Battle of Issus (disambiguation)

Last updated March 13, 2019

Battle of Issus may refer to:

Battle of Issus (or 'The Battle at Issus') (333 BC), a battle in which Alexander the Great of Macedonia defeated Darius III of Persia.
Battle of Issus (194), the third major battle fought between Roman Emperor Septimius Severus and his rival Pescennius Niger.
Battle of Issus (622) (or 'Third Battle of Issus'), a name sometimes used in older sources for an alleged battle between Eastern Roman Emperor Heraclius and the Sassanid Empire at Issus during the emperor's 622 campaign. Modern scholarly sources place it in Cappadocia instead.

The Battle of Issus occurred in southern Anatolia, on November 5, 333 BC between the Hellenic League led by Alexander the Great and the Achaemenid Empire, led by Darius III, in the second great battle of Alexander's conquest of Asia. The invading Macedonian troops defeated Persia. After the Hellenic League soundly defeated the Persian satraps of Asia Minor at the Battle of the Granicus, Darius took personal command of his army. He gathered reinforcements and led his men in a surprise march behind the Hellenic advance to cut their line of supply. This forced Alexander to countermarch, setting the stage for the battle near the mouth of the Pinarus River and the town of Issus.

The Battle of Issus was the third major battle in AD 194 between the forces of Emperor Septimius Severus and his rival, Pescennius Niger, part of the Year of the Five Emperors.

The first of these battles is the subject of two notable artworks, and in the context of art it is usually referred to as the Battle of Alexander at Issus or simply the Battle of Alexander.

The Alexander Mosaic of Pompeii depicts a battle between Alexander and Darius. It is commonly believed to be the battle of Issus rather than the Battle of Gaugamela, another in which Darius was Alexander's adversary.
The Battle of Alexander at Issus (1528–9) by Albrecht Altdorfer.

The Alexander Mosaic, dating from circa 100 BC, is a Roman floor mosaic originally from the House of the Faun in Pompeii, that is allegedly an imitation of Apelles' painting. It depicts a battle between the armies of Alexander the Great and Darius III of Persia and measures 2.72 by 5.13 metres. The original is preserved in the Naples National Archaeological Museum. The mosaic is believed to be a copy of an early 3rd-century BC Hellenistic painting.

The Battle of Gaugamela, also called the Battle of Arbela, was the decisive battle of Alexander the Great's invasion of the Persian Achaemenid Empire. In 331 BC Alexander's army of the Hellenic League met the Persian army of Darius III near Gaugamela, close to the modern city of Dohuk in Iraqi Kurdistan. Though heavily outnumbered, Alexander emerged victorious due to his army's superior tactics and his deft employment of light infantry. It was a decisive victory for the Hellenic League and led to the fall of the Achaemenid Empire.

The Battle of Alexander at Issus is a 1529 oil painting by the German artist Albrecht Altdorfer, a pioneer of landscape art and a founding member of the Danube school. It portrays the 333 BC Battle of Issus, in which Alexander the Great secured a decisive victory over Darius III of Persia and gained crucial leverage in his campaign against the Persian Empire. The painting is widely regarded as Altdorfer's masterpiece, and is one of the most famous examples of the type of Renaissance landscape painting known as the world landscape, which here reaches an unprecedented grandeur.

This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title Battle of Issus.
If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.

Related Research Articles

Darius III, originally named Artashata and called Codomannus by the Greeks, was the last king of the Achaemenid Empire of Persia, from 336 BC to 330 BC. Artashata adopted Darius as a dynastic name.

This article concerns the period 339 BC – 330 BC.

Year 333 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Dictatorship of Rufinus. The denomination 333 BC for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.

Bessus, also known as Artaxerxes V, was a prominent Persian Satrap of Bactria in Persia, and later self-proclaimed King of Kings of Persia. According to classical sources, he killed his predecessor and relative, Darius III, after the Persian army had been defeated by Alexander the Great.

Leonnatus was a Macedonian officer of Alexander the Great and one of the diadochi.

Sisygambis 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".

Oxyathres was a brother of the Persian king Darius III Codomannus. He was distinguished for his bravery, and in the battle of Issus, 333 BC, took a prominent part in the combat in defence of the king, when attacked by the Macedonian cavalry under Alexander himself, as shown in the celebrated Alexander Mosaic found in Pompeii. He afterwards accompanied Darius on his flight into Bactria, and fell into the hands of Alexander during the pursuit, but was treated with the utmost distinction by the conqueror, who even assigned him an honourable post about his own person; and subsequently devolved upon him the task of punishing Bessus for the murder of Darius. He was the father of Amastris queen of Heraclea.

Issus may refer to:

Issus is an ancient settlement on the strategic coastal plain straddling the small Pinarus river below the navigationally difficult inland mountains towering above to the east in the Turkish Province of Hatay, near the border with Syria. It can be identified with Kinet Höyük in the village of Yeṣilköy near Dörtyol in the Hatay province of Turkey. Excavations on the mound occurred between 1992 and 2012 by Bilkent University. It is most notable for being the place of no less than three decisive ancient or medieval battles each called in their own era the Battle of Issus:

The Battle of Issus ; Alexander the Great of Macedonia defeated Darius III of Persia. This battle is occasionally called the First Battle of Issus, but is more generally known simply as the Battle of Issus, owing to the importance of Alexander's victory over the First Persian Empire and its impact on subsequent history of the region, including all the successor polities.
Battle of Issus (194), or Second Battle of Issus — between the forces of Emperor Septimius Severus and his rival, Pescennius Niger.
Battle of Issus (622), or Third Battle of Issus — between the Byzantine Empire and the Sassanid Persian Empire.

Myriandrus was an ancient Phoenician port on the Mediterranean Sea's Gulf of Alexandretta. Its ruins are located near the modern city of İskenderun in southern Turkey.

The Payas River, in southern Anatolia near today's Turkey—Syria border, is believed to be the Pinarus River of antiquity, where Alexander the Great defeated Darius III of Persia in the First Battle of Issus, and the likely site of the second and third battles of the same name.

For other persons with the same name, see Amyntas

The Dry tree is a legendary tree. Because of its ability to battle anyone near it. The first recording about it was done by Marco Polo, somewhere in the wastelands of northern Persia. According to Polo, it was the only tree within hundreds of miles of desert. The legend said that the Dry Tree marked the exact spot of the great battle between Alexander the Great and Darius. It is not clear whether this 'great battle' refers to the battle of Issus or of Gaugamela, or both. The purported location - somewhere in Khorasan, near the border with present day Turkmenistan - is also impossible to ascertain, because Darius had already been assassinated when Alexander reached these regions.

Sabaces was an Achaemenid satrap of the Achaemenid Thirty-first Dynasty of Egypt during the reign of king Darius III of Persia.

Helena was a painter who learned her craft from her father, Timon, who was also an artist. She worked in the period after the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC. Helena painted a scene of Alexander defeating the Persian ruler, Darius III, at the Battle of Issus in Southern Asia Minor.