I left last week at Alexander’s siege of Tyre, Alexander's siege towers were rendered useless by Tyre’s strong navy. This post will resume the siege and end at Alexander’s death.
Alexander then used the ships he had gained from conquering other Persian port cities to make a large navy to compete with the Tyrian fleet. He also received ships from the King of Cyprus. When he finally broke through the defense and entered the city, Alexander took his frustration out on the people he had just conquered, and almost all of the population was either killed or sold into slavery.
He continued along the Levant into Egypt, facing no resistance except for the Egyptian city of Giza, which met the same fate as Tyre. The reason that most of these lands were conquered with no fighting at all was that they didn’t like their Persian conquerors and viewed the Macedonian Greeks as liberators. There was also fear that if they put up resistance, they would face the same destruction as Giza and Tyre.
Alexander had returned to Asia after conquering Egypt and proceeded towards Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq). Darius and his army met Alexander at the Battle of Gaugamela. Despite the clear numerical advantage, Alexander managed to win by using lighter infantry and cavalry forces. Darius promptly fled the battlefield and was betrayed by his own satrap (think of a U.S. governor), Bessus. Alexander respected Darius even though the two were trying to take each other’s empires. This resulted in Alexander chasing down Bessus and killing him for daring to betray his king.
The death of Darius III marked the end of the long-lasting Persian dominance, and Alexander spent the next few years mopping up the remains of the once-great empire. He also managed to cross the Indus River and fight with many Indian kings. Alexander would have continued eastward, but his homesick troops wanted to return to Macedonia. They stopped off at Babylon, where Alexander had to deal with the Opis Mutiny. This was where a group of soldiers who were already angry about Alexander’s adoption of Persian customs mutinied when Alexander told some of them to go home to replace them with his new foreign soldiers.
Alexander executed the ringleaders before confronting the rest of his army, in which he delivered a speech that was so strong that it immediately stopped their mutiny and led to a period of reconciliation between the army and their king. After this, Alexander planned future conquests, particularly an invasion of Arabia. Alexander could not proceed with this, though, since he died at 32. The exact reason for his death is unknown, but historians believe that he might have caught an unknown disease or been poisoned.
