World history · Alexander the Great
Alexander Defeats Darius III at Issus
333 BC
Alexander routs the Persian king Darius III in person at Issus, opening the road to Syria, Phoenicia, and Egypt.
The event
After a string of victories across Asia Minor, Alexander met the Persian King Darius III face to face at Issus, on the Syrian coast. Despite being significantly outnumbered, Alexander's tactical brilliance carried the day, and Darius fled the battlefield in panic, abandoning his own mother, wife, and children into Alexander's custody.
The victory at Issus threw open the entire eastern Mediterranean coastline — Syria, Phoenicia, and eventually Egypt — to Alexander's advance, and marked the effective beginning of the end for the two-century-old Persian Empire that Cyrus the Great had founded.
More timeline entries
- The Siege of Tyre
- Alexander in Egypt: The Founding of Alexandria
- The Battle of Gaugamela Ends the Persian Empire
- The Death of Alexander the Great
- The Hellenistic Kingdoms: Ptolemies and Seleucids Divide the Near East
- The Founding of Rome
- Rome Overthrows Its Kings — The Republic Begins
- The Punic Wars — Rome and Carthage
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