Battle of Issus
Alexander beat Darius III at Issus in November 333 BC on ground that made the Persian numbers useless. Darius had raised an enormous army and had waited for him on a plain in Syria where it could be deployed, and then, on reports that Alexander was ill and delaying, marched north and got behind him through a mountain pass. That put the Persian army on the coastal plain of Issus, a strip about three kilometres wide between mountains and sea, with the Macedonians between it and their own supply. Alexander turned round and attacked into it. The narrow front meant that Darius could bring only a fraction of his troops to bear and could not use his cavalry to envelop, which is the whole battle. The Persian left was rolled up by the Companion cavalry, the phalanx crossed the river bed under difficulty in the centre, and Alexander drove directly at the king's chariot in the middle of the line. Darius turned and fled, which broke the army behind him. He left behind his mother, his wife, his daughters and his baggage, which Alexander captured and treated with a courtesy that the sources emphasise and that was also good policy. The letter Darius sent afterwards offered a ransom, an alliance and territory west of the Euphrates. Parmenion is supposed to have said that he would accept if he were Alexander, and Alexander to have replied that so would he, if he were Parmenion. The mosaic from Pompeii, copied from a lost Hellenistic painting, shows the moment Darius turns his chariot, and is the closest thing we have to a contemporary image of either man. Alexander went south to Egypt afterwards rather than pursuing, which took another two years to settle.
- Year: 333 BCE
- Category: Military
