The portraits of Alexander the Great by artists such as Lysippus and Apelles inaugurate a tradition of heroic-ruler imagery.

A finely sculpted head of Aristotle (the first certain example of true portraiture), attributed to Lysippus and executed in Greece in the 320s BCE or possibly earlier, gives the impression not only of a convincing sense of physical reality but an intangible feeling of personality as well.

This opening era of this age marks the end of the fourth-century (Late Classical) period of Greek sculpture and its succession by the Hellenistic period.

Greek sculptor Lysippus, active throughout the latter half of the fourth century BCE, had been born in Sicyon, a city with a tradition of both sculpture and painting, and reportedly lives to an old age.

Instrumental in paving the way from pure classical to naturalistic Hellenistic sculpture, Lysippus changes the system of proportions, elongating the body and reducing the size of the head to one-eighth the total height of the figure.

In an important departure from the principle of a uniform frontal plane for statuary, Lysippus allows the limbs of his statues to project in various directions, thus imparting depth and a feeling of motion to his figures.

Alexander the Great, who reportedly prefers him to all other sculptors, is one of the notable personages featured, with athletes and divinities, as the subject of around fifteen hundred bronze statues executed by Lysippus.

No known original works by Lysippus survive, although some Roman marble statues of athletes may be copies of his work.

One such, the Apoxyomenos, or The Scraper, becomes a favorite of the emperor Tiberius; another, the Agias, may be a contemporary replica.

His work, like that of his contemporary, the painter Apelles, is known from the comments of Pliny the Elder.

Apoxyomenos is one of the Greek conventions in representing an athlete, caught in the familiar act of scraping sweat and dust from his body with the small curved instrument that the Romans called a strigil.

The bronze original is lost, but it is known, in part from its description in Pliny the Elder's Natural History, which relates that the Roman general Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa installed Lysippos's masterpiece in the Baths of Agrippa that he erected in Rome, around 20 BCE.

Later, the emperor Tiberius became so enamored of the figure that he had it removed to his bedroom.

However an uproar in the theater, "Give us back our Apoxyomenos", shamed the emperor into replacing it.

The sculpture is represented by the Pentelic marble copy in the Museo Pio-Clementino in Rome, discovered in 1849 when it was excavated in Trastevere.

Plaster casts of it soon found their way into national academy collections, and it is the standard version in textbooks.

The sculpture, slightly larger than life-size, is characteristic of the new canon of proportion pioneered by Lysippus, with a slightly smaller head (1:8 of the total height, rather than the 1:7 of Polykleitos) and longer and thinner limbs.

Pliny notes a remark that Lysippus "used commonly to say"—that while other artists "made men as they really were, he made them as they appeared to be."

Lysippus poses his subject in a true contrapposto, with an arm outstretched to create a sense of movement and interest from a range of viewing angles.

The use of brass has spread during the later part of first millennium BCE across a wide geographical area from Britain and Spain in the west to Iran, and India in the east.

This seems to have been encouraged by exports and influence from the Middle East and eastern Mediterranean where deliberate production of brass from metallic copper and zinc ores had been introduced.

The fourth century BCE writer Theopompus, quoted by Strabo, describes how heating earth from Andeira in Turkey produced "droplets of false silver", probably metallic zinc, which could be used to turn copper into oreichalkos.

Theopompus, born on Chios, seems to have spent some time in his early youth at Athens, along with his father, who had been exiled on account of his Laconian sympathies.

Here he had become a pupil of Isocrates, and rapidly made great progress in rhetoric; we are told that Isocrates used to say that Ephorus required the spur but Theopompus the bit (Cicero, Brutus, 204).

He appears to have at first composed epideictic speeches, in which he attained to such proficiency that in 352‑351 he gained the prize of oratory given by Artemisia II of Caria in honor of her husband, although Isocrates was himself among the competitors.

It is said to have been the advice of his teacher that finally determined his career as an historian—a career for which he was peculiarly qualified owing to his abundant patrimony and his wide knowledge of men and places.

Through the influence of Alexander, he is permitted to return to Chios about 333, and figures for some time as one of the leaders of the aristocratic party in his native town.

After Alexander's death he is again expelled, and takes refuge with Ptolemy in Egypt, where he appears to have met with a somewhat cold reception.

The date of his death is unknown.

The works of Theopompus are chiefly historical, and are much quoted by later writers.

They include an Epitome of Herodotus's History (Whether this work is actually his is debated, the Hellenics, the History of Philip, and several panegyrics and hortatory addresses, the chief of which is the Letter to Alexander.

At Gordium in Phrygia, the old capital of the Phrygian kings (themselves, as stated above, ultimately of alleged Macedonian origin) tradition records Alexander’s “breaking” of the Gordian knot, or fastening, of an ancient chariot, which can only be loosed by the man who is to rule Asia; but this story may be apocryphal or at least distorted.

Alexander cuts it instead—or perhaps pulls out the pole pin, as one tradition insists.

At this point, Alexander benefits from the sudden death of Memnon of Rhodes.

From Gordium, …

…Alexander pushes on to Ancyra (modern Ankara), thence south …

…through Cappadocia and the Cilician Gates (modern Külek Bogazi).

Alexander is delayed for a time in Cilicia by a fever following his campaign through the Anatolian highlands, which had been meant to impress the tribesmen.

Achaemenid king Darius III, after a protracted delay, has meanwhile advanced with his Grand Army northward on the eastern side of Mount Amanus.

Greek mercenary leader Charidemus had been one of those whose surrender was demanded by Alexander the Great after the destruction of Thebes, but escaped with banishment and fled to Darius, who had received him with distinction.

However as Charidemus had expressed his dissatisfaction with the preparations made by the king just before the coming battle, he is put to death.

Intelligence on both sides is faulty, and in autumn 333 Alexander is already encamped by Myriandrus (near modern Iskenderun, Turkey) when he learns that Darius is astride his line of communications at …

…Issus, a plain on the coast, north of Alexander's position.

Turning, Alexander's Macedonian forces, greatly outnumbered by the Persians, with an infantry phalanx in the center and cavalry on the sides, find the army of Darius drawn up on the opposite bank of the Pinarus (either modern Payaz or Deli) River.

Alexander leads the charge across the river, shattering the Persian left wing before turning against the Greek mercenaries who form the Persian center; first isolated, they are then slaughtered.

Alexander's Companion cavalry punches a hole in the poorly trained Persian infantry, making straight for Darius himself, who takes flight, leaving behind much of his personal treasure.

Alexander’s troops pursue the Persians, killing one hundred and ten thousand of them and losing a total of three hundred and two from the Macedonian forces.

His army in confusion, Darius escapes, but his mother, Sisygambis, wife, and children are captured; the women are treated with chivalrous care.

Arrian claims a Macedonian loss of only four hundred and fifty men, with Alexander himself being wounded.

From Issus, Alexander marches south …

…into Syria and Phoenicia, his object being to isolate the Persian fleet from its bases and so to destroy it as an effective fighting force.

To Alexander, Palestine is, as to many before him, a corridor leading to Egypt, the outlying Persian province.

Consequently, in his attack on that province after the Battle of Issus, he confines his attention, in his passage southward, to reducing the coastal cities that might form bases for the Persian fleet.

The Phoenician cities Marathus and …

...Aradus come over quietly, and ...