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resolution of seeking the Macedonian monarch in the confined 

 and mountainous district of Cilicia. On being informed of the 

 movements of Darius, Alexander immediately commenced his 

 march for Upper Asia, being determined to offer him battle, and 

 he had already passed the three celebrated streights of that province, 

 when, to his astonishment, he learned that Darius himself had 

 entered Cilicia, and was at Sochas, within two days march of those 

 streights. No intelligence could be more agreeable to Alexander 

 than that of his enemy having taken a position in so confined a 

 situation, as must necessarily deprive hirn of the use of half his 

 forces ; and therefore, without any delay, he repassed the streights, 

 in order to bring him to engagement. Alexander, in advancing 

 and forming his army for that purpose, contrived to have his 

 right wing protected by the mountains, and his left by the sea, 

 to prevent the possibility of being surrounded. Darius opposed 

 to them, in his first line, thirty thousand Greek mercenaries, sup- 

 ported on their right and left by sixty-thousand heavy-armed 

 Persian cavalry ; the whole number of which the ground they 

 occupied would allow. Behind the whole were ranged, in crowded 

 and useless lines, the remainder of this unwieldy army, in the 

 midst of which, according to an ancient custom of the Persian 

 monarchs, Darius himself took his station. In this, as in the former 

 battle, a river, the river Pinarus, separated the two armies. 



Alexander took upon himself the command of the right wing of 

 his army, with which he rushed forward to attack the left wing 

 of that of Darius, which he broke and defeated. In the rapid pur- 

 suit of them he crossed the Pinarus ; and, observing Darius fighting 

 from his chariot, and surrounded with nobles and the flower of the 

 Persian army, he eagerly pressed forward to engage him. He 

 hoped, by an exertion of personal valour, at once to put an end to 

 the contest ; but successive bodies of horse interposing, prevented 



