Persia from the Earliest Period to the Arab

HISTORY OF PERSIA. 73
real importance was, that in it Alexander conquered
not. only the troops of Darius, but those also of
Southern Greece. Hence the implacable enmity to
him of the republican parties, many of whose leaders
were present. Nor, indeed, were the survivors wholly
dispirited by the event. Thus Agis, king of Sparta,
collected 8000 of them, and it cost Antipater a bloody
battle ere he was finally victorious. Certain it is that
after the battle of Issus, with the exception of his de-
taching Parmenio to secure the treasury at Damascus,
Alexander did apparently little in the way of following
up his victory ; indeed, he would seem, at first sight, to
have turned aside to pick up very inferior game
by a march through Syria, a siege of Tyre, Joppa
and Gaza, and a descent into Egypt. But the
general motive of Alexander's actions cannot be mistaken.
No one better than he knew the constant
tactics of Persia during the previous century, or
how far the judicious use of Persian gold might
avail to arrest his advance : hence, he must have
seen that Tyre unreduced was a thorn in his side,
and, further, that the fall of Tyre would involve that
of Egypt. These two places once secured, the paralyzing
of his enemies in Greece was certain, de-
pendent as they were on the aid of a Tyrian
fleet. Thus, though the battle of Issus was fought
in November B.C. 333, Alexander devoted fully twenty
months to the reduction of Phoenicia, the sieges
of Tyre and Gaza 1
, the occupation of Egypt and
1
It was after the
siege of Gaza that Alexander raid the visit to
Jerusalem about which there has been so much discussion. Yet such
a journey and his acts there
ag^ee faithfully with his usual practices elsewhere.
A sacrifice in the temp'.e according to the Jewish rites was