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Alexander the Great conquered a vast territory stretching from the Balkans to modern-day Pakistan. But if he had turned his attention west, he might have taken Rome — defeating whatever proto-Roman state existed before it became an empire. Owen Jarus at Live Science asked modern scholars to imagine that counterfactual.
So why didn’t Alexander the Great attempt to conquer Italy? The short answer is that he died before he had the chance, according to Live Science.
Did Alexander the Great Have Such Plans?
Alexander ruled Macedonia from 336 to 323 B.C. He died of an unknown illness in Babylon at 32, and his empire fell apart soon afterward. Had he lived, though, it’s plausible he would have set his sights on Rome and the Italian peninsula.
Some ancient texts suggest Alexander did plan a western campaign that included parts of Italy and other Mediterranean regions. The Roman historian Quintus Curtius Rufus, writing in the first century A.D., claimed Alexander intended a series of conquests that would have stretched to what is now the Strait of Gibraltar. Rufus said Alexander planned to build 700 ships for that invasion. Other ancient authors offered similar accounts.
“Romans were convinced that Alexander would have tried to conquer Rome, but modern historians cannot say this with certainty,” said Nikolaus Overthum, an associate professor of history at Washington State University.
Some ancient writers also claimed that after Alexander’s death his secretary Eumenes passed on plans for conquering parts of Italy to one of Alexander’s leading commanders, Perdiccas. Independent scholar Robin Waterfield, an expert in ancient history, highlights that claim.
“Now some scholars believe that those plans were not genuine, that perhaps they were a forgery by Eumenes, or maybe this story emerged later,” Waterfield said. He still believes the plans were authentic.
What Might the Invasion Have Looked Like?
Ultimately, it’s unclear what would have happened if Alexander had tried to invade Italy. The Romans were so convinced he might try that the historian Titus Livius (Livy, who lived around 59 B.C. to A.D. 17) wrote about how it might have ended. In that work, Livy predicted the Romans would have defeated Alexander. Livy also noted that Alexander’s uncle, Alexander I of Epirus, tried to conquer part of Italy and was killed in battle in 331 B.C.
Alexander I of Epirus – uncle of Alexander the Great
As Waterfield pointed out, descriptions of Alexander’s plans imply he would have secured other parts of the Mediterranean before landing on the Italian mainland. That would have given him huge resources and naval dominance, even if Rome had regional allies.
“By the time he might have faced the Roman Republic, he would have commanded resources from across the Mediterranean — a massive mercenary army,” Waterfield said. He added, “The only thing that could have stopped him would have been an internal uprising or a mutiny of his troops.”
Philip Freeman, a professor of humanities at Pepperdine University in California, believes that if Alexander had invaded Italy, he likely would have succeeded, because several Greek colonies in Italy could have supported his rule.
“The Romans were tough and put up a fight, but they were not yet a powerful force,” Professor Freeman said. In his view, if Alexander had invaded Rome, there might never have been a Roman Empire, since the local power would have been “crushed, so to speak, in its infancy.”
