AT THE BORDER OF PERSIA
Having ravaged all this country, he arrived the third day on the borders of Persia, and on the fifth he entered the straits Pylæ Susidæ. Ariobarzanes, with twenty-five thousand foot, had taken possession of these rocks, which were on all sides steep and craggy, on the tops whereof the barbarians kept themselves, being there out of the cast of the darts. Here they remained quiet on purpose, and seemed to be afraid till the army was advanced within the narrowest part of the straits; but when they perceived them to continue their march, as it were in contempt of them, they rolled down stones of a prodigious bigness upon them, which rebounding often from the lower rocks, fell with the greater force, and not only crushed single persons, but even whole companies.
They likewise plied their slings and bows from all parts; even this did not seem a hardship to these brave men, save that they were forced to perish unrevenged, like beasts taken in a pitfall: upon this, their anger turning into rage, they caught hold of the rocks, and helping one another up, did all they could to get to the enemy; but the parts they laid hold on giving way to the strength of so many hands, fell upon those that loosened them. In these sad circumstances they could neither stand still nor go forward, nor protect themselves with their bucklers, by reason of the great size of the stones the barbarians pushed upon them. The king was not only grieved, but ashamed he had so rashly brought his army into these straits. Till this day he had been invincible, having never attempted anything in vain. He had entered the straits of Cilicia without damage, and had opened himself a new way by sea into Pamphylia; but here that happiness which had always attended him, seemed to be at a stand, and there was no other remedy but to return the same way he came. Having therefore given the signal for a retreat, he commanded the soldiers to march in close order, and to join their bucklers over their heads, and so retire out of these straits, after they had advanced thirty furlongs within them.