ancient warfare hey dirk you gave a good answer to my question concerning the roman tactics of bringing provinces into the empire and i read your similar question and i may have an answer for you there are a couple of major reasons as to twhy alexander was able to take his army so far in so short a time alexander had the advantage of inheriting a great army from his father and the macedonian empire saturated with i believe silver another major factor was the persians they had a large army of hundreds of thousands mostly conscripted agaist their will and treated very poorly when darius was defeated he actually was treated like a liberator and could have easily not only absorbed the remnants of the persian army but gained more volunteers anyway thank you for your response to my question