In respect to the maritime pass, called the Gates of Kilikia and Syria, there is much discrepancy between Xenophon and Arrian. It is evident that, in Xenophon’s time, this pass and the road of march through it lay between the mountains and the sea,—and that the obstructions (walls blocking up the passage), which he calls insurmountable by force, were mainly of artificial creation. But when Alexander passed, no walls existed. The artificial obstructions had disappeared during the seventy years between Xenophon and Alexander; and we can assign a probable reason why. In Xenophon’s time, Kilikia was occupied by the native prince Syennesis, who, though tributary, maintained a certain degree of independence even in regard to the Great King, and therefore kept a wall guarded by his own soldiers on his boundary towards Syria. But in Alexander’s time, Kilikia was occupied, like Syria, by a Persian satrap. Artificial boundary walls, between two conterminous satrapies under the same master, were unnecessary; and must even have been found inconvenient, during the great collective military operations of the Persian satraps against the revolted Evagoras of Cyprus (principally carried on from Kilikia as a base, about 380 B. C., Diodor. xv. 2)—as well as in the subsequent operations against the Phenician towns (Diodor. xvi. 42). Hence we may discern a reason why all artificial obstructions may have been swept away before the time of Alexander; leaving only the natural difficulties of the neighboring ground, upon which Xenophon has not touched.
The spot still retained its old name—“The Gates of Kilikia and Syria”—even after walls and gates had been dispensed with. But that name, in Arrian’s description, designates a difficult and narrow point of the road over hills and rocks; a point which Major Rennell (Illustrations, p. 54) supposes to have been about a mile south of the river and walls described by Xenophon. However this may be, the precise spot designated by Xenophon seems probably to be sought about seven miles north of Scanderoon, near the ruins now known as Jonas’s Pillars (or Sakal Tutan), and the Castle of Merkes, where a river called Merkes, Mahersy, or Kara-su, flows across from the mountain to the sea. That this river is the same with the Kersus of Xenophon, is the opinion of Rennell, Ainsworth, and Mützel; as well as of Colonel Callier, who surveyed the country when accompanying the army of Ibrahim Pacha as engineer (cited by Ritter, Erdk. p. 1792). At the spot here mentioned, the gulf indents eastward, while the western flank of Amanus approaches very close to it, and drops with unusual steepness towards it. Hence the road now followed does not pass between the mountain and the sea, but ascends over a portion of the mountain, and descends again afterwards to the low ground skirting the sea. Northward of Merkes, the space between the mountain and the sea gradually widens, towards Bayas. At some distance to the north of Bayas occurs the river now called Delle Tschai, which is considered I think with probability, to be the Pinarus, where the battle between Alexander and Darius was fought. This opinion however is not unanimous; Kinneir identifies the Merkes with the Pinarus. Moreover, there are several different streams which cross the space between Mount Amanus and the sea. Des Monceaux notices six streams as having been crossed between the Castle of Merkes and Bayas; and five more streams between Bayas and Ayas (Mützel ad Curtium, p. 105). Which among these is the Pinarus, cannot be settled without more or less of doubt.
Besides the Gates of Kilikia and Syria, noted by Xenophon and Arrian in the above passages, there are also other Gates called the Amanian Gates, which are spoken of in a perplexing manner. Dr. Thirlwall insists with propriety on the necessity of distinguishing the maritime passes, between Mount Amanus and the sea—from the inland passes, which crossed over the ridge of Mount Amanus itself. But this distinction seems not uniformly observed by ancient authors, when we compare Strabo, Arrian, and Kallisthenes. Strabo uses the phrase, Amanian Gates, twice (xiv. p. 676; xvi. p. 751); in both cases designating a maritime pass, and not a pass over the mountain,—yet designating one maritime pass in the page first referred to, and another in the second. In xiv. p. 676—he means by αἱ Ἀμανίδες πύλαι, the spot called by modern travellers Demir Kapu, between Ægæ and Issus, or between Mopsuestia and Issus; while in xvi. 751—he means by the same words that which I have been explaining as the Gates of Kilikia and Syria, on the eastern side of the Gulf of Issus. In fact, Strabo seems to conceive as a whole the strip of land between Mount Amanus and the Gulf, beginning at Demir Kapu, and ending at the Gates of Kilikia and Syria—and to call both the beginning and the end of it by the same name—the Amanian Gates. But he does not use this last phrase to designate the passage over or across Mount Amanus; neither does Arrian; who in describing the march of Darius from Sochi into Kilikia, says (ii. 7, 1)—ὑπερβαλὼν δὴ τὸ ὄρος Δαρεῖος τὸ κατὰ τὰς πύλας τὰς Ἀμανικὰς καλουμένας, ὡς ἐπὶ Ἴσσον προῆγε, καὶ ἐγένετο κατόπιν Ἀλεξάνδρου λαθών. Here, let it be observed, we do not read ὑπερβαλὼν τὰς πύλας—nor can I think that the words mean, as the translator gives them—“transiit Amanum, eundo per Pylas Amanicas.” The words rather signify, that Darius “crossed over the mountain where it adjoined the Amanian Gates”—i. e. where it adjoined the strip of land skirting the Gulf, and lying between those two extreme points which Strabo denominates Amanian Gates. Arrian employs this last phrase more loosely than Strabo, yet still with reference to the maritime strip, and not to a col over the mountain ridge.
On the other hand, Kallisthenes (if he is rightly represented by Polybius, who recites his statement, not his words, xii. 17) uses the words Amanian Gates to signify the passage by which Darius entered Kilikia—that is, the passage over the mountain. That which Xenophon and Arrian call the Gates of Kilikia and Syria—and which Strabo calls Amanian Gates—is described by Polybius as τὰ στενὰ, καὶ τὰς λεγομένας ἐν τῇ Κιλικίᾳ πύλας.
It seems pretty certain that this must have been Darius’s line of march, because he came down immediately upon Issus, and then marched forward to the river Pinarus. Had he entered Kilikia by the pass of Beylan, he must have passed the Pinarus before he reached Issus. The positive grounds for admitting a practicable pass near the 37th parallel, are indeed called in question by Mützel (ad Curtium, p. 102, 103), and are not in themselves conclusive; still I hold them sufficient, when taken in conjunction with the probabilities of the case. This pass was, however, we may suppose, less frequented than the maritime line of road through the Gates of Kilikia and Syria, and the pass of Beylan; which, as the more usual, was preferred both by the Cyreians and by Alexander.
Respecting the march of Alexander, Dr. Thirlwall here starts a question, substantially to this effect: “Since Alexander intended to march through the pass of Beylan for the purpose of attacking the Persian camp at Sochi, what could have caused him to go to Myriandrus, which was more south than Beylan, and out of his road?” Dr. Thirlwall feels this difficulty so forcibly, that in order to eliminate it, he is inclined to accept the hypothesis of Mr. Williams, which places Myriandrus at Bayas, and the Kiliko-Syrian Gates at Demir-Kapu; an hypothesis which appears to me inadmissible on various grounds, and against which Mr. Ainsworth (in his Essay on the Cilician and Syrian Gates) has produced several very forcible objections.
I confess that I do not feel the difficulty on which Dr. Thirlwall insists. When we see that Cyrus and the Ten Thousand went to Myriandrus, in their way to the pass of Beylan, we may reasonably infer that, whether that town was in the direct line or not, it was at least in the usual road of march—which does not always coincide with the direct line. But to waive this supposition, however—let us assume that there existed another shorter road leading to Beylan without passing by Myriandrus—there would still be reason enough to induce Alexander to go somewhat out of his way, in order to visit Myriandrus. For it was an important object with him to secure the sea ports in his rear, in case of a possible reverse. Suppose him repulsed and forced to retreat—it would be a material assistance to his retreat, to have assured himself beforehand of Myriandrus as well as the other seaports. In the approaching months, we shall find him just as careful to make sure of the Phenician cities on the coast, before he marches into the interior to attack Darius at Arbela.
Farther, Alexander, marching to attack Darius, had nothing to gain by haste, and nothing to lose by coming up to Sochi three days later. He knew that the enormous Persian host would not try to escape; it would either await him at Sochi, or else advance into Kilikia to attack him there. The longer he tarried, the more likely they were to do the latter, which was what he desired. He had nothing to lose therefore in any way, and some chance of gain, by prolonging his march to Sochi for as long a time as was necessary to secure Myriandrus. There is no more difficulty, I think, in understanding why he went to Myriandrus, than why he went westward from Tarsus (still more out of his line of advance) to Soli and Anchialus.
It seems probable (as Rennell, p. 56, and others think), that the site of Myriandrus is now some distance inland; that there has been an accretion of new land and morass on the coast.
The modern town of Scanderoon occupies the site of Ἀλεξανδρεία κατ᾽ Ἴσσον, founded (probably by order of Alexander himself) in commemoration of the victory of Issus. According to Ritter (p. 1791), “Alexander had the great idea of establishing there an emporium for the traffic of the East with Europe, as at the other Alexandria for the trade of the East with Egypt.” The importance of the site of Scanderoon, in antiquity, is here greatly exaggerated. I know no proof that Alexander had the idea which Ritter ascribes to him; and it is certain that his successors had no such idea; because they founded the great cities of Antioch and Seleukeia (in Pieria), both of them carrying the course of trade up the Orontes, and therefore diverting it away from Scanderoon. This latter town is only of importance as being the harbor of Aleppo; a city (Berœa) of little consequence in antiquity, while Antioch became the first city in the East, and Seleukeia among the first: see Ritter, p. 1152.