The Ancients - Alexander the Great's First Persian Victory

Episode Date: May 26, 2021

If there had been a different outcome to the Battle of Granicus, we might never have heard about Alexander the Great. Taking place in 334 BC, this was his first major victory against the Persian Empire. In this episode, Tristan is joined by Adrian Goldsworthy to discuss Alexander and his tactics right at the beginning of his campaign, before he had built up his formidable reputation. Adrian is a historian and novelist who specialises in Ancient Roman history.

Hi, I'm Tristan Hughes, and if you would like The Ancients ad-free, get early access and bonus episodes, sign up to History Hit. With a History Hit subscription, you can also watch hundreds of hours of original documentaries, including my recent documentary all about Petra and the Nabataeans, and enjoy a new release every week. Sign up now by visiting historyhit.com slash subscribe. by visiting historyhit.com slash subscribe. It's the Ancients on History Hit. I'm Tristan Hughes, your host, and in today's podcast,

well, it's a rough anniversary podcast because in late May 334 BC, Alexander the Great fought his first battle of his Persian campaign. This was the Battle of the River Granicus, fought in northwestern Anatolia, not too far away from the Hellespont, what we now know as the Dardanelles. Now joining me to talk through the battle narrative, we have got our Alexander the Great specialist. We've got the one, the only, Dr Adrian Goldsworthy back on the show. He's been on the podcast once before to talk about Philip and Alexander. So without further ado, here's Adrian. Adrian, it's brilliant to have you back on the podcast.

Well, thank you for having me again. Now, no problem whatsoever. We're talking about Alexander the Great once again, and we're focusing on the Battle of the River Granicus because yes okay although it doesn't have the titanic scale we sometimes associate with Alexander and his big clashes against like King Darius but this was a crucial clash right at the start of his campaign. Yes it's a battle that mattered because everything could go wrong he could lose it all in this one first throw of the dice and he can't win the war if he wins the battle, but he doesn't lose it and allows him to go to the next stage. It's in a sense almost, you know, Napoleon at Ligny and then Waterloo. He had to win each one. He wasn't going to win the war through that, but he could then go on to the next stage where he faces the next opponent. And eventually, if you keep winning every battle,

then you win the whole thing. And the other thing to remember, you know, Issus, Gaugamela, thing. And the other thing to remember, you know, Issus, Gaugamela, Hydaspes is a significantly smaller battle, but these are very, very rare events. Both Philip and Alexander spend most of their lives campaigning and a lot of that time fighting, but actually it's in smaller battles. And it's nearly always in the smaller battles. I mean, Granicus is quite large by that proportion, that they nearly die, that they get wounded, that Philip loses his eye at the siege of Mithone. With Alexander the same, we can't even locate the place in India where he's shot in the chest with an arrow. It's a tiny, tiny settlement. So you focus on the big things. But ancient warfare and the way the Macedonians fought it, there's a lot more going

on. And a lot of that is cumulatively as dangerous, if not more dangerous than the big famous events. So it's a good reminder as well, that their lives aren't defined by these big battles, that actually they do lots of other things as well, that are just as difficult, just as dangerous, but a bit smaller scale. Absolutely. Well, let's delve into the background, first of all, to this initial clash. So Adrian, the start of the spring in 334 BC, Alexander the Great, he's preparing to invade for his expedition to the Persian Empire. But what do we know about the makeup of his army right at the start? It's complicated, as is always the case with anything with Alexander, in that even sources

like Plutarch say, well, they were reading different versions. So you get estimates of around 30,000 infantry, 4,000 cavalry, up to 45,000 infantry, maybe 7,000 cavalry. Each source gives a slightly different version. They're all within that between about 30 to maximum 50,000, probably a bit less altogether. But then you have the problem that we know there'd been an advance guard of 10,000 sent to Asia Minor a couple of years before by Philip. And are they included? Are they separate? And once you look at the breakdown of the army, the Macedonian parts of it, you can get a pretty good estimate, although there are still problems and issues there. But everybody else, all the allies, all the mercenaries of whom, it's at least half,

often more of the army, as time goes on, it will be a bigger and bigger proportion. They're rarely described in any detail. So we don't know so much about them. And we don't get in the same way you could read an account of Rome's rise to power, Hannibal's war, and the Latin and Italian allies that are at least 50% of every Roman army barely get a mention. And yet they're there, they're suffering the casualties, they're doing the fighting, but they're not getting the headlines. So we're biased in terms of we can say more about the Macedonians. So it's easy to talk about them. And you could say, well, you know, the hardcore, the companion cavalry, probably about 1,800 of them. So that's not

a massive number of men. In about eight units of 200 with the royal unit, maybe bigger, maybe twice the size, but maybe they fight using the wedge, which is the sort of triangular formation with the leader at the front at the very tip of the spear in effect. Now, these are described by slightly later Hellenistic manuals, but only ever dealing with quite small numbers of riders. And sometimes people assume, well, all 200 men in this Ila, this squadron, are all in this great big triangle. Probably not. They're probably separate troops.

We know there are troops, sort of formations of about 50. It's probably at that level you form one of these wedges. And then you have wedges individually deployed, maybe in a line either side, maybe in some sort of column, maybe in some sort of echelon. There's probably a lot of subtlety in the cavalry tactics that we don't get. But it would make very little sense to have one man at the head of 200 and a very wide base of this formation. It wouldn't be very maneuverable. All the advantages, you can actually swing to either side quite easily. All of that goes if you make it too big. But oddly, people rarely ask these questions. So it's the same when you come on to the heavy infantry. You've got the phalanx made up

primarily of the eight units of the main pikemen, the regionally based units that are perhaps about 1,500 strong with about three sort of battalions of 500-ish. But there again, is that the size they are before they arrive in Asia Minor? And are there already some advance guard men from those units waiting? So are they really bigger? But those form up in individual units. The subunits of 500 or so are the tactical formation, not the whole thing. But again, it's easy to simplify. And many of the maneuvers that will occur in some of the battles only make sense if you're able to drill in these smaller blocks. So everything is a bit more spread out, a bit looser, a bit more clearly defined with some intervals between these units.

You've then got the hypaspis and there's probably the argument over how these are equipped and whether they're also pikemen or they're more like hoplite spearmen. We'll just go on because nobody tells us. I lean more towards the idea that probably most of the time spearmen rather than pikemen, but you can't prove it. So you've then got about 9,000, maybe 12,000 Macedonian heavy infantry. You've got units like the Prodomoi, the light cavalry, then Agrionians, the light infantry, all these others tackled that are very much the hard core of Philip and then

Alexander's army and have fought together for a long time. And Justin emphasizes, okay, he's a much later source, but that the army Alexander led into Asia Minor was very mature. You know, these were old men. These were men in their 40s. These were men who'd been campaigning for decades under the Phillips. So, you know, this image of these sort of angry middle-aged men going across to invade this country is not quite what we expect. And it's probably exaggerated, but on the other hand, a lot of them probably were these people who were tough as old boots because they'd survived everything that enemies and climate and disease could throw at them, and they were still going strong. So that Macedonian core of the army is there. You have the Thessalian cavalry who are

similar in their quality, if not even better than the Macedonian companions. So they don't seem to use the zeist on the long spear. They seem more inclined to use javelins that they throw and thrust shorter ones. But again, that's arguable. So they seem to sort of match the Macedonian companions. And in most of the battle deployments, they're on the left flank, the Macedonian companions are on the right flank, as will be the case at Granicus. But beyond that, you know, when you start to add up these totals, you've got to somewhere between a third and half the army. And there's all these others. There are certainly mercenary troops from the very start, and some of these are very experienced. And then there are all the allied contingents of nearly

every Greek city, other than the Spartans, as Alexander will keep reminding everyone, are taking part in this pan-Hellenic expedition to avenge the invasion of the fifth century. You know, you're seeking vengeance for something that's happened a century and a half before, but it's the cause and it's a good opportunity. It's something people have been talking about for ages. So there are lots of these other people there as well, most of whom don't play a big role at Granicus. Many of them are not present, but it's an allied army from the very start. Perhaps only a third are ethnically Macedonian, and that's a term that's expanded very broadly as Philip's

expanded the kingdom. And most of them are Greek at this stage, but there are also some Thracians and some Illyrians and tribesmen from the countries to the borders of Macedonia who seem to be fighting in their traditional way. And, you know, you have the bit where the Thracians make steps in a mountainside to help them get up. They come from this sort of environment they're used to operating in it. So it's a very mixed army. So it's a very mixed army. It's primarily Philip's army, and probably the least experienced bit of it, apart from some of the allies, is in some ways Alexander himself. Nearly everybody sits older and has done more than he's ever done. That's quite important for understanding the campaign.

I mean, absolutely. It's so interesting, Adrian, that, as you say, that many of these phalanx pikemen may have been middle-aged, hardened warriors, because you do hear later on in the sources like 30 years later of some of these veterans being in like their 60s and 70s and still fighting like being the most elite force in the known world i mean adrian this huge quite mixed army making its way towards persian territory anatolia and asia minor but to get to asia minor there's water you've got to cross what do we know about this crossing well it's fairly easy to get to Asia Minor, there's water you've got to cross. What do we

know about this crossing? Well, it's fairly easy to get to the Dardanelles. You can march through territory that is now dominated by you, is allied, they'll help feed you. You know the way as well. This is an area where under Philip, the army's campaigned a lot, so you know the routes. They then get to the Dardanelles and you're looking at the, well, the Turkish coastlines it would be now. And, you know, then you've got to look at pictures of the place or go there. It's not a wide waterway. The currents are very strong, but it's never wider than about two miles. And in most places it's one or a bit less. So it's not like crossing the English Channel for, say, the Romans to invade Britain

or anything like that. It's a much smaller thing. It's like a dirty Great River, but it is a very big dirty Great River. But Alexander has prepared for this. He's got 160 warships. He's got other transport ships. But it is one of those you're going to have to ferry the men across and do it gradually, and the supplies and the horses. You want particularly your cavalry horses to get there in good condition. And horses don't like going on and off boats. And this is not something on the whole that up until now the Macedonians have done a lot of. So it's not something that they're used to. So it has to be done. It takes a lot of organization. And Alexander puts Parmenio, Philip's sort of most reliable commander, in charge of this,

and then goes off to do a bit of tourism of his own. And it's not described in detail, but this is something that takes days, probably weeks, just ferrying people back and forth across the waterways and being careful. But they get there and it's not opposed by the Persians. In regards to that then, so they've got over to Asia Minor unopposed. So Alexander, it must take a long, long time to get all of these troops, the logistics across to the Persian side of the Hellespont, of the Dardanelles. But what does Alexander do straight away when he is on that side of the Hellespont? Well, you get the impression that he's almost sort of doesn't want to do the dull stuff, the administration of this thing. And it

is basically a big logistical organizational task. And the reason they're not opposed at sea is that ancient fleets don't work that way. You can't sit your Persian fleet in the waterway waiting for the Macedonian ships to come out. And you don't want to attack them on their shore because they've got this big army and you won't have enough people. So because ancient warships, you've got a really large crew, not much storage space, you can't stay at sea for a long time. You can't hold, I mean, it's very hard stop them from landing would have been to control the shoreline. They don't have the soldiers to do that. They're not sure. This is, you've got to remember, Parmenio has returned to Macedonia after leading the initial campaign. They've lost a lot of ground, but they've kept a little enclave. They've kept the coastline on the far shore as a sort of beachhead. And if the Persians haven't

got that, there's not a lot they can do to stop you. So Alexander isn't worried. He basically leaves Parmenio to do the dull stuff, get them across. He then goes down to the southernmost part of the peninsula and begins this sort of nostalgic pilgrimage almost to the sites associated with the Trojan War. And, you know, of course, the Iliad is this profound text for any Greek. It's particularly relevant for Alexander, who claims to be a descendant of Achilles and sleeps with a copy of the Iliad annotated by Aristotle underneath his pillow, all this sort of thing. But for everybody, you know, hoplites and warriors in Macedonian army

who fight in a very different way to Homeric heroes still feel inspired by this. It really means something. It's in an odd sort of way, the parallel isn't exact, but it's the closest the Greeks have to a sort of biblical text, a sense of authority. If you can cite something from Homer, whether it's to do with owning some land or alliance with a particular state or enmity towards someone else, it gives it an authority that nothing else can. So he goes down to begin this sort of sense of, well, I'm repeating the Greek expedition to Asia. But it's done quite subtly. He visits the tomb of the first Greek to be killed, according to Homer, the man who sort of plunges ahead of everybody else up the beach and gets shot by a javelin straight away and dies, and then his body taken back and buried on the other side. And a temple, a shrine set up there, which Xerxes, during his invasion, will plunder and burn. There are other temples to Zeus, to

Athena, to Heracles there, and he sacrifices at all of these. Again, it's showing respect, particularly because there's this parallel with Xerxes who'd bridged the Hellespont, but when a storm destroys the bridge and he has the sea whipped and shackles thrown in to bind the waves, bind Poseidon himself for doing this terrible thing against the King of Kings. So Alexander is showing respect, but it's also, you feel there's a personal element of this is exciting. I mean, he's only in his early 20s, and so are most of his immediate companions. There are older men as well, but there's a personal element of this is exciting. I mean, he's only in his early 20s. And so are most of his immediate companions. There are older men as well. But there's a sense of these sort of youngsters going, being tourists, basically, or doing

a pilgrimage, because it's a bit more than that. It's more like the sense of visiting sites associated with saints, with miracles. It's mysterious, mystical, almost magical past that you want to invoke. So he sails across and he takes the tiller of the warship he sails in, just like Odysseus would do in the Odyssey or the Iliad. He's doing the right thing. Halfway across, they sacrifice a bull to Poseidon. They pour a libation, pour wine over the side of the ship to the sea nymphs as well. One one of those Thetis was Achilles' mother. So you're doing this at every stage. It's very carefully orchestrated, perhaps partly a personal thing, but it's also like a public relations event for a modern politician. There

isn't the photo opportunity, but people will tell this story. When you land, there are more sacrifices to the same gods. And then almost immediately, it's going to the site of Troy, which probably wasn't Troy, but it's where everybody at the time. And again, it's rather like sites that will build up in medieval cathedrals and monasteries around a saint. In the end, the truth doesn't really matter. It becomes important because it's associated. This is so, you know, again, part of you, this is PR, but it's also how could he possibly resist this? You know know this fellow who's grown up obsessed with Achilles and the Iliad and you're there on the doorstep for the

first time and only time in your life you've got to visit it so they make a big deal of it it's probably embellished later on and he's supposed to go to the tomb of Achilles well again what tomb it was they were showing him he goes to a temple of Athena where they have a panoply supposed to be Achilles so some very old armor and shield. And he replaces these with some of his own and has them carried. The shield may be the one that covers him in India when he's badly wounded. It's carried beside him at every battle by a shield bearer. And then he and his young companions strip off and they compete in races.

There's a later tradition that has Hephaestion sacrificing at the tomb of Patroclus. You know, this idea. It's very hard to know what to make of that. Hephaestion is one of those characters who is clearly very important to Alexander, and only that explains this incredible mourning process and these, you know, spectacular monuments he once built to him when Hephaestion drinks himself to death later on, not long before Alexander. The strange thing is, the paradox of it all is, is that he's rarely mentioned in the sources. And most of the celebration of he and Alexander as sort of twin heroes of this cult comes later, comes much later. So it's very hard, like a lot of these shadowy figures that are clearly hugely influential and individual, we don't really know the man. And we don't know how much of this is later invention. Because again, who could resist? This is the descendant of Achilles

and the man who's going to be the greatest conqueror of the ancient world at Troy. So, you know, as a story, how can you resist this? So it's bound to be increased, embellished, and just grow in each telling. It is so interesting, actually, when you do think of that, when you think of the sources that we have surviving, perhaps I'm going to say the word, the name Ptolemy there. But like, and it's so interesting, actually, when you do think of that, when you think of the sources that we have surviving, perhaps I'm going to say the word, the name Ptolemy there. But like, and it's so interesting that these figures surrounding Alexander, what is true and what is not. Adrian, it sounds like you mentioned it, a mix between a PR stunt and tourists visiting an incredible site. But in the meantime, this is just one side, because as this is all going on, as the Macedonians are arriving in Asia Minor, what are the Persians doing?

How do they respond to this new threat on their doorstep? The key fact, the key truth, really, about the Persian Empire is that it's huge and it holds together very well. It's very efficient, but it's the distances involved for information to travel to get to the great king. And then for the great king to send out orders for armies to be gathered. There is a very good reason why it's not until Issus over a year later that Alexander will confront Darius and the main Persian army, because it simply cannot be readied in time. And you couldn't, even though you've known the Macedonians might be coming and Philip has sent this advance guard for a long time, bear in mind the precedence for Greek expeditions by mercenaries, by Spartan kings, by others in the last century or so, is that they go to Asia Minor, they cause trouble for a few years, they plunder as much as they can, and then they go home.

And we forget that because we know what Alexander's going to do. But the initial reaction would be, oh no no, not another Greeks. But this is basically a barbarian raid, as far as you're concerned. The head of the civilized world, this far more sophisticated kingdom. You cannot possibly imagine that a few years later, you're going to be dead and Alexander's going to be king of your empire. It's inconceivable. Nothing like that has ever happened before.

So you're not expecting it to be too big. And generally, the Persian idea is that the local satraps, the people controlling the regions nearest, will at least start to deal with any problem. And if they then can't deal with it, well, we've got time. We'll build a bigger army. We'll put it together. And we'll lumber up and we'll destroy them because we are stronger than they are. We should be able to do this. So yes, Darius is too far away, essentially, too far away from the news to play a key role in the early stages. He has to act through representatives. The most significant, the man who seems to be in charge, the chap called Arcetes, who's the satrap of the very region where the Greeks of London, the Greeks of Macedonians.

But there are other satraps from Cilicia, from Lydia, and lots of noblemen all gather together. There are a dozen or so key, important people at court, people with connections, as well as those with formal power as satraps. And there is no simple hierarchy within the Persian Empire. The Achaemenids don't want to have a situation where you appoint somebody else who's in charge of this wider region, because you've got to be careful. You're the great king. You don't want any rivals. There's been a rebellion of satraps before, and in this very area, and some of them have fled notably to Philip's court in the past. You've got to be careful. You can't give too much power and authority to anybody

at a distance where you can't keep a close eye on him. So that slows things down. But on the other hand, they have time to write. They're gathering the local forces. So what you have in this first campaign is what could be there from early on. Now, there are some troops from the opposite end of the empire, from what's now Afghanistan, pretty much, and southern Uzbekistan, places like Bactria, Sogdiana, places like this, Hykanians from a bit further to the west, but still a long way away from this area. So there are some contingents that clearly have been sent for some reason and at some stage to this western fringe of the empire. We can't

really follow the process and know some of these might be the troops that normally attend these satraps. They could be there anyway. Others might have been sent there because you've had problems, because you've had the satrap rebellion a few years back now, because you've known that Philip has already landed, so you've been starting to reinforce. When Philip landed, there were about 5,000 Greek mercenaries in Persian service ready to face the Macedonians. Arian tells us there are 20,000 of these men at Granicus. Now, some scholars have said, oh, no, that can't be right. It just doesn't mean 5,000.

On the other hand, it's perfectly reasonable that when you know there's a threat, you send more troops, and by this time, they've arrived. So there's been some buildup, but this is not the mass might of the entire Persian empire. They're not ready for that yet. They can't do that that quickly. But it's still a substantial force for what, again, is thought of as something that will probably peter out. And that we know Alexander the Great is this incredible leader who's going to win all these battles and kill all these people. But his opponents don't. He's just some Macedonian king. Philip was dangerous. This is some kid. Why should we worry about him? Well, and with that mindset, you mentioned there how there were lots of mercenaries in the Persian army at that time in Western Asia Minor.

Because among these prominent figures who are considering how to respond to this new threat, this kid, there is also this extraordinary mercenary commander who does play a prominent role in the run-up, in the decision-making. Yes, you've got Memnon of Rhodes, a Greek from the island of Rhodes, but he and his older brother, now dead, have been in Persian service for some time. And this was very common. Again, it was apart from the instability of Greek states, that means they're nearly always having, they're exiling people, they're having power struggles, or they're fighting each other so your city gets destroyed. A lot of people end up drifting off looking for work, and the easiest work for a Greek man to get is fighting. So they serve as mercenaries. Some of them serve as mercenary leaders. And because

groups like the 10,000 of Greek mercenaries have proved so effective in battle, buying Greek is perceived to be a good thing, in the same way it used to be buying Scythian or buying Thracian or hiring these groups. You get these particular groups who are seen as good value for money when it comes to mercenary service and reasonably loyal by mercenary standards. Now, Memnon is someone who a few years before had been involved in the Satrap's rebellion in Ionia, and was one of those who went as an exile to Philip's court. So he's fought against the Persian king, but his brother mentor remained loyal. He was the man who helped the Persians suppress the rebellion in Egypt against their rule there, and seems to have had enough clout to persuade the king to recall Memnon, who's married into the Persian aristocracy, who has estates in Asia Minor.

So, you know, they're starting to work their way up the Achaemenid system. There are probably limits as to how far they can go, but nevertheless, he's definitely a Persian. However, in the sources, you get the Greek perspective, which is, well, he's a Greek, so he must be smarter than all these Persian barbarians. So he gets to have the best ideas, and then he's then not allowed to do them because the Persians are too stupid or too arrogant to listen. And he's also, there's the depiction of him and some other Greek mercenary leaders or exiled leaders who turned up that the Persians don't trust them, because after all, wouldn't they really be fighting for their kindred? So it's a little hard to get to the truth of Memnon. He's credited in the sources with saying, right, the Macedonians have invaded, they've got this

ferocious army, let's just not fight them. Let's trample down or burn all the growing corn before it ripens, all the grain, all the wheat, all the barley. Starve them. Starve their horses. Let's burn down the settlements and their path. Let them have nothing, and let them sort of wither on the vine without fighting them. And he also is supposedly saying that, well, let's start raiding Greece. Let's threaten them back home. Let's draw them back. It's difficult to know how much of this he actually said at the time, particularly the idea of let's go and attack Greece, because it's not clear they have the capacity at this stage to do that. They might in a few months' time, and they would in a few months' time, but early on, perhaps not. The reaction is a fairly understandable one,

particularly from Arcites, the man who is the satrap of the region invaded and who's basically been told, well, let's just burn all your settlements, all the crops, starve your own population because it'll also starve the enemy. They won't mind. They're good, loyal Persians. And anyway, who cares what a peasant thinks? There's also the element of sheer prestige. Honor counts for a lot in the ancient world. We see it very clearly in Greek and Macedonian society, but it's there in most others. And the perception that someone can just turn up and make you run away is seen as humiliating. And it's also in a practical sense, the early stages of a campaign help to influence how keen your soldiers are going to be. If they think they're going to win, they will fight better. If they think they're going to lose, they'll fight badly. So the reaction of all the other Persians it's predicted is, no, we can't just let these people go wherever they want and try and starve them. That's too slow.

We have to make a show of confronting them. We have to make their life difficult. So we have to be more aggressive. And that's the strategy they adopt. What caused the anarchy? How did medieval migrants shape the language I'm speaking right now? Who won the Hundred Years' War? Could England's lost patron saint be buried under a tennis court in Suffolk? How did England's last medieval king end up under a car park? And were the Dark Ages really all that dark? I'm Dr Kat Jarman. And I'm Matt Lewis. On Gone Medieval, we'll uncover the most exciting and unexpected stories about the Middle Ages,

hearing from the best and brightest minds. We will disentangle fact from fiction, bring you the latest discoveries, and reveal how the so-called Dark Ages laid the foundations for much of the world we're living in today. Subscribe to Gone Medieval from History Hit wherever you get your podcasts. And so this leads them to employ their army on the bank of this river. Yes, it's not a major waterway. You know, this is a river that flows northwards towards the sea from the mountains. There's a fairly well-established trade and communications route that uses it that forwards the river. There doesn't seem to be a bridge at this stage. That comes later. The line of the

river itself is a bit hard to tell because centuries of irrigation, of trying to stop controlled flooding, this sort of thing, has probably shifted a little bit. But essentially, it's a clear market. This is something you'll see a lot in the ancient world, and it features in many of Philip's and then Alexander's campaigns, that people take up positions somewhere they think is strong, and it's somewhere that is a clear, visible marker in the ground. So a river is an obvious one, but sometimes a mountain pass, or a range of hills, anything like that. But rivers particularly, people will often form up their armies when the Macedonians arrive the other side. Now, in this case, the Persians are moving towards Alexander. And as it happens, Alexander has taken less than half of his army and is moving towards them along this main, most obvious route. this main, most obvious route. They're presumably both dimly aware of the others there, but it's, you know, you shouldn't expect ancient armies to have high levels of intelligence. They are,

to some extent, feeling around until their scouts can spot someone. They're relying on what they hear, what rumors they hear, and then try to work out what's true. So it's, the Persians move up and they settle. They probably haven't been there very long when Alexander arrives, perhaps a day or so, perhaps even less. It's very striking that their infantry are some way behind and don't really get involved until the battle, until after it's been decided. They're sitting up on high ground. And part of you have to wonder, do they only get there while all this is going on? Are they actually marching to this position? There is no suggestion. It doesn't seem to be that this is, you know, Darius later will carefully prepare his position at Isis behind an even smaller stream there and will partly fortify this sort of thing.

That's not the case at Granicus. They've moved to this obvious sort of boundary point where it's almost like saying, you know, step over that line and you'll, you know, you're for it sort of thing. It's a challenge as much as anything. And I think that's the secret to the battle is that they're not really planning to fight a battle. And with Alexander, it's more an opportunity rather than a clear plan. And so with Alexander, it seems like he wants the battle when he gets there, he gets to this river. And we were talking about divisions in command or supposed divisions in command earlier among the Persians. But among the Macedonians too, there seems to be this famous story of a divide in how they should approach this battle.

Yes, I mean, there's an element where when they've arrived, they've got a month's worth of supplies. And until they expand the territory and they can start to get some from locals without alienating all those locals, because there's only so far you can go by plundering and letting the locals starve if you want them to stay loyal and not rebel as soon as you move on, then Alexander has to act. He can't allow weeks to pass with nothing happening. The other thing is, again, it's a statement of intent but confidence. So there's a lot of, just as the Persians cannot allow Alexander's invasion to go unanswered, they've got to glow and show we're brave, we're not frightened of you. Alexander has to do the same. He can't seem nervous. So he marches towards them.

And when he sees a Persian army, he sees an opportunity for an early victory. Beat them now. And then my men will know that they're better than the Persians. And the Persians will know that we're better than they are. So it's morale-wise. You find this throughout ancient literature. There's a sense that even the skirmishes, the single combats that occur before a battle start to allow you to gauge how well it's going to go, how good the armies are. Now, this is the first occasion where you have Alexander

comes up to the river, sees the Persian army, the massed cavalry the other side, and says he wants to attack. And Parmenio, you know, the veteran commander, Philip said the best commander he ever found, the only sort of really reliable subordinate says, let's wait until tomorrow. We've already marched 10 miles, maybe more today. That's quite a long distance, even for a Macedonian strike force, which this is. This is the pick of the army. All the slower moving elements, most of the allies, they've all been left behind. This is moving light with not much baggage. And that's what, again, Philip has done done a lot Alexander will do a lot in his campaigns Parmenio says we'll wait till tomorrow do it then everybody will be fresh and Alexander's comment is

that I'd be ashamed you know if in having crossed the Hellespont having crossed the Dardanelles and if I'm put off and I'm frightened of this tiny stream. Now, it's a pattern. You get these Parmenio says something, Alexander does the opposite, Alexander's right stories at several occasions. And it's a useful foil. It fits the sort of image of Alexander the cool kid, the youngster who knows better than everyone, who can ignore experience

because he's just so good at everything that it's just going to work. Interestingly, there's one case a bit later on in the Siege of Tyre where Parmenio wants to go and fight a sea battle, and Alexander actually says, no, we haven't got the strength to do it. There's one where it's the other way around, but in every other case, it's Parmenio is the voice of caution. Alexander is that, no, forget it. Let's just go for them. And of course, this is what he does. So whether this was true, I mean, you can see a clear point of view from Parmenio. You know, this is reasonably sensible.

But you can also see Alexander's point of view. Well, if I wait, they might not be there in the morning. And I'd like a battle. There is a tradition that comes through Diodorus that actually he did stop. And they do camp. And then they sneak across the river downstream somewhere and fight the battle the next day, which is oddly what Parmenio seems to be suggesting. But it's only that one source. It seems out of, I suspect it's Garble. The other, the tradition

that he just goes bald-headed at it makes more sense. Because for me, the fundamental thing is that I don't think the Persians thought, ever dreamed Alexander would do this. So they are not really ready for battle. They are making a display of force. They're saying, we're not frightened of you. Come on if you think you're hard enough sort of thing, but we don't actually expect you to do it. Not yet. You'll have a look at us. Armies often spend days, even weeks, staring at each other from a few miles apart before they decide on a battle. Philip had done that before Chaeronea, the big battle against Athens and Thebes and their allies. They'd wait several weeks before

they actually fight. And usually any sort of obstacle, like a river, like a slope, will make people think twice. But there's almost an element with Alexander where if the enemy think they're safe, they think they've got an advantage. I don't care. They're wrong. And I'm going to show them they're wrong. And when I beat them, they'll have to deal with the fact, well, we had everything in our favor and we still lost. So there is a psychological element to this as well. It seems very much doing the unpredictable, ignoring the advice and all that. I mean, Adrian, you mentioned how Alexander initiates the battle. Talk me through these opening stages. How does he ignite this first clash with the Persians?

Well, it's interesting because he essentially he deploys his army. His army's come up in a march column. When he sees them, he wheels it all to the right. And this is usually the pattern of ancient warfare. And it probably comes back to if you turn to the right, then your shielded side is facing the enemy. So even if the enemy's a mile or so away across the river, you still do that. And that's the natural way. And it fed through into 18th and early 19th century drill. Nearly everything is done by the right and you deploy that way. So you're deploying with your vanguard getting into position soonest. There seems to be time, and you've probably got to think an hour or so at least, if not more, for the whole army to

deploy looking across the river. The Persians even at this stage may well have thought, well, they're just showing off the same way we're showing off. One significant thing in the accounts is that all the Persian leaders seem to have concentrated. They're not with their separate contingents ready to lead them. So it's almost as if they're having a council of war, sort of an O-group equivalent, if you want to be modern about it, looking and thinking and wondering, well, what's going to happen? And the Macedonians have come quite a long way. So this is not early in the day. There aren't that many hours of light left. Stopping camping would be the logical thing. But Alexander isn't going to do this. And once he's got everybody into position,

he forms a sort of advance guard, really, to send at the enemy and almost see what the enemy does. And it's one squadron of companion cavalry. It's your light cavalry or paeonians and some of your light infantry. And you send them down into the Granicus, which is probably, it's broader than it is now because it hasn't been banked up so carefully to control it. It's somewhere where there are places where people can get across. It isn't that deep. It can certainly be forded in many places by men on foot. And for horses, it doesn't look as if they're having to swim across so much to sort of make their way, at least in some sections of it. But it does seem to have, although it's got sort of gravel ramps that help lead up to the other side, a lot of this is clay. Now, clay with water and then lots of horses and horses' hooves, this is going to churn.

You know, just look at the patch by a gate of a farmer's field that the cattle have come through, how quickly that goes in. And that will happen on the bank, the other side as the fighting spreads there. But this sort of spearhead of the army goes across. The Persians are probably surprised. But again, is this just Alexander skirmishing? Ancient armies do this. They'll send little forces out. It doesn't yet mean battle. But if we're not going to look weak, we've got to answer. So troops come down. Again, the biggest mistake, the thing that baffles me every time I read many accounts of Granicus is that we have, depending on your estimate, between 10,000 and 20,000 Persian cavalry. big block or these contingents of several thousand sitting on the riverbank waiting for the Macedonians to come at them. Instead, they're broken up into their individual units, spread over a wide plain, some of them near the river, but some of them further back, because you just don't use cavalry as a big mob. Otherwise, it's stampedes. It's fine for movies, but it doesn't work in

reality. This is a very dumb way of doing things, and there's no reason to think the Persians are that stupid. So some of their squadrons come forward to meet Alexander's men. They have the advantage. Some of them are throwing javelins from the bank. That little bit of height gives them an advantage. Some of them charge in. They also, it looks as if people come round on either flank of this advance guard. So some of the Persians are coming down into the river and the riverbed, and they're attacking them. The Macedonian attack, first of all, halts and then starts to, though they fight hard, starts to withdraw. 25 men out of the leading squadron of companions are killed. That's the highest casualty rate for any unit in this battle, of any of Alexander's units. So, you know, this is quite some tough

fighting that goes on for a little while. But while they're doing this, Alexander commits to the mass attack. The rest of the army starts to make its way across. Because what he's done is he's drawn the Persians in. The Persians have reacted. They've responded. They've committed reserves and troops in. Drawing more of them in, it becomes harder and harder for the Persians to control what they're doing. And this is, you really don't want to, the ideal place for a cavalry army like this to defend a river line is some way back. So you wait for the others to come across in disorder, then you hit them. But because they've seen this easy victory over an advance guard, too many of them have been sucked forward.

There are still reserves, but it's getting harder and harder to see what's going on, to control what's happening. Alexander takes the remaining seven squadrons of companions and leads them to the right, which is against the current of the water. So they probably are swimming at some stage in some of this and forcing their way through. As he uses them, he deploys them into a line of squadrons, and then they head towards the back. Now, the Persians have seen him from the start.

Alexander is conspicuous. He's got this very ornate armor, this highly plumed helmet. And there were no doubt, you know, probably people like Memnon who'd met him, even Zatino, because they look, that's Alexander, and that's Parmenio. And you know, I know these people. So the Persians have been concentrating when they've seen Alexander at that point. And they do react to this, they try and move people, but probably they're less prepared to meet more and more Macedonians coming up at this end of the river, finding their way, they're looking at anywhere at the bank, there are some Persians fighting from the top. There are some in the river. But a horse isn't a static piece of equipment. It doesn't work well. And standing

on top of a riverbank, yes, it gives you a height advantage. But anybody who rides will tell you how much a horse will just surge up any sort of slope, if it can. There's that sense of power. It's almost like that incredible surge you get when they jump. But they like to go up. They don't like going down. It's a body weight thing. It's the way the muscles work. So it's actually easier to push up from the riverbed, go up these little banks, and even yes, it's being muddy, it's churning up, fight your way up. The Macedonians have the advantage as well. They've got longer spears and they are more accustomed. Their whole culture is fighting hand to hand and close up, face to face. The Persians will do that sometimes, but they're also very good horsemen who like to get close, throw, withdraw. So they do things in a different way. Their spears are short. There's a

sheer shock in that a couple of hours ago, you didn't think this was going to be happening. You know, no sane person would launch an army across even a small obstacle like the River Granicus. It's late in the day. Who's going to fight a battle now? And again, remind ourselves, they don't think Alexander the Great is this great hero and this great conqueror. He's just some barbarian who's turned up with delusions of grandeur. So they're fighting, but Alexander's men more and more force their way up. They start pushing forward. And it's a confused combat. It's no wonder the descriptions are confusing. Cavalry combats tend to be because people go back and forth. They charge, the formation scatters, you get blown, somebody else reserves comes up, they chase you back the other way and back and

forth. And again, we've got to drop down to not an ILA of 200 or so, but individual troops to start off with a 50 or so, breaking down into whoever you could gather together, whoever saw a leader and gathered together and followed them. So that all of this would be going on. It's very confusing. And you also see that first trend that will follow through the battle accounts. It begins particularly with people like Arian, who are drawing on sources like Ptolemy and others who were there.

Very neat. This is how our army deployed. This is where the various contingents are. This is the basic tactics. Lloyd, this is where the various contingents are. This is the basic tactics. It then moves to, this is the flank where Alexander is, and then tends to go even further, particularly at the ground and goes to, this is Alexander and what's happening immediately around him. And bear in mind, when he's doing this, he can exercise no more command role really than say a platoon commander now. It's that sort of level he's down to because he's busy fighting for his life and he can only

see so much. So do we know therefore, Adrian, whilst he's on this flank, I mean, do we know what's happening elsewhere on the line? Do we know, let's say, the commanders of the infantry battalions of Craterus, Perdiccas, Palmenion and that like? We have no idea what they're doing at this time because the accounts are so focused in on Alexander himself. It's always the problem. We get sucked in and we sometimes forget. The Macedonian army does so well. Yes, Alexander's a very able leader, very clever tactician, but it's a really good army. This is a very polished team that's been fighting together for a long time. That's extremely well led. And it's the leaders who tend to suffer casualties. You know, they do because they're leading from the front. They are as bold as Alexander in many ways. But it's also an essential truth.

Alexander, even like Philip before him, can afford to lead in this heroic style because he trusts everybody at every level down the command structure to do their job. You know, and if there's a problem, we don't hear of anything. We don't know what. How many of the Thessalians are fighting down the other flank? Presumably much the same way. We don't hear about them. Altogether, it's supposed to be that 60 cavalrymen and about 30 infantry are killed, a lot more wounded. Ratio of kill to wounded is always very, very high

in all the Macedonian battles where we have figures for it. And it looks as if with the weapons you're facing and the armor you're wearing, your chances of being killed are actually quite low, but you will take a lot of minor wounds, which you'll probably survive, but maybe not with infection and all these risks. So there's a lot of fighting going on about which we don't know much. There's later on, there's the battle when the mercenaries destroyed later. So some of the casualties happen then, but it's the problem of the sources. And it's the case with all of the battles that it just moves narrower and narrower until often it's just Alexander. and particularly at Granicus, where you have these dramatic accounts of a group of Persian noblemen spot Alexander,

see him in this confusion, and head towards him in a way that, again, it fits the Iliad perfectly, but it's like a lot of descriptors you'll get in medieval battles. You're singling somebody out, you know they matter. And they're right, because if they kill Alexander, there's no obvious heir to the Macedonian throne. What's going to happen? This invasion is probably not going to continue. So it makes perfect sense. And they charge in. Alexander, of course, meets the charges at them, kills the leader, drives a spear through him, calls for another spear from his groom who says, sorry, I'm busy. I've got problems of my own. Somebody else, a Greek, Demades, gives it to him. He then kills another man, at which point one of the noblemen

is behind him, cuts at his head. Depending on the description, one claims it breaks the helmet, which seems unlikely, but it might well have sheared off one of the plumes. It could certainly concuss him. It could certainly twist the helmet. There's an element we can't really see. And it's only Clitus the Black, the brother of his wet nurse and one of Philip's reliable old men who sort of keep an eye on my son sort of thing, does the job, slices the arm off the Persian leader before he can strike again. Otherwise, again, this whole story, well, they probably wouldn't be telling it, but would have ended very early with a dead or crippled Alexander. There is a risk factor in everything Alexander does. It's a bit like a medieval king fighting. The risk factor isn't as high as someone, even on, say, a Napoleonic or an American Civil War battlefield, where you can start to be singled

out by snipers. There's much less risk of that. The mortality rate amongst generals is lower, There's much less risk of that. The mortality rate amongst generals is lower, but it's still there. And again, an inch or so either way with a blow, a bit more force, a couple of fractions of a second later for a blow or earlier, all of these things could be very different. Absolutely, Adrian. And that is an incredible story with Placidus the Black and the chopping the arm off of this Persian noble. But does it also seem to suggest that with all these Persian nobles in this area, these prominent figures who seem to lose their lives in the conflict in this big melee, what happens afterwards? Does the Persian force start to melt away?

We don't see a Persian field army for a while after this and all the cavalry. And it's because many people would have been from the personal household of various noblemen. There's also, they've got the same problem Alexander's got, which is a big army, particularly lots of cavalry. How do you feed it? How do you keep the horse?

So they can't afford to concentrate. You've lost this battle. You've suffered serious casualties. Your infantry has been destroyed or dispersed. The Alexander only accepts 2,000 prisoners from the Greek mercenaries who are fighting there, who are then sent off, condemned to work in the mines, although some later on will be pardoned. And it's depending on, you either see it as this appalling object lesson to say to look, any Greek, you're on the wrong side. This is what's going to happen to you. In which case it backfires because mercenaries

will keep fighting because they think, well, I can't surrender. So, or it might be, you know, some would say it's just Alexander's rage. It's just annoying to see them there. And this is somebody fighting his first big battle when he's in sole charge. And who's been in the thick of it, who's nearly died and who might be concussed. So who knows what he's really thinking in this stage of the battle. But your infantry element has been destroyed or dispersed. Probably far more of them ran away and kept running than actually get killed. But nevertheless, significant amount die. Memnon is one of the survivors, Memnon of Rhodes. And there are at least some mercenaries still with him. And Darius will give him more

and will give him ships. And this is when, in the aftermath, several months later, they begin this campaign to take out Alexander's Greek allies. And they start with the Greek islands. So Memnon will fight. And then a year later, 333, after capturing Mytilene on Lesbos, he'll die of disease. And to some extent, right about the same time, Darius will call back many of the mercenaries that joined his army. It is as it takes the force out of this campaign. You could look at it and say, well, yeah, you shouldn't fight Alexander head on. So an indirect approach, marvelous.

That's how to beat him. On the other hand, it's very hard to see that they could have done enough damage. So you would still have Alexander and his army there in the Persian Empire, and they're not going to give in. By this time, they're able to live off the land. They're not reliant on supplies from Greece in the same way. So I think perhaps it's exaggerated. I think in the end, if you couldn't beat Alexander, or at least hold him to a draw, slow him down, take the momentum away,

then he's going to win, because he will keep coming at you. And losing allies is embarrassing, but it's not catastrophic. But nevertheless, Memnon will do this. And he has more success than almost any other Persian leader at the start of the war. I mean, so Adrian, if there is still Persian resistance in Asia Minor following the Battle of the River Granicus, you mentioned Memnon there has survived, at least in the immediate aftermath of the battle. So what really is the true significance of the Battle of the River Granicus for Alexander, for his army and for his campaigns? It's a victory. That's the most important thing.

The campaign's only just started within less than a month. You've beaten the biggest Persian army they can gather. And you've routed it. You know, this wasn't a hard fought thing. I mean, it's hard fought, but it wasn't close. You won.

You're still alive. You've proved to the army that they don't need Philip to win. You know, your father's dead. You've done okay in Greece, but they're still very much Philip's men. And there is a gradual process over these next few years of it becoming more Alexander's army. And that's partly because as there are casualties or as he can appoint his

own people, but also just to the soldiers, they can look and think, yeah, we're going to win. With Alexander there, to the point where it becomes they are absolutely convinced and they will keep fighting in very desperate situations because we're bound to win in the end because we're the Macedonians and we're led by Alexander. So Alexander could have lost the war, the Granikas, if he'd died or if he'd even been defeated or just fought to a draw. You know, it's hard. The momentum would go. He needs momentum. He's got to grab land and resources to feed his army because he can't rely on a supply

line across the Dardanelles and stuff coming, being transported from Greece to, you know, simply not practical. So he needs that. And most ancient communities are not particularly strongly committed to either side in that there have been rebellions in this area against Persian rule before. And there is a sort of tacit understanding, even by Darius and the Persian kings and elsewhere, that if this big army turns up on your doorstep and you don't have many soldiers and you don't have very strong walls, giving in for the moment is okay. There's

a pragmatic acceptance that a lot of people, if you're strong, now it's useful with some of the cities on the coast that will resist. And then later on, you get the big cities like Tyre and Gaza, where you have these big sieges. But what happens after this is that there's no more big battles. But Alexander's army splits up into several columns, starts to spread around. Places like Ephesus that had joined Philip when Philip's advance guard was there, and then rebelled against that Macedonian rule since then, now suddenly say, yes, we were friends all the time. And nobody really holds it against them, as long as they give Alexander the food he wants, the money he wants to pay his men. So again, you can buy freedom. And it's also made very clear if you do try and

resist, then you're asking for it and you will suffer if we can be bothered to take you. But it's again, it's part of the sort of the focus on Alexander. This factor also occurs strategically in that as Alexander moves on, the sort of the camera lens, as you could almost call it, of the author's attention follows him. So for instance, Antigonus Gonatus, who will be very important, Antigonus the One-Eyed, served with distinction under Philip, will be one of the important successors in the wars after Alexander, is left in Asia Minor and given command. Plutarch happens to tell us he fought three battles and won these victories. In the main Alexander sources, this is not mentioned at all. You know,

this bloke simply, he barely appears at the start. He then disappears for a decade or more. And suddenly under the successors, this man's important with a big army. And there are lots of people like that. And there's lots more going on that we don't hear about because it's not the best part of the story. And it is complicated. There are lots of little things. Adrian, the story of Antigonus the One-Eyed would be worthy of a podcast in its own right, especially his time in Asia Minor. But we've got to wrap it up there. This has been an incredible chat on the Battle of the River Granicus and its significance. But lastly, your book on this huge topic, Adrian, it is called? Philipip and alexander absolutely philip and

alexander adrian thank you so much for taking the time to come on the podcast thanks for having me Thank you.