Creative Execution: What Great Leaders Do to Unleash Bold Thinking and Innovation

The Persian Adventure

Two years after Chaeronea, Philip was assassinated by one of his seven bodyguards (several theories persist about Alexander’s potential role in this regicide, although his involvement was never seriously considered at the time). Alexander immediately assumed the title of strategos. He crossed into Asia in 334 BC, with an army consisting of 8,000 horsemen and 43,000 infantrymen. The heart of Alexander’s army was the Companion Cavalry, which Alexander himself led into battle, followed by the Macedonian phalanx, a tight formation of infantry carrying 18-foot-long lances called sarissai. The first four or five rows of the phalanx would thrust their sarissai together, creating a packed wall of iron that could cleft its way through ...