About this site
Chasing Alexander follows the campaigns of Alexander the Great on a continuous map. It is made by Christopher Martin and shares its name with his memoir.
The author
Christopher Martin is a Marine infantry veteran who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. His memoir, Chasing Alexander: A Marine's Journey Across Iraq and Afghanistan, was published in 2021.
The memoir:Chasing Alexander on Amazon·on Goodreads
Method
AI tools assisted with research, drafting, and development. This revision is awaiting Christopher Martin's review. Targeted source checks have corrected claims in the narration, but they do not amount to a complete verification of the site.
The main surviving accounts were written long after Alexander's death and often disagree. The narration names those differences where they affect the story. The books below form the working bibliography. Personal field notes appear only after their author's approval.
The lost sources
The surviving narrative histories draw on earlier works that are now lost. Their authors included participants in the campaign:
- Callisthenes of Olynthus. The expedition's historian, arrested during the campaign and killed or dead in custody. His work is lost.
- Ptolemy son of Lagos. Companion, later Pharaoh, and Arrian's primary source. Lost.
- Aristobulus of Cassandreia. A participant in the expedition and an important source for Arrian. His account is lost.
- Nearchus of Crete. Admiral of the Indus fleet. His coastal voyage survives inside Arrian's Indica. Lost.
- Onesicritus, Cleitarchus, Chares, the Royal Journal. Other early accounts, surviving in fragments and through later writers. Their authors had differing access to the events.
Later writers preserve quotations, summaries, and competing versions of events from these lost works.
Primary sources
- Arrian, Anabasis of Alexander. The main narrative source. Editions include the Landmark Arrian (ed. Romm, trans. Mensch) and the Loeb (trans. Brunt).
- Plutarch, Life of Alexander.
- Quintus Curtius Rufus, Histories of Alexander the Great.
- Diodorus Siculus, Library of History, Book 17.
- Justin, Epitome of Pompeius Trogus, Books 11–12.
- Arrian, Indica. Nearchus' voyage.
- Strabo, Geography. Accounts of places and episodes along the route.
- Babylonian astronomical diary. A contemporary record of Alexander's death, with a translation and discussion on Livius.
The working shelf
- Donald W. Engels, Alexander the Great and the Logistics of the Macedonian Army. A study of supply, transport, and the routes available to the army.
- A. B. Bosworth, Conquest and Empire, and his Arrian commentary.
- J. F. C. Fuller, The Generalship of Alexander the Great. A modern study of the campaigns and battles.
- Frank L. Holt, Into the Land of Bones: Alexander the Great in Afghanistan. A study of the campaigns in the region of modern Afghanistan.
- Robin Lane Fox, Alexander the Great.
- Peter Green, Alexander of Macedon, 356–323 B.C.
- Waldemar Heckel, Who's Who in the Age of Alexander the Great. A reference work on the people in the campaign.
- Michael Wood, In the Footsteps of Alexander the Great. An account of retracing the route, published in 1997.
Images
All photography is public domain or Creative Commons, downloaded and self-hosted, credited per item below (aggregated automatically from the march's own records). Museums by name: the Naples National Archaeological Museum, the Istanbul Archaeology Museums, the Musée du Louvre, the British Museum, the Pergamon Museum.
- Pella · Alexander. The Azara herm, a Roman copy after a Lysippus original. Musée du Louvre, via Wikimedia Commons · Public domain
- The Hellespont · The Hellespont, now the Dardanelles, looking across to the shore of Asia. Photo Jorge Láscar, via Wikimedia Commons · CC BY 2.0
- Troy · The walls of Troy at Hisarlık. Photo Barrowbob, via Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0
- The Granicus · The Granicus today. Turkish maps call it the Biga Çayı. Photo Danbury, via Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 3.0
- After the River · The Alexander Mosaic (House of the Faun, Pompeii; depicts Issus). Naples National Archaeological Museum; photo Magrippa, via Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 3.0
- Miletus · The theatre of Miletus. Via Wikimedia Commons · Public domain
- Gordium · The Midas Mound at Gordion. Photo Carole Raddato, via Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 2.0
- Tarsus · The banks of the Cydnus at Tarsus, drawn by Léon de Laborde in 1838. Via Wikimedia Commons · Public domain
- The Trap at Issus · Alexander and Darius at Issus. The Alexander Mosaic, from the House of the Faun at Pompeii. Naples National Archaeological Museum, via Wikimedia Commons · Public domain
- Old Tyre · Tyre from the air, c. 1918. The island is a peninsula now. The isthmus grew around Alexander's mole. Library of Congress, Matson Collection, via Wikimedia Commons · Public domain
- Memphis · The Great Pyramid of Giza. Photo kallerna, via Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 3.0
- Alexandria · The Citadel of Qaitbay, Alexandria. It stands on the foundations of the Pharos lighthouse. Photo Osama Awny, via Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0
- Siwa · The Temple of the Oracle of Ammon, Siwa Oasis. Photo Vyacheslav Argenberg, via Wikimedia Commons · CC BY 4.0
- Babylon · The Ishtar Gate of Babylon, reconstructed at the Pergamon Museum, Berlin. Photo Kurt Kaiser, via Wikimedia Commons · CC0
- Susa · The Frieze of Archers from Darius I's palace at Susa. Musée du Louvre; via Wikimedia Commons · Public domain
- The Persian Gates · The Persian Gates in winter, the season Ariobarzanes held them. Photo Jona Lendering, via Wikimedia Commons · Public domain
- Persepolis · Tribute-bearers of the nations on the Apadana stairs, Persepolis. Photo Phillip Maiwald, via Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 3.0
- The Fire · The Gate of All Nations at Persepolis, fire-scarred and still standing. Photo Skot, via Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0
- Hyrcania · The Hyrcanian forest in Gilan. Photo Ninara, via Wikimedia Commons · CC BY 2.0
- Kandahar · The ruins of Old Kandahar, photographed 1881. The site is associated with Alexandria-in-Arachosia. Photo Benjamin Simpson, via Wikimedia Commons · Public domain
- The Khawak · The Hindu Kush. U.S. Air Force photo, Master Sgt. Andy Dunaway; via Wikimedia Commons · Public domain
- The Furthest · The Jaxartes, now the Syr Darya. The march went no further north. Photo Petar Milošević, via Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 3.0
- Maracanda · The Zeravshan valley near Panjakent. Photo Satdeep Gill, via Wikimedia Commons · CC BY 4.0
- Bucephalus · Alexander on horseback, a detail of the Alexander Mosaic. Naples National Archaeological Museum, via Wikimedia Commons · Public domain
- The Rain · Monsoon floodwater across the Punjab rivers, from orbit. NASA Earth Observatory; via Wikimedia Commons · Public domain
- The Ocean · The Indus delta meeting the Arabian Sea, from orbit. Sentinel-2 data processed by Pierre Markuse; via Wikimedia Commons · CC BY 2.0
- The Makran · The Makran at Hingol, Balochistan. Photo Furqanlw, via Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0
- Ecbatana · Hephaestion. A marble portrait head, c. 320 BCE. Via Wikimedia Commons · Public domain
- Babylon · The Babylonian astronomical diary recording Alexander's death: 'the king died; clouds.' British Museum; photo Shaunnol, via Wikimedia Commons · Public domain
- The Ledger · The Alexander Sarcophagus, carved for a client king within living memory of the march. Istanbul Archaeology Museums, photo Dosseman, via Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0
Map, data, tools
- Base map data © OpenStreetMap contributors, served via Protomaps.
- Terrain: Mapzen/AWS Terrain Tiles.
- Rendering: MapLibre GL JS. Built with Astro. Hosted on Cloudflare as static files. Map tiles are served from the same account.
- Ancient place-name coordinates draw on Pleiades (CC BY) and the Ancient World Mapping Center (ODbL).
- Typefaces: Newsreader (Production Type), IBM Plex Mono (IBM), Archivo (Omnibus-Type). All under the SIL Open Font License, self-hosted.
What this site stores
- No accounts, no cookies, no sign-in. Nothing here asks who you are.
- Your browser remembers where you stopped, so the site can offer to put you back there. It stays on your device. Clear your site data and it is gone.
- Arrive from a shared link and the tag on that link is kept for the session, so the count of readers who came by share is honest. It holds no name and no address.
- Analytics is PostHog in cookieless mode. Six events, all about the march: a waypoint reached, a battle finished or skipped, a resume, a share, the end. No profile, no session recording, no ad network.
- Cloudflare serves the site and counts page views for it. Requests for the terrain relief go to an Amazon bucket, which means Amazon sees the address they come from.
- The dispatch list runs on Buttondown. You confirm by email, you can leave from any message, and the address is used for the dispatches and nothing else.
Licenses
- Site text: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. Open, attributable, non-commercial.
- Code: MIT.
route.geojson: published as open data under ODbL, attribution chain (Pleiades, AWMC, Engels, Bosworth) traveling with the file.