Tristan Hughes

So he's got ambitions.

There's a story that he wants to now... The next campaign would be the coastline of Arabia and taking over the rich trading cities on the Arabian coastline, which would connect him with the...

the luscious market of Egypt and all the way to the Red Sea.

And there's also one last point I will mention, because I think this is important for where we're going to go.

He apparently also orders the building around this time of a new massive fleet of some a thousand ships to be built in the Eastern Mediterranean, which I also find very, very interesting indeed, which I think will be interesting as we get kind of like to the next stage of what if Alexander, now that he's residing in Babylon, maybe Arabia is his first point of call, but even if he wants to move his actual center to somewhere like Babylon,

Did he have designs ultimately to campaign further west?

But still, that is the world of Alexander in 323 BC.

I hope that was okay to follow.

Yeah, and I think one other thing to say is obviously the wars and the success of that breakup when he dies is because there's no clear heir.

If he hasn't died at that time, one of his wives, the aforementioned Roxana, this princess from Uzbekistan, she's pregnant at the time that Alexander did die.

So if he didn't, and she gives birth to a son, which is Alexander IV.

So Alexander will also have a legitimate heir at that time too.

Still a kid, but Alexander does also now have a child.

And he's also married to two more Persian princesses who you can presume he planned to have more

children with so that's a that's another fun fact shall we now delve into this idea that should we do about like 322 or 321 BC just to say that maybe he's gone and campaigned in Arabia for a bit and he's come back right and he's now looking potentially to

to go westwards.

Do we have any idea what the Romans thought of Alexander the Great and his campaigns at that time?

Are there any contemporary references?

I can't think of a Roman embassy being sent to Alexander the Great, but surely even when they're growing in Italy, they must have been hearing what this Macedonian king was doing a bit further east.

Oh, yeah, like besieging rock fortresses again and again and again.