Wars of Alexander the Great

Based on Wikipedia: Wars of Alexander the Great

The Young King Who Burned the World

In the summer of 334 BC, a twenty-two-year-old king led his army across a narrow strait of water separating Europe from Asia. Within eleven years, he would conquer the largest empire the world had ever seen, march his soldiers to the edge of India, and die in Babylon at thirty-two—leaving behind a legacy so vast it would take forty years of brutal civil wars just to divide it up.

Alexander III of Macedon didn't just win battles. He redrew the map of the ancient world.

But here's the thing about Alexander: his empire didn't outlast him. Not really. The moment he died, everything he'd built began to fracture. His generals—men who had fought beside him from Greece to the Himalayas—turned on each other almost immediately. The territories he conquered became the prizes in a series of bloody conflicts called the Wars of the Diadochi (from the Greek word for "successors"). Those wars lasted four decades.

Alexander's story is one of breathtaking military genius married to profound instability. He conquered everything in his path but couldn't create anything that would last.

How a Twenty-Year-Old Became King of Everything That Mattered

Alexander didn't start from nothing. His father, Philip II, had spent twenty years turning Macedon from a backwater kingdom into the dominant power in Greece. Philip unified the fractious Greek city-states under something called the League of Corinth—essentially a Macedonian-controlled alliance aimed at invading Persia.

Then, in 336 BC, Philip was assassinated by one of his own bodyguards.

Alexander was barely twenty. The Macedonian nobles proclaimed him king, and he inherited both his father's army and his father's enemies. Within weeks, rebellions erupted across the Greek world. Thebes, Athens, Thessaly, and the Thracian tribes to the north all saw Philip's death as their chance to break free.

Alexander's advisers counseled diplomacy. Alexander ignored them.

He gathered three thousand cavalry and rode south toward Thessaly, which had positioned its army to block the mountain passes. When the Thessalians woke up the next morning, they discovered that Alexander had ridden his cavalry over Mount Ossa during the night. He was now behind them. They surrendered immediately and joined his army.

This would become a pattern: speed, audacity, and the willingness to do what his enemies considered impossible.

He marched south to Thermopylae, where the Greek city-states recognized him as leader of their sacred league. At Corinth, Athens sued for peace, and Alexander pardoned the rebels. He was named Hegemon—supreme commander—of all Greek forces against Persia.

Then word came of another uprising in the north.

The Northern Campaign: A Bloody Prelude

Before Alexander could invade Asia, he needed to secure his borders. In the spring of 335 BC, he marched into Thrace to crush rebellions by the Illyrians and the Triballi.

At Mount Haemus, he attacked and destroyed a Thracian garrison. When the Triballi tried to ambush him from behind, he crushed them too. He pushed all the way to the Danube River, where he encountered the Getae tribe on the opposite shore. After a single cavalry skirmish, the Getae abandoned their town and fled.

Two more kings—Cleitus of Illyria and Glaukias of the Taulantii—declared themselves in open revolt. Alexander defeated them both. They fled with whatever remained of their armies.

His northern frontier was secure. But while he was winning in the north, Thebes and Athens rebelled again in the south.

Alexander's response was swift and terrible.

He marched south immediately. The other Greek cities hesitated, waiting to see what would happen. Thebes did not hesitate. The Thebans chose to fight.

It was a catastrophic miscalculation.

Alexander razed Thebes to the ground. The bloodshed was immense. The city's territory was divided among its neighbors. Athens, watching this unfold, submitted without further resistance. Greece was quiet. Alexander could finally turn his attention east.

Crossing into Asia: The Point of No Return

In 334 BC, Alexander crossed the Hellespont—the narrow strait connecting Europe and Asia, now called the Dardanelles. It took more than a hundred triremes (triple-banked galleys) to transport his entire army.

The Persian response to this invasion force was, essentially, to ignore it.

Darius III, the Persian king, refused to take Alexander seriously. He didn't mobilize his forces or challenge the crossing. One of his advisers, a Greek mercenary named Memnon of Rhodes, proposed a scorched-earth strategy: destroy all the farmland in Alexander's path and let his army starve. The Persian satraps—provincial governors—rejected this plan. They considered it dishonorable to burn their own lands.

Eventually, Darius ordered the satraps to pool their armies and confront Alexander. The result was the Battle of the Granicus River.

The Granicus: Alexander's First Major Victory

The Granicus River flows through northwestern Turkey, not far from the ancient site of Troy. In May 334 BC, the combined Persian forces positioned themselves on the eastern bank, with their cavalry in front and infantry behind.

Alexander's second-in-command, Parmenion, suggested crossing upstream and attacking at dawn. Alexander refused. He attacked immediately.

This was another pattern: Alexander's generals often counseled caution. Alexander almost never listened.

He sent a small force of cavalry and light infantry to draw the Persians down from the riverbank. When they took the bait, he led his elite Companion cavalry in an oblique charge to the right, outflanking the Persian line and buying time for his infantry to cross the river.

The fighting was brutal. Alexander personally killed several high-ranking Persian nobles. At one point, a Persian aristocrat named Spithridates struck Alexander in the head with an axe, stunning him. Before Spithridates could deliver a killing blow, one of Alexander's officers—Cleitus the Black—killed him.

The Persian line broke. Their cavalry fled. The Greek mercenaries fighting for Persia were encircled and slaughtered. Only about two thousand survived; Alexander sent them back to Macedonia to work in the mines as a lesson to any Greek tempted to fight for Persia.

He also sent three hundred complete suits of Persian armor back to Athens, to be displayed in the Parthenon with an inscription: "Alexander, son of Philip and the Greeks, Lacedaemonians excepted, these spoils from the barbarians who dwell in Asia." The pointed exclusion of Sparta—which had refused to join the League of Corinth—was deliberate.

The Art of Conquest: Tyrants in Greece, Liberation in Asia

Alexander's approach to governance was surprisingly sophisticated—and entirely pragmatic.

In Greece, he had Antipater, his regent, install dictators and tyrants wherever necessary to prevent rebellion. But as he moved deeper into Persian territory, he reversed course completely. In Asia Minor, he portrayed himself as a liberator. He freed populations from their Persian overlords and allowed self-government.

There was a catch, of course.

Alexander appointed new satraps to replace the Persian ones, and he publicly declared his distrust of concentrated power. On the surface, nothing seemed to change. But Alexander also appointed independent boards to collect taxes—separating the financial function from the civil administration. This meant the new satraps were technically independent but could never accumulate enough resources to challenge him.

Greek cities in Asia Minor sent ambassadors offering submission in exchange for keeping their "democracies." Alexander agreed, but required them to join the League of Corinth and provide monetary support for his campaigns. Freedom, it turned out, wasn't free.

The Siege of Halicarnassus: An Adopted Mother

Alexander had a weak navy, which meant the Persian fleet was a constant threat. In 334 BC, the Persians sailed to Halicarnassus to establish a defensive base. Memnon of Rhodes and a Persian satrap named Orontobates prepared to hold the city against Alexander.

But the politics of Halicarnassus were complicated.

Ada of Caria, the former queen, had been deposed by her own brother. When he died, Darius had appointed Orontobates as satrap. Ada was left controlling only the fortress of Alinda—which she promptly surrendered to Alexander.

What happened next was strange, even by Alexander's standards.

Alexander and Ada formed what appears to have been a genuine emotional bond. He called her "mother"—finding her far more agreeable than his actual mother, Olympias, whom ancient sources describe as megalomaniacal and obsessed with snake worship. Ada showered Alexander with gifts and sent him the best cooks in Asia Minor, having noticed his fondness for sweets.

Alexander had always had a complicated relationship with his parents. He referred to his biological father Philip as his "so-called" father and increasingly identified with the god Ammon-Zeus as his true father. In Ada, he seems to have found a maternal figure he could actually tolerate.

The siege itself was hard-fought. Alexander's initial infiltration failed when promised dissidents inside the city didn't materialize. He broke through the city walls, but Memnon's catapults forced his army back. Only when Alexander's infantry surprised the Persian forces by breaching a different section of wall did the tide turn. Orontobates was killed. Memnon, realizing the city was lost, set fire to it and withdrew.

A strong wind spread the flames and destroyed much of Halicarnassus.

Alexander gave control of all Caria to Ada. She formally adopted him as her son, ensuring that her kingdom would pass to him when she died.

Through the Gates: Luck Over Strategy

Shortly after Halicarnassus, Memnon died. His replacement, Pharnabazus, disrupted Alexander's supply lines by seizing Aegean islands and stirring up rebellion in Greece. Meanwhile, Darius finally decided to intercept Alexander personally.

Alexander marched east through Cappadocia, across a waterless stretch of nearly 150 kilometers. His army approached a mountain range with only one passable route: a narrow defile called "The Gates."

The pass could have been easily defended. A small force in that bottleneck could have stopped Alexander's entire army.

But the Persian satrap of Cappadocia had an inflated sense of his own abilities. He'd been at the Granicus and convinced himself that Memnon's scorched-earth strategy would work here. He left only a token force to guard The Gates and took his main army to devastate the plain beyond—denying Alexander food and supplies.

The strategy might have worked in open terrain. In a mountain defile, it was useless. The small Persian guard force abandoned their position, and Alexander marched through without resistance.

Alexander himself reportedly said afterward that he'd never been so lucky in his entire career.

The Cold River: Alexander Nearly Dies

Past the mountains, Alexander's army found a stream fed by melting snow—water so cold it could stop a man's heart.

Alexander, impulsive as always, jumped in.

He immediately cramped, then convulsed. His men pulled him out barely alive. He developed pneumonia. None of his physicians would treat him—if the king died under their care, they'd be blamed and likely executed.

Finally, a physician named Philip, who had treated Alexander since childhood, agreed to help. Alexander fell into a coma. For days, it seemed he might die.

He recovered. And with him recovered the invasion of Persia.

The Battle of Issus: Darius Takes the Field

In November 333 BC, in southern Anatolia near the modern Turkish-Syrian border, Alexander finally faced the Persian king himself.

After the Granicus disaster, Darius had taken personal command. He gathered a massive army from across his empire and maneuvered to cut Alexander's supply lines. The two armies met near the town of Issus.

The terrain favored Alexander. The battlefield was narrow, hemmed in by mountains on one side and the sea on the other. This neutralized Persia's numerical advantage—there simply wasn't room for all of Darius's troops to engage at once.

Alexander deployed his heavy infantry phalanxes in the center, with cavalry on both wings. He commanded the Companion cavalry on the right, while Parmenion held the left. When battle was joined, Alexander led a direct charge at the Persian line.

The fighting was intense, but the outcome was decisive. Alexander's cavalry broke through. The Persian left flank collapsed. In the center, his infantry drove forward with their eighteen-foot sarissa pikes. The Persian line shattered.

Darius fled the battlefield.

This was devastating. Persian kings were expected to be war leaders, to fight at the head of their armies. Darius's flight—leaving behind his mother, wife, and children, who were captured by Alexander—was a catastrophic blow to Persian morale and legitimacy.

Alexander, in a calculated gesture of magnanimity, treated the captured royal women with respect. But the message was clear: he was winning, and Darius was running.

What Might Have Been

The source material ends just as the Battle of Issus begins, but the story continues: Alexander would go on to conquer Egypt (where he founded Alexandria), crush Darius at the Battle of Gaugamela, capture the Persian capitals of Babylon, Susa, and Persepolis, chase Darius to his death, and then push eastward through Afghanistan to the borders of India.

Before he died in Babylon in 323 BC, Alexander was planning new campaigns: a military and mercantile expedition into Arabia, followed by an invasion of Carthage in North Africa. Had he lived, the western Mediterranean—including Rome, then a minor Italian city-state—might have faced his armies.

He didn't live. And his generals, the Diadochi, immediately began fighting over the spoils.

What remained of Alexander's empire was carved into rival kingdoms: the Ptolemaic dynasty in Egypt, the Seleucid Empire in the east, and various successor states in Greece and Asia Minor. These kingdoms lasted for centuries and spread Greek culture across the ancient world in what historians call the Hellenistic period.

But they were built on the wreckage of Alexander's conquests, not on any stable political foundation he created. He was a conqueror, not a builder. The violence that accompanied his campaigns—the razed cities, the enslaved populations, the mass executions—left scars that his successors papered over but never erased.

Greatness Reconsidered

Was Alexander "great"? The question depends entirely on what you mean by the word.

He was superbly skilled at warfare. His tactical innovations—the use of combined arms, the exploitation of terrain, the speed of his marches—were studied for millennia. He never lost a battle. He conquered more territory faster than anyone before him and almost anyone after.

But greatness, as we commonly understand the word, implies something more than skill at killing. It suggests wisdom, or virtue, or the creation of something lasting and beneficial.

By those measures, Alexander looks rather different. He destroyed cities. He sold entire populations into slavery. He executed men who challenged him, including some of his closest companions. His "empire" existed for exactly as long as he did, and then it collapsed into chaos.

Perhaps the most accurate description is the one suggested by modern scholars who study his campaigns: Alexander was extraordinarily gifted at the "deeply unfortunate and disturbing human social practice of war." He possessed the virtues useful in that practice in abundance.

Whether those are virtues worth celebrating is another question entirely.