After the battle, Alexander buried the dead (Greeks and Persians), and sent the captured Greek mercenaries back to Greece to work in the mines, as an abject lesson for any Greek who decided to fight for the Persians. He sent some of the spoils back to Greece, including three hundred panoplies (complete Persian suits of armor) back to Athens to be dedicated in the Parthenon with the inscription “Alexander, son of Philip and the Greeks, Lacedaemonians (Spartans) excepted, these spoils from the barbarians who dwell in Asia”.
Antipater, whom Alexander had left in charge of Macedon in his absence, had been given a free hand to install dictators and tyrants wherever he saw fit in order to minimize the risk of a rebellion. As he moved deeper into Persia, however, the threat of trouble seemed to grow. Many of these towns had been ruled for generations by heavy handed tyrants, so in these Persian towns, he did the opposite of what he did in Greece. Wanting to appear to be a liberator, he freed the population and allowed self-government. As he continued marching into Persia, he saw that his victory at Granicus had been lost on no one. Town after town seemed to surrender to him. The satrap at Sardis, as well as his garrison, was among the first of many satraps to capitulate.
As these satraps gave up, Alexander appointed new ones to replace them, and claimed to distrust the accumulation of absolute power into anyone’s hands. There appeared to be little change from the old system. Alexander, however, appointed independent boards to collect tribute and taxes from the satrapies, which appeared to do nothing more than improve the efficiency of government. The true effect, however, was to separate the civil from the financial function of these satrapies, thus ensuring that these governments, while technically independent of him, never truly were. Otherwise, he allowed the inhabitants of these towns to continue as they always had, and made no attempt to impose Greek customs on them. Meanwhile, ambassadors from other Greek cities in Asia Minor came to Alexander, offering submission if he allowed their ‘democracies’ to continue. Alexander granted their wish, and allowed them to stop paying taxes to Persia, but only if they joined the League of Corinth. By doing so, they promised to provide monetary support to Alexander.
Source: Wikipedia
