Now intelligence reached him which made him feel at liberty to advance into the interior of Asia.

Memnon the Rhodian fell sick and died in the early spring of B.C.333.

It is strange that so much should have depended on a single life; but it certainly seems that there was no one in the Persian service who, on Memnon's death, could replace him--no one fitted for the difficult task of uniting Greeks and Asiatics together, capable of influencing and managing the one while he preserved the confidence of the other.

Memnon's death disconcerted all the plans of the Great King, who till it occurred had fully intended to carry the war into his enemy's country.

It induced Darius even to give up the notion of maintaining a powerful fleet, and to transfer to the land service the most efficient of his naval forces.