ds march to invade Persia. Here again Darius was infatuated, and he, in
his self-confidence, left the passes over Mount Taurus and Mount Amanus
undefended. Alexander, with re-enforcements from Macedonia, now marched
from Gordium through Paphlagonia and Cappadocia, whose inhabitants made
instant submission, and advanced to the Cilician Gates--an impregnable pass
in the Taurus range, which opened the way to Cilicia. It had been
traversed seventy years before by Cyrus the Younger, with the ten thousand
Greeks, and was the main road from Asia Minor into Cilicia and Syria. The
narrowest part of this defile allowed only four soldiers abreast, and here
Darius should have taken his stand, even as the Greeks took possession of
Thermopylae in the invasion of Xerxes. But the pass was utterly undefended,
and Alexander marched through unobstructed without the loss of a man. He
then found himself at Tarsus, where he made a long halt, from a dangerous
illness which he got by bathing in the river Cydnus. When he recovered, he
sent Parmenio to secure the pass over Mount Amanus, six days' march from
Tarsus, called the Cilician Gates. These were defended, but the guard fled
at the approach of the Macedonians, and this important defile was secured.
Alexander then marched through Issus to Myriandrus, to the south of the
Cilician Gates, which he had passed. The Persians now advanced from Sochi
and appeared in his rear at Issus--a vast host, in the midst of which was
Darius with his mother, his wife, his harem, and children, who accompanied
him to witness his anticipated triumph, for it seemed to him an easy
matter to overwhelm and crush the invaders, who numbered only about forty
thousand men. So impatient was Darius to attack Alexander that he
imprudently advanced into Cilicia by the northern pass, now called Beylan,
with all his army, so that in the narrow defiles of that country his
cavalry was nearly useless. He encamped near Issus, on the river Pinarus.
Alexander, learning that Darius was in his rear, retraced his steps,
passed north through the Gates of Cilicia, through which he had marched
two days before, and advanced to the river Pinarus, on the north bank of
which Darius was encamped. And here Darius resolved to fight. He threw
across the river thirty thousand cavalry and twenty thousand infantry, to
insure the undisturbed formation of his main force. His main line was
composed of ninety thousand hoplites, of which thirty thousand were