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 winning the Battle of Chaeronea in 338 BC, King Philip II of Macedon forced most of the Greek states into a military alliance, the Hellenic League.

Philip most likely wanted to exploit the chaos in the empire, but could not launch a large-scale invasion of Asia Minor because his entire army was not yet ready.

In the spring of 336 BC he ordered a Macedonian expeditionary corps of several thousand soldiers to land on the western coast of Asia Minor.

The likely mission of this advance-guard was to conquer as much territory as possible, or at the very least establish a bridgehead on the Asian side of the Hellespont to facilitate the crossing of the main army later.

Initially the campaign was a success, with many of the Greek cities of western Asia Minor surrendering peacefully to the Macedonians.

Philip was succeeded by his son, Alexander III, who had to put down several revolts in the Balkans and Greece first to reassert Macedonian authority.

When this was done he sent Memnon of Rhodes to Asia Minor at the head of a force of Greek mercenaries, who were infantry fighting as hoplites.

By the end of 335 BC most of the Greek cities had been restored to Persian control and the expeditionary force retained only Abydus and perhaps Rhoeteum.

[2] Once Alexander had defeated the rebellions in the Balkans and Greece, he marched his army to the Hellespont in early spring 334 BC.

The main part of the army was transported from Sestus to Abydus in Asia Minor, while Alexander crossed with the remainder of the infantry from Elaeus, landing near Cape Sigeum.

The reasons for this may have been that Alexander had not proven himself as a commander abroad yet and that the Macedonian expeditionary force had been pushed back without much difficulty the previous year.

The ancient historians Arrian and Diodorus Siculus claim that Memnon advised the Persians to avoid open battle with the Macedonians.

[8] Pierre Briant argues that even if the debate took place as described, the relevance of Memnon's counsel was overstated because discussing strategy was not the purpose of the meeting.

Krzysztof Nawotka considers Arrian's claim of 20,000 infantry credible, but does not think it consisted entirely of Greek mercenaries.

He believes that Arrian's claim that all Persian infantry consisted of Greek mercenaries was either a mistake or an attempt to enhance Alexander's glory.

[29] Assuming that Arrian was right in his claim that the infantry consisted exclusively of Greek mercenaries and that the figure of 10,000 cavalry given by Diodorus is plausible, he suggests that the Persian army likely numbered 14,000 to 15,000 men.

[33] Likewise, historians have questioned why Memnon was given command of a cavalry unit at the front line, given his success with leading the Greek mercenaries.

Modern historians have suggested that the Persian commanders did so out of resentment towards the Greek mercenaries, which had defeated the Macedonians at Magnesia the year prior.

The Macedonian forces would have moved in a diagonal line and eventually formed up in wedge formation as they ascended the eastern bank of the Granicus.

[45] Plutarch's account focuses more on the aristeia of Alexander's personal combat with the Persian leaders and gives less attention to the movements and tactics of the armies.

[46] In the account given by Diodorus, the Macedonian and Persian armies encamped on the opposite banks of the Granicus and did not move for the rest of the day.

Diodorus then describes the personal combat of Alexander with the Persian nobles, which differs slightly from the account of Arrian and Plutarch.

Alexander then grudgingly accepted Parmenion's advice and crossed the river during the night in an uncontested location, and fought the battle at dawn the next day.

Green devoted an entire appendix in support of his interpretation, taking the view that for political reasons, Alexander could not admit even a temporary defeat.

In that case Alexander would have lost the opportunity to quickly destroy the only Persian army present in Asia Minor at that time.

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.

[54] 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.

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.