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World history
Course: World history > Unit 2
Lesson 4: Empire of Alexander the GreatAlexander the Great conquers Persia
How did Alexander the Great take over Persia? Sal explains.
Want to join the conversation?
- Is there any archaeological evidence for these battles, or are they all based on written accounts?(14 votes)
- As you probably know, they are only historical accounts because dead soldiers' bones would long rot away into the soil and thus not providing us with much archaeological evidence. Plus no one would know were to dig up remains of soldiers in battles because no one is sure were they were located. Plus river courses may change if a battle took place in a river or near it. I hoped my answer helped.(18 votes)
- 6:9 when he says civilians died does he mean from pilligeing [i know i spelt that wrong] or just his men killing them for no reson(10 votes)
- I think he means that civilians were both in the line of fire between the opposing armies and intentionally targeted, as you say, for no reason. It would be very similar to what is happening in Syria as I write this.(13 votes)
- How did Alexander keep all of his troops while he kept going through Persia?
did he keep getting more from Greece? If so, how did the troops catch up to the main force?(7 votes)- Alexander tried to fill the lost ranks through indigenous Persian troops who later switched allegiance. Also in Anatolia, he also recruited Greeks there to his own army as well as other nomadic Iranian mercenaries as cavalry.(14 votes)
- I'm a little confused on what's happening to Sparta. Sal said in his video on Classical Greece (https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/world-history/ancient-medieval/classical-greece/v/overview-of-ancient-greece) that when Philip of Macedon came to conquer Sparta he threatened them saying that if he enters Laconia he will raze Sparta and the Spartans replied "If". I took that to mean that the Spartans are surrendering so Philip so he won't have to enter Laconia.
But now Sal is saying that Phiip never took Sparta. So was the Spartan "If" a threat?
Also, this Wikipedia page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sparta#Hellenistic_and_Roman_Sparta) says that "Neither Philip II nor his son Alexander the Great attempted to conquer Sparta itself." What does that mean? Doesn't this video say that Sparta was conquered by Alexander's general?(2 votes)- Both the video, and your wikipedia source, state that the Spartans were defeated at Megalopolis and then joined the League of Corinth.(7 votes)
- so Alexander conquers all these cities, how does he keep them in line? does he leave troops there?(2 votes)
- They were scared of him. Because those cities used to be part of a big empire that Alexander defeated.(4 votes)
- 1.when the armies were moving to fight each other, like Alexander and the Persians, what did they have that helped the cross the terrain?
2.who or what helped them cross the rugged terrain like the deserts?
3.what was their transportation?(1 vote)- Animal-drawn vehicles for supplies, horses for officers, and feet for soldiers.(5 votes)
- Should I ask why Alexander the Great wanted so much power and believed he was king? He seemed to be somewhat narcissistic about himself, but I'm kind of confused if that was something he felt or was.(4 votes)
- Sal says that Sparta was conqured by Antipetor after Alexander left, however, other sources say that Sparta was conquered by Alexander himself when they try to rebell aginst Macedonia with aid from Persia and the other rebelling city-states.
So, which one is correct and why is there such a HUGE difference in these two versions?(2 votes)- There are no discrepancies in the account of Sparta's defeat in Sal's explanations.(1 vote)
- Did Alexander bring camels with him to the desert?(2 votes)
- When Alexander began to conquer Persia.Why did it take Darius a little more than a year to face him in person?(1 vote)
- Perhaps Darius III thought that his superior numbers would contain Alexander's army before it started gaining momentum. Perhaps he thought that going into battle himself was a bit too dangerous. Maybe he wanted to consolidate his slowly fracturing empire a bit, and then face Alexander with a really large army. I dunno.(2 votes)
Video transcript
- [Instructor] So where we
left off in the last video, we had Alexander the Great
consolidating his power over the Macedonian Empire. And in particular, he puts
down a rebellion in Thebes, destroys the city, which makes the other
city-states of Greece say, hey, we're not gonna mess
with this person anymore. And then Alexander says, I am now going to conquer Asia. I am now going to conquer
the Persian Empire, do what my father wanted
to do before he died. And so he puts one of
his father's generals, now one of his generals, in
charge of Greece, Antipater. Antipater, declares him regent, and then leads troops off
to what many people say is have the greatest,
or many historians call, the greatest adventure of all time. His attempt to conquer the Persian Empire and become the king of Asia. So the year is 334 BCE, and the first major battle that Alexander and his army encounters
is at the Granicus River, here in modern-day Turkey. Now, keep in mind that Alexander's force, depending on what time we're looking at, it numbers between 40 and 50,000 troops, a good number of them
infantry, some cavalry. And most of the battles
that we'll see him fight, especially the next two
against the Persian forces, he's hugely outnumbered. But at Granicus, he
actually has an advantage in terms of the number of infantry he has. He's slightly outnumbered
in terms of cavalry, but he's able to defeat
the Persian forces. Now these Persian forces,
they are significant. They're led by the Persian satraps, these are the governors
of the territories, I guess you could say. The Persian regions or provinces
in this area in Asia Minor. And he's able to defeat them. But as important as Granicus is, he still, Alexander still
has not come directly against Darius III. Darius III is the Shah in
Shah, the King of Kings, the king of Persia. And not to confuse Darius
III with the Darius who 150 years before this attacked Greece. So now you have Alexander, his first decisive victory
against the Persians. He makes his way down the Anatolian coast, in his mind liberating
many of these cities that used to be Greek cities. Now if we zoom in a little bit, you can see the way this map is set up. Let me zoom in a little bit. Where you see these dotted
lines around a city, this means that Alexander's
forces siege the city. They surrounded it, they
didn't let anything go in or out until the city surrendered. And so you see this path of
Alexander and his forces. We then go into 333 BCE. Outside of the forward movement
of Alexander and his troops and their ability to take
over all of Asia Minor, modern-day Turkey in only
a matter of a little more than a year, what also happens in 333 BCE, since some of you might
have been wondering well, what ever happens to Sparta? Philip of Macedon never took over Sparta. Do they stay independent forever? And the simple answer is no. In 333 BCE, Antipater defeats the Spartans at the battle of
Megalopolis and forces them into what we now call
the League of Corinth. So let's keep now going
back to where Alexander is. So Antipater clearly was competent at maintaining power in Greece. And the next major battle that Alexander and his troops face is at Issus. And what makes Issus significant is that they are hugely outnumbered. Historians disagree by how
much they're outnumbered. Remember, we said Alexander's
forces were around 40 or 50,0000, while the Persians at Issus, depending on which account you look at, were at least 150,000,
probably over 100,000. More ancient accounts talk
about many hundreds of thousands or even a million troops. What also made Issus
significant is this is where, this is the first time that Darius III, the Shah in Shah, the king of Persia, directly confronts Alexander. Well, Alexander once again is able to, or at least here is able
to overcome unlikely odds and defeat the Persian army, sending Darius into retreat. And he retreats so fast, he even leaves an
encampment where his mother, his wife, and his two daughters are there. And Alexander then takes them captive, but treats them very
nicely and then eventually marries one of the daughters. So after that defeat,
Darius is on the retreat, or after that defeat for Darius, this victory for Alexander, Alexander then goes on into the Lavant, modern-day Syria and Lebanon
and Israel and Palestine. And you can see he takes
siege of the cities of Tyre and Gaza, but by the time he gets through that, it's now 332 and he
makes his way into Egypt, and he's relatively unopposed. The satraps in Egypt to
say, okay, you know what? We recognize you. They treat him as a liberator, and he even takes a
pretty large detour to go to the Oracle for the god Ammon, and there he is reassured
that he is a son of Ammon. And he already is told
by his mother Olympius that he is the son of Zeus, and so many people call Alexander, or he calls himself now,
Alexander Zeus Ammon, the son of Zeus Ammon. So once again he's trying
to really make himself, or maybe he believes himself, that he is half god,
that he is a demi-god. But then he continues on with this, I guess you could say grand adventure, and I don't want to
romanticize it too much because even though he is in some way conquering and/or unifying
these large areas, there's also a lot of bloodshed, a lot of civilians dying. This is a very ugly thing
that only looks romantic from maybe a distance of
many thousands of years. But when you think about it, it would not have been
very pleasant to have lived in any of these cities that
Alexander and his troops are going through. But then he leaves Egypt, and the whole time after
the defeat of Issus, Darius keeps sending him treaties to say hey, maybe we
can work this thing out. Maybe you can just stop to
the west of the Euphrates. I'll give you this or that. But Alexander keeps
saying nope, not for me. I want to be the king of Asia. There's only one king of Asia. And so they eventually
meet again at Gaugamela. Once again, a very
significant battle in history where once again Darius is there and has a significant force
advantage over Alexander, and this time doesn't make the mistake of meeting him in a relatively narrow area where his force advantage
won't really be an advantage. But even at Gaugamela, Alexander is able to
decisively defeat him. And Darius has to flee over
the mountains to Ecbatana. My apologies, 'cause I
know I'm probably not pronouncing it perfectly. And Alexander and his forces then go on to capture Babylon and Susia, and Susia was actually one of the capitals of the Achaemenid Empire. So this whole way they're able
to get all of this treasure and start sending it back to Greece. And then, we eventually get to, and by this point having
been defeated at Issus and now Gaugamela and being on the run, the Persian Empire is, you
could say it's already fallen, or it's definitely falling, but it becomes really official once we get to 330 BCE. And remember, this is less than five years since Alexander started, and that's short by any time frame. But they're on foot and on horseback. This is not modern warfare where they have tanks and trucks and planes. And the facts are
conquered so much territory and empires over 200
years old in this short about of time frame is
kind of breathtaking. But it's in 330 where the forces go to the Achaemenid capital of Persepolis, the capital for over 200 years, and they sack that town. And not only do they sack that town, they destroy the town. And I'll repeat it again, Alexander the Great,
he's romanticized a lot, he's called the Great, but they destroy that town in a way that you would not make your parent's proud. Let's just put it that way. But at that point he is now
king of the Persian Empire. Darius is officially on the run. And what Alexander now
cares about is continuing this adventure, continuing
it east into what we now consider to be
Afghanistan, Turkemenistan, Uzbekistan, and modern-day Pakistan. He also wants to get Darius. Some would argue he wants
to kill him himself, some would argue that he wants to somehow have Darius declare
Alexander as the rightful Shah in Shah, king of Asia. And so you can see the path
of Alexander and his forces. After they destroy Persepolis, they then go up, they turn northwards. They go through all of
these cities up here. Then in 329, they're on, they're following the trail of Darius. Darius eventually gets captured and killed by one of his satraps, someone by the name of Bessus. And Bessus, who is one of
the satraps of Bactria, kills Darius and declares
himself Artaxerxes V. He wants to be the Shah in Shah. Well, eventually Alexander
catches up with Bessus in 329. He's really angry that
Bessus has killed Darius. He's also likely angry
that Bessus is claiming that he is the Shah in Shah. And so he kills Bessus
in fairly brutal form. And there's different accounts
of how the killing happened, but all of them are
various degrees of brutal. But from there Alexander's
troops continued on eastward, continued on eastward
into what we now consider to be Afghanistan and Pakistan. And there he has the famous
battle with the king of Porus where he encounters
these 200 war elephants. But once again he's this
great military tactician, and he's able to defeat the king. And along this whole way
it's worth mentioning he sets up all of these towns, he sets up 20 Alexandrias. And near here he even
sets up a town named after his horse Bucephalus,
the town of Bucephala. And Alexander is eager to keep conquering. Once he defeats the
king of Porus, he says, hey, I want to go conquer
the rest of India. But his troops are far from
home and they are tired and they are spread thin
and they're getting sick. They are not so interested in that. So eventually Alexander says, all right, I'm with y'all. Let's go back. And the troops are really, really happy. They make their way back. You can see the path back after, and you can see as they follow
the Indus River in Pakistan. And eventually we get to 323 BCE, and Alexander is back in Babylon. And it's over there in
Babylon that Alexander dies at the ripe old age of 32. It's mindblowing to think
about how much happened in the 12 years that he was emperor of the Macedonians or even
the Shah in Shah of Persia. He was able to defeat an
empire over 200 years old. And what's significant about this is that as he conquered, he encouraged his troops to assimilate. In fact, he was criticized
for maybe assimilating a little bit too much. But he dies in Babylon, and it's not clear exactly why he dies. He was a major drinker. Some people say alcohol poisoning. Some people say it was direct poisoning. But needless to say, this was one of the
most significant decades in human history, this conquest
of Alexander the Great.