(Please correct me)
DARIUS III, A COWARD?
Often, Darius III has been branded as a coward, an incapable leader, and considered responsible for the fall of the Persian Empire and its decadence. This is the result of his fleeing from the battle fields in Issos and Gaugamela, that caused the definitive defeat of his armies which had to surrender when they realised that they have been abandoned by their king.
This unfair image has not taken into account that the Empire would disappear without a king, being the reason why he preferred to escape before he would be captured or dead. Furthermore, the vast Persian resources always guaranteed the resistance against the invasor, while the monarch was alive. The Darius's last intention, by abandoning the battle, was to preserve his Empire from Alexander's Greed.