Tristan Hughes

And it's, again, it's why so many powers and empires in history have had trouble in the same region because of this very fragmented political system with a strong...

strongly independently minded people, but also the landscapes that make campaigning difficult, that give plenty of strongholds.

And you need a lot more soldiers if you're going to garrison all of this and hold everything down, and you just don't have the numbers.

So even with the army that's bigger, he can't put a garrison everywhere, he can't be strong everywhere.

And the reason for the defeat was that he wasn't strong enough in that one place at the time, because he's busy with most of the army off elsewhere.

And by the time they come up to aid them, the columns have been wiped out.

It's one of the lulls.

You know, it's not 12 months of a year every year they're campaigning.

It's very intensive, but it's one of the quieter periods.

And it's partly why he's appointing Blacklighters, as he's called, to this posting, basically, as governor.

So there's a brief pause and you often find you get trouble as soon as you get Mibnis in armies when they get some rest period.

Because while they're busy fighting, they're just too busy and too preoccupied and then too exhausted.

But when you get a bit of time to stop and think, things tend to get...

fractures, grievances have time to grow a little bit.

And in this case, you've got some feasting.

They're celebrating when they do stop on those rare occasions.

They do have big parties.

They celebrate.

All of this has got more lavish because Alexander is now fabulously wealthy in a way that he wasn't ever as king of Macedonia.

You've got the Persian luxuries.