Books
Battle
Battle of Gaugamela
331 BCE
The Battle of Gaugamela took place in 331 BC in Mesopotamia. Darius III gathered a huge army, but Alexander’s Macedonian force broke through and forced him to flee again. The victory opened the way to Babylon, Susa, Persepolis, and the heart of the Persian Empire.
Gaugamela mattered because it effectively decided the war against Darius. After the battle, Alexander could claim the role of ruler over the Persian imperial world, even though resistance and campaigning continued. It was the moment when conquest became empire.
Gaugamela is one of the essential battles in fiction about Alexander. Mary Renault, Valerio Massimo Manfredi, and Conn Iggulden all offer routes into the drama of Alexander’s great Persian victories. The battle suits novels about command under pressure, cavalry charges, imperial collapse, Babylonian splendour, and the psychological shift from invading king to would-be world ruler.
Related people for Battle of Gaugamela
Alexander of Lyncestisc. 5th century BCE–331 BCE Alexander the Great357 BCE–324 BCE Antigonus I Monophthalmusc. 382–301 BCE Antipater398 BCE–320 BCE Aristotle385 BCE–323 BCE Bagoasc. 5th century BCE–c. 4th century BCE Cassander356 BCE–297 BCE Darius III381 BCE–331 BCE Hephaestionc. 356 BCE–324 BCE Olympias376 BCE–317 BCE Parmenion401 BCE–330 BCE Perdiccas366 BCE–322 BCE Philip III of Macedon360 BCE–318 BCE Philip II of Macedonc. 382–336 BCE Ptolemy I Soter369/368–282 BCE Roxana348 BCE–311 BCE
Non-Fiction
3 Best Non-Fiction Books About the Battle of Gaugamela
Histories, biographies and reference works are listed separately from the historical novels above.
