Sykes' History of Persia - Heritage Institute

28o HISTORY OF PERSIA
sent home loaded with gifts. Arrian states that not a
few of their number elected to follow the fortunes of
Alexander, whose forces were now entirely professional,
looking to their leader and to no one else. The enormous
treasure, estimated by Diodorus at 180,000 talents or
some forty millions
sterling, was left at Ecbatana, which
was garrisoned by a force of six thousand Macedonians.
It thus became the most important military centre in the
newly conquered empire, and was particularly well chosen
owing to its central position and its approximately equal
distance from Babylon, Susa, and It
Persepolis. also
served as a new base for the main army. Parmenio was
detached northward to march through the difficult country
of the Cadusians with orders to
rejoin
in Hyrcania, and
this operation, the need for which is not apparent, he duly
carried out.
The Pursuit and Death of 'Darius Codomannus^ 330 b.c.
—When arrangements had been completed, Alexander with
a strong force of picked men started in pursuit of the hapless
Darius, whom he hoped to overtake at Rhagae, the
Rhages of the book of Tobit, the ruins of which lie a few
miles to the south of Teheran.-^ Alexander rested his men
for five days at Rhagae, and then marched east along what
is to-day the post road between Teheran and Meshed,
which throughout skirts the southern slopes of the Elburz,
then known as the Taurus. It is seldom out of sight of]
the great desert of Persia, which almost throughout comes
up close to the foot of the mountain range, and has thus]
through all the ages fixed the course of the great route]
connecting Ecbatana with Bactria. The first marcl
brought him to the famous Caspian Gates,^ and the]
second led him beyond them. He then heard
thatj
Bessus, Viceroy of Bactria, had made a prisoner of the]
fugitive king, and the information spurred him to redouble!
his efforts. Two more extremely long marches brought
^ From Ecbatana, the modern Hamadan, to Rhagae, the modern Rei, is just under
two hundred miles, and as Arrian speaks of its being reached by forced marches on the
eleventh day, there is evidently some mistake, either on the part of Arrian or in the
text.
"^ In Curzon's Persia,, i. 293, the question of the exact site is gone into at length.
Williams Jackson, who has made a special study of the question, agrees with Curzon's
conclusion that the Sardarra Pass is the defile referred to by Arrian.