The King of Kings
On October 1st, 331 BC, Alexander the Great led 47,000 Macedonians and Greeks against 52,000-120,000 troops under the command of Persia’s “King of Kings”, Darius III. Two years earlier, at the Battle of Issus, Alexander had defeated the Persian monarch, who ignominiously fled the battlefield. In a high stakes rematch, the two rulers and their men faced off at Gaugamela, near the modern city of Dohuk in Iraqi Kurdistan, to decide the fate of the Persian Empire. Darius placed himself in the center of the Persian line, with cavalry on both flanks, and chariots in front.
Alexander took his elite Companion Cavalry and most of the rest of his horsemen, and rode towards the right of the field, parallel to the Persian line. To keep the Persian chariots off his flank, Alexander took a scratch force of infantry, and placed them between his cavalry and the enemy chariots. As he rode to the right, Alexander was shadowed by Persian cavalry on that side of the field, to keep him from outflanking the Persian left. It was what Alexander wanted: to remove as much Persian cavalry from their initial position as possible. Alexander also had a surprise for the Persian horsemen: light infantry who kept pace with him, concealed by the dust stirred up by his cavalry.