Tristan Hughes

Which is another kind of big step a few months after Granicus, after Alexander's done more conquest down the seaboard.

And it keeps on going.

So he takes that Western seaboard of Anatolia.

The Persian fleet is mega powerful and still there and thereabouts.

And Memnon of Rhodes is still there and thereabouts.

So actually they go into the Aegean for a bit and start causing chaos.

And Alexander realizes that his own fleet's not up to that.

So he decides, well, I'm going to focus on the land war.

and take away the ports of the Phoenicians and the Cypriots and so on, who are the best sailors for the Persian fleet.

So although he takes those cities, he has to leave that fleet and let it be a menace whilst he keeps going eastwards.

After this, let's say after Hadakarnassus, he starts heading eastwards.

And by this time, taking control of the old administrative centers of the Persians and either putting in Macedonians loyal to him, if the people in charge have switched over, I think he's already leaving it in charge of that local, kind of leaving the administration in place.

Or to allies, the famous story with Halicarnassus is that there's almost this mother-like figure of Alexander, Queen Ada, who I think there's one that she cooks in biscuits or cakes and sends them to him when he's on campaign later.

And he reinstates her as queen.

So he puts allies in charge of these places that he takes over from the beginning.

And then he heads eastwards.

I always kind of picture it almost like a horseshoe shape because he doesn't then go into the difficult highland areas, which are, as we'll see time and time again elsewhere, their home to what they think are more backward people, but they're warlike.

They're hillmen, they're tribesmen, and they live in these kind of strongholds up in the mountains, if you visit Termessus today.

It's a beautiful, beautiful surviving city high up.

And so he kind of avoids those hillmen and he focuses in on the Persian administrative centers, another one, Kelainai, which is just a bit inland.