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- Remove duplicate # heading - Add astronomical diary confirmation of date (Sachs & Hunger 1988) - Clarify location uncertainty (Jomel River east of Mosul) - Add Mazaeus as Persian right commander; surrendered Babylon, appointed satrap - Add lunar eclipse omen (20 September) - Add Persian sarissae detail (Diodorus 17.53.1) - Clarify ancient troop numbers are unreliable per modern scholarship - Add Persepolis capture date (January 330 BCE) - Add [^3] Encyclopaedia Iranica / Bosworth as new reference - Remove answered review queue (applied manually)
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Battle of Gaugamela
Overview
The Battle of Gaugamela (1 October 331 BCE) was the decisive battle in which Alexander the Great defeated the Persian King Darius III, effectively ending the Achaemenid Persian Empire. @t[=331 BCE] The date is confirmed by Babylonian astronomical diaries. 1
Key Facts
- Date: 1 October 331 BCE @t[=331 BCE]
- Location: Gaugamela, near the Jomel River east of Mosul (exact site uncertain; near modern Erbil/Mosul region, Iraq) 1
- Belligerents: Macedon vs. Persian Empire
- Commanders: Alexander the Great vs. Darius III; Persian right commanded by Mazaeus
- Result: Decisive Macedonian victory 2
The Battle
- Alexander: ~47,000 troops (including ~7,000 cavalry 1 ); Darius: ancient sources give wildly varying figures (40,000–200,000 cavalry; 200,000–1,000,000 infantry) regarded as unreliable by modern scholars 1
- Darius leveled the battlefield to give his scythed chariots and cavalry a decisive advantage; some Persian forces were equipped with Macedonian-style sarissae 1
- A lunar eclipse on 20 September was interpreted as an omen of Darius' defeat 1
- Alexander used an oblique advance to the right, threatening to outflank Darius' left and leave the prepared ground
- Darius launched scythed chariots and sent his best cavalry left, creating a gap near his center
- A wedge of Macedonian cavalry poured through the gap while the phalanx attacked frontally, both driving toward Darius
- Darius fled; the Persian army collapsed, though Persian and Indian troops briefly penetrated the Macedonian camp 1
Aftermath
- Mazaeus, who commanded the Persian right, surrendered Babylon to Alexander ~20 days after the battle and was appointed its satrap 1
- Alexander captured Susa and Persepolis (by January 330 BCE) @t[=330 BCE] 1
- Darius III fled to Ecbatana, then was murdered by his own satrap Bessus (330 BCE) @t[=330 BCE] 2
- Marked the end of the Achaemenid dynasty after ~220 years 3
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Badian, Ernst. "Gaugamela." Encyclopaedia Iranica Vol. X, Fasc. 3 (2000, updated 2015). https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/gaugamela/ — citing Sachs, A.J. and Hunger, H. Astronomical Diaries and Related Texts from Babylonia (Vienna, 1988), pp. 178–79 for the date; Arrian 3.12.5 for cavalry numbers; Diodorus 17.53.1 for sarissae; Bosworth, A.B. Conquest and Empire (Cambridge, 1988) pp. 76–85 ↩︎
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Arrian, Anabasis of Alexander 3.8–15 ↩︎
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Heckel, W. The Conquests of Alexander the Great (Cambridge, 2008) ↩︎