126 ALEXANDER'S EASTERN EXPEDITION. [CHAP.
resistance was offered. On the western coast, first Miletus and
afterwards Halicarnassus—- which were defended by Memnon, the
leader of the Greek mercenaries in the service of Darius, and by
a Phoenician fleet that had arrived off the coast—delayed him for
some time; but Ephesus and the other chief towns in that neigh-
bourhood submitted, and during the following winter Alexander
with a picked body of troops made his way through the southern
districts—Caria, Lycia and Pamphylia—receiving the submission
of the inhabitants, and finally over the Taurus range in Pisidia to
the uplands of Phrygia. During this part of his progress occurred
the famous passage of Mount Climax on the Lycian coast, when
he conducted a detachment of his troops between the precipices
and the sea, though the water at the time had risen so high as to
reach their waists.
In Phrygia at the commencement of the spring of 333
Alexander was met by the main body of his army, which had
wintered at Ephesus and was led thither by his general Par-
menio. The next part of his route lay through Cappadocia
and the Cilician Gates, by which pass the Taurus was crossed
into Cilicia. So difficult is this line of transit, by which at
the present day the exports of south-eastern Asia Minor are
still conveyed to the sea, that it might easily be held against a
hostile force by a small body of resolute defenders; but the
satrap of Cilicia, whose duty it was to secure it, abandoned it
without a blow, so that the Macedonian army descended without
difficulty to Tarsus. From that place Alexander advanced to the
head of the Gulf of Issus, for which neighbourhood Darius also
was making with an enormous host which he had summoned
from all parts of his dominions. The battle of
.C. *ssus» t^ie secon(* °f fche three great engagements
which determined the fate of the Persian empire,
was fought in the narrow space which here intervenes between the
Mons Amanus and the sea—a position which was selected by
Darius, but was altogether favourable to the Macedonians, because
it rendered it impossible for their opponents to deploy their vast
multitudes. The issue of the conflict was greatly determined by
the cowardice of Darius, for when he perceived that the Mace-
donian lancers, led by Alexander, had broken through his left