Jaxartes River (328 BC)

By 329 BC Alexander had completed the subjugation of the eastern Persian satraps, and his army was building a new city, Alexandria Eschate, on the banks of the Jaxartes, to guard his northeastern frontier. A Scythian force under their chief, …

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By 329 BC Alexander had completed the subjugation of the eastern Persian satraps, and his army was building a new city, Alexandria Eschate, on the banks of the Jaxartes, to guard his northeastern frontier. A Scythian force under their chief, Satraces, arrived on the opposite bank. The Scythian force was mostly horse archers who were about to launch a major raid. Alexander decided to attack and defeat the barbarians to dissuade them from future raids. Alexander set up catapults to deal with the horse archers during the potentially difficult river crossing. When the catapults opened fire, a number of Scythian horsemen were immediately struck down. The horse archers cautiously backed away from the river. Alexander’s troops quickly crossed en masse. Once safely across, he sent out a few units of horse and foot as bait. When the Scythians, as expected, had surrounded the Macedonian detachment, Alexander sent in the rest of his horse and light infantry to block their retreat so they could not avoid Alexander's heavy foot units. After some brief hand-to hand fighting, Satraces was killed and the Scythians broke and fled. Although the bulk of the Scythian army escaped, they knew that the Macedonians could beat their tactics. Alexander had succeeded in forcing a victory against the swift steppe horse archers where Cyrus the Great and Darius I had failed.

Khujand, Tajikistan

The Battle of Jaxartes was a battle fought in 329 BC by Alexander the Great and his Macedonian army against the Saka at the River Jaxartes, now known as the Syr Darya River. The site of the battle straddles the modern borders of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, just south-west of the ancient city of Tashkent and north-east of Khujand.

Wikipedia: Battle of Jaxartes

Macedonian

Scythian

Alexander The Great