Alexander the Great had dealt the Achaemenid Empire a series of devastating defeats at the Granicus (334 BCE), Issus (333 BCE), and Gaugamela (331 BCE). He had also captured vast swathes of ...

Alexander was born in Pella ... His greatest victory was at the Battle of Gaugamela, in what is now northern Iraq, in 331 BC. The young king of Macedonia, leader of the Greeks, overlord of ...

He was now in rough and narrow terrain that favored Alexander. The result was a crushing defeat at Issus. The same mistake was not repeated two years later at Gaugamela (modern Iraq), but the ...