Alexander the Great
Alexander
got enough support of the Macedonian nobility and with
20 years he became established as the King of Macedonia. As there's a
rumour going round that Alexander died, the Thebans started 335 b.c. a
rebellion against Macedonia, which ended quite quick with the totally
destruction of the city and the enslavement of their inhabitants.
334
b.c. Alexander III passed the Hellespont, defeated the Satraps and
captured the whole territory of Minor Asia. In every district he
appointed Macedonian ruler. He moved on to Kilician, where he fought in
Issos 333 b.c. the first big battle against the Persian king Dareios III,
defeat him and put him to flight. After month of siege he also took over Tyros
and Gaza and conquered peaceful Egypt. 331 b.c. He
founded Alexandria in Egypt and in the same year he moved forward till
north of Mesopotamia. Near Gangamela he defeated a second time the
Persian King Dareios III and occupied Babylonia, Susa, Persepolis and Elebetana.
Soon after, Dareios got killed from his own followers.
Alexander the Great moved on with his troops till to
the borders of nowadays
Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Tadschikistan und Uzbekistan. He founded
another Alexandria Basra near where the river Euphrates flow in the
Persian Golf. He married Roxan a sogdian noble. He integrate more
Iranian and took over Persian customs. In 327 v.Chr.
his campaign to India started. On their way they defeated several Indian
royal houses, but as they arrived to the Indian river Hyphasis and
couldn't see an end, the army refused to continue. Alexander leaded
the troops with a new built fleet down the Indus where they arrived 325
b.c. near Pattala to the Indian Ocean. Here they formed two groups,
to return on different ways back to Babylonia. The first group went
through Archosien, an other group moved further with the boat to nowadays
Kuwait, where the river Euphrat flews and the third group with the
leadership of Alexander reconnoitre the deserts of Gedrosiens, nowadays Belutschistan.
As Alexander returned to Babylonia, some of his
district rulers set up on their own and escaped now. In 331 b.c. Antipatros
the ruler of the European part had to suppress a revolt of Sparta and an
alliance of some other parts of Peloponnesus, what succeeded in 324 b.c.
At the same time broke out a mob of the troops in Opis near the Tigris
which Alexander suppressed with determination and severity quite quick.
The capital of his empire should have been
Babylonia, but everything turned out quite differently. Alexander felt ill
and died 323.b.c. with fever in an age of 33 years old in Babylonia. If he
could have kept his empire with this size for a long time its difficult to
imagine, I have my doubts. But he respected from the beginning local
traditions and political structures. He organized marriages between
Macedonian district rulers and Iranian womens und just occupied
important political and military positions with Macedonians.
Early History / Archaic Age / Classical Age / Hellenic Age / The Army / Timeline
