42. CONQUEST OF PERSIA AND THE FAR EAST, 334-323 B.C.
BATTLE OF THE GRANICUS, 334 B.C.
Alexander crossed the Hellespont in the spring of the year 334 B.C. He landed not far from the historic plain of Troy and at once began his march along the coast. Near the little river Granicus the satraps of Asia Minor had gathered an army to dispute his passage. Alexander at once led his cavalry across the river in an impetuous charge, which soon sent the Persian troops in headlong flight. The victory cost the Macedonians scarcely a hundred men; but it was complete. As Alexander passed southward, town after town opened its gates—first Sardis, next Ephesus, then all the other cities of Ionia. They were glad enough to be free of Persian control. Within a year Asia Minor was a Macedonian possession.
BATTLE OF ISSUS, 333 B.C.
In the meantime Darius III, the Persian king, had been making extensive preparations to meet the invader. He commanded half a million men, but he followed Alexander too hastily and had to fight in a narrow defile on the Syrian coast between the mountains and the sea. In such cramped quarters numbers did not count. The battle became a massacre, and only the approach of night stayed the swords of the victorious Macedonians. A great quantity of booty, including the mother, wife, and children of Darius, fell into Alexander's hands. He treated his royal captives kindly, but refused to make peace with the Persian king.
[Illustration: THE ALEXANDER MOSAIC (Naples Museum) This splendid mosaic composed of pieces of colored glass formed the pavement of a Roman house at Pompeii in Italy. It represents the charge of Alexander (on horseback at the left) against the Persian king in his chariot, at the battle of Issus.]
CAPTURE OF TYRE, 332 B.C.
The next step was to subdue the Phoenician city of Tyre, the headquarters of Persia's naval power. The city lay on a rocky island, half a mile from the shore. Its fortifications rose one hundred feet above the waves. Although the place seemed impregnable, Alexander was able to capture it after he had built a mole, or causeway, between the shore and the island. Powerful siege engines then breached the walls, the Macedonians poured in, and Tyre fell by storm. Thousands of its inhabitants perished and thousands more were sold into slavery. The great emporium of the East became a heap of ruins.
ALEXANDER IN EGYPT
From Tyre Alexander led his ever-victorious army through Syria into Egypt. The Persian forces here offered little resistance, and the Egyptians themselves welcomed Alexander as a deliverer. The conqueror entered Memphis in triumph and then sailed down the Nile to its western mouth, where he laid the foundations of Alexandria, a city which later became the metropolis of the Orient.