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Ancient Greek Iron Arrowhead
Iron 13.2×2.4cm (31.88 grams) from circa Circa 330’s B.C.
These were the heavy arrowheads as that could have been used by Alexander the Great.
Provenance: private collection in the United States of America.
Ownership History: From private collection in the United States, bought in private sale in the United States of America.
You are bidding on the exact item pictured, provided with a Certificate of Authenticity and Lifetime Guarantee of Authenticity.
 The Battle of Issus (also Issos) 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. It was the second great battle of Alexander’s conquest of Asia, and the first encounter between Darius III and Alexander the Great. The battle resulted in the Macedonian troops defeating the Persian forces.
After the Hellenic League soundly defeated the Persian satraps of Asia Minor (led by Greek mercenary Memnon of Rhodes) at the Battle of the Granicus, Darius took personal command of his army. He gathered reinforcements and proceeded to lead his men in a surprise march behind the Hellenic advance, in order to cut off their line of supply. Alexander was forced to countermarch, and the stage was set for the battle near the mouth of the Pinarus River and the town of Issus.
The Greeks advanced through the Pillar of Jonah. Alexander led his Companion cavalry on the right flank and he set his Thessalian allied cavalry on the left of the phalanx with Parmenion in command.
Darius formed his line with his heavy cavalry concentrated next to the coast on his right, followed by the Greek mercenary phalanx (historian A. M. Devine places them at a strength of 12,000, comparable to Alexander’s Greek phalanx). Next to the Greek phalanx Darius spread his Persian infantry, the Cardaces, along the river and into the foothills, where they wrapped around to the other bank and threatened Alexander’s right flank (the formation resembled gamma, Γ). Arrian gives an inflated figure of 20,000 to these troops. Darius positioned himself in the centre with his best infantry, the Greek mercenaries, and his royal cavalry guard. According to some historians, like P. Stratikis, he was trying to replicate the Hellenic battle formation of the Battle of the Granicus.
 The Persian cavalry first charged Parmenion and the allied cavalry, crossing the river to open battle. Alexander’s right wing became the crux of the battle, as at Gaugamela two years later, where Parmenion held the left wing long enough against superior Persian numbers for Alexander to make his calculated cavalry strike against Darius and break the Persian army.[8] The infantry of the Greek left flank was commanded by the general Craterus, in a promotion from his position commanding a single brigade of pezhetairoi infantry at the Granicus.
Things did not go well for the Macedonians in the beginning. Their center phalanx, having to advance across a river and up a fortified bank, suffered severely against the Greek mercenaries waiting for them on the other side. Arrian noted that a hundred and twenty Macedonians “of note” (probably meaning officers) were slain here, and the Macedonians were forced to retreat across the river. In the left flank, the Thessalian struggled against the outnumbering mass of Persian heavy horse that faced them, delivering charges and retreating again to buy time.
Then the Hypaspists led by Alexander on foot delivered an assault on the Cardaces, and managed to punch a hole through the Persian line. The Agrianians too drove back a mass of Persian skirmishers menacing Alexander’s far right, securing the flank of the Companions. Alexander then mounted a horse at the head of his Companions and led a direct assault against Darius and his bodyguards, causing them to flee from the battlefield. Alexander then saw his left flank and center in trouble, and allowing Darius to flee, he crashed into the rear of the Greek mercenaries. The Greek mercenaries broke up and started retreating from the battlefield as well. The Persians saw that their Great King had gone and that the battle was being lost, and they abandoned their positions and fled in full rout. The Hellenic cavalry pursued the fleeing Persians for as long as there was light. As with most ancient battles, significant carnage occurred after the battle as the pursuing Greeks slaughtered their crowded, disorganized foe. Arrian notes Ptolemy mentioning that while pursuing Darius, Alexander and his bodyguards came upon a ravine which they easily crossed on the piled up bodies of dead Persians. It was a decisive victory for Alexander.
The Battle of Issus was a decisive Hellenic victory and it marked the beginning of the end of Persian power. It was the first time the Persian army had been defeated with the King (Darius III at the time) present[citation needed]. After the battle, the Hellenes captured Darius’ wife, Stateira I, his daughters, Stateira II and Drypetis, and his mother, Sisygambis, all of whom had accompanied Darius on his campaign. Alexander, who later married Stateira II, treated the captured women with great respect.
Later, the Spartan king Agis III recruited the Greek mercenary survivors of the Battle of Issus who had served in the Persian army, a force of 8,000 veterans, and used them in his fight against the Macedonians. In the summer of 331 BC, Agis defeated Coragus, the Macedonian general in command of the Peloponnese and the garrison of Corinth, but was finally defeated at the Battle of Megalopolis.
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