After reducing Halicarnassus and Caria, Alexander did no more in Asia Minor than parade the western part of it, the better to secure the footing he had gained in the continent. Here and there he had a brush with hill-men, who had long been unused to effective control, while with one or two of their towns he had to make terms; but on the approach of winter, Anatolia was at his feet, and he seated himself at Gordion, in the Sakaria valley, where he could at once guard his communications with the Hellespont and prepare for advance into farther Asia by an easy road. Eastern Asia Minor, that is Cappadocia, Pontus and Armenia, he left alone, and its contingents would still be arrayed on the Persian side in both the great battles to come. Certain northern districts also, which had long been practically independent of Persia, e.g. Bithynia and Paphlagonia, had not been touched yet. It was not worth his while at that moment to spend time in fighting for lands which would fall in any case if the Empire fell, and could easily be held in check from western Asia Minor in the meantime. His goal was far inland, his danger he well knew, on the sea--danger of possible co-operation between Greek fleets and the greater coastal cities of the Aegean and the Levant. Therefore, with the first of the spring he moved down into Cilicia to make the ports of Syria and Egypt his, before striking at the heart of the Empire. The Great King, last and weakest of the Darius name, had realized the greatness of his peril and come down with the levy of all the Empire to try to crush the invader in the gate of the south lands. Letting his foe pass round the angle of the Levant coast, Darius, who had been waiting behind the screen of Amanus, slipped through the hills and cut off the Macedonian's retreat in the defile of Issus between mountain and sea. Against another general and less seasoned troops a compact and disciplined Oriental force would probably have ended the invasion there and then; but that of Darius was neither compact nor disciplined. The narrowness of the field compressed it into a mob; and Alexander and his men, facing about, saw the Persians delivered into their hand. The fight lasted little longer than at Granicus and the result was as decisive a butchery. Camp, baggage-train, the royal harem, letters from Greek states, and the persons of Greek envoys sent to devise the destruction of the Captain-General--all fell to Alexander.