Battle of the Granicus participant Alexander the Great
The Battle of the Granicus in May 334 BC was the first of three major battles fought between Alexander the Great of Macedon and the Persian Achaemenid Empire. The battle took place on the road from Abydus to Dascylium, at the crossing of the Granicus in the Troad region, which is now called the Biga River in Turkey. In the battle Alexander defeated the field army of the Persian satraps of Asia Minor, which defended the river crossing. After this battle, the Persians were forced on the defensive in the cities that remained under their control in the region.Aftermath
The 2,000 Greek mercenaries who were captured were sent to Macedon to work the land as slaves. Even though they were Greeks, Alexander felt they had betrayed their fellow Greeks with their service to the Persians. In doing so, they did not abide by the agreement made at the Hellenic League, which compelled the Greeks to fight Persia and not each other. He also sent 300 suits of Persian armour to Athens as a votive offering to Athena on the Acropolis. He ordered an inscription to be fixed over them so as to mark the absence of the Spartans in his united Greek army: "Alexander, son of Philip and all the Greeks except the Lacedaemonians, present this offering from the spoils taken from the barbarians inhabiting Asia". A statue group, known as the Granicus Monument, was erected by Alexander in the sanctuary of Zeus at Dion. This consisted of bronze statues by Lysippus of Alexander with twenty-five of his companions who had died in the initial cavalry charge, all on horseback. In 146 BC, after the Fourth Macedonian War, this statue group was taken to Rome by Quintus Caecilius Metellus Macedonicus, where they were displayed in a portico that he built below the Capitoline Hill.Dascylium was evacuated by its Persian garrison and occupied by Parmenion. Alexander marched to Sardis, which surrendered to him. He continued to Ephesus, which was also evacuated by its garrison of Greek mercenaries. When Magnesia and Tralles also offered their surrender, he sent Parmenion to those cities. He sent Lysimachus to the cities in Aeolis and Ionia which were still under Persian control, ordering him to break up the oligarchies there and reinstate democratic government. When Alexander arrived at Miletus the city resisted him, so he besieged it.The Persian military losses were not disastrous, as a large portion of the army managed to retreat to Halicarnassus. On the other hand, the strategic outcome was precarious for the Achaemenid Empire. Achaemenid satraps had been defeated in Asia Minor before and Sardis had been besieged, but this was the first time that the citadel of Sardis had fallen and that an enemy force could continue its march without significant obstacles until Halicarnassus.