The Anabasis of Alexander/Book II/Chapter VI

by Arrian

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CHAPTER VI.

Alexander Advances to Myriandrus.—Darius Marches against him.

While he was still at Mallus, he was informed that Darius was encamped with all his forces at Sochi, a place in the land of Assyria, distant about two days' march from the Assyrian Gates.^[1] Then indeed he collected the Companions and told them what was reported about Darius and his army. They urged him to lead them on as they were, without delay. At that time be commended them, and broke up the conference; but next day he led them forward against Darius and the Persians. On the second day he passed through the Gates and encamped near the city of Myriandrus;^[2] but in the night a heavy tempest and a violent storm of wind and rain occurred which detained him in his camp. Darius, on the other hand, had been spending a long time with his army, having chosen a plain in the land of Assyria which stretches out in every direction, suitable for the immense size of his army and convenient for the evolutions of cavalry. Amyntas, son of Antiochus, the deserter from Alexander, advised him not to abandon this position, because there was plenty of room for the great multitude of the Persians and for the vast quantity of their baggage. So Darius remained. But as Alexander made a long stay at Tarsus on account of his illness, and not a short one at Soli, where he offered sacrifice and conducted his army in procession, and moreover spent some time in marching against the Cilician mountaineers, Darius was induced to swerve from his resolution. He was also not unwilling to be led to form whatever decision was most agreeable to his own wishes; and being influenced by those who gave him the advice which they thought would be pleasant to him, without consideration of its utility (for kings will always have associates to give them bad advice),^[3] he came to the conclusion that Alexander was no longer desirous of advancing further, but was shrinking from an encounter on learning that Darius himself was marching against him. On all sides they were urging him on, asserting that he would trample down the army of the Macedonians with his cavalry.^[4] Nevertheless, Amyntas, at any rate, confidently affirmed that Alexander would certainly come to any place where he heard Darius might be; and he exhorted him by all means to stay where he was. But the worse advice, because at the immediate time it was more pleasant to hear, prevailed; moreover he was led by some divine influence into that locality where he derived little advantage from his cavalry and from the sheer number of his men, javelins and bows, and where he could not even exhibit the mere magnificence of his army, but surrendered to Alexander and his troops an easy victory. For it was already decreed by fate that the Persians should be deprived of the rule of Asia by the Macedonians, just as the Medes had been deprived of it by the Persians, and still earlier the Assyrians by the Medes.

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1. Usually called the Syrian Gates. See chap. v. note ¹ supra.
2. A city on the Gulf of Issus, being a settlement of the Phoenicians. Herodotus (iv. 38) calls the gulf the Myriandric Gulf. Cf. Xenophon (Anab., i. 4).
3. Cf. Arrian, vii. 29; Curtius, viii. 17.
4. Aeschines tells us in his speech against Ctesiphon (p. 552), that the anti-Macedonian statesmen at Athens at this time received letters from their friends, stating that Alexander was caught and pinned Up in Cilicia. He says Demosthenes went about showing these letters and boasting of the news. Josephus (Antiquities of the Jews, xi. 7, 3) says that "not only Sanballat at Samaria but all those that were in Asia also were persuaded that the Macedonians would not so much as come to a battle with the Persians, on account of their multitude."