Ariobarzanes
Ariobarzanes
Ariobarzanes, satrap of Persis under Darius III, was the one Achaemenid commander who attempted a serious defensive stand between Gaugamela and Persepolis. In the winter of 331/330 BC he threw a fortified wall across the narrow Zagros gorge known as the Persian Gates (in the Zagros south of Yasuj, modern Kohgiluyeh province) and held it with a reported 25,000 infantry and 700 cavalry against Alexander's full army (Arr. *Anab.* 3.18.2–9; Curt. 5.3.17–4.34; Diod. 17.68.1–3). Alexander's first frontal assault failed — catapult rocks and avalanche-boulders rolled from the walls above turned the gorge into an ambush-ground, and he withdrew with heavy losses, a rare reverse in the field. A captive Lycian shepherd who knew a parallel goat-track allowed Alexander to split his forces: he left Craterus with half the army visible before the gate-wall, and led the remainder by night over the shepherd's track to descend on the Persian camp from the heights at dawn. Ariobarzanes fought his way out of the trap and attempted to reach Persepolis, but Alexander's cavalry outpaced him; he died fighting in the open field, probably at the approaches to the city gates, cut off before the garrison could admit him (Arr. *Anab.* 3.18.9; Curt. 5.4.34; Diod. 17.68.7). He is the last named Persian field-commander to die in action after the fall of Darius's central army.