Alexander's Empire

Alexander’s campaign had taken the best of male youth from the Greek population and made it incapable of holding at the center. Greco-Macedonian population at the time of Alexander's campaign is estimated between 1.5 million to 2.5 million - including slaves. That gives us a number of 75,000-150,000 family units which could have contributed one soldier each.

These populations are largely backward projections from current populations. After excluding agricultural workers required for maintenance of basic economic activity, slaves who would not qualify for military duty (malnourished and /or low on motivation levels), and defense of the Macedonia and Greece itself. Add to this, most soldiers either settled in the Asian regions or perished in war or due to injury and disease. Less than 20,000 soldiers (10%) of the Alexander's soldiers finally returned home. Hence, availability of soldiers was a severe limitation.

Post Alexander

Alexander’s vast dominions and revenues were unprotected. Greco-Macedonian political leadership were engaged with Alexander abroad. Its armies were tied up in Asia. No ruler after Alexander’s death in 323 BC was in a position to consolidate the conquests or overcome Greek-Macedonian infighting. The Daidochi Wars took up all the attention of the Greeks and Macedonians.

The Rise & Blip Of Rome

Rome was sucked into the vacuum left behind by Alexander’s death. Roman generals consolidated in Asia Minor and expanded into Europe. In 306, BC, Rome allied with Carthage against the Greeks. Over the next 150 years, Carthage and Rome battled Greece, conquered Sicily - and finally, attacked each other. After three Macedonian wars and the war with Antiochus the Great of Syria, Rome established itself as a prime power.

Carthage was left as the sole challenger to Roman authority. Finally, the Roman senate sent a descendant of Scipio Africanus (of the Second Punic War), Scipio Aemilianus - and in 146BC, Carthage was defeated. Carthage city was destroyed, its fields plowed and salted, so that the city would never come up again. 50,000 residents of Carthage were enslaved. In parallel, in 146BC, Corinth suffered a similar fate.

50 BC. Alexander passed into mythology. Romans had taken complete hold of the Alexandrian Empire. Millions (men, women and children) were enslaved. Swollen by revenues from the inherited Alexandrian territories of Asia Minor; by loot and conquests from Europe, Roman society was rolling in wealth. Nearly a million slaves toiled to keep Roman population well fed and in luxury.

Greek Re-emergence

The Balkan and the Mediterranean kingdoms (the roots of Alexander) took 500-600 years to recover their populations and youth to mount a challenge to the Roman usurpers and the Western Roman Empire.

The split started between the Western Roman Empire and the Byzantine Empire on linguistic lines. Western Roman Empire using Latin, operating from Rome - and the Eastern Roman Empire, using Greek, with Constantinople as its capital.

A major step in this Eastern challenge was to declare Constantinople as the second capital of the Roman Empire. Thereafter, deprived of revenues from the prosperous Eastern Empire, the Western Roman Empire collapsed.

The Roman Empire lasted all of 500 years - from the fall of Carthage and Corinth (146 BC) till the invasion of Alaric, The Goth (410AD). This 500-year blip in human history, called the Roman Empire, could not hold onto the Macedonian Empire they had usurped.

The split of the Eastern Roman Empire from the Western Roman Empire happened, though initially on linguistic lines, around 400 AD - later, on religious and other political lines. Over the next 200-400 years, Greek language became the official language of the Byzantine Empire. The Balkans, the Mediterranean and Eastern Europe followed the lead of the Byzantine Empire and used Greek extensively - at a cost to their own language.

For the next 1000 years, the Byzantine Empire used Greek as the official language - and had some Greek Kings. The ‘Greek Miracle’ was rewritten by these 'Greek' historians - 800-to-1000 years later. Much like modern day propaganda by the West, the Greeks used their language to create a myth around the Greek civilization. Alexander, a Macedonian (from modern day Balkans), was usurped by the Greeks (from the Mediterranean region) as their own.

On the other side of the world, Alexander’s conquests had increased trade manifold. Indo-Byzantine-Roman trade flourished. Greco-Roman currency, laws started at Indian borders and led right to the heart of the world’s largest and most prosperous market.

Modern Cultural Dacoity

Their own history being a barren cupboard, the BFAG countries (Britain, France, America and Germany) raided other cultures. For their guidance, they had the Greek model in place. They just extended that.

First, they sanitized the records of books that the Greeks borrowed from other cultures - and never returned. These ‘unreturned’ books were later ascribed to the Greeks. Then they sanitized the Greeks themselves. After the fall of Corinth, the Greeks disappeared from modern Western history.

A Balkan general, from an obscure part of Eastern Europe, Macedonia, was Hellenized. Alexander, became a Greek conqueror of the world. It would be similar to the Chinese claim to Genghis Khan’s Mongolian Empire.

Quite a bit of this ‘Greek’ learning came from Babylon-to-Greek-to-Arabic-to-Latin/Greek manuscripts. Greeks, Romans, the Church major destroyers of books and learning, became voracious dacoits in the recent past - without as much as by your say so. Roman usurpers (of the Balkan Empire) were glamorized - to the point of becoming stars in the glam rock show of Anglo-French-German history.