After reducing Halicarnassus and Caria, Alexander did no more in Asia
Minor than parade the western part of it, the better to secure the
footing he had gained in the continent. Here and there he had a brush
with hill-men, who had long been unused to effective control, while with
one or two of their towns he had to make terms; but on the approach of
winter, Anatolia was at his feet, and he seated himself at Gordion, in
the Sakaria valley, where he could at once guard his communications with
the Hellespont and prepare for advance into farther Asia by an easy
road. Eastern Asia Minor, that is Cappadocia, Pontus and Armenia, he
left alone, and its contingents would still be arrayed on the Persian
side in both the great battles to come. Certain northern districts also,
which had long been practically independent of Persia, e.g. Bithynia and
Paphlagonia, had not been touched yet. It was not worth his while at
that moment to spend time in fighting for lands which would fall in any
case if the Empire fell, and could easily be held in check from western
Asia Minor in the meantime. His goal was far inland, his danger he well
knew, on the sea--danger of possible co-operation between Greek fleets
and the greater coastal cities of the Aegean and the Levant. Therefore,
with the first of the spring he moved down into Cilicia to make the
ports of Syria and Egypt his, before striking at the heart of the
Empire.

The Great King, last and weakest of the Darius name, had realized the
greatness of his peril and come down with the levy of all the Empire to
try to crush the invader in the gate of the south lands. Letting his foe
pass round the angle of the Levant coast, Darius, who had been waiting
behind the screen of Amanus, slipped through the hills and cut off the
Macedonian's retreat in the defile of Issus between mountain and sea.
Against another general and less seasoned troops a compact and
disciplined Oriental force would probably have ended the invasion there