American Reacts Why didn't Alexander the Great conquer Rome?

👉Original Video: • Why didn't Alexander t...
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[@hilarymiseroy]

Rome was insignificant at the time of Alexander.

[@kaloarepo288]

Macedon was just as insignificant when Alexander's father Phillip II assumed the throne but he soon made it powerful because the seeds of its power were already there -the same applied to Rome -it was still small but the seeds of its greatness were there. The big empire in the west at the time was not Rome but the empire of Carthage and its mighty fleet - Alexander would have had to contend with Carthage before it could deal with Rome and the two would have allied to each other which is ironic considering the titanic struggle which later happened between Rome and Carthage.

[@samrevlej9331]

@@kaloarepo288 Nope, Rome was not even close to a threat back then. You have to stop reading history backwards. "Seeds of greatness" are things people look for in earlier incarnations of a state to retroactively justify why it became dominant. That's called "teleology" and it's one of the first errors they teach you about in a history curriculum. Rome was a nothing city that happened to conquer less than nothing cities in an obscure peninsula to the west, far to the north of Magna Graecia. They weren't of interest to the Greeks or the Macedonians.

[@kaloarepo288]

@@samrevlej9331 You are probably wrong - you leave Carthage out of the equation which was a powerful commercial and maritime empire which gave the Greeks endless headaches especially in Sicily where the Greek-Phoenician struggle went on for hundreds of years. Greeks had very few colonies west of Italy - one or two in Gaul and Spain but all of north Africa and the Atlantic seaboard was either Carthaginian or Phoenicians (close relations) The Persian fleet and presumably a lot of Alexander's fleet was heavily dependent on Phoenician ships and sailors. Once Alexander had made up plans to head west the Carthaginians would have sewn up a slew of alliances among Punic, Italic, Gallic, Celt Iberian and even anti Macedonian Greek states in order to thwart Alexander. Rome was able to beat Alexander's relative Pyrrhus and prevent an advance on Rome. Earlier the Italic tribes had defeated another Epirote king at the battle of Pandosia on the Italian toe (Lucanians and Bruttians.) Rome might not have been a pushover after all and as Livy argues the Romans could have given Alexander a black eye.(With help of Carthage and the Gauls etc)

[@Onezy05]

Funny to think that, while Alexander was off conquering Persia, Rome had just undergone a new phase in their expansion that would culminate in the complete conquest of Italy. In other words, just Alexander was creating his empire, the Romans were beginning to create the springboard to tear that empire apart.

[@thomassharmer7127]

And don't forget that Egypt had been a focus of power and wealth in the ancient world for several millennia by that time, which is why it attracted Alexander's attention. The rulers of Egypt for the next few centuries were Greek/Macedonian until the Romans eventually conquered it and annexed it to their new empire.

[@NoName-sz5lu]

This was still the time where middle east and indian subcontinent were pretty much the cradle of civilization.

[@stathispap8291]

Because at that time Greece was an advanced civilization and Rome was a "what is that" thing

[@danielferguson3784]

Rome was not a great problem for the Greek world at the time of Alexander. He had the greater problem of the Persian Empire to deal with. The Persians had invaded Greece previously & might have done so again. The Romans & Greeks had not interacted much in Italy yet. It was in the 3rd century BC that involvement by the Romans in Sicily brought them into contest with the Greeks, so not until more than a century after Alexander's death. Rome, after conquering the Greek world, spent most of it's time as an Imperial power fighting Persian/Parthian expansion. This rivalry continued until both sides were overtaken by the Muslims in the 7th century AD.

[@samrevlej9331]

Why would you assume he wanted to make Greece (including Macedon) the center of his empire? Persia was more wealthy, more centralized and more developed than Greece at this point. His generals resented that he was stepping away from Greek culture, but it was logical. Greece weighed much less demographically and economically. Continuing eastward was logical to a point: he wasn't going to leave the Achaemenids (Persian ruling dynasty) with half their empire now. Yes, it did lead to overextension, but that's hindsight talking.

[@PallThormodMorrisson]

Rome was just a modest city state at the time, whereas the Persian Empire was huge and wealthy.

[@crimist6873]

Another Reaction Video turned disaster, your question again answered by the video... as always 😂

[@JJ-of1ir]

Great videos today!

[@brigidsingleton1596]

The main truth of the matter is, Connor, that _you_ are _not_ Alexander, and _your viewpoint _now_ is _different_ to Alexander's _then_ and therefore _your_ ideas dont count...! (Sorry) It's _no good_ putting forward ideas and suppositions etc, with your _current_ thinking, as you have hindsight (as you said yourself) and twentieth / twentyfirst century thinking and learning to back you up. Alexander didn't. Glad you figured it out by the end. 👍🇺🇲🤭🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿💜🇬🇧🙂🖖

[@hellohellohellohellohello-h5l]

"Felipe"