> It's likely that Alexander would have taken over Italy had he lived a couple more decades. At the height of the greek empire, it's pretty much a given that a

> It's likely that Alexander would have taken over Italy had he lived a couple more decades. At the height of the greek empire, it's pretty much a given that alexander would have easily conquered italy. But there was no real reason to as italy/rome back then wasn't really worth conquering compared to egypt, persia, india... I suspect had alexander lived long enough, he would have move further into india and maybe even into china. Not sure how successful he really would have been, but it's an interesting "what if". > History is full of civilizations that fought bravely against invaders and were destroyed. It's also full of examples of civilizations that surrendered and thrived. It's a hard pill to swallow that "cowardly" surrender can often be objectively better than "stubborn" bravery. The most poignant example of this is Catholic Europe and Islamic Khwarezmia when Genghis Khan sent his emissaries to each. The leader of khwarezmia had the emissaries tortured and killed and refused trade relations with genghis khan. The pope "surrendered" to genghis khan and established trade relations with the mongol empire. Khwarezmia got destroyed. Italy/Europe got direct trade with the largest empire in the world and got immensely rich which kicked off the italian renaissance and the rest is history. Of course there are counterexamples as well like the english stubbornness against the spanish empire ( the destruction of the spanish armada ) and most relevant to us, the american revolution. The key seems to be, if you are going to be stubborn against a major power, be damned sure you can win.