From there Cyrus sent the Cilician queen back to
 Cilicia by the shortest
 route, and he sent some of Menon’s troops to escort her, Menon
 himself commanding them. With the rest of the army
 Cyrus marched through Cappadocia four stages,
 twenty-five parasangs, to Dana , an inhabited city, large and prosperous.
 There they remained three days; and during that time
 Cyrus put to death a Persian named
 Megaphernes, who was a wearer of the royal purple, A title of honour at the Persian
 court. and another dignitary among his subordinates, on
 the charge that they were plotting against him. From there they made ready to try to
 enter Cilicia . Now the
 entrance was by a wagon-road, exceedingly steep and impracticable
 for an army to pass if there was anybody to oppose it; and in fact,
 as report ran, Syennesis was upon the heights, guarding the
 entrance; therefore Cyrus remained for a day in
 the plain. On the following day, however, a messenger came with word
 that Syennesis had abandoned the heights, because he had learned
 that Menon’s army was already in Cilicia , on his own side of the mountains, and
 because, further, he was getting reports that triremes belonging to
 the Lacedaemonians Cyrus had asked the Lacedaemonians to show themselves as good friends to him as he
 had been to them in their war against Athens ( Xen. Hell. 2.1.1 ). The aid they
 now rendered (see also Xen. Anab.
 1.4.2-3 ) was in response to that request. and
 to Cyrus himself were sailing around from
 Ionia to Cilicia under the command of
 Tamos. At any rate i.e. whether or not the
 reasons just given were the true ones. 
 Cyrus climbed the mountains without meeting any
 opposition, and saw the camp where the Cilicians had been keeping
 guard. Thence he descended to a large and beautiful plain,
 well-watered and full of trees of all sorts and vines; it produces
 an abundance of sesame, millet, panic, wheat, and barley, and it is
 surrounded on every side, from sea to sea, by a lofty and formidable
 range of mountains. After descending he marched through this plain four stages,
 twenty-five parasangs, to Tarsus , The
 birth-place of the apostle Paul. a large and prosperous
 city of Cilicia , where the
 palace of Syennesis, the king of the Cilicians, was situated; and
 through the middle of the city flows a river named the Cydnus, two
 plethra in width. The inhabitants of this city had abandoned it and fled, with
 Syennesis, to a stronghold upon the mountains—all of them, at least,
 except the tavern-keepers; and there remained also those who dwelt
 on the sea-coast, in Soli 
 and Issus . Famous as the scene of one of the
 most important victories of Alexander the Great ( 333 B.C.).