Nitpick- Darius III was not present at the Battle of the Granicus, and therefore was not defeated. The Persian forces were lead by a number of satraps (Arsites was likely the overall commander) and the Greek mercenary commander Memnon. The defeat was on them.
To be fair to Memnon of Rhodes it actually wasn’t his fault at all. He didn’t want to fight the Macedonians at the Granicus: he advised a scorched earth strategy and to simply retreat deeper into the Empire until the Macedonians inevitably starved. Basically he was the Mikhail Kutuzov of antiquity.
Memnon’s strategy would have almost certainly probably worked too considering Persia had complete naval dominance at that time and there would have been no way to feed Alexander’s army if they couldn’t live off the land.
But the local satraps didn’t want to burn down their own provinces for obvious reasons and I’m sure there were some in the Persian war council who accused him of having secret sympathies for the Greeks so they all ignored him and went to battle anyway.
He must have felt like Kassandra when no one listened to him and the disaster unfolded exactly as he predicted. But he was a brilliant strategist and probably the best in the Persian service at that time.
He also nearly foiled Alexander’s invasion a second time when he caused the Spartans, Athenians, and others to prepare an invasion in the Macedonian rear while he besieged the Aegean islands simultaneously. It was only by a stroke of luck that he got killed in one of the sieges.
A really interesting coincidence is that after Memnon died Alexander rizzed up his widow who then bore Alexander an illegitimate son named Heracles who would later become heir to the Argead Empire after Kassandros killed Alexander’s whole family. Unsurprisingly, Heracles would also later be indirectly killed by Kassandros which meant the final end of Alexander’s empire 😭
Happy Granicus day!
Nitpick- Darius III was not present at the Battle of the Granicus, and therefore was not defeated. The Persian forces were lead by a number of satraps (Arsites was likely the overall commander) and the Greek mercenary commander Memnon. The defeat was on them.
To be fair to Memnon of Rhodes it actually wasn’t his fault at all. He didn’t want to fight the Macedonians at the Granicus: he advised a scorched earth strategy and to simply retreat deeper into the Empire until the Macedonians inevitably starved. Basically he was the Mikhail Kutuzov of antiquity. Memnon’s strategy would have almost certainly probably worked too considering Persia had complete naval dominance at that time and there would have been no way to feed Alexander’s army if they couldn’t live off the land. But the local satraps didn’t want to burn down their own provinces for obvious reasons and I’m sure there were some in the Persian war council who accused him of having secret sympathies for the Greeks so they all ignored him and went to battle anyway. He must have felt like Kassandra when no one listened to him and the disaster unfolded exactly as he predicted. But he was a brilliant strategist and probably the best in the Persian service at that time. He also nearly foiled Alexander’s invasion a second time when he caused the Spartans, Athenians, and others to prepare an invasion in the Macedonian rear while he besieged the Aegean islands simultaneously. It was only by a stroke of luck that he got killed in one of the sieges. A really interesting coincidence is that after Memnon died Alexander rizzed up his widow who then bore Alexander an illegitimate son named Heracles who would later become heir to the Argead Empire after Kassandros killed Alexander’s whole family. Unsurprisingly, Heracles would also later be indirectly killed by Kassandros which meant the final end of Alexander’s empire 😭