Talk:Battle of Issus

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Fixed Persian army count[edit]

Fixed the numbers to correspond to the information below, from modern sources. | 69,000 |- | Persian Immortals | 10,000 |- | Greek hoplites | 10,000 |- | Cavalry | 11,000 |- style="background:lightgrey;" | Total | 100,000[1]"

Persian total of ~100,000 men Intranetusa (talk) 02:26, 20 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

THese numbers are totally rediculous. We all know that. I read in a book about how if Xerxes army had 4,200,000 soldiers in it the army would have extended from Thermapolyae to the far side of the Tigris. While I'm not suggesting we get rid of these numbers, it's clear the persian empire was not capable of fielding 100,000 men, let alone 4,200,000. Their are healthy estimates that are cited, but they are all the way on the bottom of the page. We should feature them more prominently in the article.SteveMooreSmith3 (talk) 22:40, 6 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Casualties[edit]

The table on the right of the article indicates that the Persians fielded approx 100 thousand men and suffered 110 thousand casualties. Something isn't right... 212.157.10.228 15:02, 8 March 2006 (UTC)[reply] 

Is totally wrong Welman's estimate about  7.000 dead Macedonians. If Alexander suffered that kind of losses the result would be different...

Date of the battle[edit]

Alexander was in Gordius until summer of 333, and the battle should have been fought in October, not in May as written in the article.

(Ruthven in italian Wikipedia) 217.77.80.3 16:44, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Dates in battle page names[edit]

I moved the page back to the original name. See Wikipedia:WikiProject Battles no need for date in name unless as a disambiguation.

If you wish the page name to include the year and it is not for disambiguation, please discuss it under Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Battles#Dates in battle page names --Philip Baird Shearer 10:54, 4 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Greek Mercenaries[edit]

This has been added as it was recorded by Herodotus as an important feature of the battle. The source being Alan Fildes' 'Son of the Gods'


Alexander decided against pursuing the retreating Persian army and Darius in order to re-group and deal with the Greek Mercenaries whom he regarded as traitors and ordered them to be cut down where they stood.

Somebody had some poor math, in the box it has the total persian forces as 100,000 so how are there 110 000 casualties may I ask?

The reason all these numbers are strange is because the troop and casualty numbers in the historical records are often pure propaganda. It is almost impossible to make an accurate estimate about the real numbers.

Of course this should be fixed nonetheless. I have some numbers in front of me but I cannot really make sense of them. The persians had at least 10,000 greek mercenaries. The number of 30,000 is given but is probably inflated. Maybe 20,000 or even 15,000 is closer to the truth. The persian cavalry must be somewhere between 30,000 and 10,000, maybe still less, though Arrian gives 100,000. Then we have the number of 50,000 additional persian infantry, 10,000 Immortals and 40,000 additional, including the archers, cardaces and a lot of useless local levies. I do not believe the number of 10,000 Immortals. Sure, legend says they always had 10,000. I think that all these infantry together must have been somewhere around 30,000 to 20,000, most of them useless local levies that just sat in the back.

As for the Macedon. The number of 500 cavalry seems believable and the 20,000 to 24,000 infantry also.

The casualties. The Macedon casualty numbers are unusual high, which seems to suggest these numbers are a rare case of actual realistic numbers. As for the persians. They managed to kill 450 Macedons. So during the battle the persians couldn't have substained much more than a 1000 casualties. But when the army started to rout the real casualties must have been made. Considering the sun was setting during the battle it was too dark to give the routing persians a good chace. The only part of the persian army that didn't see a chance to flee were the greek mercenaries because they jumped into a gap in the macadonian phalanx. It is known that 8000 excaped to Tripolis and that 2000 returned to Darius. So that is around 10,000 to 5000 dead greeks. Then add a 2000 dead persian cavalry, surely this number can't be higher and is probably much lower, and maybe 10,000 dead Cardaces, and we get close to 30,000 dead, which is far from a conservative estimate. I see the article already says that A.M Devine estimates the greek mercenaries to be only 12,000. That would mean only 2000 casualties substained by the greek mercenaries who together with the shattered persian left must have suffered the largest part of the casualties.

This is pure speculation of course but 110,000 can't be correct. Since I am not educated to make these estimates I guess that one should disregard them.

So the outrageous amount of 110,000 dead persians should be coupled with the outrageous amount of 600,000 persian men. I guess Arrian added a zero or something.

Also, shouldn't the article mention that Alexander, with the Companion Cavalry supported by Hypaspists managed to break the line of the Cardaces, claimed to be hoplites by Arrian, because of the fleeing archers that were in front of the Cardaces disrupting the Cardaces battle line? The article says that Alexander assualted the Cardaces on foot with the Hypaspists. I am no expert but I have seen two sources that tell that the battle was won because of the archers fleeing because Alexander, with cavalry, crossed the river so fast that the troops became disorganised.

The reason why Darius placed the archers in front of the Cardaces remain unclear. Some scholars doubt that the Cardaces were hoplites, as Arrian claimed, because placing archers in front of them is nuts. Modern scholars beleive these men were peltasts, as other sources claim. Another opinion is that Darius didn't expect enemy cavalry to cross the river, or at least not that fast, because of the rought terrain on the Macadonian right flank. You can see that the majority of the cavalry was on the Macadonian left flank, near the sea. If the Cardaces wer peltasts in theory the archers should have been able to pass through the ranks of the Cardaces peltasts. But Alexander's speed in crossing the river, which much have been with cavalry, was so fast the Cardaces were disorganised because of the archers.

Well I certainly thank you for your biased views. Wish people like you wrote history, then we wouldn't have such large mix up, anyway thanks for the clear up. But I would reccommend you to write the numbers you have and just couple it with a few sources then we will have a far more accurate sense-making aticle.

This is the source I used: its a good site http://monolith.dnsalias.org/~marsares/warfare/battle/issus.html

Cleaned up what looks like a little vandalism...

Terminology[edit]

Isn't the preferred term for the Macedonian footsoldiers Hypaspists and not Hoplites? For one thing, the equipment is quite different, what with a pike instead of a spear, a lighter shield and if I recall no greaves. More importantly, Alexander's soldiers were professionals, not the citizen-soldier Hoplites of the Greeks. Wilhelm Ritter 18:12, 27 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • The Hypaspists were 'Guard' Macedonian infantry, 3,000 in number who were probably armed with Pike, though some believe they carried shorter spears and larger shields. There were also 9,000 other Macedonian Pikemen (Peziatorioi) and a similar number, e.g. 12,000 Hoplites, 5,500 Thracian Peltasts and some Psiloi (light infantry skirmishers - javelin, sling and bow armed). Around 5,000 cavalry.

Hoplites were the main Greek foot soldier (large shield, 6 to 8 foot spear]. Phalangites were the main Macedonian infantry (smaller shield, 12 foot plus spear). Hypaspists were the Macedonian elite foot soldiers who may, or may not have been equipped as hoplites or as phalangites. These are three different varieties of heavy foot solder Alexander had. The equipment set defines the type, they may be professional or otherwise. Classical Spartans, who were definatly professional solders, were hoplites. Andrewshobley 13:00, 28 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

reference to the pass of jonah[edit]

to be consistent with other wikipedia articles this should be clarified. I think most likely the 'pass of jonah' is the Belen Pass / syrian gate and unless there is a concrete reference to the 'pass of jonah' it should be changed. If there is then the belen pass page may need to be modified. Quantum liam (talk) 21:22, 29 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Clean up[edit]

The article needs clean up. The English is poor. Especially the introduction seems like high school english (UTC)

I think it's a little challenging to read. One statement has "contact with the beach to his sub-commander" which is more modifying prepositional phrases than I usually see for one noun. Wikivek (talk) 17:00, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Tag & Assess 2008[edit]

  • Ensured that the article is: within project scope, tagged for task forces, and assessed for class.
  • This article would benefit from: in-text citations. --Rosiestep (talk) 23:19, 26 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hellenic League?[edit]

The article places too much emphasis on the army of Alexander being that of the "Hellenic League". This was the spin that both Philip and Alexander put on their Persian adventure. It was supposed to be a pan-Hellenic campaign of retribution for what the Persians had done to Greece under Xerxes - a campaign in which Macedon sided with the Persians, ironically. In truth the members of the league were lukewarm in supporting the invasion of Persia at best, and the proportion of the army which fought at Issus provided by the League members (other than Macedon) was tiny, and was greatly exceeded by the numbers of Greek mercenaries that Alexander had hired. The army led by Alexander at Issus was in fact the national army of Macedon, supplimented by the Balkan tributaries of Macedon (Thessalians, Paeonains and Thracians), a large number of Greek mercenaries and a tiny number of Hellenic League troops. The text should be modified to reflect the reality of the situation. Urselius (talk) 10:37, 13 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified[edit]

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Fixed sources for casualty figures[edit]

I checked up on Welman and he never states 7000 dead for Alexander's army. His site is only accessible by wayback machine and neither states 7000.

https://web.archive.org/web/20071016165147/http://pothos.org/content/index.php?page=major-battles
https://web.archive.org/web/20030708052623/http://www.pothos.org/alexander.asp?ParaID=78
https://web.archive.org/web/20030708053546/http://www.pothos.org/alexander.asp?ParaID=95

Not sure how good a source he is anyway. I had to use Livius org who I also dislike, but better than nothing

http://www.livius.org/articles/battle/issus/issus-3/

"Curtius Rufus also tells that, except for about 4,500 wounded, 150 Macedonians were killed in action, and 302 were missing. This means that the army had lost about one tenth of its strength. "Issus" had been a hard fought victory." Seems about right. Winning armies tend to lose a lot less soldiers because most of the killing is usually done in the chasing of the routing losing side. Also the wounded of the losers usually mostly die or are executed on the spot. Though I'm not sure Curtius Rufus actually mentions 4500 wounded and I do not trust Livius org to correctly report on that (I've seen them make errors and even contradict themselves), this was the best I could find so far.Simanos (talk) 15:28, 6 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference estimate was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
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