Editing Alexander the Great (section)

===Last plans===

[[Diodorus]] stated that Alexander had given detailed written instructions to [[Craterus]] some time before his death, which are known as Alexander's "last plans".<ref name="DSXVIII4" /> Craterus started to carry out Alexander's commands, but the successors chose not to further implement them, on the grounds they were impractical and extravagant.<ref name="DSXVIII4" /> Furthermore, [[Perdiccas]] had read the notebooks containing Alexander's last plans to the Macedonian troops in Babylon, who voted not to carry them out.<ref name="Roisman 2010 199" />

According to Diodorus, Alexander's last plans called for military expansion into the southern and western Mediterranean, monumental constructions, and the intermixing of Eastern and Western populations. It included:
* Construction of 1,000 ships larger than triremes, along with harbours and a road running along the African coast all the way to the [[Pillars of Hercules]], to be used for an invasion of [[Ancient Carthage|Carthage]] and the western Mediterranean;<ref name=Bad/>
* Erection of great temples in [[Delos]], [[Delphi]], [[Dodona]], [[Dium]], [[Amphipolis]], all costing 1,500 [[Attic talent|talents]], and a monumental temple to [[Athena]] at [[Troy]]<ref name="Roisman 2010 199" /><ref name=Bad/>
* Amalgamation of small settlements into larger cities ("[[synoecism]]s") and the "transplant of populations from Asia to Europe and in the opposite direction from Europe to Asia, in order to bring the largest continent to common unity and to friendship by means of intermarriage and family ties"<ref>{{harvnb|McKechnie|1989|p=54}}</ref><ref name=Bad/>
* Construction of a monumental tomb for his father Philip, "to match the greatest of the [[pyramids of Egypt]]"<ref name="Roisman 2010 199" /><ref name=Bad/>
* Conquest of [[Arabia]]<ref name="Roisman 2010 199" />
* Circumnavigation of Africa<ref name="Roisman 2010 199" />

The enormous scale of these plans has led many scholars to doubt their historicity. [[Ernst Badian]] argued that they were exaggerated by Perdiccas in order to ensure that the Macedonian troops voted not to carry them out.<ref name=Bad>{{cite journal |last1=Badian |first1=Erns |title=A King's Notebooks |journal=Harvard Studies in Classical Philology |date=1968 |volume=72 |pages=183–204|doi=10.2307/311079 |jstor=311079 }}</ref> Other scholars have proposed that they were invented by later authors within the tradition of the [[Alexander Romance]].{{sfn|Tarn|1979|p=378}}