“What would have been the consequences for Rome if it had engaged in war with Alexander?” With this question Titus Livy (59 BC-17 AD) begins his reflection on this hypothetical duel between two of the great powers of Antiquity at some point in the last third of the 4th century BC. C. This is one of the first uchrony exercises in history.
In Rome, whether during the Republic or in imperial times, Alexander the Great was always a model to which great men compared themselves. Characters such as Julius Caesar, Augustus and Trajan looked to the Macedonian king as a reference for the deeds they wanted to carry out or to emulate his figure as a ruler.
Speculation about Alexander the Great's future plans is not unique to Livy. Another historian of Antiquity, Diodorus of Sicily, spoke in book XVIII of his Bibliotheca Historica about how the Macedonian king planned to carry out a campaign against Carthage using a large fleet that would also lead the phalanxes to conquer other points in the western Mediterranean.
There was certainly a family history of a Macedonian campaign in Italy. A brother of Queen Olympias (mother of the famous conqueror), Alexander I of Epirus, intervened in the cities of Magna Graecia, the south of the Italian peninsula colonized by Greeks, to help his allies in Taranto. This sovereign even signed a treaty of friendship with the Roman Republic.
This other Alexander did not have a happy ending to his campaigns. He died in battle after his Tarentine allies broke relations with him and formed a coalition of towns and cities in southern Italy against the Epirote monarch.
As a good defender of the expansionism of the city of the Tiber, Titus Livy did not predict a great future for a possible campaign by Alexander the Great in Italy. Already at the beginning of the story he considers that, despite being a sovereign with a reputation as a great warrior leader, "the Roman Empire would not have been defeated by this king either, just as it was not defeated by other monarchs and peoples."
How and why did Livy reach this conclusion? The historian theorized about the troops and generals involved in this hypothetical campaign. Thus, for example, he explains that, in Italy, a very different Alexander would have landed than the one who began the conquest of the Persian Empire.
According to Livy, when Alexander crossed the Hellespont with his phalanxes, he was not a wealthy monarch, so ambition drove him to achieve fortune and glory. On the other hand, a monarch full of treasures would arrive in the Italian peninsula after his successful campaigns, which, in the eyes of the Roman chronicler, constituted a weakness, because he would already be a well-off ruler.
“When he had come to Italy he would have looked more like Darius than Alexander,” says Livy in reference to the Achaemenid king who was defeated by the Macedonian. This supposed change in the Macedonian's attitude is a sample of the usual contempt in Roman sources for everything related to the East. The historian concludes this point of his speculation by saying that the Great “would have brought an army that would no longer remember Macedonia and would have degenerated into the customs of the Persians.”
Beyond the evaluations, Livio also tried to offer concrete data to reinforce his argument. He estimated that Alexander would recruit thirty thousand Macedonian veterans (his best soldiers), as well as four thousand cavalry. He also considered that he could have brought more troops from his Asian domains, but, in another example of Roman rejection of the oriental, he concludes that "they would have been more of a hindrance than a help."
These calculations do not seem very realistic for the time. Upon the death of Alexander the Great, his generals began to fight among themselves to gain control of his empire. In these conflicts, much larger contingents were mobilized, with numbers close to fifty thousand troops per side and with the presence of Asian troops who, at times, played a good role on the battlefield.
In the data from the Roman side, Titus Livy speaks that, in the 4th century BC. C., Rome had the capacity to recruit ten legions. A very optimistic estimate if we consider campaigns at that time – such as the Samnite Wars (343-290 BC) – in which it was usual to mobilize four formations of this type.
Beyond the numerical issue, Livy also boasts of the advantage of the Roman military system over the Hellenistic phalanxes, although again he handles the arguments in a somewhat tricky way. To justify the possible good performance of the legions before Alexander, he remembers the victories they won against the Macedonian troops in battles such as Cynoscephalos or Pydna. Again, the historical context is important if you want to make a more realistic assessment.
Livio remembers some campaigns from the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC. C., when the legions had already developed their doctrine throughout numerous wars that led them to be the masters of the Mediterranean. However, in the 4th century BC. C., the Romans had recently abandoned the Greek way of fighting, so the tactics that would allow them to conquer an empire were taking their first steps.
At that time, Alexander the Great's phalanxes were at the peak of their development, beyond the military genius of their leader. Little to do with the formations that had fallen into disrepair due to Macedonia's own subsequent decline, which would be defeated by the Romans in the following two centuries.
If you want to look for a reference to the confrontation between legions and phalanxes that is closer chronologically to Alexander the Great, you would have to look at the campaign of Pyrrhus, another ruler of Epirus, in Italy (280-275 BC). This was Rome's first major conflict against an extra-Italian power and occurred four decades after the death of Alexander the Great.
In the three great battles of this campaign – Heracleia, Ausculum and Benevento – the legions were unable to defeat the phalanxes. Although the Greek troops were able to claim victory, they suffered significant casualties. Faced with enormous losses, Pyrrhus had to withdraw from Italy and abandon his ambitions. From these bloody clashes the expression pyrrhic victory was born.
A final factor in the military equation would be war fleets. Livy makes no mention of the naval forces of either side; At that time, Rome was a tiny power in that sense. On the other hand, Diodorus of Sicily does speak of Alexander the Great preparing a fleet of a thousand Macedonian ships for his campaign in the West.
Again, we are facing a more than possible exaggeration, but, if we look at the naval forces that were mobilized in the wars between Alexander's successors, there were examples of fleets that approached three hundred vessels, such as the one deployed by Ptolemy in the Battle of Salamis, 306 BC C. (not to be confused with the famous one from 480 BC). A more than sufficient force, which would have given the Macedonians a great advantage to operate in southern Italy.
Titus Livy uses other historical examples to justify his arguments in favor of the Roman cause. He remembers that Hannibal could not defeat the city of the Tiber despite obtaining a great triumph at Cannae; Likewise, he points out that the Samnites were finally defeated despite having humiliated two consuls at the Caudine Gallows.
Another point where Livy demonstrates overwhelming optimism is in the number of allies that Rome would have had. The historian cites, first of all, other Italic peoples, such as the Sabines or the Volscians. He even predicts that the Greek cities would have opposed Alexander the Great.
In his hopeful story, he also believed that the Samnites would decide on one of these options: either join Rome to face the external threat or remain on the sidelines due to the wear and tear suffered fighting the legions. The first is difficult to believe, knowing the enmity between the two Italian peoples.
The hypothetical Roman ally against Alexander that may attract the most attention, among those mentioned by Titus Livy, is Carthage. Although it is not the most far-fetched argument, since, in the 4th century BC. C., the future contenders in the Punic Wars had a good relationship and there were cooperation treaties. Another question is knowing to what extent the North African power would have interfered in a conflict with the Macedonians in Italy.
In a real scenario, Alexander would surely have also undertaken some diplomatic maneuver to obtain support among the various political entities of Italy in the 4th century BC. C. In part, he could have approached a strategy similar to that of his uncle, seeking support among the cities of Magna Graecia, or he would have tried to attract the Samnites and other peoples opposed to Rome at that time.
A final aspect that Titus Livy emphasizes to justify the Roman victory is that, despite Alexander's reputation for always having fortune on his side in battle, quite a few Roman generals could boast of the same, even if they were not as famous as the Macedonian.
In fact, although Livy concedes that Alexander the Great was a great general, he points out that the rest of the Macedonian commanders could not compare with the Romans, who could call on numerous high-ranking military leaders. Again, he ignores another factor that could have been favorable for the Hellenistic side: the quality of the commanders who led the phalanxes in battles against the Persians.
He also points out that Alexander's fortune in his campaigns in Asia barely lasted a decade, but, at the time of the confrontation, Rome could boast almost eight hundred years of good omens in the long conflicts it had fought. Livy also highlights the toughness of the Roman people, who, despite having been defeated in numerous battles, “did not lose any war.”
In the passages of Book IX that Livy dedicates to theorizing about this hypothetical confrontation, he emphasizes that, despite the magnitude of his exploits, Alexander's glory was fleeting, and he insists on Rome's long history of war. Placing the Eternal City above the great conqueror was one way to tell the story of a glorious empire.
With his speculation, Livy did not seek to create mere entertainment. He wanted to make it clear that the Roman exploits had nothing to envy those of Alexander. The City of the Tiber could even boast of having subdued all the successor kingdoms of the Great. But the strength of Hellenism went beyond the military issue, as demonstrated by the weight that Greek culture acquired in the eastern part of the Empire.
