Alexander of Macedon — The Anabasis of Alexander
Arrian’s Anabasis of Alexander — the most reliable ancient account of Alexander’s conquests from Macedon to India, in E.J. Chinnock’s classic translation.
Short on Time?
From Macedon to the Ends of the Earth
The Young King Crosses to Asia
Philip is dead, and the twenty-year-old Alexander must hold an empire that expects him to fail. He storms across the Danube, razes rebellious Thebes as a warning to Greece, then crosses the Hellespont and shatters the Persian satraps' army at the river Granicus — the first blow against the empire of Darius.
Issus and the Siege of Tyre
Darius himself takes the field with a vast host, and on the narrow plain of Issus the two kings meet for the first time — Darius flees, abandoning his own family. Then Alexander turns to island Tyre, which no one has ever taken, and spends seven brutal months building a causeway through the sea.
Gaugamela and the Fall of Darius
Egypt welcomes Alexander as a liberator and the oracle of Ammon hails him as son of Zeus. At Gaugamela, Darius stakes everything on scythed chariots and numbers — and loses everything. Babylon and Persepolis open their gates, and Darius dies in the dust, betrayed by his own satrap Bessus.
The Hard Years in Bactria
The war turns ugly in the mountains of Bactria and Sogdia — guerrilla revolts, the freezing Hindu Kush, and victories that stain the victor. Alexander kills his friend Cleitus in a drunken rage, demands Persian prostration from Macedonians, and takes the 'unclimbable' Rock of Aornos on his way to India.
Porus and the Battle of the Hydaspes
In the Punjab monsoon, Alexander crosses the flooding Hydaspes by night to face King Porus and his two hundred war elephants. Porus, defeated but unbowed, asks only to be treated 'like a king' — and keeps his kingdom. At the river Hyphasis, the army that conquered the world refuses to take one more step east.
Down the Indus, Through the Desert
A fleet of nearly two thousand ships carries the army down the Indus to the ocean. Storming a Mallian town, Alexander leaps alone inside the walls and takes an arrow through the chest — and lives. Then comes the worst enemy of all: the waterless Gedrosian desert, which kills more of his men than any battle.
The Last Year in Babylon
The conqueror turns to rule: the mass weddings at Susa, the mutiny and tearful reconciliation at Opis, the death of Hephaestion that breaks something in him. Amid omens and unfinished plans for Arabia, Alexander takes a fever at Babylon and dies at thirty-two — leaving the world to his generals, and his story to the historians.