Issus
Issus is a historically significant location in modern-day southern Turkey, specifically within the boundaries of Cilicia. Situated at the head of the Gulf of Issus, it served as a strategic coastal hub connecting Asia Minor and Syria. The town gained prominence in the early fourth century BC when it began minting its own coins, reflecting its cultural and economic development. A pivotal event in history occurred in 333 BC during the Battle of Issus, where Alexander the Great achieved a decisive victory over Darius III of Persia. This battle marked a turning point, opening the heartlands of the Persian Empire to Alexander's conquests and leading to the establishment of a Greco-Macedonian colony, Alexandria Beside Issus. The site continued to be of military significance, as evidenced by a later engagement in AD 194 during the civil war involving Emperor Septimius Severus. The remnants of Issus's historical landscape underline its importance in various cultural and military narratives.
Issus
(now in the Hatay, the southern appendix of Turkey in Asia)
A small town of `Smooth’ Cilicia of the Plain (Pedias, Campestris) on its eastern extremity, at the head of the Gulf of Issus (Gulf of İskenderun), possessing a mooring-place in a narrow, flat coastal strip (of which the contours have now greatly changed) controlling the road from Asia Minor into Syria. In the early fourth century BC Issus struck its own coins, first with Greek inscriptions and then (from c 385 BC) with the city's name in Greek accompanied by the name of the Persian satrap Tiribazus in Aramaic; though he and his successors also coined at the place on their own account, without indicating its name.
In 333 this coastal strip—between Issus and Myriandrus (Iskenderun)—was the scene of the Battle of Issus, the second of the three great land confrontations in which Alexander the Great defeated the Persian armies of Darius III Codomannus—who himself took part in the fighting for the first time. After a prolonged and complex struggle, Alexander's heavy Macedonian phalanx swung left, attacked the enemy's Greek mercenaries (who had sought to exploit a gap) in the flank, and cut them down, at the same time as a cavalry force, which he had transferred to the left wing, put its Persian opponents to flight. A fierce melee (recorded by subsequent Greek painters and mosaicists) took place round the chariot of Darius, who turned his horse and fled; his mother, wife and son were seized in the Persian camp and kept as prisoners. The victory left the heartlands of the Persian empire, Syria, Mesopotamia (Iraq) and Iran, wide open to Alexander. Not long afterward he founded a Greco-Macedonian colony Alexandria Beside Issus near the battlefield; it issued coinage on his behalf, ascribing him the title of king. This Alexandria reckoned a new era from its reorganization by Pompey the Great (67/6). Fragments of its buildings remain.
During the civil war between the emperor Septimius Severus and his rival Pescennius Niger, the decisive engagement was fought in the plain of Issus (AD 194), where Niger's forces were routed when a sudden storm blew up in their faces, and unforeseen attacks by Severus' cavalry outflanked them from the hills and fell on their rear.