What if instead of going trying to conquer into India, after conquering the Achaemenid empire, Alexander the great tried to conquer Sparta & Crete?
- Thread starter Wr1t3r
- Start date
Yes, the Macedonian regent Antipater crushed the Spartans in battle and Alexander made them join the League of Corinth. Their defeat was enough that the Spartans stayed out of the next major Greek rebellion against Macedon, but Alexander himself considered it less than a sideshow compared to his campaign in Asia.
There's no question whether Sparta could resist Macedon, they could not. Despite their famously laconic reply of "if" to Philip's threats, he carried them out as promised and carved off Spartan territory and only didn't finish them off because he was preparing to invade Asia and couldn't care less about the Spartans. They tried fighting Macedon while Alexander was away but that didn't matter when the generals remaining had more than enough men to put them down again.
Knowing Alexander's personality, I seriously doubt he'd pass up on the chance to conquer the wild lands beyond Persia. Even if he did, he'd probably go campaigning in another region not well known to the Greeks, such as Arabia or beyond the Bosphorus Kingdom, rather than the easily manageable Sparta and Crete.
As others have rightly noted, Sparta had already been swatted down by the Macedonians with trivial effort compared to, say, Thebes and Athens.
Why is Sparta left as a different color on various maps of Alexander's empire? Because virtually everyone in the Peloponnese (including, now that I think of it, the overwhelming majority of Spartans) absolutely despised Sparta and saw them as a threat. The polis continuing to exist thus helped secure the loyalty of her foes.
As far as direction goes Alexander had already gone almost the whole way to India, so if he came back it would be in order to circumnavigate Arabia or seize Carthage and Syracuse... something like that. Sparta and Crete might lose what remained of their independence in passing, but they would not be priority targets in any sense.
Why is Sparta left as a different color on various maps of Alexander's empire? Because virtually everyone in the Peloponnese (including, now that I think of it, the overwhelming majority of Spartans) absolutely despised Sparta and saw them as a threat. The polis continuing to exist thus helped secure the loyalty of her foes.
As far as direction goes Alexander had already gone almost the whole way to India, so if he came back it would be in order to circumnavigate Arabia or seize Carthage and Syracuse... something like that. Sparta and Crete might lose what remained of their independence in passing, but they would not be priority targets in any sense.
Some thoughts of mine.
Crete had remained mostly isolated from affairs in the mainland and the Aegean for the duration of the 5th and 4th centuries BC; the presence of foreign mercenary bands, often led by prominent figures in the 340s and 330s BC (like Phalaekus, the Phocian leader, who had escaped to Tainaron after the end of the Third Sacred War with the remnants of his mercenary army) didn't really change this. True, Agis III instructed his brother Agesilaus to use the mercenaries recruited with Persian support in order to bring (the) cities on the island under Spartan influence - probably as a way to keep the mercenaries under his employent, gather local reinforcements, and offload the maintainance costs (Crete was a fairly wealthy region at the time), but after the withdrawal of Spartan troops before the battle of Megalopolis, Crete became once again neutral ground.
To push the Macedonian leadership to plan serious operations in Crete, you would most likely need to involve Crete more extensively in the war. Perhaps a way to achieve would be to make Sparta a more dangerous threat. So perhaps Agis secures more Persian aid, and manages to raise a larger army - perhaps a good number of Greek mercenaries escaping from Issus, insteaf of going to Egypt, decide instead to sail to Crete, because of the wealth of the island and its relative isolation from Alexander's sphere of influence, and place themselves in the employment of Agis III. With the extra forces at his disposal, Agis and Agesilaus manage to pacify the island more quickly; they extract large tributes from the cities there, which allow them in turn to raise even more mercenary troops. Thanks to this larger force, Agis manages to attract more allies in the Peloponnese (perhaps Arcadian cities, secondary cities in Argolis) and defeat Antipater at Megalopolis, after which many of the Peloponnesian allies of Alexander are forced to submit to Sparta. However in the end, Athenian neutrality and Alexander's reinforcements from Asia manage to turn the tide; some cities in Crete rebel against the Spartan garrisons and the abuses of the mercenaries and request the aid of Alexander's generals in the Aegean in evicting the mercenaries. The Macedonian commanders, worried about the possibility of the mercenaries setting up an independent powerbase on the island, and wanting to eliminate them as a source of instability, send forces of their own, which then defeat the mercenaries; in the aftermath of that however, due to the unrest taking hold of many cities, as the recent occupation further undermined the internal peace of the local cities (already shaken by the actions of Phalaekus in the 340s) they don't withdraw, and they convince (or "convince") the Cretan cities to join the Corinthian alliance, in order to ensure political and social stability.
As for the consequences, for one, Tainaron is probably no longer a safe place for the gathering of mercenary forces, as Sparta is now under closer Macedonian supervision (and perhaps Antipater and Alexander could decide to detach the perioikoi cities in southern Laconia from Sparta, in order to further neutralise it and cut it off the sea); nor is Crete that ideal, as it's no longer neutral ground. A result of this is perhaps, if nothing changes in the East, that Harpalus may not have the option to leave the bulk of his forces in a safe nearby when trying to enter Athens, nor have Crete as a potential "safehouse"; this in turn could mean that when planning his escape, Harpalus might actually decide to head to a different place. Harpalus' absence from Athens may mean in turn that the political crisis that ensued there in 324 BC could be avoided, which does have some knock-on effects, like Demosthenes not being banished from the city.
If Alexander dies the same time as IOTL, then another change is that, unlike OTL, Leosthenes and his mercenaries wouldn't be readily available at Tainaron. Demosthenes' presence in the city during the first weeks and months following Alexander's death and the more complete Macedonian control of Greece might, just might lead in turn to the Athenian anti-Macedonian leaders deciding to bide their time while engaging in preparations for a potential uprising.
Crete had remained mostly isolated from affairs in the mainland and the Aegean for the duration of the 5th and 4th centuries BC; the presence of foreign mercenary bands, often led by prominent figures in the 340s and 330s BC (like Phalaekus, the Phocian leader, who had escaped to Tainaron after the end of the Third Sacred War with the remnants of his mercenary army) didn't really change this. True, Agis III instructed his brother Agesilaus to use the mercenaries recruited with Persian support in order to bring (the) cities on the island under Spartan influence - probably as a way to keep the mercenaries under his employent, gather local reinforcements, and offload the maintainance costs (Crete was a fairly wealthy region at the time), but after the withdrawal of Spartan troops before the battle of Megalopolis, Crete became once again neutral ground.
To push the Macedonian leadership to plan serious operations in Crete, you would most likely need to involve Crete more extensively in the war. Perhaps a way to achieve would be to make Sparta a more dangerous threat. So perhaps Agis secures more Persian aid, and manages to raise a larger army - perhaps a good number of Greek mercenaries escaping from Issus, insteaf of going to Egypt, decide instead to sail to Crete, because of the wealth of the island and its relative isolation from Alexander's sphere of influence, and place themselves in the employment of Agis III. With the extra forces at his disposal, Agis and Agesilaus manage to pacify the island more quickly; they extract large tributes from the cities there, which allow them in turn to raise even more mercenary troops. Thanks to this larger force, Agis manages to attract more allies in the Peloponnese (perhaps Arcadian cities, secondary cities in Argolis) and defeat Antipater at Megalopolis, after which many of the Peloponnesian allies of Alexander are forced to submit to Sparta. However in the end, Athenian neutrality and Alexander's reinforcements from Asia manage to turn the tide; some cities in Crete rebel against the Spartan garrisons and the abuses of the mercenaries and request the aid of Alexander's generals in the Aegean in evicting the mercenaries. The Macedonian commanders, worried about the possibility of the mercenaries setting up an independent powerbase on the island, and wanting to eliminate them as a source of instability, send forces of their own, which then defeat the mercenaries; in the aftermath of that however, due to the unrest taking hold of many cities, as the recent occupation further undermined the internal peace of the local cities (already shaken by the actions of Phalaekus in the 340s) they don't withdraw, and they convince (or "convince") the Cretan cities to join the Corinthian alliance, in order to ensure political and social stability.
As for the consequences, for one, Tainaron is probably no longer a safe place for the gathering of mercenary forces, as Sparta is now under closer Macedonian supervision (and perhaps Antipater and Alexander could decide to detach the perioikoi cities in southern Laconia from Sparta, in order to further neutralise it and cut it off the sea); nor is Crete that ideal, as it's no longer neutral ground. A result of this is perhaps, if nothing changes in the East, that Harpalus may not have the option to leave the bulk of his forces in a safe nearby when trying to enter Athens, nor have Crete as a potential "safehouse"; this in turn could mean that when planning his escape, Harpalus might actually decide to head to a different place. Harpalus' absence from Athens may mean in turn that the political crisis that ensued there in 324 BC could be avoided, which does have some knock-on effects, like Demosthenes not being banished from the city.
If Alexander dies the same time as IOTL, then another change is that, unlike OTL, Leosthenes and his mercenaries wouldn't be readily available at Tainaron. Demosthenes' presence in the city during the first weeks and months following Alexander's death and the more complete Macedonian control of Greece might, just might lead in turn to the Athenian anti-Macedonian leaders deciding to bide their time while engaging in preparations for a potential uprising.