The Historians' History of the World 04

In his march through Caria he met with a short resistance from the garrison of the strong fortress Hyparna; and turned aside to punish the insolence of the inhabitants of Marmora in Peræa. After he had crossed the Xanthus, he received the submission of most of the Lycian towns. Phaselis even presented him with a golden crown; and the motive which led it to pay him this honour may help to account for the ready submission of the other Lycians. The people of Phaselis had suffered much from the incursions of their neighbours, the Pisidian mountaineers, who had even taken up a fortified position in their territory, for the purpose of continual molestation. They hoped that Alexander would deliver them from this annoyance, and they were not disappointed.

He was still in the neighbourhood of Phaselis, when he was apprised of a plot which had been formed against his life, by his namesake, the son of Æropus, whom he had appointed to command the Thessalian cavalry in the place of Calas, the new satrap of the Hellespontine Phrygia. It appears that, notwithstanding this favour, the Lyncestian either could not forgive the king for the execution of his two brothers, or could not forget the ancient pretensions of his family to royal dignity. He had entered into a negotiation with the Persian court through the fugitive Amyntas, and Darius had sent down an agent named Asisines, to obtain a secret interview with him, and to offer, if he killed his sovereign, to raise him to the throne of Macedonia, or at least to aid him in the attempt to secure it, with a thousand talents. The Persian emissary had fallen into the hands of Parmenion, and revealed his business; and Parmenion had sent him to the king. Alexander held a council on the subject, and by its advice despatched orders to Parmenion to arrest the Lyncestian and keep him in custody.

A Persian Noble

(After Bardon)

Between Phaselis and the maritime plains of Pamphylia, the mountains which form the southern branch of Taurus descend abruptly on the coast, leaving only a narrow passage along the beach, and this never open but in calm weather, or during the prevalence of a northerly wind. The promontory was called Mount Climax. At the time when Alexander was about to resume his march eastward, the wind was blowing from the south, and the waves washed the foot of the cliffs. He therefore sent the main body of his army over the mountains to Perga, by a circuitous and difficult road, which however he had ordered to be previously cleared by his Thracian pioneers. But for himself he determined with a few followers to try the passage along the shore; danger and difficulty had a charm for him which he could scarcely resist. Perhaps the wind had already subsided; soon after it shifted to the north—a change in which he recognised a special interposition of the gods. Yet, according to Strabo’s authors, he found the water still nearly breast high, and had to wade through it for a whole day. As he advanced from Perga, he was met by an embassy from the neighbouring town of Aspendus, which lay a little further eastward near the mouth of the Eurymedon, offering to acknowledge his authority, but praying that they might not be compelled to receive a Macedonian garrison. This request he granted, requiring one hundred talents and yearly tribute, and exacting hostages for their performance. Then he began his march towards Phrygia.

His road led through the heart of Pisidia, where he was the more desirous of striking terror, as its fierce and lawless inhabitants, secure in their mountain barriers and almost impregnable fortresses, had constantly defied the power of the Persian government. Yet he could not spare the time which would have been necessary to reduce all its strongholds. Termessus, situated on a steep rock, commanding a narrow pass which led from Pisidia into Phrygia, appeared to him too strong to be attempted, though he had dislodged the barbarians from the position which they had taken up without the walls, and made himself master of the pass. But the resistance of Termessus procured for him offers of alliance from its enemy Selge, another of the principal cities, which proved very useful to him. He stormed Sagalassus, though besides its natural strength its inhabitants were accounted the most warlike of the Pisidians; and this success was followed by the submission of most of the smaller towns. He then advanced by the lake Ascania to Celænæ, where the citadel, on an almost inaccessible rock, was guarded by a garrison of one thousand Carians, and one hundred Greeks, placed there by the satrap of Phrygia. It however offered to surrender unless it should be relieved within sixty days; and Alexander thought it best to accept these conditions; and having left a body of fifteen hundred men to observe it, and appointed Antigonus, son of Philip, to the important satrapy of central Phrygia, he prosecuted his march to Gordium, where he had ordered Parmenion to meet him.

GORDIUM