In the spring of 334 BC Alexander III of Macedon, aged twenty-one, led an army of about 40,000 Macedonians and Greek allies across the Hellespont to attack the Persian Empire, which his father Philip II had planned to invade. He defeated the Persian satraps at the Granicus river, won at Issus in 333 against Darius III, took Egypt and, in October 331 BC, destroyed the Persian army at Gaugamela. By 326 he had reached the Indus. In eleven years Alexander never lost a battle, spread Greek culture across the Near East and created the Hellenistic world.
Before and after
- from 341 BCE to 338 BCESecond Latin War
- from 336 BCE to 323 BCEWars of Alexander the Great
- from 335 BCE to 86 BCEConstruction of Lyceum
- 335 BCERise of peripatetic school
- 335 BCEAlexander the Great crosses into Asia
- from January 332 BCE to July 332 BCESiege of Tyre
- 20 January 330 BCEBattle of the Persian Gate on the Mountain
- 329 BCEConstruction of Panathenaic Stadium
- 327 BCESiege of the Sogdian Rock
More in Wars, politics & history
- from 149 BCE to 146 BCEThird Punic War
- from 58 BCE to 51 BCEGallic War
- 49 BCECaesar defeats Pompey at Pharsalus
- from 66 CE to 74 CEFirst Jewish-Roman War
- from June 68 CE to December 69 CEYear of the Four Emperors
- 476 CEFall of the western Roman Empire
The era
This moment belongs to the Ancient civilizations (3,200 BCE to 500 CE), writing, cities and empires. You can also browse everything in the 4th century BCE.