Great king Darius III ascended the peacock throne of the epic Persian empire in the summer of 336 BC, inheriting a kingdom of enormous proportions that stretched from Libya in North Africa to the Himalayan foothills in India. It was the dominant world power for over two centuries. In operational strategy, a security measure suggested by his military advisers, but which Darius despised, paying for it, was not to engage all his forces at once in every battle, but, consistent with the above maneuver, will preserve them to a great final moment when and where the Macedonian forces were at their limit of power. In the simulation at the military strategic level, an approach more in line with the Persian culture of indirect strategies should perhaps have explored its maritime situation further on the outside lines by conducting direct campaigns — albeit through agents such as Sparta — only in peripheries, delaying or avoiding land actions (most decisive battles) at their centers of gravity. A scorched earth policy, as suggested by Memnon, would have served this purpose, as well as meeting the difficulties in the flow of supplies from Greece caused by the Spartan actions to be faced by Antipater.
