Alexander the Great's campaigns
military campaign · 334 BC–323 BC
Alexander III of Macedon crossed into Asia in 334 BC, defeated the Persian Empire at the Granicus, Issus and Gaugamela, and campaigned on through Central Asia to the Indus until his army refused to go further. He returned through the Gedrosian desert and died at Babylon in 323 BC, aged thirty-two. The route follows Arrian's Anabasis, written four centuries later from lost eyewitness accounts; several sites, including the Hyphasis turning point, are approximate.
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Recorded boundaries
| Period | Control | Confidence | Evidence | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 334 BC | — | medium confidence | no observation date recorded | Set out from Pella. Reached Hellespont → Granicus → Sardis → Miletus → Halicarnassus. Crossed into Asia with about 40,000 men. First victory over the Persian satraps. |
| 333 BC | — | medium confidence | no observation date recorded | Reached Gordion → Issus. Where, the story goes, he cut the Gordian knot. Defeated Darius III, who fled, leaving his family behind. |
| 332 BC | — | medium confidence | no observation date recorded | Reached Tyre → Gaza → Memphis. Took the island city after a seven-month siege. |
| 331 BC | — | medium confidence | no observation date recorded | Reached Alexandria → Siwa → Gaugamela → Babylon → Susa. Founded the first and greatest of his Alexandrias. Consulted the oracle of Zeus Ammon. Decisive defeat of Darius; the Persian Empire was his. |
| 330 BC | — | low confidence | no observation date recorded | Reached Persepolis → Ecbatana → Hecatompylos → Herat → Farah. The palaces were burned before he left. Darius was murdered by his own satrap Bessus as Alexander closed in. |
| 329 BC | — | medium confidence | no observation date recorded | Reached Kandahar → Bagram → Bactra → Maracanda → Alexandria Eschate. Samarkand. "Alexandria the Furthest", modern Khujand. |
| 328 BC | — | medium confidence | no observation date recorded | Reached Maracanda. Killed his companion Cleitus in a drunken quarrel here. |
| 327 BC | — | medium confidence | no observation date recorded | Reached Bactra. Married Roxana, daughter of a Sogdian noble. |
| 326 BC | — | low confidence | no observation date recorded | Reached Taxila → Hydaspes → Hyphasis. Defeated King Porus and his war elephants. His exhausted army refused to go further east, and he turned back. |
| 325 BC | — | low confidence | no observation date recorded | Reached Multan → Patala. Nearly killed by an arrow storming a town of the Malli. |
| 324 BC | — | low confidence | no observation date recorded | Reached Carmania → Pasargadae → Persepolis → Susa → Opis → Ecbatana. The march across the Gedrosian desert cost a large part of the army. Found the tomb of Cyrus the Great plundered. Married his officers to Persian noblewomen in a mass wedding. His closest friend Hephaestion died here. |
| 323 BC | — | high confidence | no observation date recorded | Reached Babylon. Died in June 323 BC, aged thirty-two. |
Each row is a snapshot the source recorded, not a continuous history. The period between two observations is an inference this atlas shows rather than hides.
Sources
- Arrian; translated by P. A. Brunt, Anabasis of Alexander, (1976)
- Robin Lane Fox, Alexander the Great, (1973)