Alexander of Macedon - Conquest of Persia - Ancient History DOCUMENTARY

Alexander III of Macedonia, known commonly as Alexander the Great, is one of the most fascinatingly complex figures in history. In the course of just over 10 years, he conquered the largest Empire the world had yet seen, spread Hellenic culture from Greece to the borders of India and, in the process, changed the course of human history. For over 2,000 years, his life story has been analyzed, written and rewritten. He began as a young king of Macedonia and then developed into a hero and god during his own lifetime. After his death, his legend increased still further, becoming the founding hero of many successor kingdoms and the ultimate aspirational figure for politicians and military leaders across the Greco-Roman world. During the Middle Ages, he was viewed as a romantic figure of a bygone era, a paragon of chivalric values of virtue. Later still, he was viewed as a tragic figure, a Greek tragedy made real in a man who succeeded purely off the back of his own ambition and drive before dying tragically young. Today, views of Alexander are more nuanced. Widely acknowledged as one of the greatest military commanders in history, Alexander is also recognised as being a list of contradictions. He could be as vicious and brutal as he could generous and kind, he was a forward thinking rationalist but also superstitious and paranoid, he was in some ways terrible, and in other ways, truly great. In this video, we will tell the story of Alexander from his first days as King of Macedonia to his conquest of Persia. One part of Alexander’s success was technological: he inherited strong weapons, and developed strong tactics. In this spirit, here are some ways to use a weapon of the modern age that you might not have thought of, from our sponsor Nord VPN. 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That’s not even the end of Nord’s features, but it's time for an offer: go to nord vpn dot com slash kings and generals, and you’ll get four bonus months added on top of a two year plan. There’s a thirty day risk free money back guarantee if you start using NordVPN then decide against it, so there’s no harm in at least trying it out. Get all those features and more today at nord vpn dot com slash kings and generals. In October 336BC, on the eve of launching his invasion of the Achaemenid Empire, Philip II of Macedonia died to an assassin’s dagger, leaving his ascendant kingdom to an uncertain future.The crown passed on to his 20 year old son who had already proved himself both in court and on the battlefield, Alexander. This young king inherited three key things from his father: firstly, the new Macedonian army with its stalwart phalanx and brilliant cavalry. Secondly, a core of experienced and disciplined marshals. Finally, Alexander inherited a Macedonian bridgehead in western Asia Minor manned by 10,000 troops under generals Parmenion and Attalus. But these inheritances were tenuous and to keep them Alexander would have to fight for them. The first order of business was Attalus. Upon Philip's death, his most ardent opponent, Demosthenes of Athens, had reportedly sent letters to Attalus urging him to overthrow the young Alexander. Attalus himself was a long-term foe of Alexander, but was not yet ready to make a significant play. In an attempt to save himself, he passed the letters from Demosthenes to Alexander insisting that he had done nothing to instigate the collusion. Alexander, however, was not appeased and had Attalus executed, simultaneously sending agents to Asia Minor to secure Parmenion's loyalty through promises of command and authority. Philip’s death had also left the wider geopolitical situation incredibly unstable, triggering anti-Macedonian rumblings in the tenuously allied Greek states, particularly Thebes and Athens, as well as unrest in subdued tribal areas such as Thrace and Illyria. At this point it is worth making a quick comment on terminology throughout this series. Alexander and the Macedonians were a Hellenic people, as were the citizens of the Greek city-states. The Macedonians were, however, a politically separate group and that divide between Macedonians and those from the Greek city-states is an occasionally important one to make. As a result, this series will refer to people from ancient Macedonia as Macedonians, and those from the Greek city-states as ‘Greeks’. When referring to both groups, they will be referred to as Hellenes or Hellenic. Although advised by Antipater, an experienced general who had served under Philip, to remain cautious, Alexander, as he ever would, instead chose boldness and audacity. He grabbed 3,000 handpicked cavalry and sped south along the coastal road in order to reassert royal authority. Arriving at the Vale of Tempe, Alexander found the pass between Mount Olympus and Mount Ossa held against him by a strong Thessalian force, who told the king to halt while they decided whether or not to admit him. Unwilling to sit by while this recalcitrant vassal blocked his path, Alexander had his men carve steps into the seaward side of Mount Ossa, rode his entire force over and came up on the Thessalians from behind. He was quickly acknowledged as their overlord after that, and moved on unhindered. With blistering speed, Alexander rode south and, at Thermopylae, was proclaimed hegemon of the largely symbolic Amphictyonic League. Then, before the Greeks even knew what was happening, the Macedonian king materialised outside Thebes, shocking the proud city and assuring its temporary submission. Athens, which always chafed under Macedonian rule, nevertheless sent envoys north assuring Alexander of its loyalty. The Greek city-states had underestimated Alexander's boldness, daring and ability and had been caught off-guard. As a result, Alexander convened the League of Corinth and was elected hegemon, just as his father had been, before returning to Macedon. All that in the course of two months. The winter leading into 335 BC was spent giving the Macedonian army a crash course in mountain warfare. Now that Greece had been dealt with, Alexander needed to neutralise the rowdy tribes of Thrace and Illyria, so that they were not a threat at home during the upcoming Persian invasion. When spring of 335 arrived, Alexander advanced north from Amphipolis at the head of 12,000 heavy infantry Pezhetairoi, 8,000 lighter infantry and 3,000 cavalry. Arrian states that the Macedonian army first faced real Thracian opposition at ‘Mount Haemus’, ‘where the lower slopes of the mountain rise through a narrow defile’. This was probably the modern Shipka Pass. There, a substantial force of Thracians occupied the high pass, fronting their defensive position with a wagon fort. But Alexander, prescient both to his own weakness and the Thracians’ offensive bent, realised that it was their plan to send the wagons crashing into his locked phalanx. He warned the heavy infantry of this and carefully instructed them how to deal with the situation. With that taken care of, Alexander ordered the ascent - archers off to the right, phalanx regiments in the centre and his hypaspists on the left. As predicted, the Thracians sent their wagons careening down the mountain straight at the tightly packed Macedonians. Following their king’s instruction, the phalangites calmly broke formation and opened gaps to let the wagons go by harmlessly if terrain allowed, and lay prone with their locked shields above their head if not. Not a single soldier was lost to the Thracian ploy and the Macedonians rose to their feet with a cheer, morale at a high. With the primary threat dealt with, Alexander ordered the right flank archers to take up position in front of the phalanx, where they repelled a number of weak Thracian attacks by loosing arrow volleys. When the heavy troops, whose advance was eased by the archers, reached the lip of the pass, they easily dislodged an enemy whose armour and weaponry was nowhere near as good as theirs. 1,500 tribesmen were killed, but a significant number more managed to escape. Captured women, children, equipment and goods were sent back to raise much needed funds. Descending onto the Danubian plain, and the land of the Triballians, Alexander encamped three days' march from the Danube at a tributary known as the Lyginus. Syrmus - King of the Triballians, had been sending scouts to keep an eye on the Macedonian army’s movement ever since their incursion began. Realising he had to take action, the chief withdrew a large part of his population, warriors, women and children, to a large island in the middle of the Danube. Alerted to this suspicious population movement, Alexander pushed his army in that direction. However, he had only just set off when the king had his line of retreat and communication cut by a second Triballian force, which slipped in behind. Decisively turning about, Alexander found this contingent in the process of encamping near the Lyginus. Hoping to lure the Triballians into the attack, Alexander initially sent forward only his missile troops to harass them while keeping his phalanx and cavalry hidden in the trees. The Thracians, peppered by arrows and slingstones, quickly marshalled their force to chase off the missile troops and charged, just as Alexander had planned. The Macedonian phalanx attacked the centre while Alexander's cavalry, including the famous Companions or Hetairoi, charged the enemy’s flanks. The battle was over in moments and was a decisive victory, with Arrian reporting that the the Thracians lost roughly 3,000 while Alexander suffered just 54 dead. These numbers are certainly questionable, but it is clear that Alexander's attack was overwhelmingly successful. Three days’ march later and Alexander reached the Danube directly opposite Syrmus’ island refuge, known as Peuce. There, as planned, he rendezvoused with a small squadron of warships sent from Byzantium, manned them with heavy troops and archers, and launched an attack on the island. Unfortunately for the Macedonians, a mixture of dogged resistance, limited avenues of attack and a fierce current led to the failure of this attack. Seeing he was getting nowhere, Alexander withdrew the ships to the southern bank. By that time, a formidable band of 10,000 nomadic Getae infantry and 4,000 horsemen had gathered on the far side of the Danube. Rather than seeing this as a threat though, Alexander saw an opportunity - smash the Getae and the island might well surrender out of sheer terror. But his army had to cross the Danube, and his small fleet was not enough. So, Alexander ordered that every single native canoe and craft be gathered up, and that floats should be made from tents stuffed with hay. Thus provisioned with such a makeshift fleet, that night, masked by the darkness, Alexander boldly ferried 4,000 of his infantry and 1,500 cavalry across the Danube. Successful, he disembarked them on a section of the north bank which was masked from the nearby Getae by tall fields of grain. Just before dawn, the king drew up his forces with infantry in front, to flatten the grain with their sarissae, and cavalry behind. The moment Alexander’s strikeforce broke cover from the grain, the king personally charged his 1,500 cavalry straight at the Getae, while the terrifyingly disciplined Macedonian phalanx went forward in lock-step. Impacted by the fearsome companion cavalry and faced with the pincushion phalanx, the Getae collapsed and fled to a nearby town, four miles from the river. But, hotly pursued by the Macedonians, the semi-nomadic Getae mounted as many civilians as they could and fled onto the steppe. After leading his triumphant troops back to camp on the south shore, Alexander’s prediction became reality. Syrmus and his Triballians, awed into submission by this display of martial prowess, sent envoys of capitulation to the king. At about the same time, an embassy of tall Celts arrived desiring Alexander’s friendship. The king asked these veritable giants what they were scared of, hoping they would say his name. Much to Alexander’s disappointment, they instead famously remarked that they feared that the sky would fall on their heads. Evidently not everybody found Alexander as awe-inspiring as he hoped, but he nonetheless sent them off as friends. With the potential danger posed by Thrace adequately cut down, the Macedonian army marched south via the Shipka Pass. Rather than turning south, Alexander pivoted west and entered the domain of his ally - King Langarus of the Agrianians who had accompanied the king on campaign with his force of deadly Agrianian skirmishers. There, he learned that three Illyrian rulers - Cleitus, Glaucias and a prince of the Autariantes were in revolt against him. But for the moment, all of the king’s enemies were scattered. So, leaving his faithful Agrianian colleague to deal with the Autariantes2, Alexander sped to assail Cleitus’ mountain stronghold at Pelium before the Illyrians could join forces. The plain on which this citadel stood, dominating the Apsus valley, was surrounded on three sides by densely wooded hills which could only be traversed by a narrow pass. It was hard to get in, but also hard to get out. The moment Alexander marched his army onto the plain before Pelium, its defenders withdrew to safety behind the walls. Such freedom of the land allowed the Macedonian king to encamp and begin pulling forward his siege equipment. It was a rare tactical blunder for Alexander which committed his army to the siege thus leaving his rear exposed. Sure enough, less than 24 hours later, Glaucias and his Taulantian relief force arrived, occupying strong positions on the wooded heights encircling Pelium and trapping Alexander. In need of supplies, the king dispatched the baggage train and a mounted escort under Parmenion’s son, Philotas, to forage near the hills. Noticing this, Glaucias shifted his forces and almost encircled Philotas, but Alexander reacted swiftly. Moving to Philotas’ aid with a picked force of Agrianians, hypaspists and 400 cavalry, the king managed to save his comrade and send Glaucias back onto the hills. Despite this small win, the fact remained that the Macedonian army was in a bind, caused entirely by the king’s hasty miscalculation. If Alexander attempted to withdraw through the narrow pass now, there was a danger that Cleitus’ Pelium garrison would assail his men from behind. If he stayed where he was, unable to gather supplies and ringed by enemies, the result would be inevitable destruction. To his credit, Alexander thought fast and came up with a ploy. He drew up the sarissa phalanx into a mass formation 120 ranks deep, flanked by 200 cavalry on either side. Then the king had his highly disciplined infantry conduct drills. At a signal the phalangites would’ve, in perfect unison, raised their sarissae to vertical, before lowering them to horizontal. Like a programmed machine of war, they pivoted right, left, back and forth again, without a word being uttered. Disconcerted and enthralled by this unprecedented display of martial prowess, the Illyrians were not ready when Alexander gave his final signal. Suddenly, the infantry clattered their spears against their shields and raised a war cry. At the same time, the left flank of the Macedonian hetairoi seamlessly formed into a wedge and charged a portion of Glaucias’ men guarding the hills. The demoralised Taulantians, taken aback by the charge and the noise, mostly abandoned their hilltop positions and withdrew into Pelium. Taking advantage of the opportunity his maneuvering had created, Alexander marched his army towards an escape route - a ford in the Apsus just east of Pelium. He secured a hill overlooking it without resistance stationing 2,000 arches and agrianians on this high ground as a rearguard and ordered the hypaspists to cross first, followed by the phalanx. Realising their quarry might be about to escape the trap, the tribesmen turned, descending on the crossing point. But Alexander, the companions and Agrianians valiantly protected it for long enough that siege catapults could be set up on the far side, where they began bombarding the Illyrians, the first recorded use of siege weapons as field artillery. This use of ‘field artillery’ and covering fire from archers allowed the crossing to be completed, and all of a sudden, the Macedonians were free. Not having lost a single man in extricating his army and not content with just running away, Alexander withdrew a few miles from the Pelium area and waited, sending out constant scouting parties to see what Glaucias and Cleitus were doing. After three days of general recuperation, a reconnaissance force returned with good news. Believing Alexander was gone, the Illyrians were strung-out, encamped without sentries, fortifications or trenches3. Sensing that an opportunity was ripe for the taking, Alexander assembled a crack force of hypaspists, archers, Agrianians and 3,000 phalangites and went on the attack. Under the cover of a dark night, the Macedonian king moved back into the valley and, with his Agrianians at the forefront, assaulted the unsuspecting Illyrians on a narrow front. It was a slaughter. As Arrian relates: “Some they killed in their beds, others they took without difficulty as they tried to escape. Many were caught and killed on the spot, many more as they fled in panic and disorder.” Cleitus, his entire army cut down or scattered by an enemy he thought long gone, fled to Pelium, set it ablaze and then fled to refuge in Taulantian territory with Glaucias, whose forces suffered a similar fate. Our primary sources do not detail exactly where Alexander went next, but Peter Green believes that the Macedonians marched up the county to a crossing in the Tscherna River, where they reunited with a victorious Langarus. With news of victory, however, the Agrianian king brought Alexander ill tidings from Greece. Many Greek city-states had always harboured resentment for their Macedonian overlords, Thebes and Athens in particular. Revolt had been bubbling for some time, but when rumour began to circulate that Alexander and his entire army had been killed in Illyria, key players in the Greek city-states, most notably Demosthenes of Athens, began to call for an uprising. Thebes need little convincing. They seized the opportunity, killing both senior Macedonian officers stationed there, besieging the Macedonian garrison on the Theban citadel, the Cadmea, and raised the standard of rebellion. This was no spontaneous revolt, however. Demosthenes had likely been planning the revolt for a number of years and had even managed to secure Persian funding. It was with this funding that Theban exiles were able to take up arms and return to their home city, overthrowing the Macedonian garrison. To make matters worse, there is also archaeological evidence to suggest that the Thebans also supported Alexander’s cousin, Amyntas, as a rival claimant for the throne. Alexander knew that he was needed in Greece to crush the revolt personally, but he also needed to make sure that the political situation in Pella was under control. As such, he turned to the one person that he could trust completely: his mother Olympias. On Alexander’s instruction, Olympias conducted a purge of Alexander’s most dangerous political opponents, including Amyntas and Philip’s wife Cleopatra. While Olympias consolidated his position in Pella, Alexander gathered his army and moved over 30,000 troops 250 miles at a speed of 18 miles a day through rough mountain terrain,descended into Thessaly, passed Thermopylae and encamped at Onchestus, in Boeotia. Not long after that, in September 335BC, he and his grizzled army were taking up positions outside Thebes, much to the disbelief of the city’s inhabitants. There was surely no way for an army of such a scale to arrive with such speed. While the army had been approaching, the Thebans had managed to convince themselves that Demosthenes was correct that Alexander was indeed dead, and that the army was being led by one pf his generals, such as Antipater. Upon arriving at the city though, it became clear to everyone that it was the Macedonian king himself in the flesh. Many Greek city-states had initially rallied around the Thebans, with the Athenians and Spartans both throwing in their lot with them. Alexander’s arrival changed everything. The Athenians, in the midst of preparations for war, decided to hang back and see how events would play out, while the Spartans sent a force only as far as the Isthmus of Corinth. Soon, Thebes was left effectively stranded and alone. Fortunately for Thebes, the king’s temper had cooled and he was willing to be reasonable. Keen to reconcile with Greece so he could look to his Panhellenic war against the Achaemenid Empire, Alexander merely demanded that two of the uprising’s ringleaders - Phoenix and Prothytes, be handed over, and everything else could be forgiven. The Thebans spat on this olive branch, making a brazen counter-demand that Philotas and Antipater should instead be handed to them. Moreover, all who wanted Greece free from this Macedonian tyrant should rally under the banner of the Great King and Thebes. As Alexander flew into a rage at this nerve-grazing comment, Theban light infantry streamed from the gates and made lightning attacks on the Macedonian siegeworks with ranged weapons, killing a decent number of the king’s troops and even approaching his main position before they were repulsed. Night fell, passed and then the sun rose again, at which time Alexander shifted his army south shifted his army to the south where the Cadmea merged with the walls of Thebes. Here the Thebans had constructed two layers of stockade to ensure the complete sieging of the Macedonian garrison and it was just outside of these palisades that Alexander made his camp. The Thebans had freed slaves and armed as many citizens as they could. These hastily mustered forces were assigned to defend the walls of Thebes, while the more experienced hoplites and cavalry took up positions within the palisades. What happened next is not entirely clear, thanks to the contradictory nature of our sources, but a rough narrative can be established. Alexander split his army into three parts, intending to use two to attack the stockade at various points and keeping one in reserve. The Thebans meanwhile marched part of their force outside of the palisades, keeping another part defending the stockades. Seeing this, Alexander assigned one section of his army to attack the Theban battle line while another attacked the defences. The fighting was fierce with little ground being made, the Thebans successfully holding off the Macedonian forces and almost managing to break the Macedonian line, forcing Alexander to commit his reserves. At some point in the battle, Perdiccas, one of Alexander’s more talented generals, was able to force a way into the city, either through the stockades or an unguarded postern gate. Perdiccas himself was badly wounded in the fighting but his action allowed the Macedonians to begin flooding into the city. Upon hearing that the city had been breached, the Thebans fighting at the palisade tried to withdraw into the walls but the chaotic retreat led to many being trampled and the gate into the city becoming clogged. At the same time, the Macedonian garrison from the Cadmea sallied out, attacking the Thebans from within. With the defensive line crumbled and the walls breached, the Thebans staged a desperate defence in the streets of the city with individual groups making last stands where possible. The Macedonians were ruthless, cutting down any who stood in their way and, by the end of the fighting, 6,000 Thebans and 500 Macedonians lay dead. The entire city of Thebes, a city which had stood for centuries and was the setting for so many myths of the Greek world, was razed to the ground, save for a few temples and the Cadmea, with the entire population being enslaved. In Arrian’s account, this grim fate was decided by anti-Theban allies of Alexander, namely the Phocians, Thespians and Plataeans. However, Arrian’s account was based primarily on Ptolemy, another of Alexander’s more successful generals, and is often overly biased in Alexander’s favour as a result. Other sources, such as Diodorus, make it clear the decision was purely Alexander’s. It is difficult to say which is the more accurate, but at the very least it can be said with certainty that if Alexander had wanted the city spared, he had the power to do so. The sack of Thebes and enslavement of the population was done if not on Alexander's explicit orders, then at least with his consent. It was a grim reminder that while Alexander could be benevolent, charming and generous, he could also be brutal and ruthless. Thebes was one of the greatest cities in the Greek world and her destruction would have been analogous to the destruction of a major European capital today. It had served Alexander’s purposes perfectly, however. Across Greece, anti-Macedonian sentiment was quashed and any shouts of rebellion were quickly silenced. Compliance was the order of the day. Turning his burning gaze to Athens, which had remained aloof despite having played an obvious role in the outbreak, Alexander coldly ordered the great city to turn over ten strategoi who had ‘opposed his interests’. Instead, an Athenian known as Demades went to Alexander and managed to persuade the king to forgive and forget, which he reluctantly did. But this final clemency didn’t avail him in the long term. With Thebes’ unprecedented and shocking extermination, Alexander hammered the final nail into the coffin of his relationship with other Greeks. ‘Outwardly they collaborated, with cynical obsequiousness-’ as Peter Green tells us, ‘-But they never forgave him… After their first shocked terror had worn off, the attitude of the Greeks towards Alexander hardened into a bitter and implacable hatred.” But for the moment, the king was not overly concerned with that. After leaving behind him the smoldering pile of rubble that was now Thebes, Alexander returned to Pella and gathered all the Macedonian magnates. Together, they began planning the invasion of Persia1. During this meeting, the king’s advisors counseled him to take a wife and sire an heir before departing. Alexander refused the suggestion, however. A marriage at this stage could have strengthened his position in Macedonia, but also would have left behind a consort who could have been manipulated against him. Similarly, if he left any heir in Macedonia they would be raised away from Alexander and potentially turned against him. Moreover, Alexander’s ambitions lay in the East: a marriage in the West would give him less bargaining power later down the line if he needed it. Royal finances were also in a precarious state; though Philp had been an excellent general and politician, he had cared little for Macedonia’s economy and had left Alexander inheriting a large debt. A year of nonstop military campaigning put further strain on the economy and so the king was forced to turn to his companions and nobles for assistance. The propagandised account goes that Alexander doled out sections of the Macedonian crownlands until the finances of each companion were provided for. One of them - Perdiccas, is said to have asked the king “But what have you left for yourself?” Alexander replied, “My hopes.” What the king was doing here, though, as Peter Green bluntly points out, was borrowing money. Alexander was confident, however, that these debts would be easily repaid with treasure soon to be taken from the Persian Empire. With the assembly thus concluded and all matters prepared, Alexander, his companions, and the invasion army advanced through Macedonia and Thrace via the route used by Xerxes I in 480BC, leaving Antipater as regent at home. As his invasion of the Achaemenid Empire begins, it is worth going over what kind of army Alexander had at his command in 334BC. It was undeniably the most tactically and technologically advanced military force of the age, a culmination of the ideas and advancements made by some of the greatest military minds of the Greek world, including Epamninodas, Iphicrates and Philip II, and borrowing tactics and strategies from various peoples such as the Thessalians, Thracians and Greeks. This theme of adopting styles and manners of warfare from other nations would be continued by Alexander throughout his career. The exact size of Alexander’s force varies roughly between 35,000 and 45,000 depending on the source. Modern historians are similarly divided on the matter, but it is possible to put together a general picture of Alexander’s force based on what points are most agreed upon and using the source that gives the most detailed break-down of numbers, Diodorus. A large proportion of the Macedonian standing army, 18,000 infantry and 1,500 cavalry, were kept in Macedonian under the command of Antipater in order to check any further revolts from the League of Corinth . Nevertheless, this still allowed Alexander to gather a truly formidable force for Persian campaign. 9,000 were phalangites, also called pezhetairoi, literally foot companions, the sarissa armed backbone of the Macedonian army. These were broken up into battalions of 1,500 called taxeis, each commanded by one of the more experienced officers under Alexander’s command. Supporting these were the elite hypaspists under the command of Nicanor, a son of Parmenion. Whether these prestigious troops were armed in the phalangite or hoplite style is still debated, but they seemed to have fulfilled a flexible role and may have varied their arms depending on the situation. Rounding off the heavy infantry were 5,000 hired mercenaries armed in hoplite fashion and, lastly, 7,000 similarly armed soldiers drawn from the cities of the League of Corinth under the command of the grizzled veteran Antigonus the One-Eyed. Alexander’s propaganda pushed the idea of the Persian invasion being panhellenic, and these 7,000 men were seemingly the fulfilment of that idea. In reality though, Alexander never truly trusted the League and these 7,000 were more akin to hostages to ensure good behaviour amongst the Greek city-states and were used as garrisons and reserves, never as front line soldiers. Supplementing the heavy infantry were 7,000 Thracians, such as Odyrsians and Triballians, who were armed in the old peltast style and fulfilled a light-infantry and skirmishing role, and lastly 1,000 archers and Agrianians. The Agrianians in particular were renowned as expert light-infantry who have been called the ‘Gurkhas of the ancient world’ and would prove to be one of Alexander’s most favoured units for missions requiring particular stealth, courage and discipline. This infantry force was the Macedonian anvil, the cavalry the hammer. The crowning jewel of this force was the famed Companion cavalry, or hetairoi, 1,800 shock cavalry. Always stationed in the position of honour on the right flank, this unit consisted of 7 squadrons of 200 under the command of another of Parmenion’s sons, Philotas, and the royal squadron commanded by Alexander personally, though he would often take direct command of all the squadrons when in battle. This royal squadron also contained Alexander’s personal bodyguard as well as some of his closest friends, such as Hephaestion and Ptolemy. Supporting the Companions were the equally formidable Thessalians. Armed in a similar fashion to the Companions, they were often stationed on the opposite side of the battlefield on the left flank, putting them under the direct command of Parmenion. Lastly among the cavalry were 900 light cavalry, also called prodromoi, and 600 cavalry from allied Greek city-states. In total, Alexander’s force therefore consisted of roughly 32,000 infantry and just over 5,000 cavalry. Accompanying the soldiery were auxiliary elements such as siege-engineers, sappers, surveyors, administrators under a certain bookish Cardian bureaucrat called Eumenes, and scholars who would study and document the exotic wonders of the near-legendary ‘east’. Aristotle’s nephew and Alexander’s boyhood friend Callisthenes also served as the king’s official historian. Twenty days and over three hundred miles later, the Macedonians arrived in the Chersonese and prepared to cross the Hellespont. However, while Parmenion did the donkey work and used 160 triremes from the League of Corinth to conduct a complex but unopposed crossing from Sestos to Abydos, Alexander went south and crossed at Elaeus with a small force. According to one account, Just as the king’s ship was about to make landfall in Asia, Alexander, clad in full armour, launched a spear into the sand and thereby claimed the eastern continent as spear-won land. Making sacrifices to the gods and conducting religious ceremonies the whole way, the king made a sojourn to the mythical city of Troy taking a sacred shield from the temple there and partaking in a ritual for Achilles and Patroclus with his own closest companion, Hephaestion. Alexander then went north with his entourage and united with the main muster under Parmenion’s supervision on a plain near the town of Arisbe. Alexander marshaled the army to readiness the following day. Then, almost certainly motivated by a mixture of scouting reports and supply concerns, began a march eastward towards the satrapal capital of Hellespontine Phrygia - Dascylium. Rather than taking the entire army, the king left behind his 12,000 league and mercenary hoplites, perhaps suspecting their loyalty if put up against other Greek mercenaries. Making good time with his core Macedonian infantry and full 5,000 to 5,500 strength in horsemen, Alexander warned his men that looting and burning en route would not be permitted, as this was Greek land under occupation. More deviously, the properties of a dangerous Greek mercenary general in Persian employ - Memnon of Rhodes, were to be especially respected in order to make the Achaemenids distrust him. The Achaemenid Empire was a colossal entity of prodigious wealth, its dominions so vast that the Great King - a recently crowned Darius III, did not feel it necessary to deal with such a petty frontier disturbance personally. Moreover, as Olmstead has suggested, a significant part of the Persian army was possibly occupied in Egypt, having only recently quelled a revolt there. Instead, several satraps from the western provinces including Arsames, Spithridates, Arsites3, and several others mustered their forces and met at Zeleia in May 334 together with Memnon of Rhodes, to take counsel on the incursion. Fully realising just how lethal Alexander’s meat-grinding infantry would be in the field and aware that the invaders were short on supplies and money, Memnon gravely counseled the Persian satraps not to engage in a pitched battle. Instead, they ought to enact a scorched earth policy, burning crops, fodder, provisions, wells, and even burn villages down if necessary. By doing so, and opening a second front in Greece using the Persian navy or by initiating another revolt, Alexander would have to scurry back to Europe with his tail between his legs. This objectively shrewd advice meant possibly unnecessary sacrifice on the part of Darius’ western satraps, and they balked at the prospect. Unwilling to torch their own lands and subtly accusing the Greek sellsword Memnon of lapsing in his loyalty, the Persian governors universally rejected the scorched earth plan and chose to fight it out. It is also possible that the satraps were all too aware that the Great King had a reputation for scorning shirkers among his subordinate rulers and weren’t about to suffer his ire for no good reason. A number of other factors may have contributed to this choice, such as the Persian code of honour and internal politics. Satraps such as Arsites were used to getting their own way, but Memnon, a Greek, owed his high position to Darius himself, rather than them. Arsites in particular had reason to distrust Memnon, as the latter held royally appointed estates in his own satrapy. Whatever the reason, the Persians mustered their forces and marched west to a position on the River Granicus, set on facing Alexander. Following his departure from Arisbe, Alexander took his smaller, mobile army up the Hellespontine coast via Percote and Lampascus before advancing eastward. Arriving on the vast plain of which the Granicus was the standout feature, the Macedonian army was arrayed in a standard preparatory formation with two lines of phalangites in the center and the baggage train behind. Cavalry and light infantry screened the flanks and served as reconnaissance troops in front. In the late afternoon, just before the Granicus, Alexander’s scouts rode back and informed the impetuous king that a Persian army had finally been sighted on the far side. This news prompted Alexander to redeploy his forces in battle formation, a task he was swiftly able to accomplish due to the battle-ready marching order. However, when the Macedonian army got to the river, its generals quickly began having reservations about the prospect of immediate battle. Lined up atop the steep far bank were just over 10,000 Persian satrapal cavalry from across the empire, roughly twice Alexander’s total. Arsames and Memnon of Rhodes led Cilician and Greek mercenary cavalry on the Achaemenid left, flanked to the right by Arsites and his Paphlagonian horse, Hyrcanians under Spithridates, assorted mounted troops in the center, and Bactrian cavalry to their flank. On the extreme right was Rheomithres leading a contingent of mounted Median troops. As the Persians had ever since their empire’s defeat in the fifth century Greco-Persian Wars, roughly 5,000 to 6,000 Greek mercenary hoplites had been raised to serve as the satrapal army’s heavy infantry force. However, possibly because they had the same suspicion of loyalty as Alexander had with his Greeks, the satraps positioned this hired unit behind their front line of cavalry as a reserve force under the command of a Persian known as Omasres. The rock-hard center of Alexander’s line were six 1,500 strong brigades of the phalanx, led by Meleager, Philip, Amyntas, Craterus, Coenus, and Perdiccas. To the right of the phalanx were Nicanor’s 3,000 hypaspists and then Philotas and Alexander himself at the forefront of 1,800 companion cavalry, several hundred mounted skirmishers, agrianians, and some archers. 2,700 Thessalian, Thracian, and league cavalry were on the left under Parmenion. Following the army’s deployment, Parmenion rode over to Alexander’s position and counseled the king to delay any battle until the following morning. A hasty and most probably failed attack over such an obstacle as the Granicus now, he reasoned, would be a fatal blow to the entire expedition. However, if they waited until morning, the Persians, observing Macedonian superiority in the infantry, might withdraw from their position during the night and allow an unopposed crossing. Our sources disagree on what the response was. However, most tell us that because of his Homeric desire to achieve heroic status through great deeds or not wanting to buoy Persian morale by hesitating, Alexander disregarded Parmenion’s cautionary advice, with Plutarch claiming Alexander quipped that the Hellepsont would blush for shame if, having crossed that strait, he would now be afraid of the Granicus, and prepared the army for an immediate attack. Clad in magnificent armour on the right wing, he was easy for the enemy to see, and so a number of elite contingents under the satraps shifted to oppose Alexander’s elite hetairoi hammer, hoping to kill him and end the incursion. The Battle of the River Granicus finally began when the Macedonian king sent a mixed vanguard of prodromoi mounted skirmishers, Paeonian light cavalry, a small unit of companions, and his agrianian favourites into the river, with the outward aim of securing the far bank. However, facing some of the best Achaemenid cavalry from the treacherous and slippery riverbed, they met predictably stiff resistance. Throwing spears and other pinpoint accurate missile weapons rained down on the beleaguered advance force, causing terrible casualties from a distance. Some of the satrapal units descended to meet the Macedonian vanguard in melee combat in the riverbed itself, removing them from the advantageous higher bank. This attack gradually drew in even more regiments from the otherwise unengaged Persian line, disrupting the orderly formation on Arsites’ left and shaping the battlefield to Alexander’s requirements. With the enemy drawn out and exposed by his sacrifice of the vanguard4, Alexander charged wholesale at the head of just under 2,000 companion cavalry, arrayed as it was in a wedge formation. Galloping into the river obliquely to the right of the advance force and thereby meeting little resistance, the hetairoi and their king were able to swing left and crash straight into the exposed Persian left wing in the riverbed, where most of the enemy leaders were fighting. This struggle against the best Achaemenid cavalry was, as Arrian relates ‘A cavalry battle with, as it were, infantry tactics: horse against horse, man against man, locked together, the Macedonians did their utmost to thrust the enemy once and for all back from the river bank and force him into open ground, while the Persians fought to prevent the landings and hurl their opponents back into the water.’ The companions’ discipline, skill, and armament rapidly began turning the tide. In particular, the Macedonians’ efficient use of the cornel wood xyston lance compared to the lighter spear of the Persian cavalry. However, despite this gradual forcing of the Granicus on the Persian left, Alexander, in the thick of the fighting, became the target of a concerted effort by the Persian leadership to kill him as the speartip of his forces pushed their way onto the far bank. Accounts differ as to the nature of this clash, but Arrian informs us that at some point after Alexander’s retinue penetrated the line, his spear snapped and he was forced to get a new one from a bodyguard. Isolated on the far bank with just a few companions, the king was quickly beset by several contingents of enemy cavalry. The leader of one - Darius III’s son-in-law Mithridates, was slain when Alexander wheeled around and drove his newly-gotten spear into the Persian’s face. It was only a moment later that another Persian aristocrat - Rhoesaces, confronted Alexander and lopped off a part of his helmet before himself being felled by the king’s lance. While locked in this mortal combat with Rhoesaces, the latter’s brother Spithridates, satrap of Lydia, bore down on Alexander from behind and prepared to deliver the coup de grace. The Persian’s sword was about to fall and end the 21-year-old king’s life. However, at the last possible moment, an officer known as Cleitus the Black swept in and severed Spithridates arm at the shoulder, saving Alexander the Great’s life, the first of many near-death experiences for the young king. By that point, having inflicted fearsome casualties and cut down many Persian commanders, the companions were getting the better of the Persian cavalry all across the right wing. Furthermore, the Agrianian skirmishers managed to breach the Persian formation’s integrity and get in among the beleaguered enemy horsemen. As this hinge point on Alexander’s right was being hotly contested, Parmenion’s wing was charged by Rheomithres’ Bactrians and Medes, but managed to resist the assault. In the center, the six taxeis of phalangites and hypaspists advanced inexorably across the Granicus, ineffectually showered by the Persian missiles. When it became clear that the companions had punched straight through the Achaemenid left, the satrapal army broke in a wave of panic reverberating from Alexander’s point of impact on the right all the way to Parmenion on the left, who had managed to hold the Persian cavalry there. A number of gallant Achaemenid units fought to the death in the river, while an equally great quantity, included among them Memnon of Rhodes, used their mounted mobility to escape the field and ride to Miletus. They were able to do so easily because Alexander, Parmenion, and the phalanx - which was now on the far bank as well, didn’t give chase to them. Instead, the Macedonian cavalry wrapped around the unengaged and now woefully outnumbered Greek mercenaries on either side, encircling them while the phalanx lowered their sarissae for another fight. We are left with no concrete reason as to why the satraps’ hired infantry didn’t march forward and join the main battle. It is entirely possible that Alexander’s lightning assault and victory, which according to Professor Michael Thompson was accomplished in less than an hour, took the Greeks by surprise and left them with no ample opportunity to react in time. Unfortunately, we can never know for sure, but what happened next is universally recounted. As if all of a sudden realising their dire situation and probably believing that a fellow Greek king wouldn’t be too draconian, the mercenaries petitioned Alexander for mercy. Rather than granting it though, the Macedonian monarch assailed the Greeks en masse, butchering thousands of them in a hard-fought last stand. Aristobolus claims that here, Alexander was “influenced more by anger than by reason In doing so, Alexander may have intended to send a message, “if you are a Greek mercenary, do not fight for Persian gold or you will receive no mercy”. Plutarch, however, considered the violence to be needless and personally motivated, arguing that Alexander was “influenced more by anger than by reason”. This was a fair point: by the time the fighting was over, 3,000 Greek mercenaries were slaughtered, the remaining 2,000, including some Athenians, being captured and sent back to Macedonia in chains to labor in mines there, while Alexander had lost more troops here than at any other point in the battle. This cost had gained Alexander very little aside from showing him as being rather brutal, a reputation he could ill afford among the Greek city-states. In the future, Alexander would be more cautious in his handling of Greek prisoners and never fail to miss an opportunity to show his magnanimity towards them. Between 1,000 and 2,500 of the 10,000 Persian cavalry had also fallen in the battle, together with almost a dozen named higher officers and governors. On the victorious Macedonian side, casualty totals were far lower. Taking into account the possibility of propaganda to glorify the victors, our sources state that 100 to 120 cavalry were lost and only 30 phalangites. When one remembers that all the sources stress how bitter the fighting in the river and against the Greek mercenaries had been, it becomes apparent just how low these numbers are. However disputable these figures are though, the strategic result was not. All of Asia Minor now lay open to the taking. After visiting the wounded and giving an honourable burial both to his own men and the fallen enemy warriors, Alexander appointed his own replacement satrap for Hellespontine Phrygia5, instructed him to maintain the general status quo, and then moved south. Zeleia was taken and pardoned, while Parmenion was sent with a flying column to take over nearby Dascylium, which had been abandoned by its Persian garrison. Then, about eight miles short of Sardis, the garrison commander6 and many other leading figures came to meet the Macedonians, in order to surrender the fortress, treasury, and the city in its entirety to Alexander. From initial insecurity and near collapse after Philip’s death in 336, Alexander had managed, in just two years, to crush an Achaemenid army in open battle and occupy one of the great capitals of the ancient Near East. But that was just the first step. Far to the east, in the heart of his massive empire7, Darius III began raising an equally massive royal force to confront the invading Macedonian king himself. As Alexander considered his first victory from a newly dedicated shrine of Zeus at the Sardis acropolis, looking out onto the great continent beyond, he had to have known that the real challenge was about to begin. Reports of what had occurred at the Granicus reverberated throughout Asia Minor with prodigious speed, and to immediate effect. At Ephesus, the mercenary garrison together with one of Alexander’s exiled court rivals - Amyntas, seized a pair of warships and abandoned their post, making their way to the great king’s court. Marching from Sardis, the victorious Macedonian king captured Ephesus without resistance after a three-day march, before rendezvousing with his navy and receiving emissaries from other Lydian towns offering submission. Intent on securing his conquests before advancing inland, Alexander installed large garrisons in the area, made predominantly of League troops and gave Parmenion and Alcimachus each a contingent of several thousand troops and sent them off to ensure the capitulation of settlements throughout Ionia, Lydia, and Aeolia. Their remit was clear - Greek cities were to have ‘democratic’ governments installed, oligarchies were to be deposed, local custom remained unchanged and, crucially, taxes cancelled - a gesture which never hurts a new ruler’s popularity. At this point, while he was concluding affairs in Ephesus, Alexander received a number of important messages in quick succession. First came welcome reports that the governor of Miletus - Hegisistratus, was prepared to surrender his city. Then came the definitely less welcome news that a massive Achaemenid war fleet had been spotted near Rhodes on its way to reinforce the area. Finally, sometime later, Alexander got wind that Hegisistratus, newly inspired by the knowledge that reinforcements were en route, had recanted his surrender. Realising he had to act swiftly to prevent the city becoming a nigh-impregnable Persian fortress, Alexander sent riders to recall his generals and then immediately marched south with what soldiers he had. The king’s League fleet of about 160 ships under the command of another Nicanor, not Parmenion’s son, was sent ahead. Racing along the coast, it succeeded in arriving at Miletus before the incoming enemy fleet was anywhere close, where it set down anchor at the adjacent island of Lade. Not long thereafter Alexander arrived with the army1 and occupied Miletus’ landward outer suburbs without resistance, before establishing a blockade of the inner districts. Then, to reinforce his anchored fleet at Lade, the king further fortified the island with Thracian skirmishers and a few thousand mercenary soldiers. The massive Persian fleet finally approached Miletus a full three days after the Greek fleet had made its base at Lade. However, despite a numerical superiority of more than 2:1 and the empire’s expert Phoenician and Cypriot crews, the Persians realised they would not be able to dislodge Alexander’s navy from Lade nor easily deploy troops to bolster Miletus’ defence. The 400 Persian ships were therefore forced to circumvent the Hellenic navy and anchor at an exposed, suboptimal position off Mount Mycale, further from the city and cut off from any source of freshwater by parties of Macedonian cavalry. With Parmenion and Alcimachus having returned, Alexander made the decision to keep his inferior fleet on the defensive at Lade, and began readying his siege weaponry and infantry to breach the city fortifications. As the king’s preparations were nearing completion, a prominent citizen came out on behalf of the mercenary garrison to parley. According to this messenger, the garrison offered Miletus as an open city open to both Persians and Alexander alike if only the siege was lifted. Alexander’s unimpressed response was simple: prepare yourselves for the fight. The city was simply too vital for Alexander’s supply line for him not to have complete control of it. Macedonian ballistae and catapults began hammering the fortifications, clearing sections of the wall, and inflicting structural damage while battering rams advanced to create breaches up close. The main body of infantry was drawn up as this assault was ongoing, standing ready in preparation to rush in and widen any gap made in the Milesian defences. However, due to the strength of the garrison and abundance of missile fire, the initial Macedonian attack was blunted with relative ease. Arrian recounts how the nearby Persian fleet were closing in on the besieged allies, but were prevented from rendering any assistance by the quick actions of Nicanor who placed his fleet across the mouth of the harbor, blocking any access to the city from the city. With the Miletians now completely isolated, Alexander’s army attacked again, this time managing to break through the walls. Of the Milesian defenders, just 300 mercenaries and a scattering of other warriors managed to escape to a steep-sided islet slightly offshore. When they surrendered soon after, Alexander granted them mercy he had learned at the Granicus, also sparing the Greek civilian population of Miletus, but enslaving those who were foreigners. Unable to prevent the fall of a city it had come to reinforce and successfully prevented from foraging onshore, the still formidable Persian fleet2 sailed to Samos, restocked with whatever they needed and then returned to Miletus, looming in open water close to the harbour entrance. Five Persian vessels were sent as bait to lure Alexander onto the open sea, but a swift hit-and-run assault by ten Greek triremes destroyed one of them and sent the other four running back to the main fleet. Unable to accomplish anything of use, the great king’s armada weighed anchor and sailed south to Halicarnassus. With Miletus conquered, it was at this moment in mid to late 334 that Alexander made the strategic decision to disband his fleet. Not only would such an unconventional course of action relieve Alexander of having to bear the massive cost3 required to maintain said ships but, in truth, he did not totally trust their Greek crews. Moreover, the king was pragmatic enough to realise that he could never hope to match Darius’ naval strength on the water with or without a fleet of his own. Just 20 Athenian triremes were retained to ferry the army’s siege engines. Based on his army’s pitched battle at the Granicus and siege at Miletus, Alexander judged that investing everything in a land campaign was his best shot at success. His army was ‘master of the continent’ and now that there was no way to retreat, its troops would fight on even harder. Still, Persian seaborne might was a firm threat that had to be dealt with, or it might expand the war to a second front in Greece or even inspire rebellions at home. So, rather than attempting to oppose Achaemenid naval hegemony in the eastern Mediterranean by vainly headbutting it with ships of his own, Alexander instead devised a plan to ‘conquer the ships from the land.’ He would embark on a Herculean endeavour within his already titanic campaign, marching inexorably down the Mediterranean coastline and capturing coastal cities from which the Persian navy operated. The first victim of Alexander’s new strategy would be Halicarnassus, where Mausolus’ eponymous Mausoleum was constructed a few decades earlier. Halicarnassus had strong natural defences on high ground, was heavily fortified, possessed a fantastic harbour, and had its garrison swollen by native troops alongside several thousand mercenaries under Memnon of Rhodes’ command. This Greek general, who had risen to new heights following the Granicus debacle, was now Darius’ official commander of Achaemenid efforts in the western satrapies4. En route to this showdown with Memnon, Alexander stopped at the greatest fortress in the region - Alinda, and was introduced to the exiled princess Ada - Mausolus’ sister. Until just a few years before the Macedonian invasion, this region of southwestern Asia Minor - known as Caria, had been ruled by a native dynasty known as the Hecatomnids, who were, in turn, autonomous satraps within the Persian Empire. Ada, a Hecatomnid princess, had been the rightful heir before being deposed and exiled by her brother Pixodarus5 in 340. He died a few years later, allowing the Persians to marry the late dynast’s daughter to Orontobates and install him as satrap6. Now, Ada asked the king for aid in taking back her rightful position. Alexander was more than happy to take up Ada’s cause and secure an ally in the area. Moreover, the two reportedly became very close, Alexander even referring to Ada as ‘mother’ and Ada eventually adopting Alexander as her son and successor. Ada was popular in the area and, By accepting her plea and gaining her approval, Diodorus Siculus tells us that Alexander won allegiance from many of the Carian cities. The king subsequently moved on Halicarnassus and approached the city, guarded as it was by crenellated walls and fronted by a large encircling moat, from the northeast. Alexander encamped half a mile from the eastern Mylasa Gate and began preparing the siege. However, Persian naval supremacy had succeeded in preventing the Macedonian siege train from landing, so Alexander was forced to improvise until it managed to do so. Mounting his steed, Alexander led a scouting party forward to have a look at the formidable defences they faced. Memnon was on him in an instant. When this scouting force approached, the Rhodian general had his archers and artillery fire upon the Macedonians from his walls. Then, not giving the invaders a second, he sent a sortie of skirmishers out to niggle at Alexander’s men with javelins and other missiles. A quick counterattack by the king managed to drive them back inside Halicarnassus, but Alexander nevertheless pulled back to camp. Several days after this initial probe, Alexander assembled his usual crack force of companions, hypaspists, and Agrianians, supplemented them with three phalanx regiments7, and led them around to the western gate. While his primary aim in this endeavour was to scout out this side of Halicarnassus, there had also been whisperings from sympathisers inside the nearby port of Myndus located just a few miles to the northwest, that the city would be surrendered if Alexander came to take it that night. Its possession would make seizing Halicarnassus that much easier providing Alexander with a nearby port through which he could transport his supplies and siege equipment. Under the cover of darkness, Alexander’s forces approached Myndus at midnight, the prearranged time. Upon his arrival though, he found the city to be defended with no sign of the surrender that the Macedonians had been promised. Unwilling or unable to abandon the gambit entirely, Alexander began sapping the walls in an effort to take the town by force. One of Myndus’ guard towers fell with relative speed, but the prepared garrison fiercely resisted until reinforcements arrived from Halicarnassus by sea. Having been prepared to simply walk into Myndus, Alexander wasn’t ready for another extended siege and so withdrew to the Mylasa Gate back at Halicarnassus, rejoining the bulk of his army. In what was a truly fortunate twist of fate, the twenty Athenian triremes bearing Alexander’s siege train managed to evade Memnon’s ships and unload the city-taking weaponry in a nearby cove. After a rocky start, things were, at last, looking up for the Macedonians. As the siege engines were made ready, Alexander sent his soldiers, under the cover of portable roofed sheds, to fill in large sections of the outer trench with earth and stones. With the ground prepared, the first proper assault on Halicarnassus could begin in earnest. While trundling siege towers and artillery were used to batter the fortifications, battering rams and mining operations gradually undermined sections of the east curtain wall. When the Macedonian undermining efforts managed to collapse a section of wall or bring down a tower, Alexander would throw his infantry at the section in an attempt to secure a breach. The Macedonian soldiery fought exceptionally well in these engagements as they always would, but Memnon’s equally disciplined Greek mercenaries, supplemented by thousands of native troops and wall-archers managed to keep the invaders at bay with relative ease. So far so good, but Memnon and his command council quickly understood that their enemy’s efforts were destroying the walls with disconcerting efficiency. A proactive stance had to be made to prevent disaster. So that same night, while builders worked to patch up the previous days’ damage with makeshift, secondary fortifications, a commando unit of Halicarnassus’ defenders under Memnon slipped out of the Carian capital unnoticed and quietly approached the dormant Macedonian siege machines. Getting close, the Greek general attempted to burn down and destroy Alexander’s towers, rams and artillery pieces. Unfortunately for his raiding party, its presence was discovered by sentinels who quickly sounded the alarm. Macedonian reinforcements converged and a blind, desperate clash in the dark ensued. Beleaguered, unsuccessful and having lost 170 men killed, Achaemenid forces were eventually forced into retreat, but the hard nighttime struggle had also resulted in 300 Macedonian wounded. Having suffered such casualties, neither side made a move for several days and were temporarily content to lick their wounds. This state of affairs apparently changed three days later at the behest of two rowdy Macedonian infantrymen from Perdiccas’ regiment. In the process of drinking together, each man boasted of his exploits and declared how brave they were. Amusingly and almost certainly because of the Dutch courage, the contest escalated into these two enterprising warriors taking up their weapons and moving out, intent on putting words into action8. Perhaps somewhat bemused by the odd attack, some guards saw the Macedonians coming and sallied out to assail them, but were in turn killed and driven back by the partially inebriated warriors. Made aware that some of their comrades were in danger, more men from Perdiccas’ regiment marched to the fight, drawing even more defenders. This haphazard engagement grew and grew until the Macedonians eventually drove the defenders against the half-destroyed Mylasa section of the wall. Suddenly, with the eastern fortifications in such a bad state, it seemed as though Alexander’s forces might actually get into the city on the back of this deadly drunken brawl. Unfortunately for the troops who started the whole debacle, Halicarnassus’ surprise was matched by most of the Macedonian army which, being unaware of what was actually happening, did not press the attack in time, and Perdiccas’ men were repelled. Alexander’s late intervention prevented their destruction. To protect the area, Memnon had a crescent brick wall built, but this slapdash measure was clearly a weakness. Still, the whimsical nature of this event disguises the fact that it was a lethal clash that claimed the lives of many on both sides. So many Macedonians were killed, in fact, that Alexander sent a herald forward to ask for a truce so bodies might be recovered. Two of Memnon’s Athenian comrades - Ephialtes and Thrasybulus, advised their leader to deny this request. Memnon, in a move which allows us to see some of the man’s honourable character, allowed it anyway. No real timescale is given by which we can judge the siege for sure, but the defenders had managed to hold the city for at least several weeks. Knowing that they would need to go on the offensive if they were to win the battle, the trio concocted a daring strategy. Handpicking 2,000 mercenaries, Ephialtes sallied out of the city and attacked the Macedonian position. While half formed a phalanx and doggedly held off the king’s infantry, the other half wielded brands and caused a ‘great conflagration’ among his siege engines9. Ephialtes’ surprise attack, ably assisted by missile fire from the walls, was pushing back Alexander’s infantry. The situation became even more critical when Memnon sallied out of the northern gate of the city with Persian reserves, striking the Macedonian infantry in the flanks and rear. At this moment, beset on all sides, Diodorus states that ‘even Alexander found himself quite helpless.’ It seemed as though the Persians were close to achieving a great victory and breaking the siege. However, it was at this final juncture that Alexander’s reserve battalion of grizzled veterans from Philip’s era, locked their shields, lowered their spears, and entered the fray. These men smashed directly into Ephialtes’ spent ranks, an unbreakable shield wall, and ripped them to pieces. This action was enough to rally the rest of the army who regathered and pressed the assault. In minutes following this intervention, the Greek captain Ephialtes and hundreds of his soldiers were slain, leaving the sortie leaderless. Worse still was the psychological effect. The defenders had been on the edge of victory, perhaps of winning the entire war. They were not prepared for another fresh foe, and now they began routing. So panicked were the Halicarnassians at this sudden turn of events that they closed the gates too hastily, trapping a portion of their sally forces outside to be slaughtered against the ruined curtain wall. Over 1,000 of Memnon’s troops had been slain in the risky action, and it hadn’t paid off. Still, Alexander, whose deployment of the reserves had saved the day, cautiously pulled back to camp at nightfall. Unknown to him, the siege was over and he had won. Inside the moonlit city, Memnon and Orontobates took counsel and, taking into account all of their severe losses and the failure of their final gamble, decided to give up a greater part of the city. Memnon installed the best of his remaining soldiers in Halicarnassus’ seaboard citadels at Salmakis and the Arconesse before loading the remainder onto his anchored and unchallenged navy, together with whatever movable supplies he could get his hands on. Then, in a methodical, scorched earth attempt to prevent Alexander from gaining too much from his conquest, the withdrawing Achaemenids set fire to immovable stores, armouries, artillery, and houses next to the walls. It does not seem to have been a vindictive act of wanton destruction against the civilian population, but seasonal autumn winds fanned the flames and led to its spread over great areas of the ancient city. While Memnon raised anchor and embarked, Alexander finally entered the burning city at midnight. At the king’s command, Macedonian regiments marched respectfully through the liberated city, rescuing any inhabitant imperilled by the fire and demolishing buildings to create fire breaks. Surveying the still-garrisoned fortresses, Alexander had a wall built around Salmakis to prevent any sortie, but found himself unable to do anything about the island strong-point of Arconesse. Leaving 3,000 mercenaries and 200 cavalry to mop on Persian resistance in Caria, Alexander kept his promise and gave Ada the satrapy before preparing to move deeper into Asia Minor. As he did so, the armies of Great King Darius III were finally nearing readiness to the east. In the course of the next year - 333, they would march west to the first great confrontation between the two greatest kings of the age at Issus. Once affairs at Halicarnassus had been settled, Alexander divided the army in two. Parmenion marched off to the north with orders to secure the inland territories of Anatolia, while Alexander took the rest on an eastward march along the coast, after which he planned to rejoin Parmenion in Gordium. Moving into Lycia as 334 passed into 333, the Macedonians subdued and received the surrender of over 30 towns, including Telmessos, Xanthus, and Phaselis. Following a brief spat with some Pisidian hill-fort brigands, who reportedly burned their own families to death rather than have them fall into Macedonian hands, Alexander passed into Phrygia and swiftly reached the lynchpin town of Celaenae. As it possessed a nigh impregnable acropolis, Alexander was forced to accept the defenders’ terms that if no relief arrived within a certain period they would surrender. After personally waiting ten days, the king decided to move on. To conclude matters at Celaenae, Alexander appointed one of his most experienced and talented generals, Antigonus the One-Eyed, the same Antigonus who had previously been commanding the League troops and would later bec ome one of Alexander's greatest and most powerful successors. From Celaenae, Alexander marched north to Gordium - the ancient royal seat of the mythological Phrygian monarch Midas, where he reunited with Parmenion’s half of the army. It was also the location of the famous Gordian knot, a fantastically complicated knot tied by Midas himself in such a way that it was impossible to find the ends of the rope. Legend said that whoever could untie the knot would become king of all Asia. Never one to pass up on such a propaganda opportunity, Alexander rose to the challenge by either removing the lynchpin around which the knot was tied or, the more popularly cited version, simply slicing through it with his sword. Already, Alexander was showing himself to be a shrewd ruler who understood the need to appeal to local customs in order to secure his own legitimacy, and one who was not afraid to be bluntly pragmatic when needed. Fortunate events elsewhere were to grant further credence to this newfound destiny… After his dogged albeit failed defence of Halicarnassus, Memnon of Rhodes had finally been granted the Great King’s green light to carry out the strategy he’d proposed before the Granicus - scorched earth and a second front1. Darius also funneled his favourite Greek general plenty of treasure, with which he energetically recruited another professional mercenary army and saw to the maintenance of his 300 to 400 ship fleet. With this powerful seaborne force at his disposal, Memnon launched an assault on the Aegean islands. Cos and Samos came over to the Persians, followed by Chios and even the great port Mytilene on Lesbos. Meanwhile, the Rhodian’s agents and spies went through Greece, priming the always-rebellious city-states to revolt against Alexander when the time was right. In strategic command, Memnon seems to have truly been in his element. All of a sudden, a Persian counter-invasion of Greece looked entirely possible and Alexander’s overextension into Asia Minor seemed foolish at best. However, at this moment of greatest danger and Memnon’s highest point, the Rhodian general suddenly fell ill and died in summer 333. Alexander, who received the news at Ancyra in May or June, was elated. The indirect second front plan was Memnon’s own, and without its mastermind, the endeavour completely collapsed. Macedonia was safe. When the disastrous news reached Susa, Darius III called together a conclave of senior advisors and allies to establish what exactly was to be done. The majority of these Persian counsellors advised Darius to confront Alexander now, in person - the troops would fight better with their Great King alongside them. One of the detractors - a fervently anti-Macedonian Athenian mercenary commander exiled by Alexander known as Charidemus, hotly argued that it was sheer stupidity to risk the empire on such a gamble. An experienced general such as himself, he argued somewhat self-servingly, ought to be sent to conduct the war. Darius agreed at first, but the throng of Persian advisors balked at the idea and shouted it down, even accusing the Greek of wanting to betray them to Alexander. Fiery-tempered Charidemus shot back, raving about the Persian lack of fighting will and manliness. His tirade so offended Darius that the king subsequently had Charidemus executed. From Susa therefore, the Great King marched to Babylon, gathered his many vassals from across the empire, and summoned their armies. Meanwhile, at Ancyra, Alexander received the altogether insincere submission of the provinces of Cappadocia and Paphlagonia before marching southeast to the Cilician Gates, which was held by a small force of Arsames’ troops2. However, in a stroke of luck Alexander would later recount as his greatest, Arsames and most of his men were busy burning and ruining the Cilician plain in accordance to Memnon’s scorched earth strategy, allowing Alexander to seize the mountain pass in a night attack. Realising what had just happened, Arsames fled to rendezvous with the king and Alexander entered Tarsus on September 3rd 333. After jumping into the freezing Cydnus river, the king was left debilitated by a bout of illness for several weeks. During this time, he sent Parmenion around the Gulf of Alexandretta to scout out the situation and hold the crucial passes between Syria, Mesopotamia, and Anatolia. Alexander’s condition worsened rapidly, he developed a severe case of pneumonia and there was a serious concern that Alexander would not survive. There was one doctor in Alexander’s camp however, his friend Philip of Acarnia, who thought he would be able to treat the king and concocted a medicine for him. Just before Alexander was about to drink this tonic, a message arrived from Parmenion. It contained a grave warning that Alexander’s doctors had been bribed by Darius and that they would soon attempt to poison him. Alexander read the letter carefully and then passed it to Philip, drinking the medicine while his physician read it. Fortunately for Alexander, his friend had been genuinely loyal and the king made a quick recovery soon after. However, one can not help but speculate as to Parmenion’s intentions. Had the cautious general got word of a genuine plot and attempted to warn his king, or were his motivations more sinister and he had hoped that Alexander would refuse medical help? We can not say for sure, but certainly Alexander must have pondered how trustworthy his second-in-command was. For now, though, Parmenion established a base of operations at a small town called Issus and established that a massive Persian army was occupying Sochii, beyond the Syrian Gates. Once Alexander had fully recovered, he marched the entire army around the gulf. Perhaps acting on misinformation, the king left his wounded at Issus before continuing south and arriving opposite the Syrian Gates, where he expected Darius to come from. In a rare instance for Alexander though, he had done exactly what Darius had wanted and had been outplayed. The Persian king, accompanied by his wife, mother and children, as was Persian custom had already sent his baggage train to Damascus. With his now more mobile army, Darius made a rapid move to the North passing through the undefended Amanic Gates and seizing Issus and cutting off the hands of any Macedonian soldiers found there before taking up position along the Pinarus River. Initially not believing that the Persians were behind him, Alexander sent a galley up the coast to establish the truth. When the vessel returned with confirmation that Darius was indeed at hand, the king immediately grasped the severity of his situation, It had been a brilliant strategic move from the Persian king which left Alexander cut off from his supply line and in a precarious position; to his south lay hostile territories and strongly defended cities, to his north the Persian Army. With his supply line severed, Alexander had little choice: he would need to turn north and attack Darius from the front and across a river, a difficult task for any army. Alexander, who was about a dozen miles south of the Persian position, fed the bulk of his army a hot meal in preparation for the coming march. At the same time, the king sent mounted scouts to scope out the road between the army and its destination. When night fell, Alexander marched his whole army to the high ground at a pass known as the Pillar of Jonah, from where he could see the Achaemenid campfires glimmering across the plain. The well-fed soldiery now also got the rest and recuperation it required, sleeping for many hours. Just before daybreak, the army rose from its slumber and began a disciplined march up the narrow coastal road. Although confined to columns at first due to the terrain - with infantry units in front and cavalry behind, More Macedonian warriors were gradually brought forward as the terrain opened up, slotting seamlessly into the formation. When Darius received word that Alexander was closing in he sent a force of skirmishers and most of the cavalry to ford the Pinarus, aiming to prevent the Macedonians interrupting or even seeing his deployment. It was probably around this time that Alexander arrived opposite the stream with his infantry regiments lined up with the sea on his left and foothills to the right. The majority of Alexander’s cavalry now massed on the right flank and, all of a sudden, the long-awaited showdown was now imminent3. It is incredibly difficult to establish exactly how many soldiers Darius III had with him at Issus in 333, a fact that makes charting the course of the battle that much harder. Typically, hyperbolic ancient sources such as Arrian and Plutarch estimate Persian strength as anywhere from 250,000 all the way to 600,000, numbers which are clearly excessive. Modern scholars tend to be just as varied, but the vast majority, notably Borza, Green, Worthington, and Hammond, agree on somewhere between 80 and 100 thousand. King of Kings Darius III, manning the royal chariot, was stationed in the centre behind the front line as Persian tradition dictated. Surrounding his immediate person were the famous Persian Immortals - the royal bodyguard whose number never dropped below 10,000. Off to either flank were 10,000 Greek mercenaries and further still were units of mixed Persian infantry known as Kardakes, fronted by archers. The second line was made up entirely of lightly equipped levies. Now that the infantry was arrayed, Darius brought his myriad cavalry back across the Pinarus. Our sources tell us of Medes and Hyrcanians, but we can infer the presence of Paphlagonians, Cappadocians, Cilicians, Bactrians, Sogdians, and even steppe nomads from beyond the frontier massing on the flatter, seaward side of the battlefield. Another small Persian unit was sent to occupy the hills beyond Darius’ extreme left flank to threaten the Macedonian right flank and rear. As with his infantry deployment at the Granicus a year earlier, Alexander’s main battle-line sarissa phalanx was divided into six brigades. They were led, from left to right, by officers Amyntas, Ptolemy, Meleager, Craterus, Perdiccas, and Coenus. To the left of the standard phalanx were Cretan archers and Thracian javelinmen, while to the right were the elite hypaspists under Nicanor. They were flanked to the right by the Macedonian king and his customary strike force - companion cavalry under Philotas, Paeonian light horse, Agrianians, and archers, supplemented by the Thessalian division. His army was still about 40,000 strong in total. Both forces were now prepared for the clash to come, but Alexander saw two matters of concern that required attention. First and foremost was the overwhelming concentration of devastating Achaemenid cavalry opposing Parmenion on the left. If the order of battle stayed as it was, Darius’ horse would simply sweep his army off the field. To remedy this, the king swiftly adjusted his plan, sending the Thessalians across the battlefield to reinforce his second in command as covertly as possible. Second but still troublesome were the Persians positioned in the hills. Alexander dealt with them by detaching a force of archers, slingers and Agrianians and light cavalry, and sending them to secure the heights.The Persians did not put up any resistance however and were chased from the hills, Alexander keeping 300 cavalry on the high ground while recalling the light infantry to secure his flank. With his concerns dealt with, Alexander ordered a slow, measured and deliberate advance to begin across his entire line, periodically halting in order to bait Darius into attacking first. The Persian king did not fall for it, instead of keeping his line solidly behind the Pinarus. At last, when the armies were about to enter missile range, Alexander rode from one end of his line to the other, shouting words of encouragement to the highest officer and the lowliest footman alike by name. He told the Macedonians of their valour and Philip, the Greeks of the injuries Persia had inflicted upon them in centuries past and the loot-oriented Thracians of the booty that was waiting just for them. According to Rufus, as Alexander galloped back to his position at the head of his right wing, the Persian front raised a great cry of battle, which was returned by the Macedonians with equal vigour. Then, almost simultaneously, both Darius’ massed cavalry on the seaward flank and Alexander’s strike force on the other side of the field, together with the central Macedonian phalanx, launched their attempted hammer blows. It was now a question of time. Parmenion’s Thessalian and allied cavalry was beleaguered and outnumbered and would eventually collapse, but would that crunch point come before Alexander’s could win the battle? The warrior-king of Macedonia charged directly across the Pinarus at the head of his picked force of companions and others, delivering a critical strike to the units opposing him almost immediately. The xyston-wielding cavalry wedge first smashed into the screen of Achaemenid archers, killing many and driving the rest back into the infantry behind them. Without slowing for a moment, Alexander barrelled on and smashed through the first line infantry as well, utterly collapsing Darius’ left wing. Unfortunately for the king, the battle elsewhere was taking a bad turn. Parmenion’s gallant horsemen were essentially surrounded by the Persian cavalry and fighting a losing battle, but that was to be expected. More disconcerting was the situation in the center of the battlefield. Perhaps drawn in the wake of their king’s charge, some of the rightward phalanx regiments and hypaspists had drifted yet further to the right, opening up a gap in the line. This, combined with the rough terrain near the stream, diminished the integrity of the wall of Macedonian sarissa. Before the phalangites could regroup on the far bank and reorder their formation, Darius’ highly trained Greek mercenary contingent - thousands strong and armed with shorter spears that were better suited to such uneven ground, came to grips with them. What ensued was a brutal slogging match - Macedonian soldiers fighting tooth and nail to best their Greek enemies amid the steep, bramble-overgrown bank of the Pinarus. The inflexible phalanx’s inexorable advance proved itself exorable indeed. Noticing the newly opened gulf between Macedonian infantry units, a force of Greek mercenaries attempted to drive into it and break the invaders’ phalanx apart. All of a sudden, the phalangites began withdrawing. The situation might have turned especially sour if not for the prudent intervention of Ptolemy - son of Seleucus4, accompanied by veterans and officers, who fought to keep the line steady and plug the gap. 120 of them lost their lives in this ferocious melee, together with Ptolemy himself. Still, the momentum in the center was with the Persians. Fresh from his relatively simple task of rolling up Darius’ left wing, Alexander got as good a look as he could at the state of the battlefield and quickly decided what to do next. Pivoting inward from the now-exposed Persian left, the companions swung around and charged the flank and rear of the Greek mercenaries in the center. This assault relieved a significant amount of pressure on the Macedonian phalanx, allowing it to regain formation and continue advancing across the river. The momentum had now shifted the other way. Now either by accident or on purpose, Alexander and his elites found themselves tantalisingly close to Darius’ position. The king laid eyes on the Persian Great King and with Homeric spirit launched an all-out attack, intent on seizing Darius and ending the war. Observing the danger, Darius’ dutiful brother Oxathres led the royal cavalry bodyguard into Alexander’s path who, despite fighting doggedly, were promptly slaughtered. In the desperate struggle, one source relates how Darius even managed to wound Alexander in the leg, before being carried into danger by the spooked horses of his royal chariot. A second vehicle was quickly brought up, allowing the king to flee the battlefield. Seeing the departure of their near-deific monarch, and the collapse of their infantry, the Persian cavalry assailing Parmenion fell apart and routed, along with the rest of the army. Arrian’s account of the battle, on the other hand, differs significantly. In his version, once Alexander had routed the Persians stationed on his side of the river, he slowly advanced his army to the river. As soon as he came within missile range of the Persians, the Macedonian king initiated the battle, charging across the river with his Companions to minimise casualties from the arrow fire. His detachment crashed into the Persian left flank, forcing them to give ground. In the center, however, the Persian force was pushing back the Macedonian phalanx as it attempted to scale the banks of the river and Greek mercenaries were also attacking the phalanx’s right flank, left exposed due to Alexander’s charge. More importantly, the Persian right had charged Parmenion’s wing once the phalanx was engaged, and was pushing back the Thessalians placed against them. This, then, was the moment of crisis. The Macedonian center and left needed to hold long enough for Alexander to rout the Persian left, and swing back to be the hammer on the anvil. Fortunately, Alexander’s initial charge had been devastating and the Persian left soon crumbled. Quickly he gathered his force together once again and rode to the rescue of the phalanx, hitting the Persian centre in the flank and rear. It was at this point that Darius, seeing his left flank destroyed and his centre near surrounded, fled the battle. The Persian right flank, though having been rather successful in their fight against Parmenion’s flank, saw that the battle was now lost and pulled back, initiating a general rout. By all accounts the Battle of Issus was over by early evening, but Alexander wasn’t close to finished yet. To destroy the Persian king’s army wasn’t enough, he wanted Darius. So, while the Macedonian soldiery set about killing Persian stragglers and looting the great king’s staggeringly lavish camp, the victorious monarch began chasing Darius, who was about half a mile ahead of his cavalry. Only twenty five miles later, when darkness finally fell, did Alexander return empty-handed, Darius having escaped across the mountains. In the meantime, the triumphant Macedonian army had been dividing the spoils of victory in the Persian camp. This included vast quantities of gold, silver, fine clothes, jewelry, and, as a consequence of Persian custom, all of the royal women who had accompanied their King of Kings to the battlefield. The less noteworthy of these captives were treated incredibly poorly by the soldiery. Ancient sources, particularly Arrian, stress the cowardliness of Darius and blame the Persian defeat on his abandoning of the battlefield. However, it is worth noting that Arrian is certainly one of the most pro-Alexander, and thus anti-Persian sources. Other sources make it clear that Darius fought courageously, which is more likely given the fact that he had become king of Persia partly because of his renowned bravery. Modern historians largely agree that Darius had fought well, almost breaking the Macedonian left, but was ultimately out-generalled by the more daring Alexander, and was forced to retreat or else risk being captured or killed, losing the war outright in the process. It was one of many examples that displayed just how deeply Alexander understood the psychology of warfare and how he could manipulate an enemy. There are myriad stories about what Alexander did when he returned. These include Alexander’s care and reverence toward Darius’ immediate family, and the king’s good humour when Darius’ mother mistook the king’s friend and likely lover Hephaestion for Alexander. But the most telling is related by Plutarch. Upon returning from pursuit, Alexander came to the royal tent which had been prepared for him by pages, overflowing as it was with luxurious furniture, beautiful servants and treasures beyond count. Walking further into the magnificent property at the fore of his closest compatriots, Alexander saw the great golden bath of the king, ‘the basins and pitchers and tubs and caskets, all of gold and curiously wrought’. Although a royal and used to comfort, the Macedonians would’ve almost certainly never seen anything like this, let alone owned it. So, after surveying his prodigious new wealth, Alexander turned to his friends and said the words “This, as it would seem, is to be a king.” These post-battle anecdotes are particularly illustrative to us. Arrian writes how he ‘cannot but admire Alexander’ for treating the royal women with such respect and being magnanimous in victory, thereby highlighting the king’s admirable personality. But this initial taste of ‘oriental’ luxury and Alexander’s reaction to it foreshadows the near-despot that he would eventually become, believing he was to be worshipped like a god. But for now, Alexander had won the Battle of Issus in emphatic fashion. With it, the western half of the Achaemenid Empire was now open for conquest. Despite a victory at Issus Alexander couldn’t heedlessly chase Darius deep into the Achaemenid heartland now. This wouldn’t just draw him into an unknown, hostile land, and a possible guerilla war, but would also leave behind potentially fatal issues in his rear. Much of the royal army’s massive cavalry contingent had escaped north of the Taurus, where they were sure to wreak havoc on Macedonian supply and communication lines1. Of even greater importance still was the Great King’s Phoenician armada which, under the command of satrap Pharnabazus, had renewed a campaign in the Aegean and now dominated most of it. So, while Darius began raising another army from his eastern provinces, Alexander decided to continue with his plan to take over Persia’s naval bases. A few days of rest after Issus and the army was on the move once more, pressing south into Phoenicia. Following the surrender of Marathus that Alexander received envoys bearing an offer from Darius III: if Alexander restored to him his wife, mother and children, signed a treaty of alliance and called off the invasion, he would cede all Asia Minor west of the Halys River - from Cilicia to Sinope to Macedon. If Philip’s old guard led by Parmenion caught wind of this offer, they would argue that the invasion had achieved all its objectives, so Alexander omitted the offer of territory during his war council and the proposal was rejected. It was in response that Alexander penned his famous arrogant rebuttal: “...And in future let any communication you wish to make with me be addressed to the King of all Asia. Do not write to me as an equal. Everything you possess is now mine; so, if you should want anything, let me know in the proper terms, or I shall take steps to deal with you as a criminal. If, on the other hand, you wish to dispute your throne, stand and fight for it and do not run away. Wherever you may hide yourself, be sure I shall seek you out.” Alexander continued marching south, accepting the surrender of Phoenician cities such as Byblos and Sidon and the kings of Cyprus. Moving on even further south, the army neared the mother city of Carthage - Tyre at the turn of 332 BC. This most famous of Phoenician cities was composed of two separate segments. Old Tyre was on the mainland, while the primary, walled city of New Tyre had been constructed on a rocky island half a mile offshore. As Alexander approached the unique city he was met by Tyrian dignitaries, among them the son of Tyre’s king Azemilcus who, along with many other Phoenician rulers, was away at sea with the Persian navy2. Their demeanor was respectful and hospitable, offering alliance, provisions and gifts. However, they were not about to hand Tyre over to the Macedonians. In response, Alexander expressed a desire to offer sacrifice at the Tyrian great temple within the island city itself. To allow Alexander to do this would essentially recognise him as Tyre’s rightful overlord, so the envoys declined Alexander’s request, offering the king to make sacrifice at an equally revered temple in the Old Tyre. Alexander exploded in anger, as he sometimes would, and dismissed the envoys with a threat that they should not be so confident in their island fortress, as it would soon be part of the mainland. Once the envoys returned home, they counselled the Tyrians to submit. However, buoyed by their formidable island fortress, its distance from the mainland and the strength of their natural and constructed fortifications, the city decided to fight. If they hadn’t been sure enough that this was the right path, a recently arrived delegation of Carthaginians began encouraging the people of their parent city to defend themselves, promising great reinforcement from their own city, which was a great naval power already. Despite his anger, neither Alexander nor his soldiers were too enthusiastic about besieging the island city with a purely land army, as it would delay the campaign for a long time. The king’s temper cooled and he sent some envoys over the strait in order to urge the people of Tyre to accept peace terms. Possibly mistaking this as a sign of weakness, the Tyrians murdered Alexander’s envoys and threw their bodies into the sea. The battle became inevitable. Despite the grandstanding and emotional language from each party, both the Tyrians and Alexander had serious strategic concerns at the forefront of their minds. The Tyrians were an autonomous vassal of the Persian Empire and their loyalties remained with Darius. The island city had been sieged many times in the past, most notably for 13 years by Nebuchadnezzar II, and had successfully defended itself. If they could keep the Macedonians pinned in Phoenicia, then it would allow Darius time to muster his armies and send forces to strike at Alexander’s more vulnerable rear in Asia Minor, which was still being held by Antigonus. Alexander, on the other hand, could not risk bypassing the city. The idea of occupying the old city and simply besieging the island had been suggested by his generals, but rejected by Alexander. Tyre’s harbours were large enough to hold the majority of the Persian fleet and therefore presented the risk of the Persians landing forces behind his front line, either in Asia Minor or Greece. It was simply too dangerous; Alexander would have to take Tyre no matter the cost. A great portion of the Macedonian officers and soldiers alike were daunted by the staggering task ahead of them. But Alexander, in his typically daring manner, had a plan in his head that just might work. He really would make island Tyre part of the mainland. To enact his scheme, the king had Old Tyre torn down and harvested its stone as raw material. At the same time, parties were dispatched inland to the Beqaa Valley, where they fetched timber from the cedar trees on the mountain slopes. To supplement the soldiers in their efforts, entire populations of nearby towns and cities were drafted to serve as a labour corps which supposedly totalled many tens of thousands strong. Now possessing the materiel and the men to use it, Alexander began slowly constructing a 200 foot-wide mole from the mainland across to Tyre, - where it would connect just south of the Sidonian Harbour. The king’s engineers would sink wooden piles into the mud, pack stone between them to serve as a foundation, and then lay massive timber beams to complete the work. In the muddy terrain and shallow water adjacent to the shore, the going was relatively easy and the mole’s construction got underway with haste. Alexander was constantly present at the forefront of the effort, precisely instructing his workers how to proceed, motivating them with words of encouragement and even handing out rewards for men who had particularly impressed him with their skill and gusto on the job. The Tyrians, initially believing the mole to be some kind of joke, rowed out and mocked Alexander, jeering and asking the king if he thought himself greater than Poseidon. The Macedonian efforts were so disconcertingly effective, and the work being enacted in such efficient time however, that the people of Tyre quickly changed their mocking tune. Some of the city’s women and children were evacuated by sea, the Tyrian fleet was made ready and the defenders began constructing extra artillery pieces in anticipation of a proper fight in the very near future3. Trouble began for Alexander’s besieging army when the mole reached deeper water4, taking the construction near missile range. Aiming to stop Alexander’s effort in its tracks, Tyre dispatched a squadron of skiffs to each side of the mole. Near unopposed on the sea and loaded with missile troops and light catapults, these skirmishing vessels darted in close and unleashed a focused cross-fire into the massed labour corps working on the land bridge. The draftees along with Alexander’s soldiers, who worked without their usual armour, suffered terrible casualties in this initial naval sortie and were unable to continue working. To counter this kind of attack, a series of hide and canvas screens were rigged to serve as a barrier against arrow fire, allowing the workers to resume. Two siege towers were also constructed at the end of the mole to allow Alexander’s own missile troops a platform from which to respond. Difficulties now began increasing for both sides, and with that difficulty came superstition. Rumours of ill portents spread of Macedonian ration bread leaking blood, Tyrian defenders having visions of Apollo and it is even said a great ocean leviathan smashed into the mole, before swimming away again. To make matters worse, Alexander’s timber supply from the mountains had slowed thanks to near constant harassing raids from Arab tribes local to the area. The Tyrians now embarked upon a daring and ingenious strategy. They brought forward a large transport ship and loaded it to the brim with brushwood, pitch, sulphur and other fiercely burning materials. This fire ship was towed in the mole’s direction by a pair of Phoenician triremes who then, at the last moment, peeled away and flung the makeshift, floating bomb at Alexander’s siege bridge like an ancient cruise missile. It struck the edge and burst into an oily, blazing inferno, severely damaging the mole5, burning down the towers and killing a great many of the king’s troops. At the same time, the Tyrians launched another sortie, landing at various points along the mole, attacking the vulnerable laborers carrying materials, tearing down the defensive screens and setting fire to any siege equipment that had so far escaped the inferno. Soon, all along the mole was fire and death. Alexander was seemingly losing control of the situation. Something had to be done. After directing his dependable lieutenants Perdiccas and Craterus to rebuild the mole even wider than before with towers and artillery, Alexander departed with his usual strike-force of favourites and rode north to Sidon in search of a fleet. As Arrian tells us ‘for clearly, so long as the Tyrians were masters of the sea, the siege of Tyre would be no easy matter.’ It was during the king’s short stay in Sidon that perhaps the greatest strategic bounty of the Issus campaign revealed itself, however delayed it might have been. Having defected from Darius’ naval war after the Great King’s crushing defeat, the Phoenician rulers of Byblos and Aradus pledged their seaborne strength to Alexander. Together with the Sidonians, that totalled around 80 high-quality vessels with equally high-quality crews. Other scattered vessels sailed from Lycia, Macedon, Rhodes and other places. More promising still, the Kings of Cyprus, seeing which way the wind was blowing, brought 120 ships and added them with Alexander’s growing armada a day later. While the burgeoning fleet was being brought up to snuff and armed with artillery, the king ventured out on a punitive expedition into the Beqaa Valley, where he successfully handled the Arab tribes who had been raiding his wood-gatherers. Plutarch tells us that during this venture, Alexander snuck up to one of the tribal campfires during the night and personally slew two Arab warriors there with a dagger. Upon returning to Sidon the king not only found the fleet ready for action but 4,000 additional mercenaries at his command. With his new armada of loyal client-kings and reinforcements in tow, Alexander sailed back to Tyre. Initially, the Tyrians arrayed slightly off the city to face the Macedonian attempt at sea, but this giant force was far more than they were prepared for. Wisely, the Tyrian fleet withdrew to the safety of their harbours, which they blockaded with vessels. The balance of power was now firmly on Alexander’s side. The Macedonian-allied fleet spent the night sheltering near the mole, ready to deploy when the sun came up. As soon as it did, Alexander ordered the Phoenician contingent to blockade Tyre’s southern ‘Egyptian’ harbour, while sending the Cypriots to do the same at the northern ‘Sidonian’ harbour, effectively neutralising and reversing Tyre’s previous dominance on the seas. With that security, work on the mole began apace once more. Unfortunately for Alexander, a ferocious storm began not before the mole was set to reach the walls. Rain hammered down from the sky in torrents, gale-force winds blew and the sea became rough. This turn of luck not only made it impossible to make further progress, but ravaged the existing structure, setting the construction back considerably. To remedy this, the king had a number of massive uncut trees floated into position on the windward side of the mole, where they absorbed most of the impact. When the storm at last subsided, these wave breaks were built into the structure as bulwarks and the damage was soon repaired and expanded upon, taking the Macedonian bridge into the missile range of the walls. Intent on giving his workmen cover for the final stretch, Alexander massed his available siege catapults and stone-throwers on the edge of the mole. Together with the artillery-armed fleet and supported by archers and slingers, they launched a withering bombardment against the Tyrian battlements, clearing the defenders from the walls. Alexander also introduced a new kind of weapon: ships armed with battering rams to assault and break down the Tyrian’s defenses, the first known use of such weapons. Although under immense pressure, the Tyrians held on with great tenacity, hanging up screens to break the force of Alexander’s artillery and building wooden towers on their battlements. From these Tyre’s archers loosed volley after volley of fire arrows at the Macedonian vessels, while the citizens worked at terrific speed to repair any breaches. In some places that wasn’t viable, so they constructed a number of secondary curtain walls to plug the gap. At day’s end, the situation in the city was dire, but the defences opposite the mole still stood firm. Sailing around to the seaward side of Tyre in the dark of night, Alexander attempted to take the city while it was sleeping, but was foiled only by a short but another violent storm and forced to pull back. The Tyrians used this moment of breathing space to scatter large chunks of stone into the shallow water adjacent to the walls, making it incredibly difficult for the Macedonian ships to get close. Growing increasingly desperate, the Tyrians sent out small rowing boats at nights with divers who would plunge into the waters and cut their enemies rope anchor lines in an attempt to disrupt the fleet, forcing Alexander to equip all his ships with chain anchors. On land, Tyre’s inventors and engineers began devising strange weapons to repel the invaders, including a fire-thrower that belched molten metal, barbed tridents, rope-cutting scythes and even militarised fishing nets to ensnare any Macedonian escalade. This last-ditch attitude was exacerbated by bad news from abroad. Thirty more Carthaginian emissaries arrived with words of encouragement, but they regretted to inform their mother city that aid would not, in fact, be arriving - war at home made that impossible. Alexander spent some time clearing the stones which had been dumped into the water, allowing his ships to once again get close to the walls. At the same time, following a final Herculean burst of industry, the mole stretching all the way from the Phoenician coast to Tyre finally connected. As Alexander had vowed to the envoys of Tyre months earlier, he really had made the island city part of the mainland. The time for a full-scale attack had come. At the advent of midsummer, the Macedonians launched an assault via land - from the end of the mole, and from the sea on their assault ships. Massive stones launched by catapults smashed into the walls of Tyre, gouging out huge portions of stone and sending it crashing onto the rocks and into the water below. Ballista bolts and archery fire raked the battlements, killing defenders and making others duck for cover. Under the cover of this bombardment Alexander’s infantry used boarding gangways and ladders to attempt an escalade that would finally take the defiant city. They put fierce pressure onto the Tyrians who fought back ferociously in a conventional manner, but also used their mad inventions to turn the attackers away. Especially mentioned for their effectiveness were a number of metal pots filled with sand and gravel, heated until it was glowing. This fine mixture was then tipped onto Alexander’s advancing soldiers, where it sifted behind armour plates and burned into flesh. After a long struggle which yielded no real results except for brutal casualties, the king was once again forced to abandon the effort at nightfall. Dejected and exhausted, Alexander even briefly considered abandoning the siege of Tyre completely and marching onto Egypt, but Alexander held on, if only because giving up now would be costlier even than doggedly soldiering on. His persistence was to be rewarded. As they themselves were now in a desperate situation, the Tyrian ships at the Sidonian Harbour launched a massive naval sortie completely by surprise. As the crews were at rest, dozens of Macedonian-allied Cypriot vessels were sunk in the initial attack and for a moment it seemed as though the Tyrians were about to make a breakthrough. However, Alexander personally led a squadron of ships from the Egyptian harbour and cut off the overextended Tyrian squadron, destroying almost all of it and bottling the rest up in the harbour, from where they could now do nothing to hinder his efforts. The king’s troops and ships followed up this success by first testing an area of wall near the northern harbour, but he was pushed away. From there his forces turned to assault a section of the Tyrian walls just south of the southern harbour, which Alexander judged to be weak. Artillery let loose once more and a breach was made. Rather than throwing everything into this action, the king launched a brief probing attack and then withdrew. He was, however, now sure that the Macedonians had found Tyre’s soft underbelly. A further few days passed as Alexander rested his men in preparation for the final assault and waited for good weather to return. When the wind and sea quietened down on the third day, the Macedonian army boarded its assault vessels and launched a massive attack on the weakened southern area. Artillery once again hammered the area, collapsing a breach that was then widened even further. Simultaneous attacks were made from the mole and by the fleets on both harbours in order to keep the Tyrians busy. When the main breach was wide enough, the men of the elite hypaspist brigade and their valiant king strode through, closely followed by mighty Craterus and his battalion of the phalanx and others. As though suddenly realising their ultimate peril the defenders of Tyre fought back doggedly, contesting the Macedonians for every step. The fighting was so brutal that Admetus - captain of the hypaspists, was slain by an axe to the skull. But Alexander’s men had done it at last, surmounting the broken walls, taking the battlements and gaining a firm foothold in the city. At the same time, Phoenician and Cypriot squadrons penetrated both harbours and prompted the retreat of most remaining defenders on the walls to the city centre, lest they be encircled by enemy soldiers. They ran and ran, pursued by the Macedonians, until they reached the Shrine of Agenar. There they fought the last stand and died almost to the last man. With the end of organised resistance, chaos broke out: On Alexander's orders, the Macedonian soldiers conducted a savage rampage throughout the city, massacring thousands. Peter Green paints a picture of the mood and the scene in those hours. “All restraint, abandoned, hysterical and half-crazy after the long rigours of that dreadful siege, mere butchers now, striking and trampling and tearing limb from limb until Tyre became a bloody, reeking abattoir.” 7,000 soldiers and citizens were butchered in this sack, and a further 2,000 crucified by Alexander when the soldiers’ fury died down. The casualty figures would’ve been far worse had the Sidonians not turned into unlikely heroes. Although entering the conquered, hated city of Tyre on Alexander’s side it is said that they, feeling the plight of their Phoenician cousins, hid 15,000 people and ferried them to safety at Sidon. Alexander’s casualties are unknown, but Arrian’s suggestion of only 400 dead is certainly too low. The attacks on the mole, the numerous repelled assaults and bitter fighting all suggest a higher number though it is impossible to make any kind of accurate guess. Tyre, already aflame, was utterly destroyed, and the remainder of its population, roughly 30,000 people, were sold into slavery. The siege of Tyre is perhaps the greatest example of Alexander’s ingenuity, adaptability and mastery of siegecraft, however, as with Thebes before, it was also a harsh reminder of how brutal Alexander could be to those who resisted him. When news of Tyre’s end spread, almost every remaining city on the Mediterranean seaboard prepared to surrender and Darius III, who had been keeping a close eye on the situation, sent even more favourable peace terms. They were denied once more by Alexander, who turned his gaze toward the kingdom of the Pharaohs. As he went, time passed and the elements took their course. Gradually the rough edges and sharp joints of the Macedonian king’s infamous mole, which so boldly connected Tyre to the mainland, softened. Sand gathered and winds blew, connecting Tyre permanently to the Asian mainland. Today, as Green tells us ‘deep under the asphalt streets and apartment blocks, the stone core of that fantastic causeway still stands: one of Alexander’s most tangible and permanent legacies to posterity.’ Following the capture and destruction of Tyre in July of 332 BC, Alexander the Great had once more rejected generous peace overtures from Darius III. Alongside the taking of Tyre, other theatres had been turning in Alexander’s favour. In the Aegean, his lieutenants had been able to use the spoils of victory from Issus to gather a fleet and defeat the Persian squadrons in the area, retaking Lesbos and Chios. In Asia Minor, remnants of Darius’ army from Issus had attempted to retake Lydia, only to be defeated in three battles by the veteran Antigonus. With these victories under his belt, Alexander didn’t just want acco mmodation or riches now, he wanted the entirety of the Persian Empire and perhaps beyond. The next objective was to the south - Egypt. As the Alexander’s army, victorious in every major engagement since crossing into Asia, pushed into Palestine, it received the immediate surrender of every single city in the region except one. That single defiant was Gaza - a formidable hilltop stronghold controlling the approaches to Egypt. Like Tyre, it too would have to be taken. Unfortunately for Alexander, Gaza’s Persian governor Batis had been proactive during the siege on Tyre, taking the measure of hiring Arab mercenaries and stocking up his city with plentiful stores to withstand a siege of his own domain. The 160 mile march south through Phoenicia and Palestine was a harsh one, despite the lack of conflict. Refreshment was hard to come by and the climate - during the near-eastern summer, was incredibly arid. The army’s salvation was the fleet element commanded by Alexander’s closest companion Hephaestion, which kept the advancing soldiers supplied with food and water. Ákē - known during the Crusades as Acre, was passed first, followed by Joppa and Ascalon. The simple progress finally came to a swift halt when Gaza loomed large on the horizon in September of 332 BC. Alexander’s army took up position opposite a section of the fortification on the southern side of the city - which the Macedonians considered weakest. The city of Gaza was situated upon a large mound, which would make any assault of the city extremely difficult. Alexander initially tried to move his siege towers, effectively large artillery platforms, in range of the walls, but the shifting sands bogged them down, slowing progress. As with Tyre, however, Alexander had an ingenious engineering solution in mind. Rather than moving across the flat sands, Alexander had a mound constructed to the same height as Gaza’s walls, allowing his siege engines to fire more easily upon the defenses. During the course of these operations, the king made a traditional sacrifice, asking for the gods’ aid. While the ritual was ongoing, it is said that a crow flew overhead and dropped a lump of dry mud on Alexander’s head before taking a perch on the nearest siege tower and this was viewed as a grim omen by the soldiery and their monarch. Alexander consulted his personal soothsayer Aristander, who interpreted the event to foretell the fall of the city, but also harm that would come to Alexander during the clash. He recommended that the army take no action that day, and as a sign of just how superstitious Alexander was, the king acquiesced. Deciding that the passivity of their foes to be a sign of weakness, Batis’ mercenary Arab troops launched a brazen sortie out of the city gates in an attempt to destroy Alexander’s siege towers and kill as many Macedonians as they could. Having taken the first of the enemy soldiers by surprise, Batis’ Arabs initially met with some success and reached the towers with relatively little struggle. However, when Alexander caught onto what exactly was happening, he led his companions and hypaspists into battle from the front line, crashing into the spot where the fighting was fiercest. This decisive intervention stabilised the engagement and tipped the momentum toward the Macedonians, but the king was not going to escape unscathed, as the soothsayer had predicted. Quintus Curtius Rufus, always fond of the more dramatic and mystical anecdotes of Alexander, tells us how one of Batis’ hired swords pretended to be a deserter and threw himself before the king, asking for pardon. Alexander, decided to be magnanimous on this day, telling the man to rise and be received. Thus able to get close, the Arab suddenly retrieved his sword and lunged at the king’s neck. The plausibility of this can rightfully be questioned, but one thing that all the sources do agree on is that, while in the midst of the fighting, Alexander was wounded by either an arrow or ballista bolt smashing into his shoulder. It was a serious wound and while Alexander initially tried to stay on the battlefield, he soon lost consciousness due to blood loss. Batis, thinking that his men had killed the Macedonian king, withdrew his men back into the city in triumph. Alexander, meanwhile, was carried back to his camp where, after much difficulty, his doctor, Philip, was able to staunch the bleeding and save his life. While the king recovered from yet another near miss, progress on the mound continued, with it finally extending to over 1,000 feet wide and 250 feet high, according to Arrian, while at the same time, Hephaestion ferried yet more siege engines that had been taken from Tyre to the siege. By the time Alexander had recovered enough to continue the fight, it was October, two months after the king’s initial investment of the city. With increased firepower, Alexander ordered another assault on the city with his siege engines hammering at the walls while sappers mined underneath them. Eventually, the walls were breached and the Macedonian army pushed into the city. Batis’ men resisted determinedly though, pushing back the attackers three times, despite taking heavy casualties. Alexander, not yet fully recovered, led the fourth attack personally and, according to Quintus Curtius Rufus, was wounded yet again when a ballista rock smashed his leg. Nevertheless, this attack proved to be decisive and Alexander’s men soon swarmed into the city. The sources record Persian losses being as high as 10,000, which may include the male civilian population, with the women and children being sold into slavery. Moreover, Curtius Rufus also reports a particularly grim fate for the Persian commander, Batis. According to him, Batis was captured alive, having fought bravely to the last and brought to Alexander. Alexander demanded his surrender, and when Batis refused to reply, Alexander flew into a rage and ordered that Batis be tied behind his chariot and dragged him around the city until he was dead. Curtius Rufus did have a particular fondness for these kinds of stories, and it is important to note that no other source mentions this grisly fate for Batis, and that the parallels to Achilles’ treatment of Hector are perhaps too obvious. It may, therefore, be one of the many rumors and tall tales that became associated with Alexander, but it is also worth remembering that our other sources for Alexander are often more forgiving of him and actively avoided reporting some of his more questionable actions. Alexander finally crossed into Egypt now that the way was clear, reaching the gateway to the Nile - Pelusium, in just a week. When he and his army arrived, they were met not by a dogged garrison of defenders, but by a cheering crowd of overjoyed people who regarded the invading Macedonians as liberators. After many attempted revolts, the Egyptians had successfully broken away from Persian rule in 404BC, but were reconquered just 11 years earlier. The Achaemenid governor Mazaces realised his unstable position and received Alexander with friendship, granting the king open access to Egypt and its treasuries. From Pelusium Alexander sailed up the Nile to Memphis - the ancient capital of the Nile Kingdom in the days of its strength. In contrast to the first Achaemenid conqueror of Egypt - Cambyses, who is said to have profaned the divine Apis, Alexander showed himself as a friend by offering the god special sacrifice. The Egyptians welcomed Alexander as their liberator and, though he was never officially crowned as Pharaoh, he was honored with many of the same titles and titles, King of Upper and Lower Egypt, Son of Ra and Beloved of Amun. Alexander departed Memphis in January of 331, sailing toward the Mediterranean until he reached Lake Mareotis. There, inspired by the quality of the site opposite the island of Pharos, Alexander ordered that planning and construction efforts on a new city begin immediately. So enthusiastic was Alexander about this new project that he supposedly designated the layout of the town and the limit of its defenses himself. That city would, over the next few decades, become Alexandria - the cosmopolitan capital of the ancient world. While his architects and labourers continued preparatory work on the new Greece-facing city, Alexander found himself consumed by a sudden desire to visit a famous oracle of the god Zeus-Ammon, a combination of the Greek and Egyptian deities . This religious figure had previously been consulted by king Croesus of Lydia, Athens during the Peloponnesian War, and many other historical giants. It was seen with equal reverence to the oracle at Delphi. The problem was that this oracle resided within a desert oasis known as Siwah - fully three-hundred miles distant to the west. A crucial stage of the campaign against Persia was upcoming, however, and divine backing would be a great boon. Setting out in late January with only a small band, among whom was the future Egyptian ruler Ptolemy, Alexander travelled 170 miles west along the coastal road and eventually reached the small settlement of Paraetonium on the borders of Cyrenaica. There, the adventuring king received a delegation of emissaries from Cyrene. They granted him a number of grandiose gifts including fine horses and chariots, and he concluded a treaty of peace and alliance with them. The party then continued on their way, turning inland from the Mediterranean. What followed was a gruelling slog through the parched, desolate and utterly inhospitable Libyan Desert. The band’s water supplies ran out four days into the venture, but they were saved by a great rainstorm that came just at the right time. Not content with just dehydrating the Macedonians, the desert then saw fit to disorient them as well. Khamsin desert winds picked up, blasting away all landmarks in a withering sandstorm that made Alexander’s guides lose their bearings. Finally, almost a month after setting out from Lake Mareotis, the party managed to follow a flight of birds to the verdant Siwah oasis, which they reached in late February 331. While the group remained behind and enjoyed the relative luxury of the oasis, Alexander went directly to the temple. What happened next is not clear, thanks to contradictions in our sources, and is still much debated to this day. Arrian, who used sources written by companions of Alexander, gives little information, aside from the fact that Alexander, “heard what was agreeable to him”. Diodorus, Justin and Quintus Curitus Rufus, whose main source was the Ptolemaic historian Cleitarchus, write that Alexander was welcomed by the eldest priest as the son of Zeus-Ammon, that he would rule the whole earth and, in response to a question from Alexander, that all of his father’s assassins had been punished. Plutarch, whose sources included Alexander's historian Callisthenes, gives a similar account, but also includes the possibility that the priest had attempted to welcome Alexander by saying “O paidon”, meaning “oh my son”, but due to his accent mispronounced the word to “O paidos” meaning “o son of Zeus”, but that Alexander happily exploited the mistake. The truth of what happened is now impossible to determine with certainty. Alexander during his own lifetime made masterful use of propaganda to push the idea that he was, in some form divine, and all accounts of his life succumb to this to a greater or lesser extent. Indeed, whether Alexander even really believed in his divinity or simply used it as a convenient political tool is similarly impossible to say. However, what can be said with certainty is that Alexander at least actively encouraged the idea that he was, and that his visit to Zeus-Ammon was an important part of this propaganda. After rewarding the Siwah shrine with plentiful gifts of gold, the party returned to the embryonic city of Alexandria by the route they had come. The first indications of spring were now upon the Macedonians. After the relatively simple foray into Egypt, it was nearly time to resume the campaign against Darius III. Before the titans locked horns again however, there were important administrative matters to conclude. Leaving the great work at Alexandria in the capable hands of his builders, engineers and architects, Alexander sailed south to Memphis, where he was once again infatuated by the ancient city’s air of quasi-divine Pharaonic majesty. The monarch was fawned on by his Egyptian subjects as though he was a deity on earth and artists began depicting their new beloved ruler on temple walls across the country. Though it would later become a point of serious contention, there were many Greeks who were willing to indulge Alexander’s newfound love for ‘oriental’ divinity, realising that it could be exploited for their own ends. Several embassies of Greeks were waiting for the king at Memphis with petitions, all of which Arrian tells us were generously granted. It is tempting to say that their flattery might’ve swayed the king, but it is equally possible that a mix of success and elation at the Siwah revelation had Alexander in a good mood. Beyond mere emotion, Alexander also had a more pragmatic motivation to begin treating the Greeks more gently at the beginning of 331. As feared, Persian assistance had allowed Sparta’s King Agis III to start making trouble at home. Throughout Alexander’s time in Egypt, Agis had managed to take over most of Crete and stood poised to attack the mainland with a large mercenary force. The situation was a volatile tinderbox just waiting to be lit, and being unduly harsh to other Greek states seemed likely to make the situation explode more violently. Alexander paid special attention to the governance of Egypt, which he immediately viewed as both a plentiful cornucopia and a potential threat. It had presented two primary threats to occupying empires in the past - ‘nationalist’ rebellions by disaffected natives and attempts by devious governors to leverage Egypt’s supreme strength in revolt against the larger empire. The king now set out a number of reforms aiming at avoiding both of these nightmare scenarios. He separated the Nile kingdom’s administration into civil and military branches. Routine day-to-day bureaucracy remained in the hands of local Egyptians, a move which gained Alexander the favour of the locals. Not only that, but if those same bureaucrats began making a mess of things, the population wouldn’t blame him. The traditional geographical division of upper and lower Egypt was also employed, with a district governor known as a ‘nomarch’ serving as steward over each segment. Geographical divide and rule tactics of this kind were also used on the military front, although Greeks were employed rather than Egyptians. The country’s eastern and western districts would be commanded by Cleomenes of Naucratis and Apollonius, son of Charinus respectively. Macedonian garrison commanders were also instituted at Memphis and Pelusium in order to keep order in the delicate, fertile and often revolt-prone breadbasket that was Egypt. With matters of governance finalised, Alexander took his whole army back north to Tyre. In the Achaemenid heartland, Darius had been using the time since his defeat at Issus to gather a fresh, even more, numerous force to throw Alexander back. This army was made up of a multitude of peoples from every realm of Asia still under Persian control, including India, Scythia and Bactria. Predominant among the Persian aristocracy was Bessus - governor of Bactria, who not only brought to bear a powerful force, but also possessed kingly ambitions. Ever since his epochal triumph at Issus two years earlier, Alexander had been methodically reducing every potential center of resistance in the western part of the Achaemenid Empire. Syria had been secured and administered, followed by Phoenicia, Palestine, and - Egypt. But as spring of 331 BC arrived, it was once more time to move on, this time into Persia’s imperial heartland. The advance would be risky - disconcerting news was even now arriving from Greece concerning Agis’ revolt. All the king could feasibly do at this point without abandoning everything he had accomplished was to send a great fleet of 100 ships to aid any harbour supporting the Macedonian cause. Apart from that, putting down the Greek rebels would be left to Antipater and the men under his command. With that considered Alexander again turned east, where Darius and a colossal Persian army were waiting for him. Following one final bout of administrative fine-tuning, the king marched his army to Thapsacus - a major link between Syria and Mesopotamia. He arrived between July and August, but an advance force under Hephaestion had already been present for some time, and managed to construct two pontoon bridges over the Euphrates ready for the army’s use. As a sign of the Macedonian engineers’ skill, these bridges lacked a final stretch on the far bank, preventing any enemy force from effectively using them and this proved to be a wise precaution. Observing the invaders’ crossing from a safe distance was a force of 3,000 Persian cavalry outriders commanded by one of Darius’ satraps - Mazaeus. Arrian seems to imply that Mazaeus’ horsemen were supposed to stop the crossing of Alexander’s vastly superior army, but it is more probable that Darius simply required intelligence as to what the Macedonians were doing. There was, realistically, no chance for Mazaeus to prevent the crossing by himself. Having learned from previous defeats, Darius III had come up with a plan. He had done well at Issus to get behind Alexander and force a battle while in a defensive position. Nevertheless, the narrow confines of that battlefield had limited the maneuverability of his cavalry, the most effective portion of the Persian army. Moreover, there were numerous crossing points across both the Euphrates and Tigris, and Darius had no means of determining which ones Alexander would use. As a result, he instead decided upon a large open plain for his battle: Gaugamela. Here, he would be able to better use his numerical superiority and have ample room for his cavalry to dominate the battlefield. Moreover, the flat terrain would also lend itself well to the 200 scythed chariots that Darius had recently added to his army. Darius had learned well that Alexander was a cunning enemy, and this time he would have complete control of the battlefield. By the time Alexander got near, Darius’ army would be ready and waiting. Meanwhile, Alexander himself was still crossing the arid Mesopotamian plain, capturing a few of Mazaeus’ scouts in the process. It was from these captives that the Macedonians learned, somewhat vaguely, that the main Persian army had taken up a position on the Tigris and was set to throw the Macedonians back if they attempted to ford the river. Moreover, estimates of the sheer size of Darius’ massive army were also obtained. Upon finally arriving at the upper reaches of the Tigris in mid-September, the Macedonian king and his army found neither Darius nor his hundred-thousand plus men - faulty or deceptive intelligence from the captured scout, it seemed. This was just as well, as, at least according to Arrian, the strong, swift currents of the Tigris made the crossing treacherous. Nevertheless, despite these difficulties, Alexander as able to ford the river successfully with his whole army, taking a few days to rest before marching on. The two armies, now on the same side of the Tigris, were getting perilously close to one another. While Alexander continued pressing on with the river on his right and the mountains on his left, Darius , at Gaugamela, began the task of perfecting his battlefield, flattening hills, clearing rocks and trees, and employing every possible measure to make the plain as flat as possible. The Great King was so distracted by this that he failed to take the low hills three miles west. En route, Alexander had two minor encounters with Persian cavalry forces under Mazaeus, but they were easily put to flight. Further prisoners taken in these engagements revealed that Darius’ massive army was at Gaugamela, by that point only around ten miles away. Further investigation uncovered the ground-leveling operations and made Alexander realise that Darius didn’t intend to move from this pre-selected battlefield, allowing him to encamp and give his men another substantial rest before the climactic battle. During this short lull, the Persians utilised infiltration and assassination tactics, attempting to turn the Greek soldiers against Alexander with promises of gold and other good things. One of these letters was intercepted and the king debated reading it aloud before the Greeks to emphasize his trust in them. He was deterred from doing so by the ever-cautious Parmenion, who reasoned that avarice recognised nothing as a crime, not even the murder of a king. Instead, the letter was suppressed and the camp fortified. It was around this same time that Darius made his third and final offer for peace with Alexander. Twice, he had offered substantial sums of money as well as most of Asia Minor in return for ending the war, now, he offered even more. In order to achieve peace, Darius was prepared to offer 30,000 talents, roughly 45 billion dollars today, all the territories West of the Euphrates, approximately half the Persian Empire, as well as one of his daughter's hands in marriage. It was a staggeringly generous offer that would have allowed Alexander to consolidate his considerable gains without having to risk another major battle, and would have meant that he could return to Greece to deal with the troublesome Agis. If it had been Philip receiving the offer, he surely would have accepted and the veteran Parmenion even advised that “If I were Alexander, I would accept this offer,” to which Alexander famously replied “So would I, if I were Parmenion”. Alexander’s ambitions were greater than Philip, Parmenion or Darius could fathom: he was aiming for the entirety of the Persian Empire and in order to achieve that, he was willing to gamble everything. While most of the army recuperated in camp, Alexander assembled a strong cavalry escort and went to personally scout both the battlefield terrain and Darius’ army. When he crested the hill overlooking it, Peter Green suggests that the Macedonian king might’ve second-guessed his earlier bravado about facing the Persians so brazenly. For what he saw was an army larger even than that he had faced at Issus. More than that, it seemed far superior in armament and skill, possessing a large quantity of fearsome eastern cavalry. That night, Alexander sat awake in his tent for hours on end, analysing the potential of each Persian unit and considering the potential damage they might inflict, along with the tactics he could use to gain victory. At some point, Parmenion arrived and suggested that a night attack be carried out, but Alexander stated that he would “Not demean victory by stealing victory like a thief. Alexander must defeat his enemies openly and honestly.” But even Arrian, who usually gushes with praise over the Macedonian king, found it likely that this haughty response was just a smokescreen. He believed instead that ‘these lofty words probably indicated confidence in danger rather than vanity.’ Rather than the morality of victory, refusal to engage in an incredibly risky, potentially catastrophic night attack was instead simply a sound tactical decision. Pitched battles had worked wonders thus far and so there was no need to gamble everything in the dark. This proved to be a shrewd decision indeed. While the Alexander’s men were resting in preparation for the coming battle, Darius’ troops, lacking a camp with fortifications, were actually drawn up in full battle order throughout the night in fear of any surprise assault by the enemy. Not only did the consequential lack of sleep exhaust the vast array of Achaemenid warriors, but waiting hour after hour with nothing to show for it demoralised the Persians greatly, sapping their spirit. Back in the secure Macedonian camp, Alexander at last crossed the T’s and dotted the I’s of his intricate battle plan and then simply went to sleep in the early morning hours. When the sun rose above the horizon on the morning of the great Battle of Gaugamela, Alexander did not rise with it. Instead, unconcerned by the gravity of the occasion, he slept. On their own volition, the various battalions had breakfast and assembled for battle. Only when knowledge of Alexander’s plan became necessary for deployment did Parmenion go and rouse the king from his slumber. No doubt curious as to just how the king was able to sleep so soundly Parmenion asked him. Alexander simply responded by saying that he had indeed been worried when the Persians had been retreating and laying waste to the line of march, but now that pitched battle was on the cards ‘By Heracles, he has done exactly what I wanted!’ Finally, the Macedonian king and his Persian counterpart were face to face once more, and the great battle for Asia was about to begin. Darius’ army was so massive that its flanks extended beyond Alexander’s by a significant margin and outflanking was virtually assured. The Persian left and right wings were commanded by Bessus and Mazaeus respectively, while the Great King Darius III himself was stationed in the center. Having seemingly learnt his lesson from Issus, Darius stacked a large amount of his cavalry on the left flank, opposite where Alexander and his Companions would be. Here, Bessus commanded thousands of cavalry from his own satrapy of Bactria, together with Sogdians and Arachosians. Additional mounted strength was drawn from the nomadic peoples beyond Persia’s northern frontier who were in military alliance with the empire, such as the Sacae and Dahae Scythians fighting as cataphracts or horse archers. On the right, Mazaeus had Syrians, Mesopotamians, and Medes under his leadership, flanked toward the center by Parthian and even more Sacae cavalry. Tapurians, Hyrcanians, Albanians, and Sacesinians from the Caucasus and the areas around the Caspian sea formed the link between right and center. The vanguard of Mazaeus’ wing was composed of Armenian and Cappadocian riders. Mixed Persian infantry and Greek mercenaries formed Darius’ center, together with the king’s personal cavalry, immortals, and the Indian cavalry. Darius’ army also included two more exotic units. First were the Great King’s 200 scythed chariots - somewhat experimental shock vehicles with blades on their wheels tailored to break apart Alexander’s formations and cause chaos in his lines. 100 of these chariots were drawn up just to the right of Bessus’ Bactrians, and 50 each in front of the Indians and next to Mazaeus’ Armenians. Second, were 15 majestic elephants who accompanied the Indian contingents though, Darius chose not to deploy these in the battle itself, perhaps due to his unfamiliarity fighting with such unpredictable units. The ancient sources give wildly exaggerated numbers for the Persian army, Arrian, Diodorus and Plutarch, all claiming it was over 1,000,000. Modern historians, such as Borza, Worthington and Green, dismiss these numbers as the propaganda that they obviously are and tend to agree on somewhere in the ballpark of 100,000, with roughly 30-40,000 of that being cavalry, the rest infantry. Alexander’s army, on the other hand, is better attested to, with the majority of sources and historians agreeing on a number of around 40,000 infantry and 7,000 cavalry opposed this gargantuan force. Knowing that he was almost guaranteed to be outflanked, Alexander drew up his force for battle with his flanks angled inward slightly to better withstand a Persian encirclement. The Companion, Paeonian and allied Greek cavalry were located on the right flank, supported by half of both the Agrianians and archers, while the other halves were stationed in front of the Companions Royal Squadron as a screening force. Next to this strike force were the hypaspists and then the 6 phalangites battalions of the main phalanx. On the left flank was Thracian and Greek mercenary infantry, the remaining allied Greek and other light cavalry and the formidable Thessalian cavalry. Lastly, acting as Alexander’s reserve, were the soldiers from the League of Corinth. Command of the left half of the army was entrusted entirely to Parmenion, who would need to fight a difficult holding action, while Alexander, in command of the right half of the army, would aim to strike the killing blow. Confident in his army’s supreme discipline and fully prepared to exploit Darius’ plan, Alexander ordered his entire line to advance in oblique fashion, the right flank slightly ahead of the left. Simultaneously, the king personally took strike force on the right and moved almost parallel to the Persian line as though aiming to outflank the Persian line with his numerically inferior forces. At once reacting to this unexpected maneuver, Bessus flexed his strength by stretching his cavalry even further out, always keeping outside of the Macedonians. This, in turn, dragged units away from the Persian center. All of a sudden, it became obvious to the Achaemenid leadership that by edging his army to the right, Alexander was attempting to move the battle away from the leveled plain, thereby rendering much of Darius’ long-planned strategy null and void. Regardless of his lacking numbers, Alexander continued drifting right until he was just short of the cleared zone. Anxious to avoid fighting on the rough ground, Bessus finally committed his wing by launching a direct charge against the Macedonian right. This commitment was precisely the move Alexander had been attempting to provoke. Keeping his Companion cavalry close by, Alexander sent the Paeonians, and Greek mercenary and allied cavalry to join battle with the ferocious Sacae-Bactrian horse that formed Bessus’ vanguard. The fighting here was brutal, Alexander’s men barely succeeding in holding off the attack, with Alexander trickling in reinforcing squadrons to lure in as much of the enemy as he could. To try and support the attack and crush Alexander’s right flank entirely, Darius sent the chariots to support Bessus aiming for Alexander directly. Alexander’s Agrianians and archers had been prepared for just such an attack, however. They intercepted the charge, decimating the Persian charioteers with arrows and javelins and quickly parting ranks, allowing the hypaspists to mop up any survivors. Though the chariots had been easily neutralized, the battle was still very much on the wire. Alexander’s cavalry on the right was under serious pressure, with some of the Persian cavalry even having made it around to the Macedonian camp, and Parmenion’s left half of army had also been engaged, the extreme left flank having to bend inwards to absorb the attack. Moreover, all the dust that had been kicked up by the battle made it impossible for Alexander and Parmenion to have a solid understanding of how the battle was progressing on either flank. At this point, Darius committed the last of Bessus’ cavalry to flank around Alexander’s extreme right to encircle the Macedonians there and destroy them. It was a sound move but, in doing so, it created a gap between Darius’ center and the now engaged cavalry on his left. This, was the moment that Alexander had been waiting for. While his last cavalry reserves were sent to check the encircling move, Alexander ordered his half of the phalanx to attack the Persian center while he charged at the head of the Companion cavalry through the gap straight for Darius. Fierce fighting broke out around the two kings, both fighting alongside some of their most elite forces. Arrian, often more flattering of Alexander and damning of Darius, claims that the Persian king fled almost instantly, however, this is contradicted by both Diodorus and Curtius Rufus. In their accounts, the Persian king fought bravely from his chariot alongside his men, while Alexander and his Companions cut a path towards him, Darius’ chariot driver getting killed by a javelin just inches from Darius himself. Realizing now that his section of the battle was lost, Darius once again decided it was best to live and fight another day and fled the battle. Many of the units around Darius’ position also began to rout and Bessus’ cavalry, still locked in combat, was forced to disengage and withdraw, lest they be surrounded. As Alexander’s portion of the army gave chase, it seemed that victory had been achieved and that all that was needed was to catch Darius and the Persian Empire would fall. It was at this moment though, that a messenger arrived from Parmenion: his half of the army was on the brink of destruction. They had been fighting a desperate holding action against Mazaeus’ forces throughout the battle, and when Alexander had ordered the fateful advance, the left battalions of the phalanx had become bogged down in fighting, creating a gap in Alexander’s line. Persian and Indian cavalry had broken through this gap, engaging Alexander’s Greek reserves, while more cavalry flanked around Parmenion’s position to attack from the flank. Faced with the choice of capturing Darius or saving Parmenion, Alexander chose Parmenion, rallying the Companions and smashing into the Persian right flank from the rear. The fighting was not easy, Hephaestion and Coenus both getting injured in the struggle here, but they were finally able to rout the last Persian elements and win the battle. How many casualties were sustained on either side is, as is often the case with Alexander’s battles, almost impossible to know, with ancient sources suggesting Alexander's losses were roughly 1,000 while the Persians lost 30,000. While these numbers should be taken with a pinch of salt, one thing is for sure: Gaugamela was Alexander’s masterpiece. Against a numerically superior foe who had chosen and prepared the battlefield specifically for the battle, Alexander had won a brilliant victory. His strategy of enticing Darius’ entire left flank before charging through the gap was ingenious and would be echoed by two other great military leaders, Napoleon at Austerlitz and the Duke of Marlborough at Blenheim. Undeniably, the victory was partly a result of the discipline of Alexander’s army as well as the talent of his subordinates, most notably Parmenion. But the turning point of the battle rested solely upon Alexander’s ability to read the battlefield, his timing, and his personal leadership. Alexander had gambled everything on himself, and he had won. With the defeat of the last of the Great King’s organized forces, the Persian heartland, which had some of the greatest cities in the world at the time, was left open to Alexander. It was now time to move east into the great expanse of the Persian Empire, where Darius was to be captured, and Alexander could move on to the world's edge. Following his defeat at Gaugamela, Darius withdrew to Media, effectively abandoning two of Persia’s greatest cities, Babylon and Susa, as he knew that Eastern Provinces could sustain the war effort. The main thing Darius needed was time and he hoped that Alexander would be distracted by two of the wealthiest cities of the Empire long enough for Darius to rebuild his forces. Alexander arrived at Babylon around October 23rd, 331BC. The city, which had rebelled against Persian rule numerous times in its history, welcomed him with gifts. Babylon was one of the most impressive cities in the world and Alexander treated his men to a well-deserved month-long rest during which they were reinforced by men from Greece, Macedonia, and Thrace, including approximately 15,000 infantry and 2,000 cavalry. While his men enjoyed the luxuries, wine, and women, Alexander occupied himself with administration. Satraps were appointed, mainly Hellenes from Macedonia or the Greek city-states, but with one notable exception: the Persian satrap of Babylon, Mazaeus. This was the same Mazaeus who had so nearly overrun the Macedonian left flank at Gaugamela and was allowed to retain his position as satrap, having surrendered Babylon without a fight. This, combined with Alexander’s partaking in Babylonian religious ceremonies, made some of Alexander’s companions uneasy. Alexander had professed to be invading Persia as revenge for the Persian attacks on the Greeks: appointing Persians and taking part in Eastern rites seemed to fly in the face of that agenda. This attempt to blend Eastern and Hellenic cultures would prove to be a consistent theme in Alexander’s life from this point onwards. From Babylon, Alexander marched the 200 miles to Susa in 20 days. Following Gaugamela, he had already sent men ahead to secure the city's surrender, and once again the city was taken without a fight, Alexander also finding almost 50,000 talents worth of gold and silver. Back in Greece, Agis III of Sparta’s revolt had finally begun and Alexander was now able to send a large amount of money back to Macedonia to help Antipater stay on top of the situation, as well making sure to pay his own troops a generous bonus for their service so far. With the funds provided by Alexander, and having dealt with a minor revolt in Thrace, Antipater now turned his attention to the rebellious Spartan king. Agis had attempted to stir up many of the Greek city-states, particularly Athens. However, even Demosthenes, the long-term rival of Philip and Alexander, now accepted that Macedonian hegemony was too powerful: Agis and his Spartans were left with only a handful of allies from the Peloponnese on their side. The Persians had also only been able to fund Agis with a fraction of the money he had wanted, but this nevertheless had been enough to raise an army of approximately 20,000. Included in these ranks were 8,000 Greek mercenaries that had fought on the Persian side at Issus, providing Agis with a well-trained and disciplined force. He had already achieved a minor victory over a Macedonian force in the Peloponnese and so had good cause to be confident as he laid siege to Megalopolis, which had remained loyal to the Macedonians. Antipater, however, was not an easy foe: he was a veteran politician and general who had served for many years under Philip prior to Alexander’s reign. He now amassed a force of 40,000 and marched South, meeting the Spartans for battle on a narrow plain just outside Megalopolis. Details about the battle are, unfortunately, very sparse. What we do know is that the battle was closely fought, the narrowness of the battlefield allowing the Spartans to hold out for a remarkably long time, despite being outnumbered almost 2:1 and at one point even managing to break the Macedonian line. Just as the battle seemed to be turning in the Spartan’s favor, however, Agis III was badly wounded a number of times and was carried from the battle. His men continued to fight, but without their commander they began to lose cohesion and Antipater’s force was finally able to break the Spartan line. The Spartan army retreated, taking the wounded Agis with them. Agis knew that his wounds were fatal however, and ordered that he be left behind. On his knees, Agis is said to have fought on in an attempt to buy time for his countrymen to escape, before finally being killed by a javelin. By the end of the day, the Spartan army had suffered 5,300 dead in exchange for 1,000-3,000 Macedonians. The defeat and death of Agis put an end to the revolt, with Sparta and her allies paying homage to Alexander in the aftermath. It had been an important battle that could have seriously jeopardize Alexander’s campaign if Antipater had lost, but when Alexander heard news of his victory, he dismissed it as a battle between mice. Alexander did not spend long in Susa, though. Darius was still his priority and so, rather than wait out the winter in the city, Alexander headed to the Zagros Mountains. The Zagros Mountains were in the territory of the warlike Uxian tribe. The Persians had never been able to completely subdue the tribe, settling for an agreement, where the Persians paid a fee to the Uxians if they needed to pass through their lands, in return for which the Uxians would not bother the Persians. When Alexander approached, the Uxians similarly demanded that he also pay the fee. Alexander seemed to agree to this, sending messengers requesting a meeting in the defiles to pay the tax. Precisely what happened next is not clear, and our sources differ drastically. According to Arrian, after sending the messengers to the Uxians, Alexander was informed by men from Susa about a pass around the defile and took a force of 1,000 hypaspists and another 8,000 infantry along this path. He fell upon some Uxian villages in the night, killing many and forcing the remainders to flee into the mountains. Alexander then split his force, sending some under Craterus to wait in ambush on high ground, while Alexander took his portion of the army on a forced march to the defile, reaching it before the Uxians. From this commanding position, Alexander was easily able to rout the Uxians, who tried to flee to the high ground but were ambushed there by Craterus’ force and cut down. Quintus Curtius Rufus, however, gives a very different account. He claims that Alexander sent a force of 2,500 light infantry under Tauron, one of his lieutenants, to take the path around the Uxians position. Alexander, meanwhile, led the main force in a difficult siege of an Uxian city. Siege towers were built, and the Uxians inflicted many casualties from their strong defensive position. Alexander kept up the attacks, however, until Tauron finally emerged behind the Uxians position, at which point they surrendered. The two accounts have enough similarities that they are surely discussing the same battle, but they seem almost impossible to reconcile. In general, Arrian’s history was better researched, as he primarily used two eye-witness accounts. His work undoubtedly has flaws, often overlooking some of the more negative actions of Alexander and assuming some of the biases of the eye-witness sources, but as a military man, he was more reliable when it comes to military affairs. In comparison, Rufus’ has only one source - Cleitarchus, who was not an eyewitness, and was generally considered by the ancients to be an excellent writer, but an inaccurate historian. Rufus did use other sources as well, but his work was often more interested in the psychology of Alexander than the military details. As such, Arrian’s version is generally the one that is preferred. Whichever version is favored though, the outcome was the same. The Uxians sued for peace, sending messages to Darius’ mother to entreat on their behalf. Alexander agreed, enforcing a yearly tribute of horses and livestock from the Uxians and then pressing on into Persis, the heart of the Persian Empire. Before crossing the mountains into Persis, Alexander split his army in two. Parmenion would take the less direct, but easier route, leading the Thessalian cavalry, Greek allies and other mercenaries along with the baggage train. Alexander, meanwhile, would lead the main phalanx, Companions, light cavalry, Agrarians, and archers, approximately 14,000-20,000 men, on a forced march through the mountains, aiming for the Persian ceremonial capital of Persepolis. Unbeknownst to Alexander, a Persian force under the command of Ariobarzanes, a veteran of Gaugamela, had built a makeshift wall across the narrow pass through the mountains, known as the Persian Gate, and was waiting for him. The exact size of Ariobarzanes’ army is of some debate. Ancient sources give Ariobarzanes numbers as being between 40,000 and 25,000 infantry with a few hundred cavalry, while some modern writers give a number as low as 700 total. The number of 40,000 is likely exaggerated, as was the often case with Greek sources giving Persian numbers, but the number of 700 is almost certainly too low. In order to arrive at such a low number, one would have to almost completely disregard the ancient sources entirely, and assume that the Persians fielded only a fraction of their total military power to defend the capital. Leading experts on Alexander, such as Heckel, Worthington, Borza and Lane Fox, tend to agree that the ancient sources which claim 40,000 are too large, usually preferring the sources that give their numbers as, at maximum, 25,000. Alexander’s force passed through the narrow gorge, until they found their way blocked by the wall. Suddenly, Ariboarzanes men attacked the Macedonian column from both sides, showering Alexander’s ranks with a mix of missile fire and rocks. The Macedonians took severe casualties in this initial ambush, with the terrain making it almost impossible for Alexander’s men to fight effectively. As more of his men were killed or wounded, Alexander signaled a retreat. The narrow pass made such a withdrawal difficult however, and his men were continuously harassed by arrows and javelins from the Persians. Finally, though, Alexander’s force managed to extract itself from the gorge and establish a camp. While encamped, Alexander had any Persian prisoners that had recently been taken brought to him, and questioned about any other routes around the Persian position. One of these prisoners had been a shepherd in the area and, in return for a hefty reward, agreed to show Alexander a path around Arizobarnes defences. Taking the majority of the army with himself, Alexander made for this path, leaving Craterus with approximately 3,000 infantry, 500 cavalry and archers in the camp and with orders to light extra fires at night to make it appear as if the entire army was still there. Alexander’s force departed in the night. It was still mid-winter, and the mountain cold and rough terrain made it a particularly difficult journey. Part way through, Alexander came to a split in the mountain path; one of these led more directly to Ariobarzanes position, the other circled even further behind, leading to the Persian camp. Alexander ordered Philotas and 3,000 men to take the first, while he led the remaining force along the second path around the Persian camp. After a day and two nights of grueling marching, Alexander’s men were finally in position. After resting his men, Alexander began the attack falling upon the Persian camp and blasting trumpets as he did so. At this signal, the forces of Craterus and Philotas also attacked the Persians who now found themselves attacked on three sides. Ariobarzanes' men fought back bravely and desperately, despite being almost completely surrounded. It soon became clear, however, that the battle was lost, and Ariobarzanes, along with 40 cavalry, were able to cut their way out of the encirclement and escape. The rest of the Persian force was cut down to a man. It is not exactly clear how long Ariobarzanes and his men had been able to delay Alexander, but some modern sources suggest it had been almost a month. The amount of casualties the Macedonians took is also not given in the sources, though it seems clear that they were significant. Though Ariobarzanes had fought bravely, his fate is not clear. Arrian says he simply escaped into the hills, while Rufus says that he fled to Persepolis but found the gates barred to him, and was eventually killed by Alexander’s men. Despite the losses and delay, however, Alexander had once again managed to salvage victory and the route to Persepolis now lay open to him. The governor of Persepolis sent messages to Alexander and, with Ariobarzanes force having been destroyed, offered to turn the city over to Alexander, an offer he gladly accepted. En route to the city, a number of sources mention that Alexander’s army came across a group of Greeks on the road, usually given as numbering 800, all of whom were old and mutilated. They had all apparently been skilled craftsmen, captured by the Persians and mutilated in order to prevent them from escaping. Moved to pity at the sight of them, Alexander made sure to award land, riches, and grain to all of them, ensuring that they would live out their remaining days in luxury. How true or not this story is, is hard to say. Alexander certainly was known as a generous man who often gave lavish gifts, however, given the later actions of Alexander and his army in Persepolis, it may be that these mutilated Greeks were an invention of pro-Alexander sources to justify the subsequent events. Upon entering Persepolis, sometime in January of 330BC, Alexander claimed the Persian massive Persian treasury of 120,000 talents, sending the majority back to Susa. Persepolis was one of the richest and most brilliant cities in the world at the time, and many of Alexander’s men took to looting the city. Whether this was on Alexander’s orders, and the extent of the looting, is debated. Arrian is silent on the issue, but Diodorus and Rufus paint a grim picture. According to them, looting was ordered by Alexander specifically, and the Macedonians proceeded to kill many civilians, with some Persians preferring to kill themselves instead. The Macedonians spent an entire day looting houses and palaces, and even fought and killed one another in order to get the most, and best riches. Alexander himself celebrated his winning of the city by banqueting and drinking in the palaces of the Persian kings with his Companions and courtesans. Diodorus, Plutarch, and Rufus all claim that during this drinking session, an Athenian courtesan, called Thais, proposed that they should burn the Persian palaces down, pointing out how ironic it would be for an Athenian woman to be burning the Persian capital after they had burned Athens 150 years earlier. The drunk Macedonians welcomed the suggestion and led by either Thais or inebriated Alexander himself, burned the renowned palaces of Persepolis. A slightly different account is given by Arrian, who does not mention Thais or Alexander being drunk, instead saying that Alexander burnt the palaces as a calculated act of revenge for the burning of Athens. It is possible that Thais was simply being used as a scapegoat to try and exonerate Alexander, whose destruction of Thebes had already shown that he certainly had the capacity to destroy great cities to make a political statement. What is clear from all the sources, however, is that none of them approved of this decision. Arrian says that it was, in essence, simply a foolish decision by Alexander, particularly because he was effectively burning what was now his own property. Plutarch includes a hasty apologia that Alexander regretted his decision and ordered the fires to be put out. Diodorus says that it was done by Alexander in a “drunken madness”. Rufus’ account is perhaps the most poignant: “Such was the end of the capital of the entire Orient, from which so many nations once sought jurisdiction, the birthplace of so many kings, once the special terror of Greece…and not even in the long age which followed its destruction did it rise again”. Rufus was exaggerating somewhat, much of the city remained standing, the fire being concentrated on the palaces and surrounding buildings, but it nonetheless gives us an insight into how ancient authors viewed the episode: it was a case of needless and pointless destruction. Alexander spent approximately four months in and around Persepolis, at some point during this time making a 30-day excursion to Pasargadae, the old Persian capital. Sometime around May, the Macedonian king continued his pursuit of Darius, heading into Media. Darius, who had been in Ecbatana, heard of Alexander’s movements. Though Darius had been planning to amass a third great army to fight Alexander, he had thus far been unsuccessful and so, with a few thousand men, he fled Ecbatana, hoping to retreat further into the Eastern provinces of the Empire. Alexander, in turn, sent Parmenion and the slow-moving baggage train, loaded with money, to seize the now abandoned Ecbatana, while he led approximately 20,000 men in pursuit of Darius. His plan, initially, was to catch Darius before he could pass through the Caspian Gates, the passes in the Alborz Mountains that led from Media to Parthia and Hyrcania. Alexander led his men on a grueling 10 day forced march through the difficult terrain, enduring their dehydration and suffering alongside them. Despite their efforts though, upon reaching the gates they discovered that Darius had already passed through them. Alexander allowed his men a few days of rest, before pushing on again through the Gates towards Parthia. The speed of Alexander’s march was having an effect though. In Darius’ camp, more and more of his remaining generals and advisors were losing faith in him. Led primarily by Bessus, the satrap of Bactria, a conspiracy formed against the Great King. Some in the army remained loyal, notably the remaining Greek mercenaries, commanded by a man named Patron, and Artabazos. Nevertheless, the cracks were clear; Bessus’ faction even suggested to Darius that he make Bessus king instead, on the understanding that Bessus would return the kingship after defeating Alexander, an offer Darius, understandably, refused. Patron tried to convince Darius to accept his Greek mercenaries as his bodyguards, but Darius refused not wanting to seem like he was favouring the Greeks. Eventually, Darius accepted his fate. He dismissed his servants and inner circle, assuring them that he would “prefer to die by another’s crime rather than my own”. He then waited in his tent, and was promptly seized by Bessus and his allies and put in chains. Bessus, a part of the Achaemenid dynasty himself, proclaimed himself King, taking the name Artaxerxes V. The Greek mercenaries and others who had been loyal to Darius, dispersed, the remaining troops continuing under Bessus’ command. Word of Darius' capture soon reached Alexander late one night through deserters. Alexander immediately picked 500 of his best cavalry and set off in pursuit. They rode at breakneck pace for a day and two nights, and by dawn of the second day, they had closed in on Bessus’ party. Bessus’ force, having been on a continuous march and depleted by numerous desertions, was in no position to fight, and many fled seeing Alexander closing in, Bessus and his Bactrians among them. Before he fled however, Bessus made sure that Darius would not be able to concede the crown to Alexander, ordering him to be killed. A small skirmish was fought between Alexander and the few Persians that had not fled, and a search for Darius began. He was soon found by one of Alexander’s Companions, Polystratus. The Great King had been stabbed by javelins and was on the brink of death. He asked for water, and after drinking thanked Polystratus and, according to some sources, asked that Alexander be thanked for treating his family with kindness. By the time that Alexander arrived on the scene, Darius had died. Alexander ordered that his body be transported back to Persepolis, where he received a magnificent funeral and was buried alongside the other Persian kings. Darius III is often seen by many as having been an incompetent coward. This is thanks largely to a passage of Arrian who calls him “pre-eminently effeminate” in military matters, a view that, for a while, was largely agreed upon even in academic scholarship. More recently though, this idea has been challenged, notably by Badian and Marsden. In terms of his personal bravery, Justin and Diodorus both agree that Darius was renowned for his courage, having in his youth killed a Cadusian champion in single combat. Indeed, it was partly because of his bravery that he was chosen to be King. The fact that at both Issus and Gaugamela, Darius took to the field personally rather than delegating to a subordinate is a further testament to his courage. Though he retreated in each battle, the sources are clear that Darius only fled when things were looking disastrous. At Issus, for instance, the horses pulling his chariot had both been badly wounded, almost leaving him stranded, and at Gaugamela, his chariot driver was killed and himself possibly wounded. In terms of military matters, while there is no need to portray Darius as a military genius, he was not utterly incompetent. Darius was forced to take to the field after the death of Memnon of Rhodes, and in just a few months had amassed a significant army to confront Alexander at Issus; no small feat of logistics. At Issus, Darius had actually managed to get a leg up on Alexander by cutting off his supply line and forcing a battle. Moreover, he had chosen a reasonable battlefield that gave him a strong defensive position, albeit at the cost of not giving his cavalry room to move. But Darius learned from the mistake and picked an excellent location for his next battle at Gaugamela where he would be able to best utilise his key strengths, his numbers and cavalry. Prior to battle, he also made sure to drill his troops extensively to increase their discipline. On both occasions, he was outmatched by Alexander. However, being defeated by one of history’s greatest tacticians is no source of shame. It is also worth pointing out that, at Gaugamela in particular, the Persians were able to force a gap in the Macedonian line and almost crush the Macedonian left. The battle was only won because of Alexander’s masterful and audacious generalship, and Darius may well have been victorious against a lesser opponent. Darius’ fleeing from both battles is often cited as clear evidence of his incompetence. However, it is worth pointing out that on both occasions retreating was, probably, the best strategic decision. If Darius had died or been captured at Issus, for example, it is likely that Alexander would have been easily able to proclaim himself as the King of Persia there and then. Darius’ survival from both battles was crucial for there to be any kind of organized Persian resistance to the invaders. As a result, it is perhaps better to treat Darius as Alexander did: with respect. The death of Darius III marks the end of the first half of Alexander’s campaign. The apparent goal of the campaign, the destruction of the Persian Empire, had been effectively achieved. However, if there is one aspect of Alexander that is agreed upon by all historians, it is that he was relentlessly ambitious. As a young boy, Aristotle had taught Alexander geography, and he was aware of lands to the East and the great Ocean that lay that way. Already, he was making plans for the next phase of his campaign. Why stick to the confines of the borders of Persia when the world seemed to be within his grasp? Our next episode will deal with Alexander’s campaigns in Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, as well as his route back to his capital, the reforms he tried to enact and his death. These long episodes are difficult to make, so we hope you will consider liking, commenting, sharing, subscribing and pressing the bell button. Recently we have started releasing weekly patron and YouTube member exclusive content, consider joining their ranks via the link in the description or button under the video to watch these weekly videos, learn about our schedule, get early access to our videos, access our private discord, and much more. This is the Kings and Generals channel, and we will catch you on the next one.

Channel: Kings and Generals

Views: 572,255

Keywords: Alexander The Great, Conquest Of Persia, Battles Of History, Kings And Generals, Military History, Ancient Warfare, Historical Campaigns, Strategic Genius, Ancient Empires, Historical Battles, Battle of Granicus, Battle of Issus, Siege of Tyre, Battle of Gaugamela, Battle of the Persian Gates, Siege of Persepolis, Darius III, Persian Empire, Ancient Conquests, Military Tactics, Historical Documentary, thebes, greeks, persians, hydaspes, achaemenid, Jaxartes, mallian campaign

Id: ApZf0BaaTmo

Length: 184min 18sec (11058 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 24 2023