Dr Adrian Goldsworthy

But the fact that he's won has given a boost.

It's meant that cities are thinking, actually, yeah, let's join in.

It's again the contrast between Alexander's army and the earlier Greek armies that have come.

Alexander's army, created by Philip, being honed by Alexander himself, has that siege capacity.

You talked about the catapults, the engineers.

It's not just the technology, it's the men who know how to use it, and the ability to organize and to keep fighting.

So yes, you win the battle, that's great.

But if the cities then just close their gates and you can't get any of them, you're going to starve in the long run anyway.

And also you're not holding any ground.

Philip's war and the way Alexander continues it, you just keep fighting.

You always attack something and you turn up and if a city comes over to you, great.

If it doesn't, you capture it, I think you possibly can, so that the next one you come to then has that to bear in mind when it makes its decision, when you turn up outside its gates and say, let me in and also give me this much wheat, this much barley, these clothes for my men, whatever I need.

So it breaks down into lots of less famous.

All our attention is drawn to the Granicus, and that's important.

Alexander could have lost the battle and his life, lost the war rather, at the Granicus.

But he wins the war not just by winning that battle, but by taking all of these great places and small places.

And by taking the time when it comes to someone like Halicarnassus and having an army with the skill to mount a proper siege that pushes towards an assault, it isn't just, I'm going to blockade you and I wait for you to starve, because that can take months, years.

You know, it takes, how many years for the Athenians to take Potidaea at the start of the Peloponnesian War?

Three or four years.

Alexander's not doing that.