Alexander ascended to the Macedonian throne in 335 BC, on the death of Philip by assassination. For the next two years, he scrambled to hold together the 'Community', whose members still harbored dreams of their own greatness and intentions of revolt. His achievements were astonishing, both militarily and politically.
Setting the stage for his later campaigns, Alexander won every single battle he entered. The battles were usually won with minimal loss on his side, in spite of the fact that he was frequently outnumbered and was usually at the end of a relatively long supply line. He marched his army from his frontiers in the Balkans to Thebes to put down revolution because "Alexander thought that, when he was going on an expedition far from the homeland, he ought not to leave his neighbors planning revolt unless they had been completely humbled." This, he achieved. During the next twelve years, when he was conquering Asia, there were no significant revolts in Greece.
Politically, Alexander followed the example of his father's generosity in victory. States that lost to him normally lost only their political independence. Their customs were allowed to remain the same, their form of government was allowed to remain essentially the same, and tribute to the new king was not excessive. The biggest change was that revolution (stasis) was no longer allowed, and was severely punished. In total, his enemies were better off after being subdued than they were before, and a form of peace finally came to Greece.
In 334, Alexander set out to fulfill his destiny in Asia. Over the next twelve years, he marched through much of what is now Turkey, and around the Mediterranean into Egypt. Then he moved back up towards the Black Sea and turned east, advancing through Turkey, Armenia, Afghanistan and into India. Finally, when unable to find the end of land; he circled back along the coast of the Indian Ocean and the Persian Gulf and arrived in Babylonia, where he was planning a campaign into Arabia when he died.
Alexander's army, when he entered Asia, consisted of about 5,100 cavalry and 32,000 infantry; of which only about half were Macedonian. The other half came from the various tribes he had subdued in the Balkans and the city states of Greece that were also now subservient to him. His fleet of 220 warships was supported by an undefined number of merchant ships, and total naval crews totaled about 90,000. Only about 6,000 of these were Macedonian. So the majority of his forces were only recent additions to his empire, yet they served loyally. They won his first battle, although the portion of the army he took into the fight was outnumbered two to one and the enemy was in a strong defensive position.
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