In 336 BCE the aristocrat Pausanias, a member of the king’s
bodyguard and reportedly also his former lover, assassinated Philip II, king of
Macedon. Pausanias was almost immediately slain. Philip’s 20-year-old son
Alexander III (356-323) succeeded to the throne.
Two years before, Philip had defeated the principal Greek
city-states in the Battle of Chaeronea in 338 and made himself master of all
Greece through the Hellenic League, an essential step prior to his planned
great enterprise of invading and conquering the Persian Empire.
On ascending the throne, Alexander quickly crushed a
rebellion of the southern Greek city-states and mounted a short and successful
operation against Macedon’s northern neighbors. He then took up his father’s
plan to conquer the Persian Empire.
Leaving his trusted general Antipater and an army of 10,000
men to hold Macedonia and Greece, in the spring of 334 Alexander set out from
Pella and marched by way of Thrace for the Hellespont (Dardanelles) at the head
of an army of some 30,000 infantry and 5,000 cavalry. Among his forces were men
from the Greek city-states. His army reached the Hellespont in just three weeks
and crossed without Persian opposition. His fleet numbered only about 160 ships
supplied by the allied Greeks. The Persian fleet included perhaps 400
Phoenician triremes, and its crews were far better trained; however, not a
single Persian ship appeared.
Alexander instructed his men that there was to be no looting
in what was now, he said, their land. The invaders soon received the submission
of a number of Greek towns in Asia Minor. King Darius III was, however,
gathering forces to oppose Alexander. Memnon, a Greek mercenary general in the
employ of Darius, knew that Alexander was short of supplies and cash. Memnon
therefore favored a scorched earth policy that would force Alexander to
withdraw. At the same time Darius should use his fleet to transport the army
and invade Macedonia. Unfortunately, Memnon also advised that the Persians
should avoid a pitched battle at all costs. This wounded Persian pride and
influenced Darius to reject the proffered advice.
The two armies met in May. The Persian force, which was
approximately the same size as Alexander’s force, took up position on the east
bank of the swift Granicus River in western Asia Minor. The Persians were
strong in cavalry but weak in infantry, with perhaps as many as 6,000 Greek
hoplite mercenaries. Memnon and the Greek mercenaries were in front, forming a
solid spear wall and supported by men with javelins. The Persian cavalry was on
the flanks, to be employed as mounted infantry.
When Alexander’s army arrived, Parmenio and the other
Macedonian generals recognized the strength of the Persian position and
counseled against an attack. The Greek infantry would have to cross the
Granicus in column and would be vulnerable while they were struggling to
re-form. The generals urged that since it was already late afternoon, they
should camp for the night. Alexander was determined to attack but eventually
followed their advice.
That night, however, probably keeping his campfires burning
to deceive the Persians, Alexander located a ford downstream and led his army
across the river. The Persians discovered Alexander’s deception the next
morning. The bulk of the Macedonian army was already across the river and
easily deflected a Persian assault. The rest of the army then crossed.
With Alexander having turned their position, the Persians
and their Greek mercenaries were forced to fight in open country. Their left
was on the river, and their right was anchored by foothills. The Persian
cavalry was now in front, with the Greek mercenary infantry to the rear.
Alexander placed the bulk of his Greek cavalry on the left flank, the heavy
Macedonian infantry in the center, and the light Macedonian infantry, the
Paeonian light cavalry, and his own heavy cavalry (the Companions) on the right
flank. Alexander was conspicuous in magnificent armor and shield with an
extraordinary helmet with two white plumes. He stationed himself on the right
wing, and the Persians therefore assumed that the attack would come from that
quarter.
Alexander initiated the battle. Trumpets blared, and
Alexander set off with the Companions in a great wedge formation aimed at the
far left of the Persian line. This drew Persian cavalry off from the center,
whereupon Alexander wheeled and led the Companions diagonally to his left,
against the weakened Persian center. Although the Companions had to charge
uphill, they pushed their way through a hole in the center of the Persian line.
Alexander was in the thick of the fight as the Companions drove back the
Persian cavalry, which finally broke.
Surrounded, the Greek mercenaries were mostly slaughtered.
Alexander sent the 2,000 who surrendered to Macedonia in chains, probably to
work in the mines. It would have made sense to have incorporated them into his
own army, but Alexander intended to make an example of them for having fought
against fellow Greeks.
Figures for the Persian losses range from 10,000 to 20,000
infantry and around 2,000 horse. These estimates are almost as incredible as
the allegedly minute Macedonian losses, which have been variously put at a maximum
of 30 infantrymen (minimum 9) and 120 cavalry of whom 25 were Companions killed
in the first charge.
After the Granicus
The result of the Granicus battle must have reaffirmed the
faith placed by the Persian king, Darius III, in Memnon. The Greek mercenary
commander’s strategy had been sound. He had wished to avoid a pitched battle,
conduct a scorched-earth policy in Asia, fortify maritime and naval bases on
the coast and cut Alexander off from the sea. While Memnon himself survived,
there were still considerable prospects of putting this plan into effect.
However, many coastal cities, as well as the important road junction of Sardis,
soon fell to Alexander with little or no resistance. Miletus held out in the
hope of relief from a Persian force inland. It also received encouragement from
Phoenician and Cyprian ships based on Mycale. But Alexander forestalled both
naval and military relief and captured the city. Memnon fell back on
Halicarnassus and fortified it strongly. Driven from there, he tried to
establish naval bases on the major Aegean islands, not only threatening
Alexander’s flank from the sea but providing a springboard for a
counter-offensive against Greece and Macedon. Unfortunately for the Persians,
Memnon suddenly fell ill and died. Those who inherited his command persisted
for some time in the same strategy, but were eventually deterred by quite a
small show of naval strength by Antipater, the Macedonian governor whom
Alexander had left in charge of mainland Greece.
Alexander had left Parmenio with the main body of the army
at Sardis. With his own striking force, he marched round the south-west
extremity of Asia Minor and along the southern coast, digressing northward to
join Parmenio again at Gordium in the interior. Strategically, the move seems
superfluous, but Alexander’s expeditions sometimes wore the aspect of
exploration, pilgrimage or even tourism. In any case, he lost no opportunity of
acquainting himself with the features of an empire which he already regarded as
his own.
Having joined forces with Parmenio, Alexander marched
southward again into the Cilician plain and threatened Syria. A Persian force,
inadequate to defend the vital mountain pass, fled at his approach, but the
main Persian army, under command of Darius himself, was waiting farther south
in Syria. At this point, Alexander was suddenly incapacitated by a bout of
fever and his advance was checked.
Emboldened by the delay, Darius made a circuitous march and
descended, by a northern mountain pass, on the town of Issus, where he brutally
put to death the Macedonian sick who had been left there. This manoeuvre placed
him at Alexander’s rear. Alexander was surprised but not dismayed at the move,
for it had carried the Persian army to a point where the plain was pinched
between the mountains and the sea. Here, their superiority in men and missiles
could not be deployed to advantage. However, the position in some ways
resembled that which the satraps had chosen at the Granicus. Darius’ army was
drawn up with a river in front of it; the river was not flowing, since it was
late autumn (334 BC). The king’s mercenary hoplites were placed in the centre.
His cavalry held the wings, his right wing being more heavily loaded, since the
mountains left little room for deployment on the left. He also hoped to break
through on the right wing and cut Alexander off from the sea. It must be
remembered that after Darius’ encircling march the two armies had exchanged
positions.
Much of Alexander’s success seems in general to have been
due to good reconnaissance work. Darius had relied on preventing an outflanking
move from the Companion cavalry by posting a substantial force on the mountain
slopes above. Having ascertained this plan, Alexander provided a light detachment
of his own to mean and ward off the threat. He also sent the Thessalian
cavalry, under Parmenio, to reinforce his left wing. It was possible for
Alexander to make all such changes shortly before battle was joined; his
advance was leisurely, and the Persians kept their positions, leaving him the
initiative.
The battle conformed to the pattern of many ancient battles.
The right wing of the Macedonian army, in encircling the enemy, placed the
central phalanx under strain. As the phalangists on the right strove to
maintain contact with the cavalry on the wing, they parted company with the
phalangists on their left and a dangerous gap appeared, which Darius’ Greek
mercenaries were quick to exploit. It then became a question of whether
Alexander with his Companions could encircle the mercenaries before the
mercenaries could break through the centre and encircle him. Alexander won,
ploughing devastatingly into the mercenary flank and rear. In danger of
capture, Darius fled precipitately in his war-chariot, and even the Persian
forces of the right, who had held back Parmenio’s cavalry, soon followed their
king’s example. Darius’ mother, wife and children, who had accompanied the
army, were left prisoners in Alexander’s hands
References
Green, Peter. Alexander of Macedon, 356-323 B. C.: A
Historical Biography. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991. Hammond,
Nicholas G. L. Alexander the Great: King, Commander, and Statesman. 3rd ed.
London: Bristol Classical Press, 1996. Sekunda, Nick, and John Warry. Alexander
the Great: His Armies and Campaigns, 332–323 B.C. London: Osprey, 1988
