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In this battle nearly all of the Persian leaders were slain, and its result spread terror throughout Persia. Halicarnassus was next reduced. The march of Alexander was ever onward. In the citadel of Gordium he cut the "Gordian knot," and prophecy marked him for the lord of Asia. And now Darius marched to meet him, making a fatally bad choice of battle-ground.

Its beautiful windings through verdant and fertile valleys were so renowned, that every stream which imitates its example is said to meander to the present day. During all this time Parmenio had remained in the western part of Asia Minor with a considerable body of the army. As the spring approached, Alexander sent him orders to go to Gordium, whither he was himself proceeding, and meet him there.

But there are few great historical facts connected with either nation. There is an interesting legend connected with the Phrygian town of Gordium. The primitive king, Gordius, was originally a poor husbandman, upon the yoke of whose team, as he tilled the field, an eagle perched. He consulted the augurs to explain the curious portent, and was told that the kingdom was destined for his family.

Then forcing his way northwards through the barbarous tribes which inhabited the mountains of Pisidia, he encamped in the neighbourhood of Gordium in Phrygia. Here he was rejoined by Parmenio and by the new levies from Greece.

Starting from Babylon, probably about the time that Alexander left Gordium in Phrygia, he marched up the valley of the Euphrates, and took up a position at Sochi, which was situated in a large open plain, not far from the modern Lake of Antioch.

Alexander restored democracy in all the Greek cities; and as he passed through Gordium, cut the Gordian-knot, which none should loose but the ruler of Asia. During a dangerous illness at Tarsus, brought on by bathing in the Cydnus, he received a letter insinuating that Philip, his physician, had been bribed by Darius to poison him.

Here again Darius was infatuated, and he, in his self-confidence, left the passes over Mount Taurus and Mount Amanus undefended. Alexander, with re-enforcements from Macedonia, now marched from Gordium through Paphlagonia and Cappadocia, whose inhabitants made instant submission, and advanced to the Cilician Gatesan impregnable pass in the Taurus range, which opened the way to Cilicia.

Gordium had been the capital of the early Phrygian kings, and in it was preserved with superstitious veneration the chariot or waggon in which the celebrated Midas, the son of Gordius, together with his parents, had entered the town, and in conformity with an oracle had been elevated to the monarchy.

This terrible example dismayed the rest of Greece. Submission with the exception of that of Sparta was universal. The independence of Greece was at an end. More than two thousand years were to pass before that country would again be free. In the citadel of Gordium, an ancient town of Phrygia in Asia Minor, was preserved an old wagon, rudely built, and very primitive in structure.

Then he subdued the Pisidians who made head against him, and conquered the Phrygians, at whose chief city Gordium, which is said to be the seat of the ancient Midas, he saw the famous chariot fastened with cords made of the rind of the cornel-tree, about which the inhabitants had a tradition, that for him who should untie it, was reserved the empire of the world.