Sisygambis ( Ancient Greek : Σισύγαμβις ; died 323 BCE) was the mother of Darius III of Persia , whose reign was ended during the wars of Alexander the Great . After she was captured by Alexander at the Battle of Issus , she became devoted to him, and Alexander referred to her as "mother".
87-682: The Battle of Gaugamela ( / ˌ ɡ ɔː ɡ ə ˈ m iː l ə / GAW -gə- MEE -lə ; Ancient Greek : Γαυγάμηλα , romanized : Gaugámēla , lit. 'the Camel's House'), also called the Battle of Arbela ( Ἄρβηλα , Árbēla ), took place in 331 BC between the forces of the Army of Macedon under Alexander the Great and the Persian Army under King Darius III . It
174-649: A phalanx , armed not with a heavy shield but with spears no longer than three metres, while the spears of the Immortals were two metres long. Among the other Persian troops, the most heavily armed were the Armenians , who were armed the Greek way and probably fought as a phalanx. Alexander commanded Greek forces from his kingdom of Macedon and the Hellenic League , along with Greek mercenaries and levies from
261-543: A pitch accent . In Modern Greek, all vowels and consonants are short. Many vowels and diphthongs once pronounced distinctly are pronounced as /i/ ( iotacism ). Some of the stops and glides in diphthongs have become fricatives , and the pitch accent has changed to a stress accent . Many of the changes took place in the Koine Greek period. The writing system of Modern Greek, however, does not reflect all pronunciation changes. The examples below represent Attic Greek in
348-465: A breakdown in composition), while according to Curtius Rufus it consisted of 45,000 cavalry and 200,000 infantry. Furthermore, according to Arrian, Diodorus and Curtius, Darius had 200 chariots while Arrian mentions 15 war elephants . Included in Darius's infantry were about 2,000 Greek mercenary hoplites . According to Arrian , Indian troops were also deployed. He explains that Darius III "obtained
435-574: A force of 3,000 cavalry, and that he fled when Alexander's army approached to cross the river. Alexander arrived at the Tigris in late September. Alexander crossed the Euphrates in the summer of 331 BC. From there, he followed a northern route instead of a direct southeastern route to Babylon. While doing so he had the Euphrates and the mountains of Armenia on his left. The northern route made it easier to forage for supplies and his troops would not suffer
522-470: A forged one that was favorable to his own interests. Again, Alexander refused Darius' offers. Darius began preparations for another battle with Alexander after the failure of the second negotiation attempt. Nevertheless, he made a third and final effort to negotiate with Alexander after Alexander had departed from Egypt. Darius' third offer was much more generous. He praised Alexander for the treatment of his mother Sisygambis , offered him all territory west of
609-477: A lack of contemporaneous evidence. Several theories exist about what Hellenic dialect groups may have existed between the divergence of early Greek-like speech from the common Proto-Indo-European language and the Classical period. They have the same general outline but differ in some of the detail. The only attested dialect from this period is Mycenaean Greek , but its relationship to the historical dialects and
696-419: A lesser degree. Pamphylian Greek , spoken in a small area on the southwestern coast of Anatolia and little preserved in inscriptions, may be either a fifth major dialect group, or it is Mycenaean Greek overlaid by Doric, with a non-Greek native influence. Regarding the speech of the ancient Macedonians diverse theories have been put forward, but the epigraphic activity and the archaeological discoveries in
783-498: A prefix /e-/, called the augment . This was probably originally a separate word, meaning something like "then", added because tenses in PIE had primarily aspectual meaning. The augment is added to the indicative of the aorist, imperfect, and pluperfect, but not to any of the other forms of the aorist (no other forms of the imperfect and pluperfect exist). The two kinds of augment in Greek are syllabic and quantitative. The syllabic augment
870-608: A separate historical stage, though its earliest form closely resembles Attic Greek , and its latest form approaches Medieval Greek . There were several regional dialects of Ancient Greek; Attic Greek developed into Koine. Ancient Greek was a pluricentric language , divided into many dialects. The main dialect groups are Attic and Ionic , Aeolic , Arcadocypriot , and Doric , many of them with several subdivisions. Some dialects are found in standardized literary forms in literature , while others are attested only in inscriptions. There are also several historical forms. Homeric Greek
957-494: A significant advantage in numbers, most of his troops were of a lower quality than Alexander's. Alexander's pezhetairoi were armed with a six-metre pike, the sarissa . The main Persian infantry was poorly trained and equipped in comparison to Alexander's pezhetairoi and hoplites. The only respectable infantry Darius had were his 2,000 Greek hoplites and his personal bodyguard, the 10,000 Immortals . The Greek mercenaries fought in
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#17327648205001044-630: A standard subject of study in educational institutions of the Western world since the Renaissance . This article primarily contains information about the Epic and Classical periods of the language, which are the best-attested periods and considered most typical of Ancient Greek. From the Hellenistic period ( c. 300 BC ), Ancient Greek was followed by Koine Greek , which is regarded as
1131-510: A vowel or /n s r/ ; final stops were lost, as in γάλα "milk", compared with γάλακτος "of milk" (genitive). Ancient Greek of the classical period also differed in both the inventory and distribution of original PIE phonemes due to numerous sound changes, notably the following: The pronunciation of Ancient Greek was very different from that of Modern Greek . Ancient Greek had long and short vowels ; many diphthongs ; double and single consonants; voiced, voiceless, and aspirated stops ; and
1218-570: Is a literary form of Archaic Greek (derived primarily from Ionic and Aeolic) used in the epic poems , the Iliad and the Odyssey , and in later poems by other authors. Homeric Greek had significant differences in grammar and pronunciation from Classical Attic and other Classical-era dialects. The origins, early form and development of the Hellenic language family are not well understood because of
1305-418: Is added to stems beginning with consonants, and simply prefixes e (stems beginning with r , however, add er ). The quantitative augment is added to stems beginning with vowels, and involves lengthening the vowel: Some verbs augment irregularly; the most common variation is e → ei . The irregularity can be explained diachronically by the loss of s between vowels, or that of the letter w , which affected
1392-666: Is called 'East Greek'. Arcadocypriot apparently descended more closely from the Mycenaean Greek of the Bronze Age. Boeotian Greek had come under a strong Northwest Greek influence, and can in some respects be considered a transitional dialect, as exemplified in the poems of the Boeotian poet Pindar who wrote in Doric with a small Aeolic admixture. Thessalian likewise had come under Northwest Greek influence, though to
1479-448: Is considered by some linguists to have been closely related to Greek . Among Indo-European branches with living descendants, Greek is often argued to have the closest genetic ties with Armenian (see also Graeco-Armenian ) and Indo-Iranian languages (see Graeco-Aryan ). Ancient Greek differs from Proto-Indo-European (PIE) and other Indo-European languages in certain ways. In phonotactics , ancient Greek words could end only in
1566-669: Is not possible to reach any conclusion other than that Alexander's army was outnumbered by the Persians. Hans Delbrück estimates Persian cavalry at 12,000 because of management issues, Persian infantry less than that of the Greek heavy infantry, and Greek mercenaries at 8,000. Warry (1998) estimates a total size of 91,000; Harbottle (2018) 120,000; Engels (1980) and Green (1993) no larger than 100,000. According to Arrian, Darius' force numbered 40,000 cavalry and 1,000,000 infantry, Diodorus Siculus put it at 200,000 cavalry and 800,000 infantry, Plutarch put it at 1,000,000 troops (without
1653-595: Is that she was the daughter of an Uxian leader. She gave birth to Darius, Oxyathres , and possibly also Stateira I . At the Battle of Issus (333 BCE), Darius's army was routed by Alexander the Great , and the Persian king fled the field, leaving his extended family—including his mother; his wife, Stateira I ; his children; and many others—to the mercy of Alexander. He captured them but treated them with all dignity, where many others would have executed them out of hand. When Alexander and Hephaestion went together to visit
1740-419: The Battle of Cunaxa . The use of the scorched-earth tactic and scythed chariots by Darius suggests that he wanted to repeat that battle. Alexander would have been unable to adequately supply his army if he had taken the southern route, even if the scorched-earth tactic had failed. The Macedonian army, underfed and exhausted from the heat, would then be defeated at the plain of Cunaxa by Darius. When Alexander took
1827-540: The Euphrates , co-rulership of the Achaemenid Empire, the hand of one of his daughters and 30,000 talents of silver. In the account of Diodorus, Alexander explicitly deliberated this offer with his friends. Parmenion was the only one who spoke up, saying, "If I were Alexander, I should accept what was offered and make a treaty." Alexander reportedly replied, "So should I, if I were Parmenion." Alexander, in
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#17327648205001914-759: The Greek region of Macedonia during the last decades has brought to light documents, among which the first texts written in Macedonian , such as the Pella curse tablet , as Hatzopoulos and other scholars note. Based on the conclusions drawn by several studies and findings such as Pella curse tablet , Emilio Crespo and other scholars suggest that ancient Macedonian was a Northwest Doric dialect , which shares isoglosses with its neighboring Thessalian dialects spoken in northeastern Thessaly . Some have also suggested an Aeolic Greek classification. The Lesbian dialect
2001-539: The Paeonian and Thracian tributary peoples. According to Arrian , his forces numbered 7,000 cavalry and 40,000 infantry. Most historians agree that the Macedonian army consisted of 31,000 heavy infantry, including mercenaries and hoplites from other allied Greek states in reserve, with an additional 9,000 light infantry consisting mainly of peltasts with some archers . The size of the Greek-mounted army
2088-501: The present , future , and imperfect are imperfective in aspect; the aorist , present perfect , pluperfect and future perfect are perfective in aspect. Most tenses display all four moods and three voices, although there is no future subjunctive or imperative. Also, there is no imperfect subjunctive, optative or imperative. The infinitives and participles correspond to the finite combinations of tense, aspect, and voice. The indicative of past tenses adds (conceptually, at least)
2175-1031: The 5th century BC. Ancient pronunciation cannot be reconstructed with certainty, but Greek from the period is well documented, and there is little disagreement among linguists as to the general nature of the sounds that the letters represent. /oː/ raised to [uː] , probably by the 4th century BC. Greek, like all of the older Indo-European languages , is highly inflected. It is highly archaic in its preservation of Proto-Indo-European forms. In ancient Greek, nouns (including proper nouns) have five cases ( nominative , genitive , dative , accusative , and vocative ), three genders ( masculine , feminine , and neuter ), and three numbers (singular, dual , and plural ). Verbs have four moods ( indicative , imperative , subjunctive , and optative ) and three voices (active, middle, and passive ), as well as three persons (first, second, and third) and various other forms. Verbs are conjugated through seven combinations of tenses and aspect (generally simply called "tenses"):
2262-495: The Archaic period of ancient Greek (see Homeric Greek for more details): Μῆνιν ἄειδε, θεά, Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλῆος οὐλομένην, ἣ μυρί' Ἀχαιοῖς ἄλγε' ἔθηκε, πολλὰς δ' ἰφθίμους ψυχὰς Ἄϊδι προΐαψεν ἡρώων, αὐτοὺς δὲ ἑλώρια τεῦχε κύνεσσιν οἰωνοῖσί τε πᾶσι· Διὸς δ' ἐτελείετο βουλή· ἐξ οὗ δὴ τὰ πρῶτα διαστήτην ἐρίσαντε Ἀτρεΐδης τε ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν καὶ δῖος Ἀχιλλεύς. The beginning of Apology by Plato exemplifies Attic Greek from
2349-594: The Battle of Issus and dying there. As a result, the Persian satrap of Egypt , Mazaces , peacefully surrendered to Alexander upon his arrival. Darius tried to dissuade Alexander from further attacks on his empire by diplomacy. Nawotka writes that "[c]onflicting reports of ancient authors make the reconstruction of peace negotiations hypothetical." Ancient historians provide different accounts of his negotiations with Alexander, which can be separated into three negotiation attempts. Darius reportedly initially requested peace and
2436-475: The Battle of Issus. The letter demanded that Alexander withdraw from Asia as well as release all of his prisoners. According to Curtius and Justin, Darius offered a ransom for his prisoners, although Arrian does not mention a ransom. Curtius describes the tone of the letter as offensive, and Alexander refused his demands. A second negotiation attempt took place after the capture of Tyre. Darius offered Alexander marriage with his daughter Stateira II , as well as all
2523-645: The Classical period of ancient Greek. (The second line is the IPA , the third is transliterated into the Latin alphabet using a modern version of the Erasmian scheme .) Ὅτι [hóti Hóti μὲν men mèn ὑμεῖς, hyːmêːs hūmeîs, Sisygambis She may have been the daughter of king Artaxerxes II Mnemon , or possibly of his brother Ostanes . If the latter, she married her own brother Arsames (an ancient Achaemenid tradition). Another possibility
2610-495: The Greek mercenaries. Darius was in danger of being cut off, and the widely held modern view is that he now broke and ran, with the rest of his army following him. This is based on Arrian's account: For a short time there ensued a hand-to-hand fight; but when the Macedonian cavalry, commanded by Alexander himself, pressed on vigorously, thrusting themselves against the Persians and striking their faces with their spears, and when
2697-480: The Greeks would head towards Babylon . At the same time he dispatched letters to his eastern satraps asking them to remain loyal. The satraps, however, had other intentions. Bessus murdered Darius before fleeing eastwards. When Alexander discovered Darius murdered, he was saddened to see an enemy he respected killed in such a fashion, and gave Darius a full burial ceremony at Persepolis, the former ceremonial capital of
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2784-799: The Greeks), the Indian cavalry and his Mardian archers. On both flanks were the cavalry. Bessus commanded the left flank with the Bactrians , Dahae cavalry, Arachosian cavalry, Persian cavalry, Susian cavalry, Cadusian cavalry and Scythians . Chariots were placed in front with a small group of Bactrians. Mazaeus commanded the right flank with the Syrian , Median , Mesopotamian , Parthian , Sacian , Tapurian , Hyrcanian , Caucasian Albanian , Sacesinian , Cappadocian and Armenian cavalry. The Cappadocians and Armenians were stationed in front of
2871-444: The Macedonian phalanx in dense array and bristling with long pikes had also made an attack upon them, all things together appeared full of terror to Darius, who had already long been in a state of fear, so that he was the first to turn and flee. Alexander could have pursued Darius at this point. However, he received desperate messages from Parmenion (an event that would later be used by Callisthenes and others to discredit Parmenion) on
2958-468: The Macedonians sustained their assaults, and assailing them violently squadron by squadron, they succeeded in pushing them out of rank. The tide finally turned in the Greek favor after the attack of Aretes ' Prodromoi , likely their last reserve in this sector of the battlefield. By then, however, the battle had been decided in the center by Alexander himself. The Persians also who were riding round
3045-409: The Macedonians to Gaugamela, the Persians' preferred battlefield. The precise location of the battlefield is not known with certainty, as the ancient sources are sometimes inconsistent and do not provide precise topographical or geographical information. Various sites have been proposed: Tel Gomel, Karamlesh , Qaraqosh , Tell Aswad, and a mound south of Wardak. The most commonly accepted opinion about
3132-492: The Persian Empire, before angrily pursuing Bessus, capturing and executing him the following year. The majority of the remaining satraps gave their loyalty to Alexander and were allowed to keep their positions. The Achaemenid Persian Empire is traditionally considered to have ended with the death of Darius. Ancient Greek language Ancient Greek ( Ἑλληνῐκή , Hellēnikḗ ; [hellɛːnikɛ́ː] ) includes
3219-629: The Persians and one of Alexander's finest victories. Darius managed to escape by horseback with a small corps of his forces remaining intact. The Bactrian cavalry and Bessus caught up with him, as did some of the survivors of the Royal Guard and 2,000 Greek mercenaries. At this point, the Persian Empire was divided into two halves—East and West. On his escape, Darius gave a speech to what remained of his army. He planned to head further east and raise another army to face Alexander, assuming that
3306-457: The Persians for their failure to harass Alexander's army and disrupt its long supply lines when it advanced through Mesopotamia. Classical scholar Peter Green thinks that Alexander's choice for the northern route caught the Persians off guard. Darius would have expected him to take the faster southern route directly to Babylon , just as Cyrus the Younger had done in 401 BC before his defeat in
3393-514: The Persians soon fell into disorder as the Thessalians and other cavalry units charged forward at their fleeing enemy. After the battle, Parmenion rounded up the Persian baggage train while Alexander and his bodyguard pursued Darius. As at Issus , substantial loot was gained, with 4,000 talents captured, the King's personal chariot and bow and the war elephants . It was a disastrous defeat for
3480-509: The absence of any mention of those elephants during the battle and their later capture in the Persian camp indicate they were withdrawn. The reason might have been fatigue. Darius placed himself in the center with his best infantry, as was the tradition among Persian kings. He was surrounded by, on his right, the Carian cavalry, Greek mercenaries and Persian horse guards. In the right-center, he placed Persian foot guards (Apple Bearers/Immortals to
3567-600: The ancient sources' reports on the size of Darius's army. According to Bichler, among modern authors, "[t]heir common ground is only that the excessively high numbers given in the ancient sources are of no use." Similarly, Worthington writes that the figures given by Diodorus, Plutarch, and Curtius "are absurdly high numbers to show how hopelessly outnumbered Alexander's army was[.]" Reinhold Bichler's case study surveyed 20 different sources published between 1920 and 2014, showing that various authors have given widely divergent estimates of Darius's forces, with others remarking that it
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3654-550: The aorist. Following Homer 's practice, the augment is sometimes not made in poetry , especially epic poetry. The augment sometimes substitutes for reduplication; see below. Almost all forms of the perfect, pluperfect, and future perfect reduplicate the initial syllable of the verb stem. (A few irregular forms of perfect do not reduplicate, whereas a handful of irregular aorists reduplicate.) The three types of reduplication are: Irregular duplication can be understood diachronically. For example, lambanō (root lab ) has
3741-419: The augment when it was word-initial. In verbs with a preposition as a prefix, the augment is placed not at the start of the word, but between the preposition and the original verb. For example, προσ(-)βάλλω (I attack) goes to προσ έ βαλoν in the aorist. However compound verbs consisting of a prefix that is not a preposition retain the augment at the start of the word: αὐτο(-)μολῶ goes to ηὐ τομόλησα in
3828-586: The baggage train behind Alexander's army. When the Persian army's Scythian cavalry broke through Alexander's forces to reach them, she allegedly refused to celebrate what appeared at first to be Persian victory. After Darius was killed shortly following his defeat at Gaugamela, Alexander sent his body to her, so that she could give him dignified funeral honors. She was left at Susa with tutors to teach her and her family Greek, while Alexander pursued his conquests towards India . On his return in 324 BCE, he married Sisygambis's granddaughter, Stateira II , an event which
3915-432: The barrage of javelins charged the Macedonian lines, which responded by opening up their ranks, creating alleys through which the chariots passed harmlessly. The hypaspists and the armed grooms of the cavalry then attacked and eliminated these survivors. As the Persians advanced farther and farther to the Greek flanks in their attack, Alexander slowly filtered in his rear guard. He disengaged his Companions and prepared for
4002-580: The battle, King Darius retreated to Babylon where he regrouped with his remaining army that was there, on-site from a previous battle. Alexander fought at the Siege of Tyre (332 BC) , which lasted from January to July, and the victory resulted in his control of the Levant . Alexander then again fought at the Siege of Gaza . Persian troop counts in Egypt were diminished due to many soldiers being removed to support
4089-433: The captured Persian royal family, Sisygambis knelt to Hephaestion to plead for their lives, mistaking him for Alexander — Hephaestion was the taller, and both young men were similarly dressed. When she realized her mistake, she was acutely embarrassed, but Alexander reassured her with the words, "You were not mistaken, Mother; this man too is Alexander." At the Battle of Gaugamela , Sisygambis and her family were kept within
4176-684: The cavalry of the Grecian mercenaries under the command of Menidas to attack them. But the Scythian cavalry and the Bactrians, who had been drawn up with them, sallied forth against them and being much more numerous they put the small body of Greeks to rout. Alexander then ordered Aristo at the head of the Paeonians and Grecian auxiliaries to attack the Scythians, and the barbarians gave way. But
4263-413: The cavalry of the Persian right, composed of Indians, Parthians and "the bravest and most numerous division of the Persians", desperately trying to get through to escape. Sixty Companions were killed in the engagement, and Hephaestion , Coenus and Menidas were all injured. Alexander prevailed, however, and Mazaeus also began to pull his forces back as Bessus had. However, unlike on the left with Bessus,
4350-438: The center of Greek scholarship, this division of people and language is quite similar to the results of modern archaeological-linguistic investigation. One standard formulation for the dialects is: West vs. non-West Greek is the strongest-marked and earliest division, with non-West in subsets of Ionic-Attic (or Attic-Ionic) and Aeolic vs. Arcadocypriot, or Aeolic and Arcado-Cypriot vs. Ionic-Attic. Often non-West
4437-414: The center of the enemy line. The Macedonians advanced with the wings echeloned back at 45 degrees to lure the Persian cavalry to attack. While the phalanxes battled the Persian infantry, Darius sent a large part of his cavalry and some of his regular infantry to attack Parmenion's forces on the left. During the battle, Alexander employed an unusual strategy which has been duplicated only a few times. While
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#17327648205004524-552: The clever usage of light infantry forces. It was a decisive victory for the League of Corinth , and it led to the fall of the Achaemenid Empire and of Darius III. In November 333 BC, King Darius III had lost the Battle of Issus to Alexander the Great , which resulted in the subsequent capture of his wife , his mother and his two daughters, Stateira II and Drypetis . Alexander's victory at Issus had also given him complete control of southern Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey). After
4611-419: The decisive attack. Behind them were the guard's brigade along with any phalanx battalions he could withdraw from the battle. He formed his units into a giant wedge , with him leading the charge. The Persian infantry at the center was still fighting the phalanxes, hindering any attempts to counter Alexander's charge. This large wedge then smashed into the weakened Persian center, taking out Darius' royal guard and
4698-563: The dialect of Sparta ), and Northern Peloponnesus Doric (including Corinthian ). All the groups were represented by colonies beyond Greece proper as well, and these colonies generally developed local characteristics, often under the influence of settlers or neighbors speaking different Greek dialects. After the conquests of Alexander the Great in the late 4th century BC, a new international dialect known as Koine or Common Greek developed, largely based on Attic Greek , but with influence from other dialects. This dialect slowly replaced most of
4785-405: The end, refused the offer of Darius, and insisted that there could be only one king of Asia. He called on Darius to surrender to him or to meet him in battle in order to decide who would be the sole king of Asia. The descriptions given by other historians of the third negotiation attempt are similar to the account of Diodorus, but differ in details. Diodorus, Curtius and Arrian write that an embassy
4872-536: The extreme heat of the direct route. Captured Persian scouts reported to the Macedonians that Darius had encamped past the Tigris river. Alexander found the Tigris undefended and succeeded in crossing it with great difficulty. By contrast, Diodorus mentions that Mazaeus was only supposed to prevent Alexander from crossing the Tigris. He would not have bothered to defend it because he considered it impassable due to
4959-422: The failure of his negotiation attempts, Darius had now decided to prepare for another battle with Alexander. In the late spring or early summer of 331 BC, Alexander headed from Egypt, northeast through Syria, toward the Tigris river. In July or August, Alexander reached Thapsacus , on the Euphrates river. Arrian relates that Darius had ordered Mazaeus to guard the crossing of the Euphrates near Thapsacus with
5046-673: The forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek ( c. 1400–1200 BC ), Dark Ages ( c. 1200–800 BC ), the Archaic or Epic period ( c. 800–500 BC ), and the Classical period ( c. 500–300 BC ). Ancient Greek was the language of Homer and of fifth-century Athenian historians, playwrights, and philosophers . It has contributed many words to English vocabulary and has been
5133-654: The help of those Indians who bordered on the Bactrians, together with the Bactrians and Sogdianians themselves, all under the command of Bessus , the Satrap of Bactria". The Indians in question were probably from the area of Gandāra . Indian "hill-men" are also said by Arrian to have joined the Arachotians under Satrap Barsentes, and are thought to have been either the Sattagydians or the Hindush . While Darius had
5220-561: The historical Dorians . The invasion is known to have displaced population to the later Attic-Ionic regions, who regarded themselves as descendants of the population displaced by or contending with the Dorians. The Greeks of this period believed there were three major divisions of all Greek people – Dorians, Aeolians, and Ionians (including Athenians), each with their own defining and distinctive dialects. Allowing for their oversight of Arcadian, an obscure mountain dialect, and Cypriot, far from
5307-476: The historical circumstances of the times imply that the overall groups already existed in some form. Scholars assume that major Ancient Greek period dialect groups developed not later than 1120 BC, at the time of the Dorian invasions —and that their first appearances as precise alphabetic writing began in the 8th century BC. The invasion would not be "Dorian" unless the invaders had some cultural relationship to
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#17327648205005394-496: The infantry battled the Persian troops in the centre, Alexander began to ride all the way to the edge of the right flank, accompanied by his Companion Cavalry . His plan was to draw as much of the Persian cavalry as possible to the flanks, to create a gap within the enemy line where a decisive blow could then be struck at Darius in the centre. This required almost perfect timing and maneuvering and Alexander himself to act first. He would force Darius to attack (as they would soon move off
5481-444: The latter, being greatly outnumbered, was often hard-pressed. However, by careful use of reserves and disciplined charges, the Greek troops were able to contain their Persian counterparts, which would be vital for the success of Alexander's decisive attack. As told by Arrian: Then the Scythian cavalry rode along the line and came into conflict with the front men of Alexander's array, but he nevertheless still continued to march towards
5568-418: The left. Parmenion's wing was apparently encircled by the cavalry of the Persian right wing; being attacked from all sides, it was in a state of confusion. Alexander was faced with the choice of pursuing Darius and having the chance of killing him, ending the war in one stroke but at the risk of losing his army, or going back to the left flank to aid Parmenion and preserve his forces, thus letting Darius escape to
5655-479: The location is Karamlesh – suggested by archeologist Sir Aurel Stein in 1938. All of these sites are located in the Nineveh Plains of modern-day Iraq , east of Mosul and west of Erbil , north and south of Jebel Maqlub (also known as Mount Maqlub and Mount Alfaf). Although there is general acceptance among modern scholars of Arrian's numbers for Alexander's forces, the opposite is true with respect to
5742-422: The location of Darius' army at Gaugamela, some eight miles away. In light of the ground-flattening efforts taking place at Gaugamela, Alexander determined that Darius did not intend to change locations, and allowed his troops four days to rest before engaging Darius' army in battle. Following the calculations, the date of the Battle of Gaugamela must have been 1 October in 331 BC. Several researchers have criticized
5829-425: The northern route, Mazaeus must have returned to Babylon to bring the news. Darius most likely decided to prevent Alexander from crossing the Tigris. This plan failed because Alexander probably took a river crossing that was closer to Thapsacus than Babylon. He would have improvised and chosen Gaugamela as his most favourable site for a battle. Historian Jona Lendering , by contrast, argues that Darius intentionally led
5916-508: The older dialects, although the Doric dialect has survived in the Tsakonian language , which is spoken in the region of modern Sparta. Doric has also passed down its aorist terminations into most verbs of Demotic Greek . By about the 6th century AD, the Koine had slowly metamorphosed into Medieval Greek . Phrygian is an extinct Indo-European language of West and Central Anatolia , which
6003-463: The other cavalry units and led the attack. The Albanian cavalry were sent around to flank the Greek left. According to Curtius, the archers were all Amardi . The Macedonians were divided into two, with the right side under the direct command of Alexander and the left of Parmenion . Alexander fought with his Companion cavalry . With it was the Paionian and Greek light cavalry. The mercenary cavalry
6090-487: The perfect stem eilēpha (not * lelēpha ) because it was originally slambanō , with perfect seslēpha , becoming eilēpha through compensatory lengthening. Reduplication is also visible in the present tense stems of certain verbs. These stems add a syllable consisting of the root's initial consonant followed by i . A nasal stop appears after the reduplication in some verbs. The earliest extant examples of ancient Greek writing ( c. 1450 BC ) are in
6177-470: The phalanx or Parmenion in the rear, however, they continued towards the camp to loot. They also tried to rescue the Queen Mother, Sisygambis , but she refused to go with them. These raiders were in turn attacked and dispersed by the rear reserve phalanx as they were looting. What happened next was described by Arrian as the fiercest engagement of the battle, as Alexander and his companions encountered
6264-423: The prepared ground), though Darius did not want to be the first to attack after seeing what happened at Issus against a similar formation. In the end, Darius' hand was forced, and he attacked. The Scythian cavalry from the Persian left wing opened the battle by attempting to flank Alexander's extreme right. What followed was a long and fierce cavalry battle between the Persian left and the Macedonian right, in which
6351-480: The rest of the Bactrians, drawing near to the Paeonians and Grecian auxiliaries, caused their own comrades who were already in flight to turn and renew the battle; and thus they brought about a general cavalry engagement, in which more of Alexander's men fell, not only being overwhelmed by the multitude of the barbarians, but also because the Scythians themselves and their horses were much more completely protected with armour for guarding their bodies. Notwithstanding this,
6438-426: The right, and almost entirely got beyond the ground which had been cleared and levelled by the Persians. Then Darius, fearing that his chariots would become useless, if the Macedonians advanced into the uneven ground, ordered the front ranks of his left wing to ride round the right wing of the Macedonians, where Alexander was commanding, to prevent him from marching his wing any further. This being done, Alexander ordered
6525-531: The safe return of his family, beginning with an offer to pay 10,000 talents as ransom, then offering to cede land in Asia Minor west of the Halys river , and eventually offering to recognize Alexander as a co-equal status as monarch. Alexander rejected all of these offers. Historians Justin , Arrian and Curtius Rufus , writing in the 1st and 2nd centuries, say that Darius had sent a letter to Alexander after
6612-443: The strong current and depth of the river. Furthermore, Diodorus and Curtius Rufus mention that Mazaeus employed scorched-earth tactics in the countryside through which Alexander's army had to pass. After the Macedonian army had crossed the Tigris, a near-total lunar eclipse occurred on 20–21 September 331 BC. Four days later, Alexander's army spotted members of Mazaeus' cavalry and captured one or two, who gave information about
6699-408: The surrounding mountains. He decided to help Parmenion, and followed Darius later. While holding on the left, a gap had opened up between the left and center of the Macedonian phalanx, due to Simmias' brigade of pezhetairoi being unable to follow Alexander in his decisive attack, as they were being hard-pressed. The Persian and Indian cavalry in the center with Darius broke through. Instead of taking
6786-517: The syllabic script Linear B . Beginning in the 8th century BC, however, the Greek alphabet became standard, albeit with some variation among dialects. Early texts are written in boustrophedon style, but left-to-right became standard during the classic period. Modern editions of ancient Greek texts are usually written with accents and breathing marks , interword spacing , modern punctuation , and sometimes mixed case , but these were all introduced later. The beginning of Homer 's Iliad exemplifies
6873-520: The territory west of the Halys river . Justin is less specific, and does not mention a specific daughter, and only speaks of a portion of Darius' kingdom. Diodorus Siculus (1st century Greek historian) likewise mentions the offer of all territory west of the Halys river, a treaty of friendship and a large ransom for Darius' captives. Diodorus is the only ancient historian who mentions the fact that Alexander concealed this letter and presented his friends with
6960-567: The wing were seized with alarm when Aretes made a vigorous attack upon them. In this quarter indeed the Persians took to speedy flight; and the Macedonians followed up the fugitives and slaughtered them. Darius now launched his chariots at those troops under Alexander's personal command; many of the chariots were intercepted by the Agrianians and other javelin-throwers posted in front of the Companion cavalry. Those chariots who made it through
7047-480: Was Aeolic. For example, fragments of the works of the poet Sappho from the island of Lesbos are in Aeolian. Most of the dialect sub-groups listed above had further subdivisions, generally equivalent to a city-state and its surrounding territory, or to an island. Doric notably had several intermediate divisions as well, into Island Doric (including Cretan Doric ), Southern Peloponnesus Doric (including Laconian ,
7134-411: Was about 7,000. The battle began with the Persians already present on the battlefield. Darius had recruited the finest cavalry from his Eastern satrapies and from allied Scythian tribes and deployed scythed chariots , for which he had ordered bushes and vegetation removed from the battlefield to maximize their effectiveness. He also had 15 Indian elephants supported by Indian chariots . However,
7221-468: Was another part of the allied Greek cavalry. From there came the phalanx, in a double line. Outnumbered over 5:1 in the cavalry, with their line surpassed by over a mile, it seemed inevitable that the Greeks would be flanked by the Persians. The second line was given orders to deal with any flanking units should the situation arise. This second line consisted mostly of mercenaries. Alexander began by ordering his infantry to march in phalanx formation towards
7308-620: Was divided into two groups, veterans on the flank of the right and the rest in front of the Agrianes and Greek archers, who were stationed next to the phalanx. Parmenion was stationed on the left with the Thessalians , Greek mercenaries and Thracian cavalry. There they were to conduct a holding action while Alexander launched the decisive blow from the right. On the right-center were Cretan mercenaries. Behind them were Thessalian cavalry under Phillip, and Achaean mercenaries. To their right
7395-476: Was sent instead of a letter, which is also claimed by Justin and Plutarch (1st century). Plutarch and Arrian mention the ransom offered for the prisoners was 10,000 talents, but Diodorus, Curtius and Justin had given the figure of 30,000. Arrian writes that Darius' third attempt took place during the Siege of Tyre, but the other historians place the second negotiation attempt at that time. In spite of everything, with
7482-474: Was the centrepiece of the Susa weddings , where Stateira's sister, Drypetis , was also given in marriage to Hephaestion. Within about a year of the wedding, however, both Hephaestion and Alexander had suddenly died eight months apart. On hearing of the latter's death, Sisygambis, overwhelmed with pain and despairing of the fate that loomed over her family, had herself sealed into her rooms and refused to eat. She
7569-676: Was the second and final battle between the two kings, and is considered to be the final blow to the Achaemenid Empire , resulting in its complete conquest by Alexander. The fighting took place in Gaugamela, a village on the banks of the river Bumodus , north of Arbela (modern-day Erbil , in Iraqi Kurdistan ). Despite being heavily outnumbered, the Army of Macedon emerged victorious due to the employment of superior tactics and
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