The Pinarus river is a small mountain spring fed stream famous in antiquity as the site of the First Battle of Issus, near a small coastal village or town which was reported to straddle the stream which by similar sources, was said to run red with blood after Alexander the Great leading his elite Companion cavalry turned the right flank of the Persians, smashed the center and routed the much larger Persian forces personally led by Darius III of Persia, who subsequently fled the field in a panic. For the film of the same name, see Alexander the Great (1956 film). ... Darius III or Codomannus (c. ...

Speculation on the location of the Pinarus has been raging for over 80 years. Older historians believed it to be the Deli Tchai river, but historians N.G.L. Hammond and A.M. Devine have made convincing claims that the Pinarus is actually the Payas river, the latter using eye-witness discription of the battle, mainly by the historian of Alexander, Ptolemy, compared with a personal examination of the riverine terrain, which may not have drastically changed since antiquity. The Payas river, in southern Anatolia near todays Turkey—Syria border, is thought during recent modern times to be the famous Pinarus river of antiquity, where Alexander the Great defeated Darius III of Persia in the First Battle of Issus, and the likely site of the second and third... A medieval artists rendition of Claudius Ptolemaeus Claudius Ptolemaeus (Greek: ; c. ...