Caranus a Macedon

Macedon

Macedonia or Macedon was an ancient kingdom, centered in the northeastern part of the Greek peninsula, bordered by Epirus to the west, Paeonia to the north, the region of Thrace to the east and Thessaly to the south....

ian of the body called hetairoi

Companion cavalry

The Companions were the elite cavalry of the Macedonian army from the time of king Philip II of Macedon and reached the most prestige under Alexander the Great, and have been regarded as the best cavalry in the ancient world and the first shock cavalry...

 (Greek

Ancient Greek

Ancient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...

:ἑταῖροι) , was one of the generals sent by Alexander the Great against Satibarzanes

Satibarzanes

Satibarzanes , a Persian, was satrap of Aria under Darius III, king of Persia.In 330 BC, Alexander the Great, marching through the borders of Aria on his way from Hyrcania against the Parthians, was met at a city named Susia by Satibarzanes, who made submission to him, and was rewarded for it by...

 when he had a second time excited Aria to revolt. Caranus and his colleagues were successful, and Satibarzanes was defeated and slain, in the winter of 330 BC. In 329 BC, Caranus was appointed, together with Andromachus and Menedemus

Menedemus (general)

Menedemus was one of the generals of Alexander the Great, who was sent in 329 BC against Spitamenes, satrap of Sogdiana, but was surprised and slain, together with 2000 foot-soldiers and 300 horse.-References:...

, under the command of the Lycia

Lycia

Lycia Lycian: Trm̃mis; ) was a region in Anatolia in what are now the provinces of Antalya and Muğla on the southern coast of Turkey. It was a federation of ancient cities in the region and later a province of the Roman Empire...

n Pharnuches

Pharnuches of Lycia

Pharnuches was a Lycian appointed by Alexander the Great to command the force sent into Sogdiana against Spitamenes in 329 BC. The result of the expedition was disastrous, with the destruction of the whole army...

, to act against Spitamenes

Spitamenes

Spitamenes Sogdian warlord, leader of the uprising in Sogdiana and Bactria against Alexander of Macedon 329 BC....

, the revolted satrap

Satrap

Satrap was the name given to the governors of the provinces of the ancient Median and Achaemenid Empires and in several of their successors, such as the Sassanid Empire and the Hellenistic empires....

 of Sogdiana

Sogdiana

Sogdiana or Sogdia was the ancient civilization of an Iranian people and a province of the Achaemenid Empire, eighteenth in the list on the Behistun Inscription of Darius the Great . Sogdiana is "listed" as the second of the "good lands and countries" that Ahura Mazda created...

. Their approach compelled him to raise the siege of Maracanda

Samarkand

Although a Persian-speaking region, it was not united politically with Iran most of the times between the disintegration of the Seleucid Empire and the Arab conquest . In the 6th century it was within the domain of the Turkic kingdom of the Göktürks.At the start of the 8th century Samarkand came...

; but, in a battle which ensued, he defeated them with the help of a body of Scythia

Scythia

In antiquity, Scythian or Scyths were terms used by the Greeks to refer to certain Iranian groups of horse-riding nomadic pastoralists who dwelt on the Pontic-Caspian steppe...

n cavalry, and forced them to fall back on the river Polytimetus, the wooded banks of which promised shelter. The rashness however or cowardice of Caranus led him to attempt the passage of the river with the cavalry under his command, and the rest of the troops plunging in after him in haste and disorder, they were all destroyed by the enemy.