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
Valley of the Thracian Rulers Valley of the Thracian Rulers The Valley of the Thracian Rulers is a popular name which was made public by the archaeologist Georgi Kitov and describes the extremely high concentration and variety of monuments of the Thracian culture in the Kazanlak Valley. It is believed that there are over 1500 funeral mounds in the region, with only 300 being researched so far. The Kazanlak Tomb was discovered in 1944. Between 1948 and 1954 the ancient town of Seuthopolis was studied. Between the 1960s and the 1980s people made researches of the mound necropolis which belonged to residents of Sevtopolis. Another