Wars of Alexander the Great

Wars of Alexander the Great
Alexander, depicted with his horse Bucephalus, fighting Persian king Darius III, from the Alexander Mosaic of Pompeii (Naples National Archaeological Museum, Italy)
Date 336–323 BC (13 years) Location Greece, Illyria, Thrace, Danube Delta, Anatolia, Syria, Phoenicia (Israel, Palestine), Egypt, Mesopotamia, Persia, Afghanistan, Sogdia, Bactria, India Result Macedonian victory Territorial changes Macedonian Empire spans from the Balkans and Egypt in the west to Central Asia and India in the east Beginning of the Hellenistic period
Belligerents
Macedonian Empire  • Hellenic League	Achaemenid Empire Balkans: Illyrians Thracians Greek city-states Western and Central Asia: Bactria Sogdia Uxiians India: Pauravas Indian tribes and kingdoms
Commanders and leaders
Alexander III of Macedon Parmenion Antipater Ptolemy Hephaestion Craterus Philotas Cleitus Perdiccas Coenus Lysimachus Antigonus Seleucus Nearchus	Darius III of Persia Bessus Arsites Memnon Azemilcus Batis Ariobarzanes Madates Ariarathes I Agis III Spitamenes Porus
Casualties and losses
More than 1 million[1][2][3]

The wars of Alexander the Great (Ancient Greek: Πόλεμοι του Μεγάλου Αλεξάνδρου) were a series of conquests carried out by Alexander III of Macedon from 336 to 323 BC. They began with battles against the Achaemenid Empire, then under the rule of Darius III. After Alexander's chain of victories, he began a campaign against local chieftains and warlords that stretched from Greece to as far as the region of Punjab in South Asia. By the time he died, Alexander ruled over most regions of Greece and the conquered Achaemenid Empire, including much of Achaemenid Egypt; he did not, however, manage to conquer the Indian subcontinent in its entirety according to his initial plan.

Despite his military accomplishments, Alexander did not provide any stable alternative to the rule of the Achaemenids,^[4] and his untimely death threw the vast territories he conquered into a series of civil wars commonly known as the Wars of the Diadochi.

Alexander assumed kingship over ancient Macedonia following the assassination of his father, Philip II (r. 359–336 BC). During his two decades on the throne, Philip II had unified^[5] the poleis (Greek city-states) of mainland Greece (with Macedonian hegemony) under the League of Corinth.^[6] Alexander proceeded to solidify Macedonian rule by quashing a rebellion in the southern Greek city-states and staged a short but bloody excursion against the city-states to the north. He then proceeded east to carry out his plans to conquer the Achaemenid Empire. His campaign of conquests from Greece spanned across Anatolia, Syria, Phoenicia, Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greater Iran, Afghanistan, and India. He extended the boundaries of his Macedonian Empire as far east as the city of Taxila in modern-day Pakistan.

Prior to his death, Alexander had also made plans for a Macedonian military and mercantile expansion into the Arabian Peninsula, after which he planned to turn his armies to Carthage, Rome, and the Iberian Peninsula in the west. However, the Diadochi (his political rivals) abandoned these plans after he died; instead, within a few years of Alexander's death, the Diadochi began a series of military campaigns against each other and divided the territories of the Macedonian Empire among themselves,^[7] triggering 40 years of warfare during the Hellenistic period.