Antiquity and Medieval
The earliest known example of an alternate history is Book IX, sections 17–19, of Livy's Ab Urbe condita. Livy contemplated an alternative 4th century BCE in which Alexander the Great expanded his empire westward instead of eastward; Livy asked, "What would have been the results for Rome if she had been engaged in war with Alexander?"
Joanot Martorell's 1490 epic romance Tirant lo Blanc, written when the loss of Constantinople to the Turks was still a recent and traumatic memory to Christian Europe, tells the story of the valiant knight Tirant The White from Brittany who gets to the embattled remnant of the Byzantine Empire, becomes a Megaduke and commander of its armies, and manages to fight off the invading Ottoman armies of Mehmet II, save the city from Islamic conquest, and even chase the Turks deeper into lands they had conquered before.
Read more about this topic: Alternate History Comics, History of Alternate History Literature
Famous quotes containing the words antiquity and/or medieval:
“Nothing but great antiquity can make graveyards interesting to me. I have no friends there.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The Christos-image
is most difficult to disentangle
from its art-craft junk-shop
paint-and-plaster medieval jumble
of pain-worship and death-symbol.”
—Hilda Doolittle (1886–1961)