É. Apor (ed.): Stein, Aurel: Old Routes of Western Iran. (Budapest Oriental Reprints, Ser. B 2.)
Chapter I.—In Westernmost Färs
I O IN WESTERNMOST FÄRS [Chap. I against the Persians (i.e., Persis) by the main road which leads into their country ". 3 We shall see further on that by this main road can be meant only the longer but much easier trade route well known to the early Arab geographers which from the Fahliün valley diverges to the south-east, and passing the Shäpür valley joins at Käzarün the Bushire-Shiräz high-road. 4 " He himself took with him the Macedonian foot, the Companions' cavalry, the mounted scouts, the Agrianes and the archers, and marched at full speed through the hills. When he arrived at the Persian Gates he found there Ariobarzanes, the satrap of Persis, with forty thousand infantry and seven hundred horse, having already built a wall across the Gates and encamped there near the wall, to bar Alexander's progress." s Arrian makes Alexander encamp on nearing the ' Gates ', and the accounts of Curtius and Diodorus clearly state that the Macedonian advance through difficult defiles was left on purpose so far unopposed. But when the attempt was made to take the pass, the advantages enjoyed by the enemy holding higher ground over precipitous rocky slopes enabled them to repulse the attack of the Macedonians with great slaughter. Curtius and Diodorus both give graphic, if rhetorically coloured, descriptions of the heavy losses suffered by the assailants from the large 3 See Arrian, Anabasis, III. xviii. I sq., quoted here as elsewhere from Robson's translation (Loeb Classical Series, 1929) with such slight modifications as the context makes advisable. * Cf. below, p. 33 ; also Curtius, I.e., V. iii. 12, where this route is meant by eampestri itinere. 5 Arrian, I.e., Curtius, V. iii. 12, makes Alexander move towards the crest of the mountains and enter the defiles " called the Susian Gates " on the fifth day. Diodorus, xvil. lxviii. I, also refers to the ' Susian Gates ' as reached on the fifth day after capturing the towns of the Uxians. Curtius indicates the strength of Ariobarzanes' force as 25,000 feet and so does Diodorus, adding 300 horse.
