The Battle of the Granicus in May 334 BC was the first of three major battles fought between Alexander the Great of Macedon and the Persian Achaemenid Empire. The battle took place on the road from Abydus to Dascylium, at the crossing of the Granicus in the Troad region, which is now called the Biga River in Turkey. In the battle Alexander defeated the field army of the Persian satraps of Asia Minor, which defended the river crossing. After this battle, the Persians were forced on the defensive in the cities that remained under their control in the region. Background After winning the Battle of Chaeronea in 337 BC, king Philip II of Macedon forced most of the Greek states into a military alliance, the Hellenic League. Its goal was to make war on the Persian Achaemenid Empire to avenge the second Persian invasion of Greece in 480 BC. He managed to convince the other Greek states to elect him as the leader of the League and started preparing for the war. At the same time the Achaemenid Empire had been in crisis since the murder of its king Artaxerxes III in 338 BC. An important consequence of this was that Egypt again seceded from the empire. At this time there was no large Persian army in Asia Minor and the Persian fleet was not expected in the Aegean Sea soon. Philip most likely wanted to exploit the chaos in the empire, but could not launch a large-scale invasion of Asia Minor because his entire army was not yet ready. For this reason he probably sent a smaller part of his army which could be deployed. In the spring of 336 BC he ordered a Macedonian expeditionary corps of several thousand soldiers to land on the western coast of Asia Minor. The likely mission of this advance-guard was to conquer as much territory as possible, or at the very least establish a bridgehead on the Asian side of the Hellespont to facilitate the crossing of the main army later. The advance guard was most likely led by Parmenion, Philip's best general, with Attalus as second in command. Initially the campaign was a success, with many of the Greek cities of western Asia Minor surrendering peacefully to the Macedonians. At the end of 336 BC this all changed. Philip was murdered, most likely in October 336 BC. Philip was succeeded by