Alexander’s Wars of Conquest

At issue: Birth of the Hellenistic world empire

Date: 336-323 b.c.e.

Location: Asia Minor, Central Asia, India

Combatants: Macedonians vs. Thracians, Cretans, Ionian Greeks, Persians, Bactrians, north Indians

Principal commanders:Macedonian, Alexander the Great (356-323 b.c.e.), Parmenion (d. 330 b.c.e.), Craterus (c. 321 b.c.e.), Perdiccas (d. 321 b.c.e.), Coenus, Amyntas III (d. 336 b.c.e.), Meleager, Philip II, later king of Macedonia (382-336 b.c.e.), Nicanor (son of Parmenion); Thracian, Sitalces; Cretan, Clearchus; Thessalian, Calas; Persian, Darius III (d. 330 b.c.e.); Indian, Porus (d. 317 b.c.e.)

Principal battles: Granicus, Issus, Gaugamela, Hydaspes

Result: Spread of Hellenistic culture in the Mediterranean world and Middle East

Background

Alexander the Great’s world was a small one, in which Europe (except for Greece) was of no consequence and Egypt was a part of the Persian Empire, which extended over habitable Asia. However, his theater of war was immense—extending from south of the Danube to beyond the Indus and from the Syr Daria to the Nile. It included the Balkans, Turkey, Syria, Palestine, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Baluchistan, southern Turkestan, Sind, the Punjab, and half of Egypt—in all about 2 million square miles inhabited by more than 50 million people.

Action

From 336-334 b.c.e., Alexander the Great, a relative maverick in the Greek world, fought a series of battles to quell a general wave of insurrection among the Greek states as well as in tribal frontier areas such as Thrace. Some cities such as Sparta and Argos saw his accession as an opportunity to recover their freedom lost to his father Philip. However, in 335 b.c.e., Alexander suppressed the barbarians along the northern frontier of Macedonia in brilliant campaigns (battles of the Shipka Pass against a Thracian mountain tribe and of the Danube against the Triballians and the Getae). At one point, a canard that Alexander had been killed in action at Pelion against two Illyrian chiefs led the Thebans to revolt with support from the Persian king Darius III. Alexander raced down to Boeotia—some three hundred miles in thirteen days—and took and destroyed Thebes as a warning to other Greeks. The Amphictyonic Council of Thermopylae in central Greece recognized him as hegemon of the Hellenic League (created by Philip in 338 b.c.e. at the Congress of Corinth). At an assembly of representatives of the league in Athens, he was entrusted with his father’s office of captain general in the war of revenge against Persia.

After having mastered Greece, Alexander left his general Antipater with a force consisting of 900 foot soldiers and a body of horses to garrison the home base and contain any possible Spartan rebellion (Sparta remained outside the league). Antipater was also made a regent of Macedonia and deputy hegemon of the league. The army for the Asian campaign consisted of 30,000 infantry and 5,000 cavalry under Parmenion, Alexander’s second in command. Of the infantry, 12,000 were Macedonians made up of six battalions of the phalanx (9,000 men) under Craterus, Perdiccas, Coenus, Amyntas III, Meleager, and Philip II (son of Amyntas II) and three battalions of hypastists (3,000 men) under Nicanor (son of Parmenion). Additionally, 7,000 hoplites (heavy infantry spear men) and 5000 peltasts (light infantrymen carrying pelta, or small round shields) contributed by the league were commanded by Antigonus I, 5,000 mercenaries by Menander, 6,000 Agrianian javelin-men by Attalus, Thracian peltasts by Sitalces, and Cretan archers by Clearchus. Of the cavalry, 2,000 Royal Companions were led by Philotas (another son of Parmenion), 2,000 Thessalians by Calas, 1,000 Thracian and Peonian lancers by Amyntas III, and Greek allied horses by Philip (son of Menelaus).

Preparations for invasion were completed in the early spring of 334 b.c.e. Alexander’s punitive expedition to Persia was ideological—a conflict between right and wrong (a just response to Xerxes I’s carnage in Attica in 480 b.c.e.)—rather than imperialistic, though initially his idea may have been to conquer Asia Minor up to the river Halys. However, the military objective of the Asian operations was the destruction of the Persian navy by taking all its ports from Asia Minor to Egypt. This project entailed two major battles and numerous sieges.

Having crossed the Hellespont, Alexander arrived in Troy, where he met the satraps of Asia Minor—the governors of Hellespontine Phrygia, Greater Phrygia, Lydia, and Cappadocia—who gathered their forces on the Propontis. They were joined by a contingent of Greek mercenaries under the command of Rhodian Memnon at the Granicus river (May or June, 334 b.c.e.). Charging boldly across the river at the head of his cavalry, Alexander scored a smashing victory though he was nearly killed in action. Thereafter, he marched south along the Aegean coast of Asia to be hailed as a deliverer from Persian control by Smyrna, Ephesus, and other Ionian Greek towns. Only Miletus and Halicarnassus, garrisoned by the Persian fleet, offered opposition.

By 333 b.c.e., Alexander was able to move through central Anatolia and follow the route of Xenophon through the Cilician Gates to the plain of Tarsus. Then, as he marched around the Gulf of Alexandretta and down into Syria, a great Persian force commanded by Darius III got behind him at Issus and cut his communications with the north. In a truly desperate situation, Alexander had to return to Issus where, in part because of a narrow field of action that canceled the advantage of superior numbers, he won his greatest battle by daring, brilliant strategy and wiped out the Greek (mercenary) infantry of the Persians in the Battle of Issus (November, 333 b.c.e.). Though Persian forces were overwhelming numerically, their king lost his nerve and took flight. As Darius fled to Mesopotamia, the Macedonians resumed their southward advance, capturing the Phoenician seaports such as Tyre and Gaza. By the end of 332 b.c.e., Alexander had swept through Philistia into Egypt. The Egyptians welcomed him as a liberator, and Alexander was recognized as the pharaoh, a god king, the son of Amon. In the spring of 331 b.c.e., after completing the organization of Egypt, Alexander marched back through Palestine and Syria to begin the invasion of Mesopotamia.

Meanwhile, Darius, in Mesopotamia, had offered to cede all land west of the Euphrates River as well as Egypt and to pay in addition a handsome indemnity to the conqueror, who, however, declined the offer and renewed his offensive. On October 1, 331 b.c.e., near Gaugamela, about twenty-one miles northeast of present-day Mosul, the Persians and the Macedonians once again engaged in a titanic battle. Darius had devised a new weapon, scythe-bearing chariots intended to slice up the Macedonian phalanx; these stood in front of the infantry, and his cavalry (hetairoi) was on the wings. Alexander likewise placed his infantry in the center and cavalry on the wings, but to avoid the danger of being outflanked by the numerically superior enemy, he mobilized flying wings on either side and stationed Greek infantry in the rear as a reserve—the first major occasion in Greek history when such a tactical formation was adopted. Alexander won mightily. As Darius took refuge in Media, he marched southward through Babylon (where he gave his men a month’s leave) and then eastward into Persia where he established his winter quarters on January 31, 330 b.c.e. The Persian treasury-fortress Persepolis was burnt in vengeance for Xerxes’ treatment of Attica.

By the spring of 330 b.c.e., pursuing the fugitive enemy, who had fled to Bactria (Turkestan), Alexander was on his way to the Hindu Kush range, but to his utter rage and disappointment, Darius was murdered by one of his own satraps. Alexander was now virtually the master of the Persian Empire. The Macedonians crossed the mountain range and arrived in Bactria in the spring of 329 b.c.e. and spent the next two years in this remote area. Here they fought a number of difficult campaigns against the Scythian nomads, and in Bactria, Alexander married a native princess.

When Alexander left Bactria in 327 b.c.e., he did not turn homeward but instead moved into the upper Indus country, which he annexed after hard campaigning. It is uncertain if Alexander had already planned an Indian expedition, though after his conquest of the Persian Empire he might have begun to think of conquering the ecumene (that is, the middle or temperate zone of the earth inhabited by civilized people). According to the prevailing Greek concepts, the ecumene was bounded on the northwest by the Celtic nations, on the southwest by the Ethiopians, on the northeast by the Scythians, and on the southeast by the Indians. From this viewpoint, India was an indispensable component of a world empire, though Alexander’s conquest of the Persian Empire in itself gave him a claim to northwest India.

In 326 b.c.e., Alexander encountered one of his most dangerous adversaries in India, King Porus, who held the Hydaspes River (modern Jhelum, a tributary of the Indus) against him with elephants, cavalry, and infantry. For a time, Alexander made feints at crossing the river so as to mislead his enemy; then, one dark, stormy night, he stealthily moved upstream, crossed undetected, and came down to meet the Indian force. Because his cavalry could not face the elephants, Alexander had to keep his horse well out of the wings as his infantry desperately battled in the center. The Macedonian archers shot down the Indian elephant drivers (mahouts), thereby making the leaderless beasts blunder through their own ranks, spreading total confusion. Once again, the Macedonians won, but their losses were extreme. Later, although Alexander intended to push on deeper into India, his troops at the Hyphasis River (modern Beas) mutinied and insisted on turning back. Alexander was forced to consent, but first, he led the army down the Indus to its mouth, where he divided his forces. Part returned to Mesopotamia by land, but some were given the difficult arrangement of building vessels and sailing back by way of the Indian Ocean and the Persian Gulf.

Aftermath

The last two years of Alexander’s life were occupied with attempting to organize the most extensive empire the world had ever seen and in planning further exploration and conquest. Very little had been accomplished by early summer in 323 b.c.e. when Alexander, worn out by his strenuous activities, succumbed to a fever and died at Babylon without providing for a successor. He had conquered the world and changed the whole course of history, but he was dead at age thirty-three.

Milestones in Alexander’s Conquests

Bibliography

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