Arbela

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 24 July 1857


First published in The New American Cyclopaedia, Vol. I, 1858
Reproduced from The New American Cyclopaedia
Source : Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 18
Collection(s): New American Cyclopaedia

Evidence indicates that the articles "Arbela", "Arquebuse", "Aspern" and "Attack" belong to the second batch of articles beginning with A (according to the provisional list in Engels' letter to Marx of May 28, 1857), which he forwarded to Marx immediately after the first batch "up to Ap and Aq" received by Marx on July 14, 1857. On July 24 Marx wrote to Engels that he had received the new material, and judging by an entry in his notebook, he dispatched it, together with the first batch of articles, to New York.

Among the preparatory materials collected by Engels for the article "Army" there is an extract from the article "Arbela", published in the third volume of The Encyclopaedia Britannica (Edinburgh, 1853), which he probably used when writing this article.

Arbela, now Arbil or Erbil, a small village in Koordistan, which lies on the usual route between Bagdad and Mosul in 36° 11' N. lat. according to Niebuhr's observations.[1] The houses are built of sun-dried bricks. Arbela was the name of the third and last of the great battles fought between Alexander and Darius 331 B.C.[2] The battle was not actually fought at Arbela, but at a little place 36 miles west by north, called Gaugamela, now Karmeles. After the battle Alexander crossed the Lycus and rested at Arbela.

  1. ↑ Niebuhrs Reisebeschreibung nach Arabien und andern umliegenden Ländern, Bd. 2, S. 343.— Ed.
  2. ↑ The battle of Arbela on October 1, 331 B.C. completed the military rout of the Persia of the Achaemenids and the conquest of its territories by Alexander of Macedon. It was preceded by two big battles between the Macedonian and Persian armies: in May 334 B.C. on the Granicus river (Northwestern Asia Minor) and in November 333 B.C. at Issus (a town in Cilicia on the road from Asia Minor to Syria). These battles were won by the Macedonians.