Tristan Hughes

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.

And that is a beautiful mosaic, obviously from Roman times, but it shows Alexander on the left with his companions.

You see that the straight swords and the spears and then Darius and his charioteer.

Darius looking scared, charioteer with the whip up, causing chaos in his own ranks and he's trying to flee.

But I just love that, you know, you have the written sources, but then you have that mosaic surviving as well.

Shall we finish this episode?

We've done really well in this, doing Granicus and Issus and the early campaign of Alexander in Anatolia.

The last great story attached to Issus, which is the immediate aftermath where Darius has fled east, but he's left his baggage behind.

Which isn't just baggage.

The baggage which is not just objects.

The chivalric Alexander and also, you know, another of those stories that links the closeness of Alexander with Hephaestion, you know, that companion, almost certainly lover as well, saying when they misidentify, they think Hephaestion's Alexander and Alexander going like,

Hephaestion is just as much Alexander as I am.

So it's an interesting one.