Dr Adrian Goldsworthy

And Darius runs, which, of course, Alexander presents as, well, I'm the king who fights with his men.

This is the great king, so he calls himself.

But he legs it and lets his men get

So it's a moral victory, but he isn't captured.

The pursuit, though pretty bloody, doesn't, you know, there's enough Persians get away.

But this is the last time you'll see large numbers of Greek mercenary infantry.

There'll be some later, but there's never as many anymore.

This is the big one.

And it's also, it's a big one for the Persian attempts to fight with infantry altogether because their own troops equipped in Greek style, they suffer badly as well and don't get away and they never really reappear.

Next time they fight, it's going to be very much Persian cavalry that it's all about.

But it's still two years.

We look at a nice chronological chart and we think, oh, that's not very long.

But two years of our life, that's quite a long time.

lots of things you've worried about you've done you've been very busy up until this point but it's still yes you've beaten the king of kings in a battle but he's still got most of his empire he's still got most of his money he's still got most of his manpower he still has the dignity of being the Achaemenid king of this dynasty that's been there for centuries the great conquerors the great superpowers so every time Alexander wins it's great but he can't afford even one loss

He's always basically, he's got to prove himself every time.

Darius can cope with the loss.

It's not great, but he can cope with it.

Well, and it's the main coloured representation of Alexander.

So all the theories about what colour his hair was and there's this sort of thing.

That's what we've got to go on other than the descriptions.