Ariobarzanes and the Battle of the Persian Gate

The Battle of the Persian Gate was the last stand of a Persian army in the homeland of the Achaemenid kings. In January 330 BCE Ariobarzanes, satrap of Persis, blocked a narrow pass in the Zagros mountains on the road to Persepolis and threw back Alexander’s first attack. The Macedonians broke through only after a guide led them over the mountains to the defenders’ rear.

Defending the homeland

After Gaugamela, Babylon and Susa surrendered without a fight. Persis, the province of the Persians themselves and home of the royal centres at Persepolis and Pasargadae, was different. Its satrap Ariobarzanes was probably the same man whom Arrian names among the commanders at Gaugamela. While Darius III was in Media trying to raise another army, Ariobarzanes prepared to hold the mountain road from Susa to Persepolis.

Alexander divided his army. Parmenion took the baggage and the heavy troops along the easier road to the south-east. Alexander led the fastest infantry and cavalry straight into the mountains, after first crushing the Uxians, hill peoples who demanded a toll from anyone using their passes, including, they said, the Persian king.

The trap in the pass

Ariobarzanes chose a place where the road ran through a long, narrow valley and built a wall across it. His men waited on the slopes above. The ancient writers say there was snow on the ground. When the Macedonians entered the defile, the Persians attacked from the heights with arrows, sling stones and boulders rolled down the slopes. Curtius describes men crushed in their ranks, unable to strike back. Alexander had to pull his troops back several kilometres, and Curtius says he even left his dead unburied, which for a Greek or Macedonian commander was a serious disgrace. It was one of the few clear reverses of his career.

The mountain path

Prisoners told Alexander there was another way round. Arrian simply says a guide was found. Curtius gives a fuller story: the guide was a Lycian who had been taken captive years before and worked as a herdsman in these mountains, and who spoke both Greek and Persian. The parallel with Ephialtes, who led the Persians round the Greek position at Thermopylae in 480 BCE, was not lost on ancient writers, and some modern scholars suspect the story was shaped to echo it.

Alexander left Craterus in the camp with part of the army and orders to keep the usual number of fires burning, so the Persians would think nothing had changed. He himself set off at night with picked troops along a difficult track through the snow. At dawn on the second day his men surprised the Persian outposts and came down behind the wall. At the agreed trumpet signal Craterus attacked from the front. Caught between the two forces, the Persians were cut down or driven over the cliffs.

The fate of Ariobarzanes

The sources disagree about how Ariobarzanes died. Arrian says he escaped into the mountains with a few horsemen. Curtius says he broke out with forty cavalry and some 5,000 infantry, tried to reach Persepolis and was shut out of the city, and then died fighting with his men. Diodorus has the defenders destroyed in the pass. The detail in Curtius may be romantic, but the gates of Persepolis really were closed to him: Tiridates, the Persian official in charge of the treasury there, had already sent word to Alexander that he would hand over the city and its wealth if Alexander arrived quickly.

That message explains Alexander’s haste after the battle. He rode on with the cavalry and reached Persepolis before the garrison could plunder the treasure. What happened there is told on the burning of Persepolis.

Locating the Persian Gate

The ancient writers give only rough directions, and several passes have been proposed. Earlier travellers and historians placed it at other passes on the mountain road between Susa and Persepolis. Field research by Henry Speck, published in 2002, and by the historian Jona Lendering supports Tang-e Meyran, a gorge north-east of Yasuj through which Iran’s Highway 78 now runs. Local scholars have argued for other sites nearby, and the question is not closed.

Persian sources and Iranian memory

As with every battle of this war, no Persian account survives. We know of Ariobarzanes only through Arrian, Curtius and Diodorus, who drew on the reports of Alexander’s officers. They still let him appear as a capable commander who gave Alexander real trouble.

In modern Iran Ariobarzanes has become a national hero, the man who defended Persis when others surrendered. Popular retellings add a sister, Youtab, who is said to have fought and died beside him. She appears in no ancient source and belongs to modern patriotic storytelling. The historical Ariobarzanes needs no additions: a satrap who chose to fight for his province with no chance of help from the king.