Alexander the Great was antiquity\'s greatest commander

[PMBardunias]

The Persian response - supplying a fleet to Conon and Pharnabazus, a trial run for Egypt - stopped the Spartan's trashing of their alliance obligations dead in the water.

As for alliance obligations, if Tissaphernes met his treaty obligations, the war would have ended before our extand version of Thucydides!

This was the point of my earlier post. Darius attempted the same tactic against Alexander. He ran a naval campaign against Alex's rear and funded military revolt in Crete and the Peloponessus (but for Demosthenes Athens too). Faced with a similar revolt, Agiselaos ran home at the height of his power in response to a summons from his people. Alexander appointed a subordinate to face the naval challenge and left Antipater with a scratch force to face the various revolts. It goes to show the difference in character between the men and their position within their states. Note, I am not saying which course of action was better. Clearly, the Spartans probably overreacted and sided with caution, while Alexander tossed the dice and relied on offense against the naval bases in Phoenicia to curb the naval threat. Alex was also well served by Antipater in a way that Hannibal was not by his subordinate generals when on their own- and if we consider Cleonymus as convincing Pyrrhus that Sparta would fall, him too.

As for marching as far as he wanted, he did not do that prior to his recall (alternately raiding and making treaties with either satrap - something the King put an abrupt end to) and the fate of the 10,000 is salutary.

He marched wherever he wished, plundering all the while. Had he been an unbalanced empire builder, he could have marched east or south and very little could have stopped him from "liberating" various Satraps or peoples- and liberating others from their money..