Alexander the Great is considered to be one of the most outstanding people in the history of mankind. Not all modern people fully understand how large circles on the water left Alexander's campaign to Asia. Without this campaign, there would be no idea of a universal empire, no equality of people, or even the universalist religions known today. However, today we will not talk about this, but about why the Macedonians moved to the east and did not show any interest in the western direction at all. After all, there, for example, was Ancient Rome?
-Let's fight!
-Show the money ...
It is with such a short dialogue that one could characterize the possible relationship between the Macedonian Empire of Alexander the Great and the early Roman Republic. The foundation of Alexander's empire was laid by his father, Tsar Philip II of Macedon, who lived from 383 to 336 BC. Alexander the Great was born in 356 BC. That time was the beginning of the decline of classical Greece: the Greco-Persian wars died down almost a century ago, less than a hundred years ago, the Peloponnesian war between Athens and Sparta for domination in peninsula. The prolonged political and military crisis (as well as rich gifts from Persia) allowed a new player, Macedonia, to rise on the Greek arena.
Despite the "sunset", for the inhabitants of the Peloponnese, it was Greece that was the center of the world. It is important to understand that before the reign of Philip II of Macedon, the idea of creating universalist empires with the inclusion of "barbarian" lands around in the heads of Greek rulers did not often appear. The Greeks had colonies in Asia Minor, Italy, the Black Sea, Sicily, Africa - but nothing more. The culture and thinking of the Greeks of that time was exclusively local and polis. And most importantly, due to economic reasons, the Greeks did not have real opportunities and the need to carry out such an aggressive external expansion.
Macedonia is another matter. During the Greco-Persian wars, the future Macedonia sided with Persia. The Persians paid handsomely for the collaboration of the northern relatives of the Greeks. When Athens and Sparta began to cut each other, a fertile time came for Macedonia for a calm development and gradual unification. As a result, by the time of Philip, the northern lands turned into a fairly organized force that accumulated economic potential in order to transform it into violence, which will bring even greater economic benefits. None of the polis states of lower and central Greece had anything like this.
First, the Macedonian expansion poured out on the head of the closest richest neighbor - the Greek city-states. But where else was the wealth? In the south and east, in distant lands, where the richest trade routes from distant Asia run, including the Great Silk Road. That is why the Macedonians, already under Alexander the Great, moved with the war to the Persian Empire, which by that time had already crumbled to pieces due to the civil war and the crisis of the central government. Alexander's trek began in 334 BC. It was then that the ambitions and dreams of the young conqueror gave shape to the objective economic desire of the now united Greece to expand by obtaining new resources, wealth, lands and slaves.
But the Greeks and Macedonians had no need or interest to go west. That there are some lands and "semi-wild" peoples, the Greeks knew very well thanks to the colonies that lay on the coast right up to the Iberian Peninsula. But what was to be taken from them? Rome already existed then, however, at that time it was only a small city, which actively fought with its neighbors. In 327 BC, the sons of Mars will just start the Second Etruscan War for domination on the peninsula (which will not be the last). Against the background of Alexander's campaign in Persia, all the wars of the early Roman Republic look like a fight between guys from two different regions. Many more decades of conflict will pass before Rome can first declare its claims to the entire region, and then to the entire known world. However, before this happens, both Alexander and all his heirs-diadochi will die.
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If you want to know even more interesting things about the days of the past, then you should read about Roman Coliseum: why the walls of the amphitheater are in holes like a head of cheese.
A source: https://novate.ru/blogs/250721/59898/
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