Battle of the Granicus (334 BC): Alexander's First Asian Victory

The Battle of the Granicus, fought in May 334 BC beside a river in north-western Asia Minor, was the first major victory of Alexander the Great over the forces of the Persian Empire. Alexander led his cavalry across the river against an army raised by the Persian governors of the region and destroyed it. The victory opened the whole of western Asia Minor to the Macedonians within weeks of their landing in Asia.

Background: the invasion of Asia

The war against Persia had been planned by Alexander’s father, Philip II, who sent an advance force under Parmenion into Asia Minor in 336 BC. After Philip’s murder that year, Alexander secured his kingdom and Greece before launching the main invasion. In spring 334 BC he crossed the Hellespont, the strait now called the Dardanelles, with an army that Arrian puts at not much more than 30,000 infantry and over 5,000 cavalry.

Alexander visited the site of Troy and honoured the tomb of Achilles, presenting himself as a new Homeric hero. The Persian king, Darius III, did not come west himself. Defence was left to the satraps, the provincial governors of Asia Minor, who gathered their forces at Zeleia, near the Sea of Marmara.

The Persian council of war

At Zeleia the Persian commanders held a council. Memnon of Rhodes, a Greek mercenary general in Persian service, advised against fighting. According to Arrian he urged a scorched-earth policy, burning crops and villages so that the invaders could not feed themselves, while the Persian fleet carried the war to Greece.

The satraps rejected the plan. Arsites, satrap of Hellespontine Phrygia, declared that he would not allow a single house in his province to be burned. The Persian leaders also distrusted Memnon, suspecting he wished to prolong the war for his own advantage. They chose to meet Alexander on the line of the Granicus river.

The armies

Arrian says the Persians had about 20,000 cavalry and nearly 20,000 Greek mercenary infantry. Diodorus gives 10,000 cavalry and 100,000 infantry, a figure modern historians reject. Most modern estimates put the Persian force at roughly 10,000 to 20,000 cavalry and perhaps 5,000 to 20,000 mercenaries.

Alexander probably fielded somewhat under his full invasion force, perhaps 18,000 to 25,000 infantry and about 5,000 cavalry. His best troops were the Macedonian phalanx, armed with long pikes called sarissas, and the heavy cavalry of the Companions.

What happened

The Persians drew up their cavalry along the steep eastern bank of the river, with the mercenary infantry behind them. This arrangement put their strongest arm where it could not charge freely, a choice historians have often criticised.

Arrian says Parmenion advised waiting until dawn, but Alexander attacked the same afternoon. Diodorus, by contrast, describes a crossing at dawn the next day, and the difference has never been fully resolved.

In Arrian’s account, Alexander first sent forward an advance force of cavalry and infantry on his right to draw the Persians into the river. He then led the Companion cavalry across in an oblique line, so that his units reached the far bank in succession rather than all at once.

The fighting on the bank was a fierce cavalry struggle at close quarters. Alexander, conspicuous in a helmet with white plumes, was in the thick of it. The Persian noble Rhoesaces struck his helmet with a blow, and as the satrap Spithridates raised his weapon behind the king, Cleitus the Black cut off his arm. Alexander’s lance broke, and he fought on with another.

Once the Macedonian cavalry and infantry had gained the bank, the Persian horsemen broke and fled. The Greek mercenaries, who had hardly been engaged, were surrounded. Plutarch says they asked for terms, but Alexander refused and attacked them, and most were killed.

Why the Persians lost

Several reasons are usually given for the Persian defeat. The army had no single commander, and the satraps’ decision to fight at the river line reflected local interests rather than a clear strategy. Placing the cavalry at the water’s edge meant it fought a static battle against an enemy climbing the bank, a role in which the Macedonians’ longer cornel-wood lances and heavier armour gave them an advantage.

The Greek mercenaries, potentially the Persians’ best infantry, stood idle while the cavalry battle was decided. By the time they engaged, they were isolated and outnumbered. Above all, Alexander’s willingness to risk himself at the decisive point gave his attack a momentum the Persians could not match.

Losses

Arrian reports that about 1,000 Persian cavalry fell, along with many senior commanders, including Spithridates, Rhoesaces, a son-in-law and a brother-in-law of Darius. About 2,000 mercenaries were taken prisoner and sent to Macedonia in chains as forced labourers, punished as Greeks who had fought against Greeks.

The same source gives Macedonian losses as about 25 Companions in the first assault, some 60 other cavalry and around 30 infantry. Many historians think these figures are too low. Alexander commissioned the sculptor Lysippus to make bronze statues of the 25 Companions, which were set up at Dion in Macedonia.

Key people

• Alexander the Great (356-323 BC): king of Macedon, aged 21.
• Parmenion (c. 400-330 BC): Alexander’s senior general, commanding the left.
• Cleitus the Black (died 328 BC): commander of the royal cavalry squadron, who saved the king’s life.
• Memnon of Rhodes (c. 380-333 BC): Greek mercenary leader in Persian service.
• Arsites (died 334 BC): satrap of Hellespontine Phrygia, who reportedly took his own life after the defeat.

Consequences

The victory allowed Alexander to take over western Asia Minor. Sardis, the capital of Lydia, surrendered without a fight. Miletus and later Halicarnassus resisted and were besieged, and Memnon, now given command in the west, organised a naval counter-offensive in the Aegean until his death from illness in 333 BC.

Alexander sent 300 sets of captured Persian armour to Athens as an offering to Athena on the Acropolis. Arrian records the dedication, naming Alexander son of Philip and the Greeks except the Spartans, who had refused to join the League of Corinth. The gesture presented the war as a Panhellenic campaign of revenge for the Persian invasions of Greece.

The battle also shaped Alexander’s policy towards the conquered peoples. He left the local population in peace, allowed the Greek cities of Ionia to restore democracies in place of pro-Persian oligarchies, and abolished the tribute they had paid to the Persian king, while appointing his own Macedonian officers as satraps in place of the Persian governors.

The next year Alexander advanced through Anatolia and met Darius himself at the Battle of Issus in November 333 BC.

Timeline

• 336 BC: Parmenion leads an advance force into Asia Minor.
• 334 BC, spring: Alexander crosses the Hellespont and visits Troy.
• 334 BC, May: Persian council at Zeleia rejects Memnon’s advice.
• 334 BC, May: Macedonian victory at the Granicus river.
• 334 BC, summer to autumn: Sardis surrenders; Miletus and Halicarnassus are besieged.
• 333 BC: Memnon of Rhodes dies during his Aegean campaign.
• 333 BC, November: Alexander defeats Darius III at Issus.

Why it matters

The Granicus was the first test of Alexander’s army against Persia, and it established both his reputation for personal daring and the tactical model of the hammer-blow cavalry charge. By destroying the satraps’ army, it gave him a secure foothold in Asia from which to strike at the heart of the Persian Empire.