The Histories

​In order that we may not seem to be overwhelmed by the authority of such great men, we shall make mention of a single battle, which happens to be at once most famous and not far removed in point of time, and, what is most important, one with which Callisthenes was associated.

​I mean the battle that took place in Cilicia between Alexander and Darius, in which he says that Alexander had already passed through the narrow passes and the so-called Gates in Cilicia, while Darius, having made his march through the so-called Amanic Gates, had descended with his force into Cilicia;

​and that when he learned from the inhabitants that Alexander was advancing towards Syria, he followed him, and on approaching the narrow passes, encamped by the river Pinarus.

​And he says that the width of the place was not more than fourteen stades from the sea to the foot of the mountains;

​and that through this place the aforementioned river flowed transversely, having immediately from the mountains clefts in its banks, and through the plains all the way to the sea steep and difficult hills.

​Having made these assumptions, when Alexander and his men, turning back, were approaching them, he says that Darius and his generals decided to draw up the whole phalanx in the camp itself, just as it had been from the beginning, and to use the river as a defense because it flowed right by the camp.

​After this, he says that they stationed the cavalry by the sea, and the mercenaries next to them along the river itself, and next to these the peltasts reaching as far as the mountains.