Conquest and the War with Persia
During his reign, Alexander the Great expanded Macedonia a great distance, and conquered multiple cities and even some countries. In fact, Alexander started serving in the military when he was 18 years old as a Cavalry commander, and was later crowned king when he was 20. When he was crowned king, he decided to show his military power by taking over Greece. Then, when he was 26 years old, Alexander made one of his biggest victories, conquering Persia. The war with Persia was started in 334 BC, and led on to be four years long, ending in 330 BC. At this point, he had expanded Macedonia to be roughly two-million square miles large.
The first major battle of the war with Persia that was won, was the Battle of Granicus. Records say that Alexander defeated a force of 20,000 Persian horsemen and an equal number of foot soldiers (probably exaggerated), and then advanced down the coast of west Turkey. While doing so,Alexander took multiple cities, in an attempt to weaken the Persian navy. The second major battle, and arguably the most important, was the Battle of Issus, which took place near the ancient town of Issus in southern Turkey. In this battle, Persian troops were led by the Persian king, Darius III himself, however, after losing the battle, Darius fled. Alexander then moved south along the eastern Mediterranean, in which he designed a strategy to once again cripple the Persian navy. in 332 B.C., after the seige of the town Gaza, Alexander progressed into Egypt. On the northern rim of Egypt, he founded "Alexanria", one of his most prosperous towns that he made. Once Alexander secured Egypt and the Persian navy was sufficiently weakened, he started to move inland to conquer the eastern half of the Persian empire.