Alexander the Great

CHAPTER 9 AT THE HOUSE OF THE CAMEL

Alexander led his army down the low hills onto the wide plain of Gaugamela in Mesopotamia. He had his first view of the enemy about three and a quarter miles away in the distance and was shaken by what he saw. The Persians vastly outnumbered his own force and would have no trouble at all outflanking him. There was no mountain or sea to protect his wings, just acres and acres of flat, empty land.

Worse, the Great King had obviously learned a lesson from Issus: that his infantry could not be relied on to put up a good fight. So his front line was nearly all cavalry, as at the Granicus, except for the center where Alexander could see Greek infantry mercenaries and the royal bodyguard.

He realized that the spectacle was dampening his men’s spirits, but was at a loss for what to do next. So he called a conference of his Companions, generals, and squadron commanders. He asked whether in their opinion he should attack there and then or, surprisingly on past form, follow Parmenion’s cautious but canny advice. This was to stay where they were for the time being and make a thorough search of the terrain. It looked as if Darius had cleared a large area of brush and smoothed irregularities.

Alexander agreed to a delay and, guarded by a substantial escort, spent much of the rest of the day riding about the ground the Persians had cleared and noting its edges with care. He was less concerned with the possibility that the Persians had laid traps for his troops as they advanced than with understanding the meaning and purpose of the enemy’s battle order. On a humpbacked hill not far away, the village of Gaugamela (which translates as the Camel’s House, and is today’s Tell Gomel) looked down on the level expanse where the decisive encounter of the war was to take place.

On his return the king reconvened his officers and said that with their record of success they needed no encouragement from him, but he told them to fire up their men. They would be fighting to decide who would rule Asia Minor. It had been an open secret for some time that the king saw their mission no longer as revenge but as conquest. Now it was official.

As dusk fell on September 30, 331 B.C., Alexander ordered the army to eat its evening meal and then rest. Meanwhile a nervous Darius held a torchlight review and insisted that his men stay under arms in case of a night attack. Perhaps he had some spy among the Macedonians, for the possibility of just such a shock move was exactly what Parmenion and some of his older companions were now discussing.

According to Plutarch, they looked out across the plain and saw it

agleam with the watch-fires of the barbarians, while from their camp there arose the confused and indistinguishable murmur of myriads of voices, like the distant roar of a vast ocean. They were filled with amazement at the sight and remarked to one another that it would be an overwhelmingly difficult task to defeat an enemy of such strength by engaging them by day.

They went to speak to Alexander about the idea and found him in front of his tent. He was in an anxious mood and was deep in discussion with Aristander, his bridge to the gods. The seer was dressed in white, with a sacred bough in his hand and his head veiled. He performed certain mysterious ceremonies and led the king in prayers for the assistance of Zeus, his “father,” and Athena of Victory. Tellingly, the king offered a special sacrifice to the divine personification of Fear.

Once he had finished these rituals, Parmenion broached the topic of a night attack; the moon was early in its last quarter and he argued that in the lunar light they could catch the enemy unawares and disorganized. The king was not impressed. Darkness left too much to chance. In case anyone thought he might be losing his nerve, he was resolutely optimistic. He replied: “I will not steal my victory.”

He then retired inside his tent, but seems to have gone on worrying about his tactics for the following day, balancing various options. When he had come at last to a fixed decision, his mind calmed, and in the small hours he went to bed. He fell into a deep untroubled sleep.

Dawn came and the king failed to wake up. His commanders were awaiting his orders with rising anxiety. No one dared to enter his tent to rouse him. Some even suspected that he was bottling it. Parmenion took it on himself to tell the men to take breakfast. The Persians were moving into battle formation, but still Alexander slept on.

It was bright day. Was the battle to be lost before it began?

—

TWO MONTHS EARLIER, in late July or August 331, the Macedonian army, returning from Egypt, had reached the ruins of Tyre. Here Alexander staged the grandest so far of his arts festivals. The program included sacrifices to the gods, solemn processions, contests of choral singing and, as in Athens from its heyday in the fifth century, the competitive staging of classic tragedies.

Drama was the most popular form of entertainment in the fourth century as well as being a religious obligation. In Greece, large open-air marble theaters were built to meet audience demand. However, Phoenicians were not enthusiasts of Greek tragedy, and perhaps the Macedonians’ engineers erected a temporary wooden structure. The actors were all male, including those playing women’s parts. The best of them were international stars who appeared in drama productions across the Hellenic world. Wearing masks, long ornate robes, and high-heeled boots, they were literally larger than life.

These performers were highly regarded. They knew personally the political leaders of the day and often acted as ambassadors between states. One who took on such a role was Thessalus, who was twice a winner at the prestigious festivals of Dionysus at Athens. He had been envoy for the teenaged Alexander during the Pixodarus affair and very nearly came to grief as a result. He and a fellow star and rival, Athenodorus, headed the bill at Tyre.

In Athens rich individuals, called choregoi, produced and funded the various drama productions and choral concerts. On this occasion the sponsors were the kings of Cyprus, who had just transferred their loyalty from Darius to Alexander during the recent siege.

Although he did not reveal his preference, Alexander hoped that his friend Thessalus would be the victor in the competition. But a majority of the judges chose Athenodorus. As he left the theater, the king remarked: “I endorse the jury’s verdict, but I would have given part of my kingdom rather than see Thessalus defeated.”

The winner had been due to perform in the Athenian festival of the Little Dionysia that winter, and was fined for breaking his contract by appearing at Tyre. He asked the king to intervene on his behalf with the Athenian authorities. Alexander refused, but privately paid the fine himself.

At first sight it seems more than a little odd, even frivolous, for a major military campaign to be suspended for a cultural celebration. But the king always kept a close eye on his public image. The festival was a powerful assertion of the Hellenic values for which he and his Macedonians were waging war with barbarians.

Everyone knew that a battle to win the Persian empire was imminent. What better time to advertise the superiority of Greek civilization?

—

THE LEAGUE OF CORINTH sent its warmest congratulations on Alexander’s achievements “for the salvation and freedom of Hellas” and presented him with a golden crown. But as a matter of fact, affairs in Greece had been unsettled for some time. The fiercely independent and militaristic city-state of Sparta, and its homeland of Laconia, refused to participate in the league (as we have seen) and became a hotbed of discontent. Sparta had once been a major power, and dominated its resentful neighbors in the Peloponnese. After a crushing defeat at the hands of Thebes forty years before, it was now only of local importance. But the Spartans never forgot their claim to lead Hellas and refused to cooperate with Alexander’s father. He once sent them a message: “If I conquer Laconia, I will turn you out.” The Spartans, who had a reputation for brevity, responded with a single word: “If.”

Their young king, Agis III, schemed to undo Macedonian control of the Hellenic world. But he was patient: Sparta had not fought at Chaeronea nor had it joined the failed rebellion that followed Alexander’s accession. Then in late 333, while the Macedonian army was more than a thousand miles away and unable to interfere, Agis decided to stir the pot again. The Aegean basin had become a Persian lake, and Miletus and Halicarnassus had been recaptured. So, despite Alexander’s success on land, Agis was optimistic about Darius’s chances. He sent an envoy to Susa to open talks about a Greek uprising.

Not hearing back from Darius, Agis decided to see for himself what was going on. He sailed across the Aegean in a single trireme to meet Pharnabazus, admiral of the Persian fleet, and ask for the Great King’s support.

Agis wanted the largest possible force of ships and troops to take back with him to the Peloponnese. But unluckily the Battle of Issus supervened and broke his hopes. Pharnabazus’s priority was now to save his Aegean possessions. All the Persians could afford to give Agis was thirty talents and ten triremes. He sent them to his brother at Sparta and instructed him to secure Crete for the Persian cause. The island was a traditional Spartan sphere of interest and would be a useful base for the fleet. He himself stayed for a time in Asia helping the resistance to Alexander. Then in 332 or 331, Agis returned to Sparta and raised the standard of revolt.

The Macedonian king regarded him as no more than an irritant. Alexander was annoyed that the league was failing to do its job of keeping a lid on dissent, but he had no intention of returning to Greece to defeat the insurgents in person. That would be left to his deputy in Pella, Antipater. But he knew that he needed to win opinion to his side. While in Egypt he had welcomed numerous Greek delegations and made a point of giving them whatever they asked for. Most important of all, he knew that although Athens was weaker than it had once been, it was still worth having as a friend. The insurgency would be easily put down if only he could dissuade Athens from joining.

This is the likely background to a murky story concerning a handsome young long-term lodger in the house of Demosthenes (on terms unknown but perhaps sexual). The great orator was a fierce opponent of Macedonia and feared for his life. The lodger set up a back channel via Hephaestion to Alexander, who was happy to give Demosthenes “a certain degree of immunity” in return for his neutrality.

At Tyre during the arts festival the Athenian state galley turned up and a delegation once again asked the king to pardon those fellow citizens who had fought against him at the Battle of the Granicus and were still prisoners of war. He immediately agreed to the request.

At about this time, his former treasurer, the rascally Harpalus, arrived at the camp, begging pardon for having run away with a large sum of money before Issus. His con-man partner had disappeared to Italy and conveniently died. Unlike Alexander, Harpalus enjoyed sex, especially with expensive female prostitutes, and he may have been running short of cash. It says a lot for his charm that it was the king who made the first contact and persuaded him to return. He promised Harpalus that he would not be punished—in fact, on his arrival in Phoenicia the king gave him his old job back as treasurer.

It is a puzzling story. Alexander was not a man for pardoning betrayal. That said, they were old friends. Some speculate that in fact Harpalus was on a confidential mission, but it is hard to imagine what project would have required the secret involvement of such a senior figure. However, Harpalus could well have picked up useful information about the planned insurgency and passed it on to a grateful Alexander.

In any event, despite all the Hellenic fine words and smiles, Alexander suspected that friendliness might not be enough; he dispatched warships to intervene in Crete and keep a watch over the Peloponnese.

Alexander could be a diplomat when he chose. His combination of velvet glove and iron fist predictably failed to win over King Agis, but it did persuade the Athenians to steer clear of revolt.

—

IT WAS TIME TO find the Great King and fight him again. Around the first week of July, Alexander and his entire army left Tyre and marched up through Syria, probably along the seacoast (to facilitate supplies of food, fodder, and water). At the place where the great port of Seleucia would stand in later centuries, he turned right and made for Thapsacus, an ancient town on the western bank of the Euphrates.

As always with Alexander, logistical planning was meticulous. It seems that supplies were to be transported by boat south down the river toward Babylon, the assembly point for Darius’s horde. The army was to have marched alongside the ships. Unfortunately, the newly appointed Macedonian satrap of Syria had failed to gather enough food and fodder and was sacked. By itself the narrow Euphrates Valley would not support the army, and in any case grain stores from the recent harvest were locked up and inaccessible in walled towns, so this route was now out of the question. Instead, Alexander decided to march east to the Tigris through the fertile fields of northern Mesopotamia, where there would be plenty to eat and the sun’s summer heat would be less intense than farther south.

Hephaestion was sent in advance to build two pontoon bridges across the Euphrates. The farthest sections were left unfinished to deny them to the enemy. A prominent Persian, Mazaeus, commanded a sizable force of three thousand cavalry and the same number of infantry (of whom a third were Greek mercenaries). He was charged with preventing the Macedonians from crossing the Euphrates, and for a time he kept guard on the bank. But when he caught wind of Alexander’s imminent arrival, Mazaeus quickly withdrew, perhaps feeling that the forces at his disposal were not strong enough to deter the Macedonians. It could also be that his heart was not in the fight.

The bridges were completed and the army spent an estimated five days tramping over them. The king paused for a few days to rest his men and prepare them for a forced march of 125 miles to the Tigris. He wanted to prevent any Persian force from reaching the river first. Luckily, Darius had probably expected Alexander to descend the Euphrates Valley, and by the time he had worked out that he was in fact making for the Tigris it was too late to stop him.

For an army to cross a river when an enemy was nearby could be very dangerous. It was also slow and difficult if the water was deep and fast-flowing. However, modern travelers record that the average depth of the Tigris in September is no more than one foot; there is no reason to suppose it was different in the past. Mazaeus reappeared, but did not attack the Macedonians directly; instead, he set about laying waste the land some distance east of the river. This scorched-earth policy (much like what Memnon had advocated before the Granicus) could have decided the war in the Persians’ favor, but it was initiated far too late to cause Alexander any serious trouble. Once again he had gained advantage by speed and surprise.

Not long after the crossing, a regiment of Persian horse did put in an appearance. Alexander dispatched some scouts to charge it at full gallop. Their commander ran through his Persian counterpart with his spear, hurled him from his horse, and decapitated him while he struggled on the ground. He took the head back with him and, to loud applause, laid it at the king’s feet.

—

IN FARAWAY BABYLON, which Darius and his army were in the process of leaving to fight with Alexander in northern Mesopotamia, temple astronomers were recording their daily observation of the heavens and weather conditions, as they had done for centuries. They believed that the gods had created the movements of the planets to give people on earth indications of the future.

In a collection of celestial omens known as Enûma Anu Enlil, the astronomers asserted causal links between movements in the sky and political, economic, and other important events, both after they happened and as prophecies of the future. They warned the authorities of impending troubles. Although they did not have telescopes, their observations were fairly accurate and they were able to anticipate eclipses.

The stargazers recorded a nearly total lunar eclipse that occurred at 9:20 P.M. on September 20 in the year 331:

Sunset to moonrise: 8º. There was a lunar eclipse. Its totality was covered at the moment when Jupiter set and Saturn rose. During totality the west wind blew, clearing the east wind. During the eclipse, deaths and plague occurred.

According to the priest-astronomers, the predictive significance of this event was that

an intruder will come with the princes of the west; for eight years he will exercise kingship; he will conquer the enemy army; there will be abundance and riches on his path; he will continually pursue his enemies; and his luck will not run out.

However, Alexander did not know of this helpful prognostication when he and his men saw the moon dim and grow blood-red in color. His soldiers were terrified. They were more than a thousand miles from home and were marching into the unknown. Religious awe was swiftly followed by panic.

Aristander and Egyptian seers who specialized in the movement of heavenly bodies knew perfectly well that the eclipse was the result of the sun, the earth, and the moon coming into perfect or nearly perfect alignment, with the earth’s shadow falling on and covering the moon. But Alexander was certain that the common man would not accept such a rational explanation. This was the work of the gods. He called a full meeting of his generals and officers in his tent and asked the Egyptians to give their opinion. Using their imaginations, they ruled that the sun represented the Macedonians and the moon the Persians. An eclipse of the moon signified disaster for the latter. The grateful king sacrificed to the moon, the sun, and the earth (incidentally demonstrating that he understood the true explanation of the lunar eclipse). Aristander announced that the animals’ entrails had been scrutinized and the omens were good. They indicated a victory for Alexander. The army calmed down and morale rose to its normal temperature.

The march resumed, but the Macedonians had no clear idea of where Darius was. Then, on September 24, Macedonian scouts encountered a body of Persian horse. They captured one or two of them and learned that the Great King’s army was only eight miles away, at Gaugamela, on the far side of a low range of hills.

Alexander established a permanent camp with a ditch and a palisade on this higher ground. Defensiveness of this kind was unusual for him, as indeed it was for Greek commanders in general, and indicated his nervousness. He gave his men a further four days’ rest, leaving the Persians to swelter in the plain.

—

AN INJUDICIOUS LETTER FROM the Great King was intercepted and brought to Alexander. It sought to suborn the Greek soldiers in the Macedonian army to murder or betray him. He wondered whether it would be a good idea to read the letter aloud at a general assembly. It would helpfully arouse anger on the eve of battle, and he was fairly confident of the loyalty of his League of Corinth forces. But Parmenion advised otherwise. Darius’s scheming should not be allowed to reach the men’s ears, for that would simply further publicize the Great King’s criminal intentions. It would take only one soldier to kill Alexander. Alexander conceded the point, and the letter was set aside.

It was about this time that the death of Darius’s wife, Stateira, was announced. It seems that the constant discomfort of traveling in an army baggage train had exhausted her, but she was probably only in her midthirties and in the ordinary way of things should have been able to manage. She may have been struck down by some fatal, and doubtless little understood, disease.

Perhaps her comparative youth provoked the unlikely story that she had been pregnant and miscarried. Certainly Darius was afraid that Alexander had slept with her. However, an attendant eunuch who had escaped from the Macedonian camp and brought the news of Stateira’s death reassured the Great King that all the imperial women had been treated with respect during their captivity. Apparently, Alexander had only seen her once, in the immediate aftermath of Issus. He gave her a full funeral in the traditional Persian manner.

The two armies were nearing each other and Darius, moved by his opponent’s kindness to his dead wife, launched a third peace initiative. He sent ten envoys to put new proposals to Alexander. These were even more generous than their predecessors. The Great King agreed to cede to Alexander all his lands west of the Euphrates, pay the sum of thirty thousand talents of gold as ransom for his mother and daughters, and give him the hand in marriage of one of the daughters. His son Ochus would stay with the Macedonians as a token of goodwill. The two rulers would become friends and allies. Presumably, although this was not spelled out, Darius’s new son-in-law could expect to succeed him on the imperial throne. There was a precedent for this, when Alexander’s father, Philip, set aside his little brother Amyntas to take the throne himself.

But the experienced observer might well wonder how two suns could occupy the same sky. A reconciliation would be most unlikely to last long. Apart from anything else, it would require good faith—a tall order after the revelation of Darius’s assassination plot. Moreover, with a decisive battle only a few days away, it was impractical to stand down all the military preparations at the last minute in favor of a sudden peace conference.

The Persian delegation left having achieved nothing, made its way across the plain Darius had chosen for his battlefield, and reported the failure of its mission.

—

WHAT WAS TO BE DONE? The young king went on sleeping and his immediate entourage did not dare enter his tent. It was high time that the army began to form up in order of battle, and nobody but he knew what that order was to be.

Eventually Parmenion went in, stood by the bedside, and called Alexander by name two or three times. Once the king was awake, the general asked how he could have slept so soundly when he faced the biggest battle of his life. Alexander replied: “Why not? Don’t you see we have already won the battle? We won’t have to wander any more around endless burnt-out plains, chasing an enemy who never stands and fights.” This was an unfair slur on Darius, but bravado suited the moment.

The conundrum that had kept the king awake for much of the night was this. The Macedonians were massively outnumbered and could easily be outflanked. They faced a long, fearsome row of massed cavalry, some in shining armor of flexible laminated mail. In front of them at various points were the Great King’s secret weapon—chariots with sharp scythes fastened to the yoke and to the axle housings.

We do not know exactly how large the Persian army was, but it greatly exceeded the Macedonian. Arrian’s estimate rose as high as a million infantry and 400,000 horses. That was absurd hyperbole, but it is convincingly reported that as the two armies approached, Alexander’s right wing found itself facing Darius’s center. The largest number of men Darius could feed and water without difficulty did not much exceed 100,000.

Darius had learned from his defeat at Issus that cavalry, not infantry, won battles. He had observed that Alexander had triumphed with a single blow—that is, a devastating cavalry charge from the right. His plan, simple but sound, was to go one step further: he would exploit his numerical superiority and strike a double blow. His best cavalry would deliver an irresistible charge against both the Macedonian wings, outflanking them, enveloping them, and rolling them up.

Although he worked hard to train his forces, the Great King’s foot soldiers looked attractive in their multifarious ethnic uniforms but were of almost no value in the field. Hence the sensible decision to place them at the back behind the cavalry, most of which was recruited from the fierce tribes of the empire’s eastern lands.

The finest horsemen in the Great King’s army came from Bactria, home to a fiercely independent-minded people (inhabiting parts of today’s Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan) and from Scythia in the uncharted north. An estimated nineteen thousand of them (including some other ethnic contingents) occupied the entire Persian left wing, of whom eight thousand were placed past Alexander at the end of the line. They were commanded by Bessus, an energetic member of the imperial family. It is estimated that fourteen thousand horses were gathered on the Great King’s right. They were commanded by Mazaeus, whose career seems not to have suffered from his failure to stop the Macedonians from crossing the Euphrates and the Tigris.

In the center, as at Issus, stood Darius in his great chariot. He was protected by elite troops, the Royal Foot Guard; these were the so-called Apple Bearers, after the golden apples fixed to their spear butts in lieu of spikes. They were accompanied by the Persian Horse Guard and two divisions of Greek mercenaries, each probably a thousand strong. In front of these forces were posted fifty chariots and fifteen elephants, whose purpose was psychological more than straightforwardly military. They were to panic men and horses who had never encountered them before. The Great King correctly guessed Alexander’s whereabouts (he was learning fast) and ordered a hundred chariots to face him, but only fifty against Parmenion.

The Persian strategy was well thought out, although it depended on good timing and flexibility for success. What then had Alexander excogitated during the small hours of the night?

The number of Macedonians has come down to us in approximate but fairly reliable form. It was somewhat higher than at Issus. Alexander commanded about 44,000 infantry in all, of which the elite corps was the Macedonian phalanx, about 12,000 strong. Cavalry numbered 7,250. At the other end of the scale were the fierce but loyal specialist teams, whose military contribution far exceeded their size: 600 Greek mercenary cavalry; just fewer than 500 Paeonian light cavalry; about the same number of cavalry scouts; 1,000 Agrianians; and Thracian tribesmen who were crack javelin throwers.

Alexander observed that the Great King had reversed his strategy. At Issus, Darius’s order of battle had been defensive, but now at Gaugamela the preponderance of cavalry along almost the entire front line was proof that he had decided to go on the offensive. He had to be planning an attack of double envelopment, with the cavalry galloping around his flanks. Bearing in mind the military arithmetic, Alexander found it hard to see how he could resist this. So, with typical bravura, he decided to encourage it.

Here was his master plan. Alexander would tempt the Persian horse into excessive double envelopment. This would weaken the enemy center, and he would then lead a lethal attack of penetration against it. The plan was clever and bold, but very risky.

As usual, he placed his phalanx, bristling with long pikes, in the center of his line. On the right, the flexible hypaspists were, again as usual, the “universal joint” between the phalanx and the elite Macedonian cavalry, the Companions, with the Royal Squadron in front. This was where the king took up his position. The entire wing was screened by half the Agrianians, half the Macedonian archers, and the javelin men. As usual, the left wing was under the overall command of Parmenion; it echoed the right and was given over to cavalry, including about two thousand Thessalians.

At the far end of each line were posted some of the specialist fighters, accompanied by cavalry and infantry units. Those on the right were a thin row of Greek mercenary cavalry under a commander called Menidas. Behind them, refused were lancers and Paeonian cavalry, and farther back still the other halves of the Agrianians and the archers. Close to the latter were some 6,700 highly experienced veteran Greek mercenary foot soldiers.

Both the flank guards were hidden from Persian view by lines of cavalry. These were designed to look temptingly weak and ready to be rolled up. In fact, they concealed foot soldiers detailed to cooperate with the riders and repel or maul the Persian attackers.

Because of the danger of complete encirclement, Alexander placed behind the phalanx a second line of infantry, mainly Greeks from League of Corinth member states. This rear guard was under instruction to turn about and engage with the enemy if it succeeded in outflanking the Macedonian wings.

—

THE KING, FULLY AWAKE NOW, sent round his orders, and the great military machine he had led across a continent to meet this day, the first of October, 331, slowly but surely geared itself for action.

He was already wearing his armor when he emerged from his tent—a belted tunic made in Sicily and over this a thickly quilted linen corselet that had been among the spoils captured at Issus. We see him wearing it in a mosaic depicting the battle that was found in Pompeii; a similar one, perhaps his very own, has been found in one of the royal tombs at Aegae in Macedonia. His steel helmet glowed like polished silver and was attached to a steel neckpiece studded with precious stones. His sword, tempered and lightweight, was a present from a Cypriot king; he had trained himself to use it as his principal weapon in hand-to-hand fighting. Finally, he wore an ornately decorated cloak.

Altogether Alexander was quite a sight on the battlefield. Instantly identifiable, he was not only a human flag or standard to be followed and protected at all costs, but also a key enemy target. Any self-respecting archer or javelin thrower or slinger on the Persian side would do his utmost to bring him down.

During the early maneuvers, Alexander used another mount to spare Bucephalas, who was past his prime. Only when he was ready to go into action was the elderly horse led up for him to ride. He delivered a long speech to the Thessalians and other Greeks and was greeted with a roar of approval. In response, the king shifted his lance into his left hand and, raising his right, prayed to the gods that if he really was the son of Zeus, they should protect and strengthen the Greeks. Aristander in a white robe and a golden wreath rode along the ranks pointing out an eagle flying overhead in the direction of the Persians, a wonderful augury. Once the king had cheered up his left wing, he crossed over to the right, greeting officers and anyone near to him. He then took up his position among the cavalry Companions. His presence was enough to raise morale.

At last, with the sun high in the sky the king gave the order to advance. The Macedonian army marched toward the enemy in oblique order, with the right wing leading. The point was to throw the enemy’s line out of gear; if the cavalry on its right wing galloped forward to meet the distant Macedonian left they would risk attack from the side and would uncomfortably stretch the Persian center. To avoid envelopment, Alexander’s left-flank guard and the Thessalians would be prepared to give ground.

The angle of the Macedonian approach was perhaps as steep as forty-five degrees. As a result, the specialist units at the tip of the left wing could not sensibly be echeloned back, but stood out parallel to the Persian line. They were a combination of Greek cavalry and Thracian forces.

Alexander was approaching the moment when commanders inevitably lose control of events. Dust thrown up by thousands of tramping feet, and the noise of shouting voices, neighing horses, and clashing armor and weapons meant that after a certain point Alexander would no longer be sure what was going on. Messages were taken to and fro by riders, but they were slow and not guaranteed to arrive at all. Even when a battle was lost and won, few participants would have been able to give a coherent account of what had taken place.

However, Alexander’s officers had been fully briefed; they were used to their supreme commander delegating authority to them and would do what was required according to the circumstances and their instructions. He himself was at the place where the key decision was to be made: the timing of the crucial charge of the Companions that would determine the outcome of the battle.

As his army approached the enemy, he allowed it to drift to the right. If this continued, he would almost entirely cross over into unleveled ground. Darius could see the danger and ordered Bessus with the Scythians and Bactrians to advance and wheel around the Macedonian right flank. As soon as Alexander saw this, he reacted by ordering Menidas and his single rank of six hundred mercenary horse to charge them. To nobody’s surprise, weight of numbers forced them back.

Alexander then sent two small cavalry units—the scouts and the Paeonians—backed by the veteran mercenaries, to attack the Scythians, who began to waver and give way. Arrian does not explain how this was achieved with so few horsemen, but we can deduce what happened from a passage in Xenophon, with which we may assume that Alexander was familiar. He points to the weakness of cavalry in the absence of infantry:

If he has got some infantry, a cavalry commander should make use of it. A mounted man is much higher than a man on foot, and infantry can be hidden away not only among the cavalry but in the rear as well….If the infantry, hidden away behind the cavalry, came out suddenly and went for the enemy, I think they would prove an important factor in making the victory more decisive. I have noticed that a surprise cheers men up if it is pleasant, but stuns them if it is alarming.

Alexander had fed into the fighting small groups one after another with brilliant economy and precise timing, while Bessus committed more and more of his massed horsemen. It is clear that the veteran mercenaries had delivered an unpleasant surprise to the Scythians and Bactrians and that the flank guard were in a thoroughly good mood. However, their good fortune could not last forever. Sooner or later the weight of the enemy would tell.

At this point Darius released a force of a hundred chariots against the Companion cavalry, who were as yet untouched by the enemy despite Persian hope that Bessus would roll up the entire Macedonian wing. The light skirmishers in front (Agrianians and the rest) grabbed the reins, pulled out the drivers, and slaughtered the horses. Trained in advance, the Companions simply let through their ranks those that got away. They were captured by army grooms at the back and by royal shield-bearers. The Great King’s surprise weapon had been a total failure.

The complete Persian army, jaded from having had to stay awake all night but splendid to look at, was now moving forward. However, Bessus’s attempt at outflanking the Macedonians had drawn off so many horsemen that the line between him and Darius’s entourage in the center thinned. This was the moment for which Alexander had been waiting. Arrian explains:

The cavalry sent out to engage the Persians encircling the right wing had forced a break in the front line of the barbarian line of battle. He [Alexander] wheeled for the gap, formed a wedge of the Companion cavalry and the immediately adjacent infantry section [the hypaspists] and led them at full speed and in full cry straight for Darius.

In the space of a few minutes the whole situation turned upside down. Out of the noisy dust thundered the Macedonian heavy cavalry, shouting, “Alala alala” at the top of their voices. Heading the Royal Squadron at the apex of the wedge rode the scarlet and silver Macedonian monarch on his enormous horse Bucephalas. He and his horsemen were followed by the hypaspist infantry. The formation may well have outnumbered the Persian cavalry facing it, but in any event the Macedonians had superiority at point of contact.

Alexander and the Companions sliced through the enemy horse, turned left into the now unprotected flank of the Greek mercenaries, and fought hand-to-hand with the royal guards to reach the Great King. They pushed and shoved with their horses and stabbed with their lances at the Persians’ faces. The infantry soon joined in and pressed their long pikes into the mêlée. The two kings were coming closer and closer together. Darius himself threw javelins to help ward off the onslaught. Alexander returned the compliment, but missed and killed the driver next to him.

—

WHAT WAS HAPPENING ELSEWHERE in the field? Here the news was bad.

Mazaeus on the right was mauling Parmenion and the Thessalians. He was faring well enough, he must have felt, to send three thousand horse round the edge of the Macedonian line and to capture the lightly guarded permanent camp ten or more miles away. He probably did so on the Great King’s direct orders, for this was where prisoners of war, including Darius’s mother and other family members, were held. To retrieve them would be a great prize. The detachment had no difficulty breaking in. Astonished attendants ran to Sisygambis’s tent to bring her the good news that they had been rescued. She knew better than to commit herself, though, until she was sure of the day’s winner. Curtius writes that she

retained her former demeanor. Not a word left her lips and there was no change in her color or expression. She sat motionless—afraid, I think, of aggravating fortune by expressing joy prematurely. People looking at her could not decide which outcome she would prefer.

Then there was trouble in the center. The four phalanx battalions nearest to the hypaspists followed them when Alexander and the Companions advanced, and the two left battalions were distracted by Mazaeus’s charge against the Thessalians. As a result, a gap opened in the middle of the phalanx, through which a body of Persian and Indian cavalry poured. They probably intended to take Parmenion from behind, but they became overexcited (as has often happened to horse riders throughout history) and charged unswervingly onward. They punched through the Macedonian infantry reserve and reached the temporary baggage deposit area not far from the back lines of the Macedonian army.

Arrian writes:

The commanders of the infantry reserve behind the front phalanx soon realized what was going on, turned their division about face, as were their standing orders, and fell on the Persians’ rear. Many Persians were killed where they were caught hugger-mugger among the baggage-animals, but some broke away and escaped.

The situation was becoming serious for the Great King, for he feared that he was not only being attacked in the flank, but would soon be taken in the rear and his escape foreclosed. High-born relatives were being slaughtered in front of him. For the second time he was forced to behave like a coward while not being one. Alexander and the Macedonians were getting nearer, and he would soon be taken or killed. If he was to fight another day, as he fully intended, there was no alternative to flight.

Unfortunately, it was difficult to turn his chariot round and drive it away, for it was snagged by dead bodies and wounded soldiers. The horses began to rear and plunge so that his charioteer was unable to control them. Hidden by clouds of dust, the Great King stepped down from his chariot and galloped away on a mare. Now he was there; now he was not.

At about the time Alexander launched his charge, Parmenion sent off a dispatch rider, a trusted Thessalian called Polydamas, from his position on the left. He was to inform the king that the enemy was engaging his forces heavily. It was a signal arranged in advance to help Alexander make the tricky decision when to launch his decisive charge. As things turned out, the messenger arrived when the king was already in the thick of conflict and could not be immediately reached. He delivered his dispatch in a probable lull after Darius’s departure.

A later story suggested that Parmenion had issued an unnecessary cry for help, which fatally delayed the pursuit of Darius, and that his performance during the battle had been sluggish and unenthusiastic. In fact, it is clear that his task was explicitly defensive. As we have seen, he was under orders to hold the line long enough for Alexander to win the battle. His forces, especially the Thessalian horse, had acted with great gallantry and managed to stop the Persians from advancing.

The news of Darius’s flight was spreading throughout his army. Bessus decided that the best course was to withdraw while in reasonably good order. Slowly and confusedly, the Persian line in general broke. The unimpressive infantry at the back had not done any fighting and wished to avoid it now: they ran as fast as their legs would take them.

Alexander was too good a general to leave a battle before he was quite sure of the outcome. He did not know whether Parmenion on the left had succeeded in holding off Mazaeus. He had to find out and intervene if necessary, for there was no point in having won on one side of the field if he had lost on the other. So, having disposed of the Great King in the center, he proceeded behind the enemy cavalry’s positions on the Persian right to reach him.

To do so he was obliged to traverse terrified flows of fleeing Persian horsemen. According to Arrian,

what ensued was the fiercest cavalry battle of the whole action. The barbarians rallied…and hurled themselves head on at Alexander’s troops. They had no use now for the usual cavalry tactics—no throwing of javelins, no maneuvering of horses—but it was each man for himself, trying to force his own way through as the only means of survival. They were not fighting now for someone else’s victory, but for their very own lives.

In this engagement, about sixty of Alexander’s Companion cavalry were killed; Hephaestion himself suffered a spear wound in the arm, and two other commanders were injured.

Many Persians broke through, but Alexander did not chase them. He pressed on toward Parmenion. By the time he arrived, Mazaeus’s cavalry had realized that all was lost and was disengaging as well as they could from the Thessalians, who had been putting up a stiff resistance. As soon as the king saw that all was well, he wheeled around and set off in pursuit of Darius. The day was won, but not yet over.

An ancient battle was like a weaponized rugby football scrum. It was relatively bloodless while the fighting was going on; only when there was a clear winner did blood flow copiously. So it was at Gaugamela as at the Granicus and Issus. The exulting Macedonians caught up with the fleeing enemy, cavalry overtaking and trampling on infantry, and went on killing for as long as there were men to kill. Many ransacked the luxuriously appointed and now desolate camp. Implausibly high estimates of casualties abound, but Persian deaths may well have been counted in tens of thousands. The best guess for Macedonian losses are one thousand foot and two hundred horse.

The pursuit of Darius went on until darkness fell. The king gave his men and horses an hour or two to rest and then resumed the hunt at midnight. He and his party (probably the Royal Squadron) galloped through the darkness. They covered seventy-five miles and with dawn arrived at the ancient city of Arbela (today’s Erbil), but Darius had passed through it sometime before. For the second time the bird had flown, and Alexander returned crestfallen to his marauding army.

On the following morning he buried his dead and pondered his next step. He had been king for five years and was only twenty-five years old. He had already changed the world.

—

“ONCE THE BATTLE HAD had this result, the Persian empire was regarded as having been totally dissolved,” Plutarch observed of Gaugamela. At Gordium, Alexander had been guilty of hyperbole in calling himself lord of Asia, when all he actually controlled was Asia Minor. But now the cap fitted. He had beaten the Achaemenid dynasty in a fair fight.

Darius had made good preparation and chosen his ground intelligently. Gaugamela was a wide plain with no convenient river or foothills with which an invader’s undersize army could guard its flanks. He had assembled an even larger host than at Issus. He had given his inexperienced infantry new weapons and some training. He had recruited mounted troops from the empire’s horse-loving eastern provinces. He had learned from his previous encounter with the Macedonians and had given Alexander the shock of his life when he first laid eyes on the Persian battle formation—miles and miles of cavalry.

But during his dark night of the soul, the Macedonian king had devised the most brilliant of tactical schemes, which turned his numerical deficit to advantage. Unlike Darius, who made a virtue of preponderance, he understood that victory would depend on movement and quickness of eye. By luring Bessus and his cavalry to overcommit themselves around the right-hand edge of his line, Alexander created the gap or thinning of the ranks opposite the Companions, into which he led his decisive charge. At Gaugamela he tempered his natural impetuousness into disciplined energy.

But if Alexander had vanquished the Great King, had he overthrown him? Were contemporaries right to recognize the end of an empire, or at least of a dynasty? No, Plutarch was mistaken. Despite Alexander’s best efforts, Gaugamela was the second time he had tried and failed to capture Darius dead or alive. He still could not claim the imperial throne without contradiction. If the Great King wished, as indeed was likely, he could continue the war from the far east of his dominions.

But for now there was nothing to do but rejoice. The empire and its great cities lay all before the jubilant conquerors.