Key Facts
- Duration
- 327 BC – 325 BC (approx. 2 years)
- Territories gained
- Gandhara, Punjab, Sindh
- Key battle
- Battle of the Hydaspes (326 BC)
- Turning point
- Army mutiny at the Hyphasis River
- Opposing empire avoided
- Nanda Empire of Magadha
Strategic Narrative Overview
Alexander entered Gandhara in 327 BC and absorbed the city of Taxila before advancing into Punjab. In 326 BC, his forces defeated the Indian king Porus at the Battle of the Hydaspes in what proved to be a costly engagement. He then pushed further east, but his exhausted troops mutinied at the Hyphasis River, unwilling to face the vast Nanda Empire. Alexander reluctantly turned south and then west.
01 / The Origins
Following the conquest of the Achaemenid Persian Empire, Alexander the Great sought to push further east into the Indian subcontinent. The northwestern regions, including Gandhara, had been former Persian satrapies, giving Alexander a pretext to claim successor rights. His broader ambition was to reach the edge of the known world, which Greek geographical thinking placed somewhere beyond the Indus River.
03 / The Outcome
After the mutiny at the Hyphasis, Alexander marched south through Sindh, subduing tribes along the lower Indus before heading westward back toward Macedon in 325 BC. The campaign secured Macedonian control over Gandhara and the Indus Valley, regions that were subsequently incorporated as eastern satrapies of the empire. Alexander never returned to India, and these territories were later ceded to the Mauryan Empire.
Belligerents & Mobilization Analysis
Side A
1 belligerent
Alexander the Great, Coenus.
Side B
2 belligerents
Porus.
Kinetic Engagement Axis
Scroll horizontally to view full axis. Events plotted relatively.