Alexander the Great invades the Persian Empire
- Date
- 334 BCE
- Category
- Military & conflict
- Region
- Anatolia (Asia Minor)
- Era
- Classical Antiquity
- Significance
In spring 334 BCE Alexander III of Macedon crossed the Hellespont into Asia Minor with an army of roughly 40,000–50,000 men, launching the campaign that would dismantle the Achaemenid Persian Empire.
His first major victory came at the Granicus River, opening Anatolia to conquest and freeing the Greek cities of the Ionian coast. The invasion fulfilled the war his father Philip II had planned and inaugurated more than a decade of campaigning that carried Macedonian and Greek arms across the Near East to Egypt, Mesopotamia, Iran, Central Asia and the Indus. The expedition reshaped the political map of the ancient world, ended the Persian Empire founded by Cyrus, and set in motion the diffusion of Greek language, urban planning and culture across an enormous territory — the process later termed Hellenisation that defined the Hellenistic age.
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Empires active in 334 BCE
- Macedonian Empire (Alexander)336 BCE – 323 BCE
- Roman Republic509 BCE – 27 BCE
- Achaemenid Empire550 BCE – 330 BCE
- Nanda Empire345 BCE – 322 BCE
- Kingdom of Kush1070 BCE – 350 CE
- Carthaginian Empire650 BCE – 146 BCE
Related military & conflict events
- Battle of Gaugamela destroys the Achaemenid Empire1 October 331 BCE
- The Kalinga War and Ashoka's turn to Dhammac. 261 BCE
- Battle of Chaeronea: Philip II ends Greek independence338 BCE
- Battle of Gaixia and the founding of the Han dynasty202 BCE
- Battles of Thermopylae and Salamis480 BCE
- First Punic War: Rome becomes a naval power264–241 BCE
Further reading
The wider story
Persians: The Age of the Great Kings
Recent trade history telling the Persian side, not just the Greek.
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