Identifier: alexanderhistory00dodg (find matches)
Title: Alexander : a history of the origin and growth of the art of war from earliest times to the battle of Ipsus, B.C. 301: with a detailed account of the campaigns of the great Macedonian
Year: 1890 (1890s)
Authors: Dodge, Theodore Ayrault, 1842-1909
Subjects: Alexander, the Great, 356-323 B.C Military art and science
Publisher: Boston : Houghton, Mifflin and Company
Contributing Library: University of Connecticut Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: University of Connecticut Libraries

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uch of thereckless which has sometimes been described as the charac-teristic of the gambler, and never shrank, when the occasioncame, from risking his all on one stroke. In the presentinstance this impulse proceeded equally from his self-con- . ,. fidence and enthusiasm, andfrom the situation into whichhis task had thrust him. Hecalled together his Compan-ions and other commandingofficers who formed his usualcouncil of war, to ascertaintheir views, and told themfully what he heard aboutthe proximity and enormoussize of Darius army, conceal-ing nothing of the difficultyor danger. He found themall eager to be led againstthe enemy. Alexander there-fore determined to seek thePersians on the plains be-yond Amanus, and advancedalong the seacoast, by theroute he knew from Xeno-phon. On the second day hepassed the Syrian Gates, asecond Thermopylae lying between the coast and the moun-tains, with a difficult mountain-pass beyond, and campednear Myriandrus. He no doubt intended at once to march
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SYRIAN GATCS Plain of Issus. ALEXANDERS ERROR. 297 to the encounter of Darius, but was delayed a day or two byheavy stress of weather, for the early November storms hadset in. Alexander was apparently ignorant or oblivious that therewas another pass farther north by which Darius could reachhis rear ; or else he was guilty of a serious lapse. Therewere two mountain gaps by which the Amanic range could bepassed from Cilicia into the heart of the Persian empire.The more northerly one led to the Euphrates region; theother led into Syria, and was therefore known as the SyrianGates. Alexander, after passing through these, had theintention of filing to the left, or northeast, and thus seekingDarius on the plains of Sochi. If Alexander knew of thenorthern pass, he may have been partially justified in calculat-ing that Darius would remain where he was, in the broadplains of Assyria; and he may have dismissed the idea of thehuge Persian army filing through a long mountain gap toseek the invader

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