche7376 ปีที่แล้ว

    15:12

  • @SouthernMercenary
    @SouthernMercenary 2 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    I would assume Carthage would survive because it was originally a greek colony. So culturally it would be similar enough to survive.

    • @occam7382
      @occam7382 2 ปีที่แล้ว

      Carthage was not Greek. The city was originally founded as a colony of the Phoenecians, the same people who inhabited Tyre, which Alexander destroyed during his conquest.

  • @OJ963
    @OJ963 3 ปีที่แล้ว +3

    Plz react to alternative history hub southern victory series

  • @Jan_Koopman
    @Jan_Koopman 3 ปีที่แล้ว +4

    I always thought Alexander the Great came after the Romans, that he tried to recreate the Roman empire...
    Guess it's some Mandela effect or something...

    • @kindadumb916
      @kindadumb916 3 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      What the fuck?

    • @dantecaputo2629
      @dantecaputo2629 2 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      Maybe you were thinking of Justinian or Charlemagne?

    • @gameover9390
      @gameover9390 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      Damn, that would make one hell of alternate history novel.

    • @Jan_Koopman
      @Jan_Koopman ปีที่แล้ว

      @@dantecaputo2629, probably Charlemagne.
      Alexander the Great = Alexander de Grote
      Charlemagne = Karel de Grote
      I probably mixed these two "de Grote"-s up...

  • @LucasBenderChannel
    @LucasBenderChannel 3 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    Hey Mr Terry! I don't know if you're also a social studies teacher, but I just made a video on the German political parties, that might be helpful :)

  • @chriswhis1134
    @chriswhis1134 3 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    I think that if he had survived, he may have reached China or whatever civilization was present there at the time. If that had happened, it would have changed everything.

  • @Legion_YT_
    @Legion_YT_ ปีที่แล้ว

    And I think the Roman republic was established a year or two earlier than democracy in Athens

    • @allstarlord9110
      @allstarlord9110 6 หลายเดือนก่อน

      😂😂😂😂😂

  • @paleogreg7427
    @paleogreg7427 11 หลายเดือนก่อน

    I thinks he gives the early manipular legions and Rome's resolve too little credit. Persia was a paper tiger and the Roman Republic was a little giant.

  • @OhavYisrail
    @OhavYisrail ปีที่แล้ว

    Well we could look at how Alexander treated the Jewish community in our timeline as a pretty good clue. By this time the policy of the Persian empire of toleration to the Jewish community (and other religions) was firmly in place and was continued for several centuries. Sikander remains a popular name particularly in the persian and mizrachi communities. The problem would come eventually with the Selucid's leading ultimately to Chanukah, but Alexander himself is not problematic.

    • @OhavYisrail
      @OhavYisrail ปีที่แล้ว

      I think it's far more likely that a version of Zoroastrianism would have become a dominant religion, or an evolution of greek religion that we can't even really imagine. With the mixing of peoples that would occur in this timeline it's a little difficult to believe that there would not have been some substantial change in the religious sphere, particularly as empires so enjoy using it as a tool to drive cultural cohesiveness.

  • @Merennulli
    @Merennulli 3 ปีที่แล้ว +2

    I always question the "if not for Rome, then all these other things would never have happened", but this one is particularly dubious. Christianity had very strong inroads in Greece before it reached Rome. This effectively replaces the Roman Empire with a similar scale Greek Empire. Much like the Roman Empire, Alexander was pushing integration, so if he went conquering like in the first scenario, it's likely he would have left an empire that, at the very least, would enable easier travel and a common language of trade. The key elements by which a religion spreads.
    That's not to say it wouldn't be completely changed. Much of Christian tradition borrows heavily from Germanic traditions, and Alexander barely touches Germanic territories here. In fact, much of what we think of as Christian (Catholic and Protestant) is shaped by interactions with Rome and Germanic tribes. In fact, the Greeks used crucifixion and the crucifixion of Jesus was demanded by the local Jewish leaders, not Rome, so it may even have had the same symbol. There are of course huge unknowns. Alexanderism may have become brutally oppressive over the intervening 400 years, giving no safe space for Christianity to develop and spread, or it could have been overly accepting, allowing myriad sects to form as happened under Rome, but without a central authority stepping in to force months of meetings that turned a fracture into splinter groups. There's also the fact that Paul was originally Saul, a Jewish Roman citizen played heavily into the spread of Christianity - something that may not have been possible under a Greek empire.
    I do agree with his later statement that the first scenario is over-optimistic, though. Alexander would definitely have wanted to keep conquering if he wasn't killed by his generals or broken by the death of his friend (we don't know if he was, but he certainly spent a lot on the funeral). If he was broken, then this is anticlimactic and he just retires to fade from history while his generals rule in his lifetime instead of after him dying. Having a pathetic ending softens the strength of his memory, so he may have been slightly less inspiring to future conquerors, but I think such heroes are more an excuse for aspiration, rather than a cause, and his success would still be revered and studied. If he wasn't broken, either his generals kill him, or he starts losing because of his increasing alienation of his generals and his failure to consolidate power. His success was massively impressive and there were elements of what he did early on that could easily have kept him going for decades further, but he was on a path to become a victim of his own growing ego. We don't know how he died precisely, but the fact that poison is so heavily suspected speaks volumes about the state of his relationship with his forces at the time.
    I really hope they cover "What if Publius Quintillius Varus didn't trust Arminius?" someday. There was a crucial moment where Rome had a strong inroad into conquering Germania but Varus believed Arminius who lead his legions into a trap where they were slaughtered. It turned Rome from a dominant force in the area to suddenly unwilling to overextend itself there through an absolutely devastating use of terrain to overcome skill, numerical and technological advantages. It's very possible Rome would have continued onward and eventually occupied most of Europe if not for that loss.

    • @Brother_O4TS
      @Brother_O4TS 3 ปีที่แล้ว

      But Rome was already the dominant power after Greece. The Greek Empire never had contact had contact with Christianity since it was started by Jesus during the Roman Empire's occupation (who also conquered the Greeks) of Israel. And it was Rome, through Constantine, who legitimized Christianity as a religion

  • @Jaynat_SF
    @Jaynat_SF 3 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    My thoughts about what would be the fate of the Jews and Christians (if they'd even exist) in this timeline:
    When Antiochus IV in our timeline sacked Jerusalem, turned it into a fortress and tried to push idol worship to the population the Jews revolted in retaliation (Maccabean revolt, the whole Hannukah story, you know it.) so if the Macedonians tried to push the Jews to worship Alexander in their own temple too hard we'd likely see something similar happen, though the result may be drastically different. In our timeline the Jews gained indiependence against the Seleucids after allying with the Romans, but in this alternate timeline there is no Rome to ally with and the Macedonians may have alot more resources to pull from. If the Jews gain their indiependence they'll have to defend it against a potentially much stronger and maybe more unified army that will want it back.
    So in the likely case where Judea does not gain indiependence and Jews may be persecuted for the rebelion, we have a very similar social climate to the one that made the Jews wish for the arrival of a Messiah, which lead to many Messianic claimants to pop up, such as Jesus. The story will start decades earlier and will be very different (without Roman cultular influences there probably won't be money lenders to expel from the temple or a sanhedrin to question or judge anyone.) but there will probably still be a bunch of messianic claimants saying they'll become the leaders of the Jewish people and liberate Judea, and the ruling Macedonians would probably want to get rid of any such people. And yes, maybe one of them will start a movement that could grow beyond a simple sub-group of Judaism.
    The real question is how such a movement that would break away from Judaism and become its own religion will evolve in a world like this. Many parts of Christianity as we know it today came to be under the Roman empire and were influenced by the traditions of the various people living in it. In a world where the there is no Rome but there is a united Macedonian empire who knows what cultures will influence early not-Christians?

  • @aaronTGP_3756
    @aaronTGP_3756 3 ปีที่แล้ว

    Alexander would have at least TRIED to conquer more territory.

  • @juliancarr-deavelon8410
    @juliancarr-deavelon8410 3 ปีที่แล้ว

    Cover bbc how ww1 started

  • @Spititoutloud10
    @Spititoutloud10 3 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    Only 4 dislikes. Nice

  • @josebjalin670
    @josebjalin670 3 ปีที่แล้ว +2

    Wow i m that bored i got the second comment lol

  • @allstarlord9110
    @allstarlord9110 7 หลายเดือนก่อน

    The whole planet would speak Greek

  • @Brother_O4TS
    @Brother_O4TS 3 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    But Jesus would still be born, regardless of who controls Israel

  • @Groggle7141
    @Groggle7141 3 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    Modern Democracy didn't start with the Greeks or Romans. Modern Democracy is mostly based of off nobles and parliaments in Renaissance. American democracy is based on the British Parliament. And modern Republics are based on the American, British, and French systems of government

  • @taofist
    @taofist 8 หลายเดือนก่อน

    Why doubt people's naivety re the religion, when you look at the history of Christianity and Islam???

  • @EpicDoodlingAndStuff
    @EpicDoodlingAndStuff 3 ปีที่แล้ว

    9th

    • @AjarTadpole7202
      @AjarTadpole7202 3 ปีที่แล้ว

      Translate to english: cat
      is youtube drunk again

  • @justsomeguy4517
    @justsomeguy4517 3 ปีที่แล้ว +2

    Ah Afghanistan,.. the place where Empires go to die. That includes us btw! The US went to Afghanistan, lost the war and now our economy is now on the verge of TOTAL COLLAPSE!!!!

    • @MrZZ-py4pq
      @MrZZ-py4pq 3 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      blame biden