Thousands of armoured soldiers clash beneath a vast world landscape of sea, mountains and curving horizon, as Alexander the Great routs the Persian king Darius at Issus in 333 BCE. Duke William IV of Bavaria commissioned it in 1528 for a series of history paintings. The armour is that of Altdorfer's own day, and the victory may allude to the Ottoman siege of Vienna in 1529.
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Find Darius fleeing in his chariot, pursued by Alexander. Above, a setting sun and a crescent moon share the sky, and a tasselled tablet records the battle in Latin.
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