The military impact of Rome by the end of the fourth century BCE was so great that Livy felt it worthwhile to compare Roman prowess with that of the world-conquering Alexander the Great, who between 334 and 323 BCE had led his Macedonian army on a spree of conquest from Greece to India. Livy wondered who would have won, the Romans or the Macedonians, if they had come head to head, a military conundrum that armchair generals still ponder.
