Tristan Hughes

And he then starts marching south towards present day Lebanon.

But then Darius appears out of nowhere, doesn't he?

Behind him.

To the Pinarus or River Issus, as you say, where he is.

And it's so fascinating.

You always have to look at a map to see the idea of how he kind of...

Once again, a horseshoe kind of goes around Alexander to end up in Cilicia.

And Alexander coming back up the Syrian coastline to deal with Darius after Darius supposedly kills all his injured, wounded men.

And then you get the first big battle between Alexander and Darius himself.

And I know the ancient sources once again say Darius has a massive army, maybe over 100,000 men.

It's between 50 and 100,000 is...

The Paspids, they're like the elite foot guards.

And it's a clear victory for Alexander.

And bear in mind, this is late 333 BC.

So it's less than two years after he's crossed the Hellespont that he's won the first victory against the satraps, then all these sieges, and then actually defeating the King of Kings.

Babylon is still very far away at this stage.

One other thing that I'll highlight here is, of course, that flight of Darius at Issus is immortalized in the house of the faun at Pompeii.

that floor mosaic.

No, it was a floor mosaic because that's why the horse's bum looks really big if you look at it like a painting today.

But the proportions were right if it was on the floor.