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A Roman Tradition of Alexander the Great Counterfactual History

livyA Roman Tradition of Alexander the Great Counterfactual History

By Nikolaus Leo Overtoom

Paper given at the Classical Association of the Middle West and South Southern Section Annual Conference, in Tallahassee, Florida (2012)

Abstract: This paper examines first the scholarly debates surrounding the placement of Livy’s digression in his larger narrative, the objectives of Livy’s digression, and the reasons for its existence. It will then turn to a discussion of the popularity and consistency of the Roman tradition of Alexander counterfactual history. These counterfactual accounts materialized in stories of Roman contact with Alexander before his death and in his planned conquest of Italy. There came to be a well established tradition of the threat of Alexander to Italy and his designs to wage war against the Romans. This message became more focused on a direct clash between Alexander and Rome in our later sources. The tradition not only attempted to represent Rome and Italy as places of relative international importance in the late forth century BCE but also served to compare a young Roman state, which would rise to dominance in the Mediterranean world, favorably to the mightiest conqueror in all of history.

Introduction: The military success of Alexander the Great and his early death at the height of his power lends itself perfectly to the realm of counterfactual history. Questions about Alexander’s potential strategies, motives, and objectives accompany those who study the life of Macedonia’s greatest king. Ancient writers shared in this fascination and often turned to a counterfactual examination of Alexander’s plans in the latter years of the fourth century BCE. Several of our surviving texts address this tradition in some manner. No less than nine authors partook in the creation and propagation of Alexander counterfactual history. Livy’s digression on Alexander the Great’s hypothetical invasion of Italy is the largest and most noteworthy of these examples. Yet extant examples range from as early as the third century BCE to the sixth century CE.



This paper will examine first the scholarly debates surrounding the placement of Livy’s digression in his larger narrative, the objectives of Livy’s digression, and the reasons for its existence. It will then turn to a discussion of the popularity and consistency of the Roman tradition of Alexander counterfactual history. These counterfactual accounts materialized in stories of Roman contact with Alexander before his death and in his planned conquest of Italy. There came to be a well established tradition of the threatof Alexander to Italy and his designs to wage war against the Romans. This message became more focused on a direct clash between Alexander and Rome in our later sources. The tradition not only attempted to represent Rome and Italy as places of relative international importance in the late forth century BCE but also served to compare a young Roman state, which would rise to dominance in the Mediterranean world, favorably to the mightiest conqueror in all of history.

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