Battle of Gabai
| date | Winter 328 BC Chr. |
|---|---|
| place | near Bukhara / Uzbekistan |
| output | Victory of the koino |
| Parties to the conflict | |
|---|---|
| Commander | |
| Troop strength | |
|
(Arrian 4, 17, 4) 3,000 cavalrymen |
(Arrian 4, 17, 3) 3,072 infantrymen at least 400 cavalrymen |
| losses | |
|
|
(Arrian 4, 17, 6) |
Granicus - Miletus - Halicarnassus - Issus - Tire - Gaugamela - Persian Gates - Jaxartes - Sogdian Rock - Chorienes Rock - Gabai - Hydaspes
The Battle of Gabai was a military clash during the Alexander procession in the winter of 328 BC. Chr. In this dispute could Koinos , a general of Alexander the Great , the decisive victory over the stubborn resistance Battle Scene ends Spitamenes win. It took place near the city of Gabai ( Greek Γαβάι ) named by Arrian , which can be located in the south of today's Uzbekistan , probably near the river Serafshan west of Samarqand . Gabai is commonly identified with today's Bukhara .
prehistory
At the turn of the year from 330 to 329 BC BC Alexander the Great , crossing the Hindu Kush to the north, advanced into the Central Asian regions of Bactria and Sogdia , today's Afghanistan , southern Tajikistan and Uzbekistan . After his arrival there, Spitamenes , the Persian governor of Sogdia, delivered the fugitive regicide Bessos to him. Spitamenes himself, however, did not intend to submit to the Macedonian conqueror, since he probably did not expect him to remain in this region permanently. With his followers he settled in the steppe landscapes west of Sogdia, in order to wage a guerrilla war against Alexander that lasted almost two years . He achieved some successes at times, such as the siege of the Macedonians in Marakanda (Samarqand) and the destruction of the 2,000-strong army detachment of Pharnuches , with which he was able to inflict the only military defeat on Alexander on his conquest.
The military clout of the Spitamenes was largely based on the fast cavalry warriors of the Dahae and above all the massagers , who are often counted among the Scythians by ancient historians . The massagers were not unknown to the Greeks and also notorious, as they were considered the people against whom the Persian king Cyrus II is said to have fought his fateful last battle. Its vast steppe in what is now northern Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan served Spitamenes as a base of operations and a place of retreat, from where he quickly launched strikes against Alexander's troops. He had to give up his tried and tested warfare against this guerrilla tactic and adapt it, in that he could no longer force a decisive battle on the enemy with his closed army, but tried to fight him using smaller and independently operating army columns.
The battle
As Spitamenes in the spring of 328 BC BC led another military campaign to Bactria and thereby conquered Zariaspa (Balkh) , Krateros marched with his army column into the land of the massagers and inflicted a defeat on them, but could not pursue them in their far hinterland. Alexander, who was in Marakanda at the same time and who had just killed his friend Kleitos in a dispute , intended to move with the bulk of his army to Nautaka (Shahrisabz) . A smaller army detachment was to remain under the command of the Koinos , with the task of wintering here, fighting any potential danger and, above all, providing spitamenes. The general was provided with two battalions of the Macedonian infantry ( pezhetairoi , 1536 men each ), his own and that of Meleager , 400 mounted companions ( hetairoi ) and all available spearmen on horseback ( hippakontistai ), the strength of which is not known.
Spitamenes was at the beginning of the second half of 328 BC. Chr. In a precarious situation, since almost all permanent places in Sogdia and Bactria were now firmly in the hands of Alexander, which he could hardly besiege with his nomadic troops. Their loyalty could only be maintained from the booty that could be gained through looting, which was now difficult to obtain due to the presence of the garrisons. At the news of Alexander's departure, Spitamenes therefore decided to confront koinos in the hope of being able to move into a field battle in Marakanda after his defeat. This strategy had already proven itself at Zariaspa. When he invaded the area around the Sogdian border fortress Gabai with 3,000 riders, Koinos actually approached him.
The battle of Gabai is only mentioned by Arrian , who, unlike the better-known battles of the Alexanderzug, does not describe it in detail. This is apparently because his main source for the life of Alexander, the hetairos Ptolemaios , himself was not an eyewitness to the battle and therefore he could not provide Arrian with any information. Arrian only reports that Koinos emerged victorious from a hard battle and inflicted heavy losses on the enemy. What remains unmentioned is the tactics with which Koinos and his essentially infantry troops were able to defeat the fast nomad riders.
consequences
Spitamenes managed to escape from the battlefield into the steppe of his allied massagers, over whom he had lost all authority as a leader. Fearing retaliation from the Macedonians on their land, they eventually killed him and sent his head to Alexander. With its end, the resistance in Central Asia came to the spring of 327 BC. BC, which Alexander had taken for two years. Ironically, Spitamenes fell by the hand of a traitor, just like Bessus, whom he himself had betrayed, and Darius III. who, in turn, had been betrayed by Bessus.
The year 327 BC BC Alexander could now devote himself to the preparation of his India venture, which with a second crossing of the Hindu Kush in the winter of 327/326 BC. Was started.
literature
- AB Bosworth: A Missing Year in the History of Alexander the Great , In: The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Vol. 101 (1981), pp. 17-39.
- Marek J. Olbrycht: The relationship of the steppe nomads of Central Asia to the Hellenistic states , In: Bernd Funck (Hrsg.), Hellenism: Contributions to the research of acculturation and political order in the states of the Hellenistic age (1996), pp. 147-170.
swell
- Arrian , Anabasis 4, 17.
- Curtius Rufus 8, 3.
- Itinerarium Alexandri 98.
- Metz epitomes 20-21.
Remarks
- ↑ On dating see Bosworth, pp. 36–37.
- ↑ For localization see Olbrycht, p. 155.
- ↑ Arrian , Anabasis 4, 17, 4. In the ancient Greek text edition by Antoon Gerhard Roos ( Flavii Arriani Anabasis Alexandri , Leipzig 1907, p. 175; in Perseus Project ) Γαβάς / "Gabas" written. In English-language literature, the city is also translated as "Bagae", for example in James R. Ashley: The Macedonian Empire: The Era of Warface under Philip II and Alexander the Great, 359-323 BC (2004), p. 290. This apparently goes back to older text editions such as that by Karl Wilhelm Krüger ( Arrianou Alexandrou Anavasis: Emendatam et explicatam, Vol. 1 , Berlin 1835, p. 108; at books.google ), in which the city is called Βαγαι / "Bagai".
- ↑ For example in PA Brunt: Arrian: The History of Alexander and the Indica Vol. 1 (1976), p. 505 and Alexander Demandt : Alexander der Große. Leben und Legende (2009), p. 226.
- ↑ Herodotus , Historien 1, 214; Diodorus 2, 44, 2.
- ↑ Ptolemy remained as a bodyguard for Alexander's entourage and was involved in the siege of the rock of Chorienes (Sisimithres), which took place around the same time as Gabai .
- ↑ Little credibility is given to the stories that Spitamenes was murdered by his Bactrian wife, who was tired of nomadic life. In any case, his family should have been handed over to Alexander with his head, since his daughter Apame was later married to the officer Seleucus .