Ancient Macedonian army at 4,500, asserting it was closer to 5,100 horsemen. The army led by Alexander the Great into the Persian Empire included Greek heavy infantry in the form of allied contingents provided by the League of Corinth and hired mercenaries. These infantrymen would have been equipped as hoplites with the traditional hoplite panoply consisting of a thrusting spear ("doru"), bronze-faced "hoplon" shield and body armour. In appearance, they would have been almost identical to the hypaspists. In battle, the Greek hoplites had a less active role than the Macedonian phalangites and hypaspists. At Gaugamela, the Greek infantry formed the defensive rear
Regions of ancient Greece () was an ancient Greek region in Epirus. "Macedonia" or "Macedon" (from , "") was an ancient Greek kingdom and region, centered in the northeastern part of the Greek peninsula, bordered by Epirus to the west, Paionia to the north, Thrace to the east and Thessaly to the south. Early geographers put river Strimon as the eastern border of Macedonia with Thrace. However, as kingdom of Macedon was expanding and was pushing east the Thracian tribes, river Nestos was regarded as the eastern border of the region and Sintice, Odomantis and Edonis were included in it. Traditionally part of Thrace