The strategy and tactics of Alexander’s next great pitched battle will hardly be appreciated without some attention to geography. The battle was fought at a point where the Syrian coast meets that of southern Asia Minor at right-angles, in the neighbourhood of Iskanderun (Alexandretta), a name derived from that of Alexander which still preserves his memory. Bearing in mind the map, one is obliged to notice the pattern of strategic marching which preceded the fighting.
Events in the Aegean region had at last spurred the Persian king to take the field himself with an army of about 600,000 men. Modern historians have accused ancient historians in general of exaggerating the number of troops deployed by Persian and other oriental potentates with whom Greek and Macedonian armies at different times conflicted. It must be remembered, however, that Persian armies were like modern armies, depending on long lines of communication and supply; Greek armies, by contrast, were small, living on the land over which they marched. Alexander’s army was eminently of this kind. The figures given in the present instance for Darius’s army may well take account of supporting troops; even so, Alexander, with a force that had crossed the Hellespont no more than 40,000 strong, was clearly outnumbered by a substantial margin.
The Issus Campaign
The map is purely diagrammatic. Alexander in fact returned from Myriandros towards Issus by the same route that he had followed on his southward march. Darius moving northward from Sochi, was able to bypass Alexander’s army unobserved because a mountain range at this stage separated the two opposing forces. The calculations behind these moves are explained in the account of the battle: Alexander did not march north from Myriandros until he knew that Darius was at Issus.
Darius perhaps believed that his mere numbers would be sufficient to strike terror into the hearts of the Macedonians and their leader, and that the very news of his approach would cause Alexander to flee. Such at least was the opinion the less prudent of his advisers managed to confirm in him. In Darius, apparently, the wish was father to the thought, and his officers and courtiers knew the futility of telling him something he did not wish to hear. Indeed, so great was his optimism that he hoped not merely to drive Alexander from Asia but to trap him there. His only problem, as he saw it, was to prevent the Macedonian army from escaping.
As Alexander marched southwards over the Taurus mountains, to enter the plain near Tarsus by that narrow mountain defile known as the ‘Cilician Gates’, Darius led his army up the Euphrates valley and across into Syria. He had wished to prevent Alexander from occupying Tarsus and therefore sent his officer Arsames to hold the Cilician Gates against the invader. But Arsames, supported by an inadequate force, was here faced by a lightly armed and highly mobile detachment commanded by Alexander in person. Arsames did not offer battle and would have burnt Tarsus to prevent it falling into enemy hands, but Alexander was too quick for him, and Tarsus was saved.
At Tarsus, Alexander fell ill from a fever, and the delay this illness occasioned encouraged Darius in the belief that the Macedonians feared a pitched battle. He had encamped at Sochi in Syria, on or near the site of what was later to become Antioch. When he learned that Alexander was still advancing, his first thought was to remain in his present position. In the Syrian plain, Persian numbers could be used to their best advantage. He would probably have done better if he had adhered firmly to this strategy, but as the situation developed, the opportunity for a master-stroke seemed to present itself.
Alexander’s army bivouacked in the mountain pass. In the morning they moved on, along the narrow coastal strip of low ground, the cavalry bringing up the rear. As the lowland strip widened, some deployment became possible: cavalry was brought out to the wings. The infantry line (right to left) was: three units of hypaspists under Nicanor; phalanx units under Coenus, Perdiccas, Meleager, Ptolemy, and Amyntas respectively; left-wing infantry was commanded by Craterus; Parmenio was in overall command of the left wing.
Thessalian and Paeonian (?) cavalry was now posted on the right; Greek mercenary troops were sent to the left. These included Cretan archers with Thracian cavalry, both under Sitalces. The left-wing cavalry was mainly allied (Greek). The Thessalians were now brought round the rear to strengthen the left wing cavalry. On the right were Protomachus’scouts with Paeonians under Ariston and archers under Antiochus. Attalus with archers and some cavalry drove off the flanking threat in the mountains. Last-minute moves: two squadrons of horse, under Peroedas and Pantordanus respectively, were moved out from centre to right. A line of Agrianes and Greek mercenaries was used to outflank the Persian left.
Persian positions during Alexander’s advance: a screen of 30,000 cavalry and 20,000 light infantry was thrown forward, south of the River Pinarus, to protect Darius’s main body while it was being deployed for battle. When deployment was complete, this advanced line was withdrawn and used mostly to reinforce the Persian right wing, now confronting Parmenio. Darius’s front thus consisted of 30,000 Greek mercenaries and 60,000 ‘Kardakes’ (probably lightly armed Persian infantry); the latter were posted on either wing of the Greeks. Behind these forces were ranged the multinational contingents of Darius’s imperial army. He himself rode in his war-chariot in the centre.
This sculptured relief shows the god Ares (Mars) in battle against giants. He protects himself with a large, heavy hoplite shield such as was typical of Greek warfare in the Classical period. However, such shields were still used in the second half of the fourth century, and Greek mercenaries, both in Macedonian and Persian pay were probably equipped with them.
Alexander, having encamped with his army at Mallus in Cilicia, passed through the coastal defile towards Syria and advanced on the small port of Issus, which had already been occupied by a detachment under Parmenio. A temporary base was here established, in which the Macedonian sick and wounded were left. Alexander then marched southwards along the narrow low-lying coastal strip that separated the mountains from the sea, making for the ‘Syrian Gates’ near modern Iskanderun.
Possibly he marched at night, as he had done in his swift advance on the Cilician Gates. But this time he led the main body of his army, not merely a mobile striking force. Darius may have been deceived, seeing here a replica of the Macedonian strategy in Cilicia. He resolved on his master-stroke: by a circuitous march he would separate Alexander from his local base at Issus and isolate him from the main body of his army. This operation was made easier by a sudden violent storm, which halted Alexander at Myriandrus, on the coast, near the Syrian Gates. Darius took advantage of a valley route just east of the Amanus mountain range and led his army northward again, thus avoiding Alexander’s army and by-passing the coastal strip. His manoeuvre, however, had the disadvantage that it brought the Persian army back into the narrow lowland area between sea and mountains, sacrificing the much wider Syrian plain where its numbers could have been more effectively deployed.
Alexander was certainly surprised at the move and sent a trireme up the gulf of Issus to confirm the report that had reached him. In fact this new development came as a pleasant surprise: nothing could have pleased Alexander more than the prospect of a battle on a narrow battlefield. Darius, on the other hand, must soon have been disappointed. When he descended from the mountains near Issus, he found there no more than a hospital base. The Persians massacred many of the Macedonian sick and wounded and ensured a non-combatant role for others by cutting off their right hands. This was perhaps only to be expected – Darius could not at this critical juncture afford to give quarter.
Meanwhile, Alexander with his entire army had wheeled about and was retracing his steps northward. Darius perhaps still considered that he was ‘trying to escape’ and accordingly advanced the Persian army south of Issus to block his way. When the two forces met, they were separated by the River Pinarus, a narrow torrent bed in which comparatively little water now flowed. Alexander faced north and Darius south.
Superficially, the situation was not very different from that which had existed at the Granicus. But the fact that the Granicus had been swollen with spring floods and that the Pinarus in late autumn now ran low meant that this battlefield was of another kind. Nevertheless, Alexander at once prepared to implement standard Macedonian tactics, with their effective coordination of infantry centre and cavalry wing. As he marched slowly and deliberately northward, the slender margin of coastal lowland widened slightly, and he was able to deploy his army in stages, advancing at last in line of battle.
Darius had been persuaded that Alexander would not of his own accord seek a pitched battle, so he must now have been taken aback. His attitude was in any case defensive. He fortified the already steep bank of the river with a stockade at some points and sent 30,000 horsemen and 20,000 light infantry across the river bed to screen his positions while his battle line was forming. He commanded 30,000 heavily armed Greek mercenaries, and these with 60,000 Persian mercenary troops now constituted the centre of his vanguard, in which position they would confront the Macedonian phalanx. Darius certainly had with him a much greater number of Asiatic foot-soldiers than his generals had commanded at the Granicus. These he posted in large bodies in support of his forward troops, stringing them out in line as far as the narrow battlefield would permit – the sea was not far distant on his right, and the hills were on his left. In the centre of this rather motley array, Darius himself rode in his chariot. The central position was normal to Persian kings in battle, and from it they were able to dispatch orders in one direction or another, to any part of their usually large armies. At Issus, the contours of the foothills were such that the Persian line actually curved forward, posing an encircling threat to Alexander’s right wing. In the centre, the Asiatic infantry units, drawn up according to the various localities from which they had been recruited, were so densely mustered that they could not easily be brought into action. The 600,000 men attributed as a grand total to Darius’s army, even if not an exaggeration, need not have been actually present on the battlefield.
This Persian infantry bowman, from a vase painting in the British Museum, looks awkward and ineffectual; but lack of skill should no doubt be imputed to the artist rather than to the archer. The bowman’s left, leading leg is protected by a pad of some kind and the flap of his ‘gorytos’ (in Scythian style) hangs down over his thigh. The inscription names the maker of the vase, ‘Hischylos’.
In Alexander’s advancing army, all troops left of the central phalanx were under command of Parmenio. On the right, archers and lightly-armed Agrianes were sent to dislodge the outflanking enemy on the foothills. This was done very easily, and Darius’s infantry were quickly dispersed, seeking refuge higher up the mountains, where they posed no threat; nevertheless, 300 of Alexander’s horsemen were detailed to watch them.
At the last moment, Alexander withdrew two cavalry squadrons of his Companions from a comparatively central position and sent them to reinforce his right wing. This readjustment was no doubt much needed, for he had already moved the Thessalian cavalry from its original right wing position to his left, where the Persians were massing. Indeed, Darius, as soon as he had been able to retract his cavalry screen from across the river, had concentrated these horsemen on his right against Parmenio. The plain here, close to the sea, no doubt seemed to favour cavalry combat. Both Alexander’s late readjustments were made unobtrusively. The Thessalians rode around the rear of the advancing army, and the Companion cavalry, warned that the enemy must not observe them, apparently found cover easily enough among the spurs that extended seaward from the inland foothills.
As Alexander routed and pursued the Persian left wing, there was a danger that the gap between his victorious cavalry and the central phalanx would be exploited by Darius’s Greek mercenaries. Parmenio was also on the defensive; and there was a further danger that he might lose touch with the central phalanx and be isolated.
Alexander continued his slow advance, making sure that the whole army preserved a level front, until he was within missile range of the Persian lines. He then suddenly launched his attack on the right, himself personally leading his Companion cavalry across the river bed and driving back the enemy opposed to him. But in a way typical of ancient battles, the right wing’s success carried it forward and out of touch with the centre. The steep and unequal banks of the river, not to mention Darius’s stockades, here made it particularly difficult for the phalangists to keep abreast of each other – let alone with Alexander. Into the gap between Alexander’s cavalry and the Macedonian phalanx, Darius’s Greek mercenaries now penetrated. They would thus soon be in a position to force the phalangists back into the river and threaten from the rear the Macedonian cavalry that had routed the Persian left. One cannot also help suspecting that the gap in the Macedonian line had opened at this point partly as a result of Alexander’s last-minute decision to reinforce his right wing cavalry at the expense of his centre. But risks had to be taken somewhere.
Alexander, confident that the Persian left wing was shattered irrecoverably, was able to bring relief to this threatened centre. This in turn relieved pressure on Parmenio’s left wing, and the whole Macedonian army was able to go forward again. Before long, Darius’s army, like Darius himself, was in full flight.
In spite of all hazards, the fighting quality of the Macedonian centre was equal to the occasion, although it suffered some 120 significant casualties, and Ptolemy, son of Seleucus, one of its senior commanders, was killed. In the upshot, the Macedonians fought off the dangerous counterattack and managed to contain the salient that had developed on their right, until Alexander was able to come to their aid.
He, for his part, was in full control of the horsemen under his immediate command and did not allow them to make the common mistake of carrying pursuit too far and losing contact with the main battle theatre. Realizing that the Persian left wing was now shattered beyond hope of recovery, he swung round and charged the central body of Greek mercenaries on its flank, forcing them to retreat from the river or cutting them down where they stood. The Macedonian phalanx was then able to advance once more, destroying most of those enemy elements who had survived the impact of Alexander’s cavalry.
Darius’s army came nearer to success on its right, against the Macedonian left wing where Parmenio commanded. Here, on the sea beach and on the lowland plain adjacent to it, an overwhelming preponderance in cavalry numbers could most obviously be turned to advantage. Whether the Persian right wing cavalry on this occasion took its orders directly from Darius is not clear, but in any case its officers in this sector were reasonably impatient of their purely defensive role, and the Persian horsemen had soon surged across the river to attack the Thessalian cavalry ranged against them. Desperate fighting here took place, but when the Persian right wing saw that the centre and left of their army had collapsed, they wavered and took to flight. No one could blame them. Any attempt to stand their ground must only have led to encirclement by the Macedonian phalanx and Alexander’s victorious cavalry. But the very reversal of movement, with the abandonment of headlong pursuit in some quarters for a general headlong flight, in itself threw them into confusion and exposed them to the Thessalians, who now pursued.
The rout of Darius’s army in this sector soon became catastrophic. Many of the fugitives were heavily armed and equipped horsemen. Either they were encumbered in their flight or, discarding their weapons, were helpless when overtaken. As they converged in mountain defiles amid increasing panic, horses often fell with their riders, and many were trampled to death by those who pressed on from behind. For Parmenio’s pursuing cavalry did not relax its pressure, and the fleeing Persian foot-soldiers, who had been posted behind their own cavalry, now suffered equally with the horsemen.
This famous mosaic, generally agreed to represent the battle of Issus, was discovered amid the ruins of Pompeii, and it is thought to have been based on the work of an original painter almost contemporary with Alexander. When all allowance has been made for the requirements of artistic composition, there is much to be learnt from the picture’s realism.
Darius did not wait long enough to see the defeat of his right wing. The moment that his left had crumbled before Alexander’s onslaught, he had taken to flight in his chariot, which carried him swiftly enough as long as the ground was level. But when he found himself amid the rocky gorges that lay eastward and northward, he abandoned his chariot together with various weapons and items of clothing, riding now on horseback. It is also reported that the horses that drew his chariot had been wounded and become unmanageable and that the horse he ultimately mounted had been led behind his chariot for just such an emergency as the present. Nightfall in any case saved the Persian king from Alexander’s relentless pursuit.
Ancient historians tell us of 100,000 dead among Darius’s troops at Issus and of 10,000 cavalry casualties. It would in any case seem likely that considerably more were killed in the rout that followed the battle than in the actual course of the fighting – a circumstance not uncommon in ancient warfare. It has been noted that Alexander prudently withdrew from pursuit of the enemy before him in order to succour his hard-pressed Macedonian phalanx; however, there was still enough daylight left for him to resume the chase. Darius himself was now the quarry, but Darius’s abandoned chariot and equipment was all that immediately rewarded him.
As it was, the Macedonian army quickly occupied the Persian camp, where they made prisoners the royal ladies of the King’s household, who had accompanied him on his campaign. These included Darius’s wife (who was also his sister) with his baby son and his mother. Two of his daughters were also captured, together with some other noble Persian ladies who attended them.
Money, too, had been left behind. Arrian refers rather casually to ‘no more than 3,000 talents’. But a comparison is here intended with the much greater spoils that awaited the victors when they occupied the Persian general headquarters at Damascus. One talent was 6,000 drachmas, and eighty years earlier one drachma had been a high daily rate of pay for an Athenian naval oarsman. There was, at Issus, certainly enough to pay and supply Darius’s huge field army throughout the anticipated campaign.
Alexander treated with great chivalry the Persian ladies who had fallen into his power. When they believed that Darius was dead and wept hysterically, Alexander himself reassured them, telling them of the King’s escape. He had, he said, no personal grievance against Darius but fought merely in pursuit of a legitimate political claim – the control of Asia.
A Greek mercenary in Persian service. He wears the standard panoply for a hoplite, including a long thrusting spear, a later version of the ‘Chalcidian’ helmet and stiffened leather or linen armour. The large ‘Argive’ shield is augmented by a leather apron to give additional protection from missiles, a threat more common in Asia than in Greece. (Painting by Richard Geiger)
Although wounded in the leg by a sword-thrust, Alexander attended to the honourable burial of the dead and visited all his wounded men, offering consolation and congratulation as it was due, and conferring rewards on those who had merited them in the battle. Meanwhile, Darius continued his flight eastward. He had been joined by other fugitives to the number of about 4,000, and his main intention was to put the River Euphrates between himself and Alexander as soon as possible.
Some 8,000 Greek troops, who had previously deserted from Alexander to Darius, escaped westward. Reaching the Phoenician coast at Tripolis near Mount Lebanon, they found the ships that had originally brought them from Lesbos. Any surplus ships were burnt, lest they should be used by pursuing forces. Some of the fugitives sailed to Egypt via Cyprus, and others probably took service with King Agis of Sparta, who was not committed to the support of Alexander’s ‘Pan-Hellenic’ war. Several high-ranking Persians, more resolute than Darius himself, were killed in the battle. Some of these had been survivors from the Granicus.
Considering the decisive nature of Alexander’s victory, the actual duration of the fighting, for all its violence, must have been remarkably short. The battle was fought on a November day, yet there seems to have remained daylight enough for a long and eventful pursuit of the defeated army. In the morning, Alexander had advanced deliberately and slowly towards the Persian positions, and there had been time for both sides to observe each other and re-order their battle lines accordingly. The time taken by the battle itself cannot have been more than a few hours.
Arrian, despite his mention of phalanx casualties, gives no comprehensive figures of Macedonian losses. Other writers are in agreement with Arrian and with each other on the numbers of Persian dead but differ in their report of Alexander’s casualties. It would seem, however, that the victorious army lost no more than a few hundred dead.