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 LacedaemoniansCyrus 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 ratei.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.).