By Barry Porter
On September 30, 331 bc, the fate of two empires was
decided on a plain 70 miles north of present-day Irbil, Iraq. Lying near the
hamlet of Gaugamela, the plain was part of a vast territory north of the
Persian provincial capital of Babylon where King Darius III, also known as
Darius Codomanus, had mustered an army formidable enough, he hoped, to halt the
invasion of the Persian-dominated lands of the eastern Mediterranean by
Macedonian forces. But King Alexander III, only 25 years old, his reputation
preceding him like thunder before a storm, led his men into Asia. To the king's
soldiers, their invasion would avenge half a century of devastation wrought on
Greece during the Persian wars between 499 and 448 bc. Alexander's personal
ambition, however, was nothing less than to eclipse the great Persian empire by
conquering its lands and bringing it under his aegis….To Read More….
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