Rome versus Macedonia

Among the most popular OTLs is the Alexander the Great doesn’t die early counterfactual.
This OTL is really about a longer-lived Roman Empire, but it begins with Alexander surviving his illness (posioning or otherwise).
From Imperium Romanum, a history of Rome’s first 2000 years.

Chapter 2: Rome and Macedonia
In AUC 418, King Alexander III of Macedonia (also known as Megas Alexandros, or Alexander the Great) embarked upon the remarkable series of conquests that would, after a decade of campaigning, bring all of Asia west of the Indus River under his rule. However, at the very apex of his power and prestige, there were signs of tension and dissent within the royal court. Increasingly autocratic, paranoid and erratic, Alexander began to adopt Persian dress, customs and practices - the assumption of divinity, the title Shahanshah ("Great King" or "King of Kings")* and the ritual of proskynesis (prostration) - of which his fellow Hellenes vigorously disapproved. Although these were signs of his growing megalomania, Alexander had an additional motive. He was seeking to create a new, "orientalist" civilization that was to be a blending of Hellenic and Persian cultures. This was symbolized in his marriage to the Bactrian princess Roxana (Roshanak), the fruit of which union was his heir, Philip Nicephoros, and by his later marriage to the Persian princess Stateira.**
For several months after his return from the east in AUC 429, the Emperor reigned in his capital Babylon, comprehensively reorganizing his empire along orientalist lines. He had already begun planning a new campaign, the conquest of the Arabian peninsula. In 423, following the murder of Parmenion, arguably the Macedonians’ best general after Alexander himself, Arabian tribesmen had raided into southern Mesopotamia. This incident was used as a pretext for invasion a decade hence. The fleet was thus expanded and refitted. Building on the experience of the Nearchus voyage from India, Alexander had decided upon a maritime campaign against Arabia.
A sudden and severe illness, problems with consolidating his absolute monarchy and delays in the fleet preparations caused a frustrating last-minute postponement. However, in the early summer of 430, Alexander finally launched his Arabian enterprise. Sailing from his ports in Mesopotamia, he first took the island of Tylos (modern Telmun) to operate as a naval base. From there, Alexander launched a direct attack on Maketa (modern Omana), a former Persian province that had broken away following the death of Darius Codomannus. Thereupon taking advantage of the winter wind patterns, the fleet rounded the south-eastern tip of the peninsula to deliver the army to the fabled lands of southern Arabia: Sabaea, Timna, Minaea, Hydramataea.
While Alexander himself directed the land offensive, Nearchus continued northwards with part of the navy, along the Red Sea. In the meantime, another expedition under the general Perdiccas had advanced into north-western Arabia, quickly subduing the Nabataean city of Petra. Although the interior was to remain untamed and unexplored, in a campaign lasting barely one year Alexander had conquered the Arabian littoral, added rich provinces to the empire and subdued the restive tribes of the desert fringe. Rumors of his unstable mental state and fragile physical health were quickly dispelled.
At barely 35 years of age, Alexander already ruled the world’s largest empire. Still, his thirst for conquest seemed far from sated, his dominions less than secure. To the west, the growing power of Rome threatened to overshadow the Hellenic states of southern Italia (the Italiotes, poleis Italiote) and Sicilia, which Alexander now presumed to bring under his protection. Moreover, the Poenic city of Carthage in north Africa, having extended control over much of the central and western Mediterranean basin, menaced the Italiotes and confronted Macedonian ally Cyrenaica on the western flanks of Aegypt.
Rome and Carthage each posed a direct challenge to Hellenic and thus Macedonian commercial and military domination of the entire Mediterranean. Since his conquest of the east, the Emperor had received peace-seeking embassies from Carthage, Rome and the Italiote cities, but a three-way contest for supremacy was inevitable.
The question was whether the advance would be made along the European or African shore of the Mediterranean. The latter, held only tenuously by a Carthage presently weakened by internal strife, looked the more attractive prospect. On the other hand, in Italia the Romans were engaged in a costly and seemingly impossible struggle against the Samnites and in intermittent war with the Etruscans and recalcitrant Latins. The Italiote cities, wavering between appeals to Rome and to a succession of Hellenic potentates for assistance against hostile local tribes, appeared on the verge of extinction, unable to unite in common cause.
There was an opportunity here to bring the Italiote and Sicilian Hellenes into the empire and to eliminate a potential rival to Macedonian hegemony.
A casus belli already existed, in the fate of King Alexander of Epirus, uncle and brother-in-law of Megas Alexandros. In AUC 421, he had crossed over to Italia on the invitation of the city of Tarentum to provide assistance against Lucanian, Bruttian and Samnite incursions. At first achieving considerable success, he arranged with the Romans for a joint attack upon the Samnites; but the Tarentines, suspecting him of designs to carve out his own empire, turned against him. He lost the support of the local Hellenes, and in 422 he was defeated and killed at Pandosia. The future Emperor announced a period of mourning for his slain relative. Here was the motive, a decade later, for intervention. The impending confrontation between the Hellenes and Carthaginians provided the opportunity.
* In Roman style, he and his successors will be referred to hereinafter as "Emperor".
** The naming of his son Philip would appear to refute claims of bad blood between Alexander and his father.
To be continued...

Rome allied with Carthage in the future?

They will need an alliance clearly to resist Alexander, although I have my doubts about the possibility to resist an all attack of Alexander but if Alexander has some problems in the east like for example Chandragupta or some important rebellions in the persian provinces could be that Rome could survive, in any case I have a lot of curiosity how Rome will get to survive to a confrontation with Alexander.

Part 2

Hellenes and Carthaginians had come into conflict as early as AUC 272, when the Carthaginian general Hamilcar attacked the Sicilian cities, as a putative ally of the Persian king Xerxes in his great invasion of Hellas; and again in 348, with Hannibal Mago and his successor Himilco. Both campaigns were dismal failures. Under the leadership of Siracusa, the Sicilian Hellenes eventually expelled the Carthaginians from all but a small corner of the island. Nevertheless, the latter were able to expand their control over the islands of Sardinia, Corsica and Melita.
In nearby Italia, by the time of Alexander’s exploits in Asia Roman supremacy the centre of the peninsula had been assured by the conquest of Campania and the establishment of a new Italian confederation (in 414), but thereafter interrupted by defeats at the hands of the Samnites (in 431 at Caudium and in 437 at Lautulae). With Roman power temporarily in eclipse, in 435 the recently installed tyrant of Siracusa, Agathocles, though wary of Alexander’s grand ambitions, entered into an uneasy alliance with Macedonia.
Preoccupied with the completion of his Arabian campaign and the unification of his empire, Alexander had so far shown little interest in affairs in the west.
The emboldened Agathocles provoked renewed war with Carthage, but he achieved only moderate success. Civil strife at home undermined the tyrant’s efforts to unite the Sicilian Hellenes, and the Carthaginians quickly regained control of the western half of the island, despite their own domestic problems. In desperation, Agathocles concluded a new treaty, making his city effectively a client state of Macedonia. In 436, admiral Nearchus, who had been engaged in exploratory voyages as far west as the Pillars of Heracles, was dispatched to Siracusa. As well as being an accomplished mariner, Nearchus was also a skilled commander of land forces, and he arrived in time to thwart a Carthaginian attempt to return to the offensive.
Alexander himself was diverted by disorders in the east. Most pressingly, a permanent settlement had to be found for some of the outlying provinces of the empire - Armenia, Cappadocia and Bithynia - which had been asserting their autonomy. These were subdued and reduced to tributary status by the general Craterus, who had been recalled from assignment in Macedonia. The Emperor thereupon took personal command on the northern frontiers, consolidating his dominions west of the Hyrcanian Sea and, after 434, extending the border of Thracia to the River Danubius, advancing along the western and northern shores of the Euxine Sea. The Hellenic enclaves of Tyras and Olbia submitted in return for protection from the nearby Scythian tribes. Paerisades, tyrant of theCimmerian Bosporus, secured his throne by declaring allegiance to the Emperor, and was able to extend his dominion over the whole of the Chersonesus Taurica and the adjacent shore of Lake Maeotis.*
Only when Macedonian supremacy in the east had been reasserted did Alexander again turn his attention to the west. Yet the conflict for domination in the central Mediterranean now seemed most likely to commence not on the island of Sicilia but rather in Massilia, the southern coast of Gallia Maritima. Agathocles’ alliance with Macedonia put Sicilia off limits for renewed Carthaginian expansion. So the Poenic city concentrated instead on consolidating and extending her dominions in Hispania and along the north shore of the western Mediterranean. Under intensifying pressure, the Massiliotes appealed to whichever power might come to their aid. Massalia, the eponymous city of the region, had made a formal alliance with Rome in 363, at the time of the Gallic invasion of central Italia. Seventy-five years later, however, Rome was heavily engaged against the Samnites and unable to render assistance.**
Alexander, fresh from his latest victories and now seeking an opportunity in the west, saw this as the opening to outflank the upstart Romans, as well as to counter any future Carthaginian moves. As word quickly spread that the Emperor himself was on his way, Carthage turned for support to an old ally.
Rome at this time was in the process of recovery from her reverses in the Samnite war. The army was reorganized, with new weapons and tactics. The planting of colonies in strategic localities accelerated. Road construction, alliance-building, periodic raiding and envelopment replaced direct assault as the principal means of dealing with the Samnites.
In 441, the Romans took another step into the unknown with the creation of a naval squadron, manned largely by Hellenes. Meanwhile, with the Galles quiescent in the north, Rome consolidated her dominion over the Latins and Etruscans. The extension of full citizenship rights or half-citizenship (civitas sine suffragio) to the Latins ensured the loyalty of peoples who just a few years earlier had taken the field against their overbearing neighbour. In Rome itself, the Struggle of the Orders was nearing its conclusion. The new senatorial oligarchy, a combination of patricians and wealthy plebeians, would provide stable and efficient government for a unified state and a nascent empire.
In AUC 404, Rome and Carthage had signed a commercial agreement recognizing each other’s spheres of influence. Since then, the Roman position had been substantially weakened by conflict with the Samnites; but the Carthaginians also faced difficulties. A more comprehensive treaty in 437 committed the two powers to come to each other’s aid in the event of attack by a third party.
Meanwhile, the Italiote cities, already in a state of decline, were placed in a quandary. The Romans were natural allies against the Samnites and their cousins, the Lucanians and Bruttian, but had made little headway after ten years of war. On the other hand, the Hellenes had few illusions about the ultimate objectives of the insatiable Alexander or the calculating Agathocles. When Tarentum made her own compact with Siracusa, her powerful navy combined with the fleets of her Sicilian ally to form a potentially invincible force, and her frightened neighbours sought the protection of Rome and Carthage.
Against the counsel of his closest advisers, and in contradiction of his stated aim of avenging the death of Alexander of Epirus, the Emperor chose an alliance with Siracusa and Tarentum over cooperation with the other Hellenic states of Italia. Yet he turned his immediate attention not to the central Mediterranean but to the coastline of the Hadriatic Sea. In a swift campaign in 439-440, the Illyrian tribes who resisted Macedonian hegemony were routed, and the frontier pushed far to the north. In the meantime, Nearchus continued his preparations for war in Massilia, while the generals Perdiccas and Craterus remained in Asia. Having thus shored up his arrangements in the east and secured his homeland against possible Roman counter-attack, Alexander set off for Sicilia in the early summer of 441.
Even as the Emperor arrived in Siracusa, fighting had broken out between the Massiliotes and the Carthaginians. The Romans, torn between two alliances and anyway preoccupied with the struggle in Samnium, were powerless to intervene. However, taking advantage of a truce with the Samnites, in 440 the Consul C. Junius Bubulcus Brutus struck south with an army of Romans and their Hellenic allies to besiege Tarentum. Though unable to take the city and forced to withdraw, Junius achieved the vitally important goal of distracting Alexander from his intended campaign in Massilia. The Samnites renewed their attacks on Roman outposts but were defeated by the Consul M. Valerius Corvus and forced back into their mountain strongholds. Junius now joined his colleague in a major offensive against the Samnite bastions, although not with unqualified success. He was thereafter diverted north to deal with the Etruscans who had now aligned themselves with the Samnites (despite lingering resentment over the Samnite occupation of their Campanian domains a century earlier) and the Macedonians.
The Romans faced a most daunting task in taking on the undefeated might of Alexander and his empire, even with the support of the Carthaginians and Italian Hellenes. Yet Alexander tarried in Siracusa. The war in Massilia was going well, Nearchus muscling the Carthaginians back towards Hispania proper. Rumors began to circulate that the Emperor was ill. Certainly his heavy drinking sessions and recurring bouts of malaria and paranoia had enervated him in the past. Irrespective of any such speculation, concerns for the viability of his political arrangements in the east had made him uncharacteristically hesitant about committing himself and his limited military resources to a conflict far from home. With his best commanders engaged in pacifying Illyria and the northern frontiers, or fighting in Massilia and garrisoning Siracusa, control in Macedonia, Asia and Aegypt had been left in the hands of inefficient and corrupt deputies whose activities provoked unrest and drained the imperial treasury.
In 442, Alexander suddenly returned to Macedonia and shortly departed for Alexandria, the city he had founded in Aegypt, where it quickly became evident that his intention was to establish a new imperial capital. It seemed that he was styling himself in the manner of an Aegyptian pharaoh rather than a Persian or Babylonian despot. To his dismayed ministers and the distrustful Macedonian nobility, it had become clear that Alexander’s promotion of his personal divinity was not just a matter of political expediency. Even so, no one - least of all the Romans - doubted that he would long resist the glory of ploughing fresh fields of conquest.
* Although Hellene, the Cimmerian Bosporus, named after a local barbarian people, was so called to distinguish it from the more familiar Bosporus separating Thracia from Asia.
** The eponymous city is herein called by its original Hellenic name, Massalia, the region by the Romanized Massilia.

Part 3

It was in North Africa that Alexander struck. In 444, leading a force of Macedonians, Hellenes and Libyan mercenaries, and leaving Persian and other native troops to guard the Asiatic provinces, the Emperor set out westwards from Aegypt, subduing the restless tribes threatening Cyrenaica and rapidly advancing on Carthage. The city was far too strong for a seaborne landing in the immediate vicinity, but the towns of Lepcis, Oea and Sabratha quickly fell. The Carthaginian senate in despair deposed their king, Hamilcar, and sued for peace. The great city became a Macedonian subject ally and would never entirely recover its former power and prestige. The Carthaginians were obliged to evacuate Sicilia and relinquish the island of Sardinia.
Bomilcar, nephew of a previous king Hamilcar, fled to Hispania to organize continued resistance. Declared an enemy of the state, he made a fruitless attempt to recapture his homeland, with an attack on the western African city of Cartenna; and he launched an unsuccessful invasion of Sardinia (445). Thereafter, he set about consolidating and fortifying his Hispanian realm against assaults from Africa and Massilia.
Alexander was no doubt eager to continue the war; but there was a growing sentiment among the Macedonian elite that he was overextending his resources. Just as, two decades earlier, his troops had revolted on the Hyphasis River in India, now his closest confidants were openly questioning the Emperor’s policies. A conspiracy among several of his commanders in Macedonia alerted him to the dangers of prolonged absence from the centre of power. Reluctantly, and for the last time, MegasAlexandros turned homeward. By AUC 447 he was back in Alexandria, where he was to spend the remainder of his life.
This was not, however, the end of the Macedonian offensive in the west. The imperial prince, Philip son of Roxana, was now 18 years of age and eager to earn a reputation worthy of his appellation Nicephoros, "Victory-bringer". The young man took his father’s place in Siracusa, planning joint attacks on Hispania and Italia. His first success was on the island of Corsica, where the Carthaginian, Hellene and Etruscan colonies quickly yielded.
In Rome, the news of the Carthaginians’ submission caused near panic. Q. Fabius Rullianus, who had won major victories against the Etruscans and Samnites, was invested with dictatorial powers and immediately took the offensive against the Etruscans and Umbrians. The following year, 446, the Consuls P. Decius Mus and P. Cornelius Arvina won major victories against the Samnites, the Hernici and the Aequi. Nevertheless, Roman reserves were by now stretched perilously thin, and had the Macedonians and their allies advanced at this moment on all fronts, Rome would likely have been doomed. Instead, what followed over the next several years was a sequence of lost opportunities for the Macedonians.
Philip, eager to prove himself, stepped up preparations for an invasion of Italia. Nearchus, however, held back his warships, advising instead a landing in Hispania. The seasoned commander did not underestimate the resources and fighting spirit of the Romans and counselled against war with two enemies on widely separated fronts. Despite his obvious frustration, Philip acceded to the admiral’s judgement.
In 448, Bolmicar’s fleet was decisively beaten in an engagement off Gades, in southern Hispania, and the Carthaginian’s cause appeared lost. Yet this was not yet to be. The Romans had been making steady progress in Samnium, and in 447 they defeated an army of Galles marching southwards in alliance with the Samnites. That same year, Tarentum reversed her policy, concluding a treaty with Rome which altered the balance of power in southern Italia. The Tarentines had become justifiably suspicious of Macedonian intentions, and in particular the courting of their Hellenic rivals. Philip’s rage at this display of duplicity accounts for his impatience to move into Italia.
The Romans now had a secure base from which to defend their southern approaches and to menace the enemy coalition. The Macedonians were also having trouble with their Gallic allies in Massilia. The latter saw no benefit in replacing one aggressive intruder with another, and also no profit in assisting the Macedonians in Hispania.
On the eve of the planned expedition to Hispania, Nearchus was assassinated, almost certainly by agents of Philip. While the admiral’s death removed the major impediment to the young prince’s ambitions, it also disrupted Macedonian strategy. The navy was redirected to Sicilia for the Italian campaign; but summer had passed and a year was lost. By the time the fleet was ready to sail, in the spring of 449, Rome had raised six legions, and as many troops among her allies, fielding a total of some 50,000 men.*
The Romans were consolidating their power with hard-fought campaigns to suppress the Samnites and Umbrians and a crushing victory over an alliance of Galles and Etruscans. Among the latter, those advocating a diplomatic rather than military solution to Roman aggression finally won out. The Galles, on the other hand, ever unreliable partners, dispersed when their prospects for war booty evaporated.
These successes provided a critical respite for the Romans at that moment when Philip launched his assault on Tarentum. The city held out for several months until, after a Roman relief column was destroyed in Lucania, it fell in the late summer of 450. The city was razed and its population massacred, the survivors enslaved. Italia’s second city literally ceased to exist.
The fall of Tarentum inspired dread in Rome, but also a grim determination. With their northern flanks safeguarded, the Romans committed almost their entire forces to this life-or-death struggle. The Samnites took the offensive - for the very last time, as it transpired - with an invasion of the Campanian plain, and in particular an attack on the city of Neapolis. For a short while they held the upper hand, but the anticipated support from the Macedonians did not come. The redoubtable Fabius once more took the field, shattering the Samnite army near Capua. Its remnants retreated headlong into the hill country. Although bitter fighting would continue for the next decade, the Samnites would never again pose a major obstacle to Roman expansion.
The onset of winter and Philip’s vacillation delayed the final confrontation in southern Italia. The following year, AUC 451, was to be that in which the fate of the Mediterranean world would be decided. Philip’s objective was, if not to take Rome, then to defeat her armies in the field, detach her allies, besiege the city and negotiate from a position of strength. However, far from being intimidated by the vaunted reputation of the Macedonian military machine, the Romans resolved to fight and to expel the invader at whatever cost. The prince, young and arrogant, was disconcerted by the good order and discipline displayed by the Roman formations. He had been assured by his sycophants that he was dealing with rough barbarians.
In the early spring, the armies of Philip and Fabius (now proconsul), approximately equal in size, set out on their collision course. The Roman commander, mindful of his opponent’s formidable cavalry, avoided any direct contact, prudently withdrawing northwards from his Campanian base of operations. Yet his apparent reluctance to engage the foe induced another panicky reaction from the Senate, which approved the appointment of the magister equitum under Fabius, L. Papirius Cursor, as dictator. The two men had hated each other since their famous falling out in 427 when Fabius had been condemned by Papirius for disobedience. Both were highly proficient commanders, and it seemed that it had fallen Papirius to defend Rome. However, before any further action could be taken, the armies of the Romans and Macedonians met at last on the field of battle.
By the Volturnus River in northern Campania, the greatest military encounter yet fought on Italian soil proved indecisive. An elephant charge broke the Roman lines, but a spirited counterattack by the allied cavalry prevented Philip from executing an immediate follow-up, and the superbly disciplined Roman infantry quickly reformed their ranks. Fabius in turn almost achieved a breakthrough, but with the screening cavalry scattered, his left wing collapsed and he barely managed to extricate his army from a deadly encirclement. The Macedonians thereafter were unable to deploy their horsemen and elephants to complete their tactical success, as the Romans withdrew into the hill country.
Philip’s victory at the Volturnus was thus imperfect. The employment of combined arms, the infantry and cavalry (as the anvil and hammer), brilliantly pioneered by Philip II and perfected by Alexander, had proved of limited value in the terrain of central Italia; and the Macedonian army, beguiled by its success in Asia, was slow to adapt to disparate circumstances. On the other hand, in the wake of its repeated failures against the Samnites, the Roman legionary formation was in the process of reorganization, the compact and rigid Hellenic-style phalanx being replaced by flexible "manipules" of 120 men. Spaces were left between the front-line manipules, covered by those of the second line. This allowed more elasticity and an open-order style of fighting suited to the Italian landscape. Although this reform did not confer a decisive advantage - the legion was still cumbersome and relatively immobile, compared to that of the late Republic - it absorbed and dissipated much of the offensive power of the Macedonian phalanx.
After tentative skirmishing, Philip resumed his march towards Rome, in so doing recklessly exposing his right flank to counter-attack. At Aquinum on the northern edge of Campania, Fabius struck. In fact, he would have been better advised to resist the temptation, and instead harass the enemy on his march, cut his lines of supply and communication and intimidate Philip’s Hellenic allies. However, it was a question of Roman prestige and morale. In the ensuing, chaotic battle, in spite of first-rate leadership under immense stress, the Macedonian army came perilously close to disintegration. It was the splendid cavalry which again saved the day, but at a terrible cost. Philip limped back to his base at Heraclea, with his army intact but his confidence shaken and the lustre of Macedonian arms, undefeated since the time of Philip II, considerably tarnished.
The Romans were in no better shape, almost half their army lying dead on two battlefields; but their rekindled vigour and resolve quickly became manifest. Before the extent of his strategic victory had become evident, Fabius was prosecuted for exceeding his authority and bringing the nation so close to destruction. His career was resurrected when the enemy did not appear as expected at the gates of the city, and he would serve two more terms as Consul. At the same time, the assembly took the extraordinary step of electing the outgoing dictator, Papirius, to the consulship.
On the domestic scene, Roman political reform (such as the lex Poetelia abolishing debt slavery and the lex Ogulnia opening the pontificate and the augurate to plebeians) continued, despite the warnings of conservatives that this was not the time for tampering with the ancestral constitution. In fact, the process of extending participation in the government gave the Roman people a bigger stake in the survival of their city’s institutions, at the same time broadening the recruiting base of the army and revitalizing the Republic’s core of leadership.
* By the time of the Samnite Wars, the full levy had consisted of four legions - two consular armies of about 20,000 men each. As well as providing auxiliary, mostly light, infantry, the allies provided the bulk of the cavalry.

Reading the TL I find it plaussible and interesting

I note that you has made a lot of research, plenty of names of leaders and cities, you also has a good view of the situation of the Ancient Mediterranean at the Alexander times.

Only that

Originally posted by
The Carthaginian senate in despair deposed their king, Hamilcar,

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Errr, or something has changed in this Carthage or some strange thing has happened, Carthage was an oligarchy, so not kings.

Not a bad time-line. I'm not sure if I'm more puzzled by the fact that the Gauls haven't taken advantage of the situation, or that any of the parties in question haven't tried to win them over....

Iñaki said:

Errr, or something has changed in this Carthage or some strange thing has happened, Carthage was an oligarchy, so not kings.

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Carthage alternated between oligarchy and true monarchy, depending on the personal authjority of the king. A true republic was only established in 308 BCE (OTL). Bomilcar attempted absolute rule and ended up being crucified.

Smaug said:

Not a bad time-line. I'm not sure if I'm more puzzled by the fact that the Gauls haven't taken advantage of the situation, or that any of the parties in question haven't tried to win them over....

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No offence to any Gauls out there, but those guys just couldn’t get their act together. They were unreliable partners at best. Because of their disunity they were rarely in a position to take advantage of situations as they arose. And because their idea of warfare was usually large-scale raiding, they were rarely able to follow up their tactical successes with any long-term strategy.
The best thing to do was leave them alone, and if they couldn’t be ignored, the next best thing was conquer them.
BTW, in the OTL, the Gauls are known as Galles, which is a more logical rendition of the Latin name. They form temporary alliances with both the Macedonians and the Carthaginians.

Originally posted by bluestraggler
Carthage alternated between oligarchy and true monarchy, depending on the personal authjority of the king. A true republic was only established in 308 BCE (OTL). Bomilcar attempted absolute rule and ended up being crucified.

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I dont knew this information, it is interesting, thanks for the info.

As I say quite interesting timeline

Iñaki said:

Errr, or something has changed in this Carthage or some strange thing has happened, Carthage was an oligarchy, so not kings.

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Technically, the latter-day Carthaginians used title of a "king" in pretty much the same way the pre-Imperial Romans used title of "Imperator", at least from what I could gather - thus the "king" was merely the first amongst the equals, or a military commander given much authority, but otherwise severely limited in what he could and could not do.

Damn good work. quite an interesting TL.

Part 4

Thanks for the feedback.
Continuing...

As Philip licked his wounds in southern Italia and his agents set about raising a new anti-Roman coalition, their plans were overtaken by momentous events in Aegypt and Macedonia. The news arrived in midsummer that the Emperor was dead. At age 55, Megas Alexandros had succumbed to a fever, the identification of which has remained the subject of controversy. Suspicions of poisoning were raised in the light of subsequent events.
For shortly before his death, Alexander had once again visited the sanctuary, at Siwa in the Libyan desert, of Ammon the Aegyptian oracle god with whose cult he had begun to associate himself and his semi-divine status. Exactly what was revealed there remains a mystery, but speculation was rife that Alexander had been about to partition the empire and appoint his nephew, Neoptolemus, son of the Emperor’s sister Cleopatra and the slain Alexander of Epirus, ruler in the east. This may have been confirmed by the actions of Leonnatus, a relative and close companion of Alexander, who attested to the legacy. It is also possible that Cleopatra recruited Leonnatus to her cause after Alexander’s death, emboldened by Philip’s setback in Italia. In any case, the breach within the royal family was to have dire consequences.
Whatever its veracity, the Aegypt-based Neoptolemus enjoyed only fleeting acknowledgement of his claim. The scholar-general Eumenes of Cardia, the Emperor’s private secretary and trusted adviser, publicly denounced it as fraudulent. Perdiccas of Orestis, one of Alexander’s most energetic commanders, swiftly intervened. The thirty year-old pretender and his mother were quickly dispatched and Philip proclaimed rightful Emperor. However, more trouble was brewing in Macedonia. Here the Emperor’s illegitimate son Heracles (born to the Phrygian concubine Barsine and three years Philip’s senior) had won the support of the faction of Cassander, son of Antipater, the disgraced former general. Heracles and his mother had retired to Pergamum after his father’s marriage to Roxana, but he had since earned a military reputation in Illyria and elsewhere on the frontiers. His propaganda maintained that Alexander’s union with Roxana had been illegitimate and that Heracles was indeed the lawful heir. His claim gained the backing of Polyperchon, a general who had resented the orientalizing policies of the Emperor. This meant civil war.
Philip hurried back to Aegypt with his army and was preparing to cross to Hellas when further bad news arrived. Another scion of the late Emperor, Alexander Charisios, son of the Persian princess Stateira (daughter of the last Persian monarch, Darius Codomannus), was declared king in Babylon. There were now three contenders for the throne and the struggle which ensued became known as the War of the Half-Brothers. Determining that his Persian rival was the more vulnerable opponent, Philip marched east. The Persian pretender was abandoned by most of his followers, but his cause was revived by the defection of Craterus. The veteran general felt no great loyalty towards Charisios ("divinely favoured") but loathed the haughty son of Roxana, and he had been incensed and alarmed by the assassination of Nearchus.
Philip’s cause appeared lost when his forces were defeated at Thapsacus, the major crossing point on the upper Euphrates. He retreated towards Damascus, but Craterus unwisely set off in pursuit, and his exhausted army was destroyed in northern Syria, on the banks of the River Chalus. The 62 year-old Eumenes played a key role in this important victory but died soon afterwards. Rumors circulated that he had been poisoned by his jealous rival, Perdiccas. Nevertheless, Charisios was done away with by his minions, who now declared for Philip.
With the resources of Asia and Africa behind him, Nicephoros sailed for Macedonia in the spring of 452; and yet, instead of presenting a united front, Heracles’ generals Cassander and Polyperchon were feuding. To separate them, the pretender was obliged to fatally divide his forces. Cassander was dispatched to garrison Corinth while Polyperchon remained at Pella with the rest of the army. Heracles himself, who appears to have lost his nerve, played no active role in the conflict. However, he had the feeble-minded half-brother of Megas Alexandros put to death, an act of wanton brutality that cost him the support of many of his compatriots and the sympathy of historians.
Philip landed in Epirus, on the west coast of Hellas, outflanking Cassander and advancing on the Macedonian capital. Following defeats at Larisa and Pydna, Polyperchon committed suicide. The wretched Heracles attempted to flee but was hunted down and killed. In the meantime, Perdiccas had taken Athens with Cassander distracted by events to the north. The latter’s troops deserted him and the renegade general followed the example of his colleague Polyperchon.
Philip was now undisputed ruler of the empire, but the legacy of Megas Alexandros had been severely compromised. The Carthaginian senate, though on the face of it servile, reestablished contact with their compatriots in Hispania with a view to expelling the Hellenes there. Bomilcar, meanwhile, took advantage of the Macedonians’ diversion to push back the Massiliotes, in partnership with the Galles who had renounced their former alliance.
However, it was Rome that most effectively capitalized on the distractions caused by the War of the Half-Brothers. Despite their heavy losses of the previous year, the Romans again went on the offensive, sending consular armies into Etruria and Samnite country in a show of strength. Then, in the summer of 452, M. Valerius Corvus once more took the field, striking south to expel the Macedonians from Italia. At Heraclea the Romans suffered a setback, but the capture of Thurium made the Macedonian position on the mainland untenable. Rhegium, near the southern tip of the peninsula, became a Roman city, dominating the Strait of Messana separating Italia and Sicilia.
Philip’s general Demetrios withdrew to Sicilia, to discover that the old tyrant Agathocles, having enlisted Campanian mercenaries called Mamertines ("sons of the war god"), had treacherously murdered the Macedonian ambassador in Siracusa and massacred the garrison. Demetrios stormed the city and Agathocles was executed; but the cost was high and Macedonian imperial power in the central Mediterranean had been dealt a serious blow. The Massiliote and Italiote Hellenes scrambled to make peace with Rome.

Midgard said:

Technically, the latter-day Carthaginians used title of a "king" in pretty much the same way the pre-Imperial Romans used title of "Imperator", at least from what I could gather - thus the "king" was merely the first amongst the equals, or a military commander given much authority, but otherwise severely limited in what he could and could not do.

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The Carthaginian "king" (melek) was closer to the Greek tyrant (tyrannos), with military and religious functions. The Magonids (the line of Mago, circa 550 BCE) were elected but effectively hereditary. The senate (council of elders) gradually gained ascendancy in the fourth century BCE, and the king became a figurehead and puppet of the aristocracy. Hanno the Great, some time in the 340s BCE, tried to solve the problem in the traditional manner, wiping out the senate (by poisoning at a marriage feast). He and his family were crucified. After Bomilcar went the same way in 308, the office was purely a titular one with virtually no powers.
The Romans probably got it right by calling the king princeps Carthaginiensium.

Somewhat off topic, what would be the best sources to read about Carthage? In my TL, there's no Third Punic War, so I need more background than most sources about Rome provide.

Excellent TL, by the way. We haven't had many good ancient POD scenarios lately.

I like it aswell! The detailedness is impressing!!!!

The Bald Imposter said:

Somewhat off topic, what would be the best sources to read about Carthage? In my TL, there's no Third Punic War, so I need more background than most sources about Rome provide.

Excellent TL, by the way. We haven't had many good ancient POD scenarios lately.

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I’m not an expert on the subject, so I’m sure someone else can be of more assistance here.
Nevertheless, this is a nice, concise history of Carthage:
http://www.roman-empire.net/republic/carthage.html
And a great history of Rome that includes Carthage:
http://www.attalus.org/index.html
I’m a fan of the classics:
Polybius, Histories
Justinus, Epitome of the Philippic History of Pompeius Trogus
BTW - wonderful resources for classical references (old but comprehensive):
http://www.ancientlibrary.com/index.php
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bi...xt:1999.04.0064;layout=;query=toc;loc=rhegium

Part 5

Thanks for the compliments.
I will keep posting until someone responds: You should give place to better men.. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!

One of the first acts of Philip as Emperor was to relocate his capital back to Pella, although subsidiary courts and strong garrisons were maintained in Alexandria and Babylon. He continued Alexander’s policy of settling contingents of Macedonian troops in colonies to act as a standing army. Eschewing his father’s orientalism, Philip discouraged intermixing to keep their loyalty remained fixed on the Emperor, and indeed their foreign manners kept the garrison troops isolated them from the native population. (In the long term, however, these soldier settlers did intermarry and eventually became integrated into the local community.)
Like his restless father, Philip did not and could not stay in one place long. Leaving Macedonian or Persian governors to administer the provinces (overseen by garrison commanders and financial agents), he resumed his military conquests. By 455 he had completed the subjugation of Sicilia. The Hellenic cities quickly submitted, but a new threat to stability arose in the Mamertines who had abandoned Siracusa before the Macedonian attack but had now became brigands plundering the countryside. Their lawless conduct wrought chaos and misery, but the viceroy Demetrios was reluctant to rein them in, since he occasionally made use of their services. Philip was compelled to intervene again to restore order when the Sicilian cities threatened to appeal to Rome; and in 459, having become an embarrassment, Demetrios was moved to a less diplomatically sensitive post.
The unfinished business in Sicilia was symptomatic of a growing malaise within Philip’s empire. Even during his lifetime, Alexander’s lengthy absences on campaign had allowed unruly garrison commanders and corrupt governors to flourish. The Emperor’s authority, exercised through his command of the army, was the sole centralizing force. Civil administration was devolved upon the very individuals and elites who profited from the centrifugal tendencies within the empire. Therefore, unity depended on continuing military success, to maintain a healthy treasury and to keep the imperial deputies in line.
Following Alexander’s death, a number of revolts broke out in various parts of the realm, when Philip’s Mediterranean enterprise and the War of the Half-Brothers were absorbing his time and energy and stretching his resources to the limit. In Bactria, the Macedonian governor, Crateuas, was killed in a local uprising. The veteran general Perdiccas set off to end the rebellion, but he died en route. It was left to Atropates, the governor of Media and son of Alexander’s loyal Persian general, to reconquer the province; but Sogdiana was permanently lost to the Scythians. In the meantime, Ariobarzanes, a grandson of Artabazus (father of Barsine), raised the standard of revolt in Asia Minor. He was quickly dispatched, but the fierce Isaurians of southern Anatolia preserved their independence for several years. On the far eastern frontier, the Indian empire of Maurya (known to the Hellenes as Sandracottus) had been expanding, and in 455 his son Bindusara (Hellene Amitrochates) crossed the Indus to occupy Gandhara. Beaten back from Arachosia, south of Bactria, Bindusara made a separate peace with Atropates, who now established himself in the Bactrian capital as ruler of a virtually independent state. Macedonian prestige and power appeared to be on the wane.
These crises passed, but the cost of maintaining standing armies and functionaries in the far-flung corners of the empire was becoming prohibitive. Alexander’s grandiose building and engineering projects, most extravagantly expressed in the construction of a giant mausoleum for himself and his father, meant to surpass the Pyramids (but beset by delays and eventually scaled down*), had virtually bankrupted the imperial treasury even without his increasing military expenditures. For it was another of the legacies of Megas Alexandros that the financial solvency of the empire depended upon the spoils of continued conquest, which in turn was becoming ruinously expensive. This was to prove an unresolvable paradox.
Whereas the Mamertine controversy in Sicilia exposed another potential threat, the increasing use of mercenaries to supplement an overstretched army and undermanned garrisons. Alexander had employed them, and one of the advantages of the mercenary contingents was their personal loyalty to the commander himself. Nevertheless they were unscrupulous and, as the Sicilian experience demonstrated, notoriously unreliable.
On the other hand, the unity of European and Asian civilization promoted by Alexander and his successors provided a stimulus for economic development, as well as a cultural renaissance and - to the long-term detriment of Macedonian rule - a political awakening.
* Alexander’s tomb, in Macedonia rather than Aegypt, is of course considerably more modest.

Originally poste by bluestraggler
I will keep posting until someone responds: You should give place to better men.. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!

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I think that for the moment instead we are saying: please, please give more , ooh! yeah! give more of this timeline.

Yeah! Yeah! I need more of Rome versus Macedonia, of all this great kings and warriors, oooh! ooah! (singing into the bath with loud voice, I suspect that with a voice that surely will have Alexander resureccts to hit my head for disturbing his peace )

Keep it coming, good and interesting timeline.

More damn good work... not sure if I can offer any advice, I may have a bit of an intrest in the era but I am far from knowlagable about it.

Yeah! Yeah! I need more of Rome versus Macedonia, of all this great kings and warriors, oooh! ooah! (singing into the bath with loud voice, I suspect that with a voice that surely will have Alexander resureccts to hit my head for disturbing his peace )

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Not sure if it woke Alexander III but it sure as hell pissed some poeple off
*Starts sharpening a Sarissa head*
So I would advice you to -in the future- shut up before you start singing
*Levels Sarissa at Iñaki*

Keep it up, we demand more!