On 1 October 331 BCE, the Battle of Gaugamela was fought between the Macedonians under Alexander the Great and the Persians under Darius III during the Conquests of Alexander the Great.
Why did it happen?
In 359 BCE, Philip II became king of Macedon in northern Greece. A highly ambitious monarch, Philip sought to unite Greece in a crusade against the Persian Empire. Philip defeated the Greek city-states at the Battle of Chaeronea in 338 BCE, but upon Philip's death in 336 BCE, Alexander III, better known as Alexander the Great, inherited his father’s ambition to conquer the vast Persian Empire. In 334 BCE, Alexander crossed into Anatolia and defeated the Persians in two major battles, Granicus (334 BCE) and Issus (333 BCE), before moving on to conquer Egypt in 332 BCE, where he founded the city of Alexandria. In 331 BCE, he received word that the Persian king, Darius III, was assembling a massive army in the east to halt his advance. Alexander wasted no time and marched his army eastward to Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq), where he found Darius waiting for him on the plain of Gaugamela.
Who was involved?
The Macedonian army at Gaugamela numbered 40,000 infantry and 7,000 cavalry. Around 31,000 of the infantry consisted of phalangists, who wielded 18-foot pikes known as sarissas. The remaining 9,000 infantry consisted of hypaspists, elite infantry who fought with more flexibility than the phalanx, and peltasts, who were armed with javelins. The cavalry consisted of both Companion and Thessalian cavalry. Alexander was positioned on the right wing of his army, supported by his generals, Craterus and Parmenion, in the centre and left wing, respectively. The Persian army at Gaugamela numbered 100,000 infantry, 35,000 cavalry, 200 scythed chariots and 15 war elephants. Around 88,000 infantry were lightly armed Persian levies from across the empire. The remaining 12,000 consisted of Persian Immortals and Greek mercenary hoplites. The cavalry were drawn from Bactria, Scythia and Persia. Also included in the Persian army were 200 scythed chariots and 15 war elephants from India. Darius was positioned in the centre, with Bessus on the left wing and Mazaeus on the right wing.
What happened?
Alexander began the battle by leading his right wing obliquely towards the extreme right of the plain, with his phalanx in the echelon. Bessus extended his line to avoid being outflanked while Darius ordered his scythed chariots to charge the Macedonian phalanx. Macedonian peltasts took out some chariots, while the rest that made it to the phalanx were allowed to pass harmlessly through the Macedonian ranks and be destroyed by the rear phalanx. As both Persian cavalry wings attempted to outflank and envelop both wings of the Macedonian army, a dangerous gap opened between the Persian centre and right wing. Taking advantage of this gap, Alexander led his cavalry, hypaspists and phalanx in a charge straight towards Darius himself, who fled the battlefield. However, on the Macedonian left wing, some Persian cavalry broke through and attacked the Macedonian camp before being repelled by the rear phalanx. As Mazaeus’ cavalry began to overwhelm Parmenion, Alexander appeared in the Persian rear and routed Mazaeus’ forces. When word began to spread that Darius had fled the battle, the Persian army disintegrated, suffering 40,000 casualties. In contrast, the Macedonian army only lost 500 killed and 3,000 wounded.
What changed as a result?
The Battle of Gaugamela was a decisive Macedonian victory. In the subsequent months, Alexander captured the Persian city of Babylon before pressing on to Persepolis, where Alexander allegedly burnt the Persian city to the ground as revenge for the sack of Athens in 480 BCE. After Darius III was murdered by Bessus in 330 BCE, Alexander saw himself as the successor to the Persian kings and was proclaimed “Lord of Asia.” He subsequently invaded Afghanistan and India before being forced to turn back in 326 BCE. Alexander died in Babylon in 323 BCE, but his conquests laid the foundations for the Hellenistic Age, in which Greek culture and civilisation extended from the eastern Mediterranean in the west to India in the east.
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