Page:A General Sketch of Political History from the Earlist Times.djvu/75

 THE EMPIRE OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT 63 The western Satraps brought their armies to oppose Alex- ander when he crossed the Hellespont. They were routed at the battle of Granicus. The districts on the Battles of the extreme west submitted to him generally without Granicus and offering much resistance. The conqueror at once Issus - set about organising the government. The next year the Persian King Darius himself appeared in person at the head of an immense army in Syria, and the battle of Issus was fought just where the hammer-head of Asia Minor joins the handle. The Persian army was reputed to number 600,000 men, but the nature of the ground prevented the bulk of them from being brought into action. The fierceness of the Macedonian onset routed the Persian left. Darius himself fled, and his entire army soon followed his example. The royal camp, with all its riches, fell into the hands of the victors. Alexander was in fact determined to make a complete and systematic conquest of the entire Persian Empire, and he now proceeded to reduce the whole Syrian and Phoenician coast as a preliminary to securing Egypt. A stubborn resistance was offered by the city of Tyre, which endured a famous Fall of the siege, but was at last carried by storm. Darius was Persian Em- already offering to surrender the whole of his P ire > 3 3 1BC - empire west of the Euphrates j but when even this was refused, the Persian king made up his mind to maintain the struggle. Alexander continued on the course which he had mapped out for himself, his fleets having in the meantime established a supremacy in the Eastern Mediterranean, without which a capture of Tyre would probably have been impossible. He proceeded to Egypt where he was welcomed as a deliverer from the Persian rule. In 331 B.C. he made a great march from the coast, passing the Euphrates at Thapsacus, crossing Mesopotamia, and meeting Darius in decisive battle beyond the Tigris at Gaugamela. This great Persian rout is often called by the name of an important town, Arbela, some twenty miles from the scene of the battle. Again Darius fled from the field, and his treasures fell into the hands of the victor. From thence Alexander advanced upon Babylon which