Bessus

Bessus murdered the last Persian king, claimed the throne, and was executed by Alexander for it. He was a Persian noble and satrap of Bactria, the north-eastern province of the empire covering roughly modern northern Afghanistan and southern Uzbekistan — a rich region of cavalry aristocracy that had always been half-independent of the court. He commanded the Bactrian cavalry on the left wing at Gaugamela in 331 BC, and was among the forces that Alexander's attack broke. He retreated east with Darius III as the empire disintegrated. When Alexander pursued them into Media and then towards Bactria in the summer of 330 BC, Bessus and the satrap Barsaentes arrested the king, and, as the Macedonian cavalry closed on the column, stabbed him and rode off, leaving him to be found dying in a wagon. Alexander covered the body with his own cloak and sent it to Persepolis for royal burial, which was both genuine feeling and a claim: he was now the avenger of a legitimate king, not a foreign conqueror. Bessus took the upright tiara and the royal name Artaxerxes V, and raised Bactria and Sogdiana. He had no army capable of standing. Alexander crossed the Hindu Kush in the spring of 329 BC by a high pass, in snow and near-starvation, which nobody expected, and Bessus's support evaporated. He was betrayed by his own followers, Spitamenes among them, and handed over naked and in a collar. He was mutilated in the Persian manner and executed at Ecbatana. His revolt cost Alexander two years of brutal campaigning in Central Asia to pacify what he left behind.

• Lived: 380 BCE – 329 BCE
• Nationality: Persian
• Roles: ruler, general