[costco]

OK I was wrong in some respects. Philip was undoubtedly very smart. I guess my broader point is that planning to do it and actually doing it are different things. Like Alexander sieged Tyre which was pretty much thought to be impossible. Meanwhile there were much more familiar cities that Philip failed to siege and had to abandon.

[turndown]

I’d recommend learning a lot more. For example, Phillip was actually an innovator in siege equipment and was the first person in Greece to really take towns by besieging them. You can count on two hands all the times in Greek history before Phillip where a city fell without the help of people inside the city betraying it. After, this changed a lot. Phillip probably wouldn’t have taken Tyre - but you forget that the only reason Alexander decided to take Tyre was because Tyre had surrendered but wouldn’t allow Alexander to come into the city for a religious festival honoring Heracles. I don’t think Phillip would have gone the same route.

[costco]

> So Alexander likely inherited a fully-formed invasion plan as well, though I suspect it only went as far as detaching western Asia Minor from the Achaemenids, not the whole empire.

And upon rereading, the article says this as well which is more along the lines of what I have read previously and what I meant about ambition. Would Philip have actually conquered the whole thing?