After his tentative enthronement in 336BC, a
twenty-year-old Alexander the Great ruthlessly consolidated power in Macedon by assassinating
rivals and securing the allegiance of prominent nobles. That done, the up-and-coming Argead
monarch spearheaded daring expeditions in the north, south, and west before finally obliterating
Thebes as an example in late 335. With Macedon’s borders secure and his royal authority
unquestioned, the stage was set for Alexander, tutored by Aristotle in the Homeric epics, to
finally turn his glory-hungry gaze eastward. He would use the lethal army inherited from Philip
II to invade Persia, a massive three-century-old dominion almost fifty times larger than his
own. Welcome to the second video in our series on Alexander the Great and his first clash
with Darius’ armies at the river Granicus. Alexander was always hunting for the decisive
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pile of rubble that was now Thebes, Alexander the Great 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.
However, either due to political calculations2 or because his interest in women was ‘tepid’ at
best anyway, Alexander refused this suggestion. Royal finances were also in a precarious state
following a year of nonstop military campaigning, 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. 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. 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 Hellenic League triremes 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.
Alexander then went north with his entourage, which included his closest companion Hephaestion,
and united with the main muster under Parmenion’s supervision on a plain near the town of Arisbe.
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. However, unlike such greats as Genghis
Khan and his enemy’s predecessor Cyrus the Great, Alexander hadn’t made his own army but
inherited one developed by his father Philip II. Waiting for their enterprising king on that
broad plain near Arisbe were 12,000 of the best Macedonian heavy infantry - 9,000 sarissa-bearing
phalangites and a further 3,000 elite hypaspists, otherwise known as shield-bearers or ‘guards’
in the sources. Whether these crack troops were armed as Pezhetairoi or as standard Greek-style
hoplites is heavily debated, but it is possible that they changed to fit the situation. This
prestigious unit was led by Parmenion’s son Nicanor. Secondary to Alexander’s front line heavy
infantry were 7,000 allied hoplites drawn from cities of the Hellenic League and 5,000 hired
mercenaries armed in a similar manner, which was still good for the era. To supplement these
battle-line units were 7,000 Thracian levies from tribes such as the Odrysians, Triballians, and
others. Most vaunted of all were the 1,000 archers and Agrianians - expert skirmishers who were
described as the ‘Gurkhas of the Ancient world.’ If one was to also count the 11,000 infantry
of Parmenion’s advance-force holding the Macedonian bridgehead in Asia Minor, Alexander
would’ve had 43,000 infantry at his disposal. However, in the wake of minor defeats against
Persian generals before the main army arrived, it is uncertain but possible that most of
this smaller army was withdrawn to Europe. Therefore, we will assume that most of Parmenion’s
11,000 were either already integrated as part of the invasion army or remained behind with
Antipater, leaving Alexander’s infantry total around 32,000. Comprising the Argead monarch’s
mounted strength was, first and foremost, 1,800 hetairoi - the highly skilled ‘companion
cavalry’ at whose head Alexander would so often charge into the fray. They were commanded by
Parmenion’s other son Philotas. There were also 1,800 of the equally-skilled Thessalian cavalry,
whose reputation for horsemanship almost matched that of the Macedonians, as well as 900 mounted
scouts from Thrace and Paeonia and 600 horsemen from the Greek cities. Overall, disregarding the
1,000 possible bridgehead cavalry, this brings Alexander’s total cavalry to 5,100. Accounting for
the possibility of some forces already in Asia, it seems fitting to bring the invasion force’s
total number of troops up to a nice, round 40,000. 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. 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. 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, 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 Achaemenids 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 a mile or two behind the river under the command of a Persian known as Omares,
too far away to take part in the main battle. 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 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 22-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. 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.
Plutarch claims that the king had been ‘influenced more by anger than by reason’, but one of those
reasons might have been to make the brutal point ‘If you are a Greek mercenary, do not fight for
Persian gold, or you will receive no mercy.’ Despite crushing the hired hoplites, Alexander’s
army took more casualties in this phase of the fighting than it had in the process of forcing
across the river. In the future, the king would never again be so reckless and uncompromising
in dealing with similar surrendered units, indicating just how much of a toll they inflicted.
Whatever the case, about 3,000 were killed and another 2,000 sent back to Macedonia in chains,
where slave labour in the mines awaited 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. However disputable these figures are, 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.
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