The Historians' History of the World 04 [Greece to the Roman Conquest]

DARIUS AT ISSUS

Darius had marched out of the interior his vast and miscellaneous host, stated at six hundred thousand men. His mother, his wife, his harem, his children, his personal attendants of every description, accompanied him, to witness what was anticipated as a certain triumph. All the apparatus of ostentation and luxury was provided in abundance, for the king and for his Persian grandees. The baggage was enormous: of gold and silver alone, we are told that there was enough to furnish load for six hundred mules and three hundred camels. A temporary bridge being thrown over the Euphrates, five days were required to enable the whole army to cross. Much of the treasure and baggage, however, was not allowed to follow the army to the vicinity of Mount Amanus, but was sent under a guard to Damascus in Syria.

At the head of such an overwhelming host, Darius was eager to bring on at once a general battle. It was not sufficient for him simply to keep back an enemy, whom, when once in presence, he calculated on crushing altogether. Accordingly, he had given no orders (as we have just seen) to defend the line of the Taurus; he had admitted Alexander unopposed into Cilicia, and he intended to let him enter in like manner through the remaining strong passes—first, the Gates of Cilicia and Syria, between Mount Amanus and the sea—next, the pass, now called Beylan, across Amanus itself. He both expected and wished that his enemy should come into the plain to fight, there to be trodden down by the countless horsemen of Persia.

But such anticipation was not at once realised. The movements of Alexander, hitherto so rapid and unremitting, seemed suspended. We have already noticed the dangerous fever which threatened his life, occasioning not only a long halt, but much uneasiness among the Macedonian army. All was doubtless reported to the Persians, with abundant exaggerations; and when Alexander, immediately after recovery, instead of marching forward towards them, turned away from them to subdue the western portion of Cilicia, this again was construed by Darius as an evidence of hesitation and fear. It is even asserted that Parmenion wished to await the attack of the Persians in Cilicia, and that Alexander at first consented to do so. At any rate, Darius, after a certain interval, contracted the persuasion, and was assured by his Asiatic councillors and courtiers, that the Macedonians, though audacious and triumphant against frontier satraps, now hung back intimidated by the approaching majesty and full muster of the empire, and that they would not stand to resist his attack. Under this impression Darius resolved upon an advance into Cilicia with all his army.

Thymodes indeed, and other Grecian advisers—together with the Macedonian exile Amyntas—deprecated his new resolution, entreating him to persevere in his original purpose. They pledged themselves that Alexander would come forth to attack him wherever he was, and that, too, speedily. They dwelt on the imprudence of fighting in the narrow defiles of Cilicia, where his numbers, and especially his vast cavalry, would be useless. Their advice, however, was not only disregarded by Darius, but denounced by the Persian councillors as traitorous. Even some of the Greeks in the camp shared, and transmitted in their letters to Athens, the blind confidence of the monarch. The order was forthwith given for the whole army to quit the plains of Syria and march across Mount Amanus into Cilicia. To cross, by any pass, over such a range as that of Mount Amanus, with a numerous army, heavy baggage, and ostentatious train (including all the suite necessary for the regal family), must have been a work of no inconsiderable time; and the only two passes over this mountain were, both of them, narrow and easily defensible. Darius followed the northernmost of the two, which brought him into the rear of the enemy.