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Alexander the Great
What If... Alexander the Great had gone West not East?
In this scenario Western civilisation takes a completely different turn of events. Rather than conquering all of Asia across to India, Alexander the Great instead chooses to conquer Europe.
Imagine if, one hundred and fifty years before Hannibal, Alexander moves his army around the North African coast of the Mediterranean, conquers Carthage, and crossing at Gibraltar takes Spain, crosses the Alps, and easily subdues what in the 3rd century BC was the relatively ineffectual army of the Republic of Rome, then still a mere city-state.
What kind of world would that have given rise to, a Europe with a Greek rather than a Roman legacy? What would its legacy have been?
So indebted are we to the Romans that it's very difficult to imagine a world in which they are little more than a footnote, a city state easily subjugated by Alexander and his Macedonian forces.
Next Week:
What If... George Washington had lost the American rebellion?
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Listen to the 10 April 2003 programme
