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If Alexander didn't need to go after Bessos deep into Persia, would he have gone anyway? I mean, going through Bactria and all those places was a must-do, a true strategy? Or it just "happened"?

Hi Susa,

as best as I can recall, Persian officials above the governors of individual cities never showed an inclination to go over to Alexander until his army was about to arrive. If he wanted to rule the world, he had to march around it, performing ceremonies to the local gods at all the boundaries and making the governors kiss his feet and beg him to restore them to office. (And I think that after Mazaeus and the Babylonians [s]disgracefully betrayed Darius the King[/s] realized that the gods wanted Alexander to be King of the World, Alexander did want to rule everything and not just settle for the western lands).

If you look at lands one by one, the lands which Alexander never visited with an army- Paphlagonia/Cappadocia/Armenia, Nubia, western Arabia- are the ones which his successors never controlled very well.

If you are thinking of Alexander capturing Darius, what would have happened next is hard to say. I suspect that some of the more distant governors would have rejected both of them unless it was clear that Alexander was about to arrive at their gate with an army. After all, Darius' claim to the throne was pretty weak, and the gods had showed twice that they were not on his side (and Alexander found it very difficult to find people who he could put in charge of a district who would not start robbing the locals naked/taking bribes by the ox-cart full as soon as he was out of sight).

Aside from the areas which never submitted to Alexander, you could look at Spitamenes' revolt in Sogdia, and all the troubles in the provinces when Alexander returned from India.

Remember that this is a world without radio, let alone airmail, let alone skype. Meeting people face-to-face was even more important than it is today.

Alexander would have gone to Bactria and Sogdiana anyway at some point because Cyrus the Great had. The area was part of the Persian empire and he is unlikely to have left it unconquered, partly because it produced lapis lazuli - a source of great wealth. Alexander also developed a strategy of defining his boundaries by rivers - the Danube, the Nile valley, the Oxus and Jaxartes, and the Indus valley.