| Name | Alexander III of Macedon |
| Reign | 336–323 BC (cut short) |
| Title | King of Macedon |
| Status | Died in battle |
| Epithet | Alexander the Great |
| Consequence | The Persian Empire remained intact and continued to grow as a major world power, while the Greek city-states never came under Macedonian rule. The limited spread of Hellenistic culture and language had profound effects on the geopolitics and development of Eurasia, producing a dramatically different trajectory of history compared to our own timeline. |
| Predecessor |
Alexander III of Macedon, more commonly known as Alexander the Great, was the king of the ancient Greek kingdom of Macedon from 336 BC to 323 BC. However, in this alternate timeline, Alexander's campaigns of conquest were cut short when he met an untimely demise in battle, preventing him from achieving the dramatic expansion of his empire that occurred in our own history.
Born in 356 BC to King Philip II of Macedon and Queen Olympias, Alexander was tutored in his youth by the renowned philosopher Aristotle. When Philip II was assassinated in 336 BC, the 20-year-old Alexander swiftly took the Macedonian throne.
Alexander quickly consolidated his power and set his sights on military conquest, seeking to expand Macedonian influence in the Greek world. He first turned his attention to the Greek city-states, leading a Macedonian army to decisively defeat the combined forces of Athens and Sparta at the Battle of Chaeronea in 338 BC.
With the Greek city-states under his sway, Alexander then made plans to launch a campaign against the mighty Persian Empire to the east. However, his ambitions were cut short in 333 BC when he was killed in battle against a coalition of Greek and Macedonian forces near the city of Issus.
This decisive defeat prevented Alexander from ever confronting and defeating the Persians, as occurred in our own timeline. The Persian Empire, under the rule of the Achaemenid dynasty, remained a major regional power, continuing to expand its influence across Asia Minor, Mesopotamia, and Central Asia.
Without Alexander's dramatic conquests, the ancient Greek world remained fragmented, with Athens, Sparta, Thebes and other city-states constantly vying for dominance. The spread of Hellenistic culture, Koine Greek language, and the unifying Macedonian empire never materialized in this timeline.
The lack of a dominant Macedonian or Persian power also meant the Roman Republic never expanded eastward beyond the Italian peninsula. Rome remained a regional power, never transforming into the vast Roman Empire that would come to dominate the Mediterranean world.
The long-term consequences of Alexander's early demise are difficult to fully fathom, but it is clear the entire geopolitical and cultural landscape of Eurasia developed in a radically different manner. The rise of powerful empires like the Achaemenid Persians, the lack of a unifying Hellenistic civilization, and the continued independence of the Greek city-states all represent major divergences from our own historical reality.
Alexander the Great's premature death at Issus stands as one of the most pivotal "what-if" moments in ancient history, with reverberations that echo through the centuries up to the present day. The world we inhabit may have been shaped in profoundly different ways had the great Macedonian conqueror met a different fate on that fateful battlefield.
