Issus

Chapter 10.

From the Siege of Halicarnassus to the Battle of Issus.

Part 1.

Halicarnassus was the strongest city of Caria.

Section 12 of The Rise of the Macedonian Empire by Arthur M. Curtis.

This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, read by Pamela Nagami.

Chapter 10 From the Siege of Halicarnassus to the Battle of Issus, Part 2 After celebrating his recovery by solemn sacrifices and games to Asclepius, the king set out on his eastward march to find Darius, of whose approach with a vast host he had already heard.

The Macedonian army converged by different routes upon Issus, where the sick and wounded were left behind, and then marched southward through the Cilician gates, reaching Myriandras on the third day after leaving Issus.

In respect to this one circumstance, Minos, I derive much satisfaction, that while here I have thoroughly mastered the Greek language, so that not even in that particular can he have any advantage over me.

now i affirm that those men are most deserving of eulogy who though nothing at starting none the less arrived at great eminence by their own efforts investing themselves with power and being deemed worthy of governing well though i set out with few soldiers for spain at first being subordinate to my brother i was judged to be the most skilful in war and was deemed fit for the highest employments and i subdued the cheltiberians and conquered the gauls of the west and crossing the vast mountains i overran all the plains of the padus and laid in ruins so many cities and subjected to my power the whole plain of italy and advanced as far as the suburbs of its capital city and slew such numbers on one day that i measured off their rings by bushels and bridged their rivers with the dead and all this i accomplished without either getting myself called the son of ammon or making claim to divinity or recounting my mother's dreams but acknowledging myself to be human and putting myself in competition with the most skilful generals and engaging with the most warlike soldiers in the world not contending against medes and armenians who seek refuge in flight before any one pursues and yield the victory at once to the bold aggressor alexander on the other hand enlarged the dominion which he had received from his father and extended it considerably by availing himself of the start given him by fortune But when he had gained the victory over, and vanquished at Issus and Arbella that wretched pest Darius, revolting from the customs of his ancestors, he began to put forth claims to divine worship, and changed his way of life to the Median mode, and polluted his hands in the blood of his friends at his banquets, and seized them for the purpose of putting them to death.

whereas i ruled my country upon terms of equality with my fellow-citizens and when it summoned me to its aid on the sailing of the enemy to libya with a great armament i obeyed with speed and offered myself as a private citizen and after condemnation i bore the matter with good will these achievements i performed non-greek as i was and uninstructed by a greek education neither reciting and declaiming homer as he did nor educated under aristotle that famous sophist but availing myself of my natural good qualities alone these are the points as to which i maintain that i am superior to alexander and if this fellow has a handsomer appearance because he was accustomed to encircle his brows with the diadem with macedonians doubtless those things are objects of veneration he surely should not on that account be thought superior to a man of genuine nobility and of true military capacity who owed more to his judgment than to fortune

he has delivered no ignoble plea and one not such as it was likely a libyan would on his own behalf now you alexander what do you say to these arguments

He then defeated them by tricking them into weakening their center and then leading a wedge of cavalry into them at the decisive moment.

At the Battle of Issus, after marching 70 miles in two days in heavy rain, Alexander faced an enemy in a strong defensive position.

He personally led a magnificently successful charge against Darius's left wing, and then fought desperately to reach King Darius through the melee.

As Alexander's army held on for their very survival, their leader bludgeoned, fought, and hacked his way towards the golden chariot of the great king.

He was now advancing to another district, that of Syria and Palestine, which lies on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea.

To enter this new territory, he had to pass over a narrow plain which lay between the mountains and the sea at a place called Issus.

Here he was met by the main body of the Persian army, and the great Battle of Issus was fought.

This battle will be the subject of the next chapter.

End of Chapter 5.

All the ordinary intercommunications of the country are, of course, stopped, and each general has his scouts out with orders to intercept all travelers, and to intercept the communication of intelligence by every means in their power.

In consequence of these and other circumstances of a similar nature, it happened that Alexander and Darius actually passed each other without either of them being aware of it.

Alexander advanced into Syria by the plains of Issus, marked A upon the map, and a narrow pass beyond called the Gates of Syria, while Darius went farther to the north, and arrived at Issus after Alexander had left it.

aristotle fixing its circumference at four hundred thousand stadia or forty thousand miles but eratosthenes attempted a more accurate measurement he compared the length of a shadow thrown by the sun at alexandria and at cyane near the first cataract of the nile which he assumed to be on the same meridian of longitude and to be about five thousand stadia or five hundred miles distant from the difference in length of the shadows he deduced that this distance represented one-fiftieth of the circumference of the earth which would accordingly be about two hundred and fifty thousand stadia or twenty five thousand geographical miles as the actual circumference is twenty four thousand eight hundred ninety nine english miles this was a very near approximation considering the rough means eratosthenes had at his disposal having thus estimated the size of the earth eratosthenes then went on to determine the size of that portion which the ancients considered to be habitable north and south of the lands known to him eratosthenes and all the ancients considered to be either too cold or too hot to be habitable this portion he reckoned to extend thirty eight thousand stadia or thirty eight hundred miles in reckoning the extent of the habitable portion from east to west eratosthenes came to the conclusion that from the straits of gibraltar to the east of india was about eighty thousand stadia or roughly speaking one-third of the earth's surface the remaining two-thirds were supposed to be covered by the ocean and eratosthenes prophetically remarked that if it were not that the vast extent of the atlantic sea rendered it impossible one might almost sail from the coast of spain to that of india along the same parallel sixteen hundred years later as we shall see columbus tried to carry out this idea Eratosthenes based his calculation on two fundamental lines corresponding, in a way, to our equator and meridian of Greenwich.

The first stretched, according to him, from Cape St. Vincent through the Straits of Messina and the island of Rhodes to Issus on the Gulf of Viscanderum.

For his starting line in reckoning north and south, he used a meridian passing through the first Cataract, Alexandria, Rhodes, and Byzantium.

the next two hundred years after eratosthenes death was filled up by the spread of the roman empire by the taking over by the romans of the vast possessions previously held by alexander and his successors and by the carthaginians and by their spread into gaul britain and germany much of the increased knowledge thus obtained was summed up in the geographical work of strabo who wrote in greek about twenty b c he introduced from the extra knowledge thus obtained many modifications of the system of eratosthenes, but, on the whole, kept to his general conception of the world.

He became impatient and crossed the mountains into Cilicia.

A battle was fought at Issus, but the Persians were no match for the Greeks.

The battle ended with overwhelming defeat to the army of Darius, and he fled from the battlefield.

He left not only his baggage and treasure, but his wife and mother and children, all of whom fell into Alexander's hands.

These captives were treated with much respect and kindness by the conqueror.

Soon after the battle at Issus, Damascus was captured.

Alexander then moved against Tyre, a famous port of Syria, whose trade was with every land and whose merchants were princes.

so great were the resources of the city that it withstood a siege of seven months but at the end of that time it fell into alexander's hand and thirty thousand of its citizens were captured and made slaves from tyre alexander marched toward egypt on the way he passed through the holy land when he reached jerusalem he was met by a friendly procession of priests and levites who came out from the gates of the city, with the high priest at their head to bid the conqueror welcome.

And indeed, those determined sieges that Alexander undertakes have the desired effect that absolutely the majority of the cities further south go to Welcome, Alexander.

And again, the interesting thing there is that the Persian army, having been defeated at Issus in 333, October, September, they're not coming to the cities of the Levant or even Egypt's defense.

You're on your own.

And so Alexander showing, I will take your city, come hell or high water, which is especially relevant in the case of Tyre.