a distance of some thirty miles. For a discussion regarding their ruins
and the tomb of Cyrus see his great work on Persia just published, vol.
ii. pp. 70-92.
[17] The release of these enormous treasure-hoards produced such effects
as resulted in recent times from the discoveries of gold in California
and Australia. The prices of all commodities were greatly enhanced, and
prosperity advanced by leaps and bounds.
[18] Perhaps Damaghan, but its position is very uncertain. According to
Apollodoros it was 1260 stadia beyond the Kaspian Gates, but according to
Pliny only 133 miles. See Curzon’s _Persia_, i. p. 287.
[19] _Sari_, according to Droysen.
[20] “Edicto vetuit ne quis se praeter Apellem Pingeret, aut alius
Lysippo duceret aera Fortis Alexandri vultum simulantia.”—_Horace._
[21] Pausanias, however, says that it was Philadelphos who brought the
body to Alexandreia.
[22] See Note L_l_ in Appendix.
[23] This name, transliterates the Sanskrit _Subhagasena_, which was not
a personal name but an official title. See Lassen, _Ind. Alt._ II. p. 273.
[24] The Companion Cavalry, called sometimes simply the Companions, were
the Royal Horse Guards, a body which at the beginning of the campaign
consisted of 1500 men, all scions of the noblest families of Macedonia
and Thessaly. In the course of the war their numbers were augmented
perhaps to 5000, as Mützell conjectures.
[25] The Parai-tak-ênai possessed part of the mountainous country between
the upper courses of the Oxus and the Jaxartes. They were perhaps one in
race with the Takkas of India, who had a great and flourishing capital,
Taxila (_i.e._ Takkasila, the Rock of the Takkas), situated between the
Indus and Upper Hydaspes. The first part of their name _Parai_ represents
perhaps the Sanskrit _parvata_, a hill, or _pahâr_ (a hill) of the common
dialect. A tribe of the same name occupied a mountainous part of Media
(Herod. i. 101), and another is located by Isidoros of Charax between
Drangiana and Arachosia. Another form of the name is Paraitakai (Arrian,
iii. 19; Strabo, xvi. 736; Stephanos Byz.)
[26] The spring of 327 B.C.
[27] Kaukasos here denotes the lofty mountain range, now called the
Central Hindu Kush, which forms the northern frontier of Kâbul. Its
native designation was Parapamisos, or, as Ptolemy more correctly
transliterates it, Paropanisos. Till Alexander’s time these mountains
were altogether unknown to the Greeks. The officers of his army who
wrote accounts of his Asiatic expedition sometimes considered them to
be a continuation of the Tauros, and sometimes of the Kaukasos. Arrian,
who regarded them as an extension of the former range, says that the
Macedonian soldiers called them Kaukasos to flatter Alexander, as if,
when he had crossed them to enter Baktria, he had carried his victorious
arms beyond Kaukasos. The Greeks of those days, it must be observed,
had no definite knowledge of the mountains to which that name was
properly applicable, but vaguely conceived them to be the loftiest and
the remotest to be found in the eastern parts of the world. The pass by
which Alexander recrossed the Paropanisos was most probably the Kushan or
Ghorbund Pass.
[28] See Note A, Alexandreia under Kaukasos.
[29] The tribes collectively designated Parapamisadai were, according to
Ptolemy (who calls them Paropanisadai), the five following:—The Bôlitai,
Aristophyloi, Parsioi, Parsyêtai, and Ambautai. They lived along the
spurs of the Hindu Kush, chiefly along its southern and eastern sides.
They thus occupied the whole of Kabulistân, and part of Afghânistân.
The Bôlitai were probably the people of Kâbul, a city which, no doubt,
represents that which Ptolemy calls Karoura (Kaboura?) or Ortospana.
[30] The colonies which Alexander planted in the countries he overran
were of a military character, designed to secure the permanence,
cohesion, and ultimate unification of his conquests. The war-worn
soldiers whom he made colonists were condemned to perpetual exile, as may
be gathered from the fate which overtook the colonists who of their own
accord left Baktra and attempted to return to Greece. They were treated
as deserters, and were all put to death.
[31] This is the Kâbul river, called otherwise by the classical writers
the _Kôphês_, except by Ptolemy, who calls it the _Kôa_. Its name in
Sanskrit is the _Kubhâ_.
[32] See Note B.
[33] Taxilês. His distinctive name, as we learn from Curtius (viii.
14), was Omphis. Diodôros (xvii. 86) less accurately calls him Môphis,
and says that Alexander changed his name to Taxiles. This is, however,
a mistake, for Taxiles was a territorial title which each sovereign of
Taxila assumed on his accession to power. Indian princes are generally
designated in the classics by their territorial or dynastic titles.
The father of Omphis died about the time Alexander was making his
preparations to invade India.
[34] Kleitos had been killed before the army left Baktra, but his brigade
continued to bear his name even after his death.
[35] Peukelaôtis designated both a district and its capital city. The
name is a transliteration of Pukkalaoti, which is the Pali form of the
Sanskrit Pushkalavati, the name by which the ancient capital of Gândhâra
was known. General Cunningham has fixed its position at the two large
towns of Parang and Chârsada, which form part of Hashtnagar, or _eight
cities_, that are seated close together on the eastern bank of the Landaï
or lower Swât river. The position thus indicated is nearly seventeen
miles to the north-west of Peshâwar. The city was in early times a great
emporium of commerce. Ptolemy, who with the author of the Periplûs of
the Erythraian sea, calls it Proklaïs, has correctly located it on the
eastern bank of the river of Souastênê, _i.e._ the river of Swât. Wilson,
however, and Abbott take Pekhely (or Pakholi) in the neighbourhood of
Peshâwar to be the modern representative of the old Gândhârian capital
(_v._ Cunningham’s _Anc. Geog. of India_, pp. 49-51).
[36] The route assigned to this division lay along the course of the
Kâbul river and through the Khaiber Pass to Peukelaôtis, which was
situated where, or near where, Hasht-nagar on the river Landaï now stands.
[37] This name is perhaps a transliteration of the Sanskrit _Sanjaya_,
which means _victor_. A Shinwâri tribe called _Sangu_ is found inhabiting
a part of the Nangrihar district west of the Khaiber Pass.
[38] The hypaspists, so called because they carried the round shield
called _aspis_, while the hoplites carried the oblong shield called
_hoplon_, formed a body of about 3000 men at the outset of the war, but
were perhaps augmented to double that number during its progress. They
were not so heavily armed as the hoplites, and were therefore more rapid
in their movements. The foot companions were another distinguished corps
of guards. The Agrianians, who made excellent light-armed troops, were a
Paionian people whose country adjoined the sources of the river Strymôn.
[39] Aspasioi and Assakênoi. See Note C.
[40] Strabo (xv. 697) states the reasons which led Alexander to select
the northern route to the Indus in preference to the southern. “Alexander
was informed,” he says, “that the mountainous and northern parts were the
most habitable and fertile, but that the southern part was either without
water or liable to be overflowed by rivers at one time, or entirely
burnt up at another, more fit to be the haunts of wild beasts than the
dwellings of men. He resolved therefore to master first that part of
India which had been well spoken of, considering at the same time that
the rivers which it was necessary to pass, and which flowed transversely
through the country which he proposed to attack, would be crossed with
more facility towards their sources.” The districts through which he
passed are now called Kafiristan, Chittral, Swât, and the Yusufzai
country. It is more difficult to trace in this than in any other of his
campaigns the course of his movements, and to identify with certainty
the various strongholds which he attacked. The country through which
he passed is but little known even at the present day, and, as Bunbury
remarks, a glance at the labyrinth of mountains and valleys, which occupy
the whole space in question in the best modern maps, will sufficiently
show how utterly bewildering they must have been to the officers of
Alexander, who neither used maps nor the compass, and were incapable of
the simplest geographical observations. The time occupied by Alexander in
marching from the foot of Kaukasos to the Indus was about a year. Like
Napoleon, he kept the field even in winter, though in these parts the
cold at that season is intense.
[41] Khôês. This is the first river Alexander would reach after he had
left his encampment near the junction of the Panjshîr with the Kôphên,
which appears to have been the place where he divided his army. It cannot
have been, as Lassen thought, the Kamah or Kunâr, but is rather the
stream formed by the junction of the Alishang and the Alinghar, which
joins the Kôphên on the left in the neighbourhood of Mandrour above
Jalâlâbâd. The Alinghar river, as we learn from Masson, is called also
the _Kow_. The Kôa of Ptolemy must not be confounded with the Khôês of
the text, for that author in describing the Kôa says that it receives
a tributary from the Paropanisadai, and that after being joined by
the Souastos (the river of Swât) it falls into the Indus. The Kôa is
therefore probably the Kôphên after its reception of the Kamah or Kunâr
river.
[42] Euaspla R. This name, which, so far as I know, occurs only in
Arrian, has not been satisfactorily explained. It designated, no doubt,
the river which Aristotle, Strabo, and Curtius call the Choaspes, and
which the best authorities identify with the Kamah or Kunâr, a river
which rivals the Kôphên itself in the volume of its waters and the length
of its course. It rises at the foot of the plateau of Pamîr, not far from
the sources of the Oxus, and joins the Kôphên at some distance below
Jalâlâbâd. Strabo says that the Choaspes traverses Bandobênê (Badakshan)
and Gandarîtis after having passed near the towns of Plêgêrion and
Gorydalê.
[43] The capital of this chief was probably Gorys on the Choaspes.
[44] Arigaion. This place, which was situated to the east of the
Choaspes, is perhaps now represented by Naoghi, a village in the province
of Bajore. Ritter identified it with Bajore or Bagawar, the capital of
this province. The mountains to which the inhabitants fled for refuge
may perhaps, as V. de Saint-Martin suggests, be those which Justin (xii.
7) calls Daedali, whereto he says Alexander led his troops after the
Bacchanalian revelry with which they had been indulged at Nysa. There is
no mention elsewhere of Arigaion, unless it be the “Argacum urbem” of
the _Itiner. Alex._ 105. It is taken by Schneider to be the Acadira of
Curtius.
[45] The Gouraios is the river Pañjkora, which unites with the river of
Swât to form the Landaï, a large affluent of the Kâbul river. It appears
under the name of the _Gauri_ in the sixth book of the _Mahâbhârata_,
where it is mentioned along with the Suvâstu (the Swât river) and the
Kampanâ. It owes its name to the _Ghori_, a great and wide-spread tribe,
branches of which are still to be found on the Pañjkora, and also on both
sides of the Kâbul River where it is joined by the Landaï. It formed the
boundary between the Gouraians and the Assakênians.
[46] Mazaga. See Note D.
[47] Alexander seems to have treated these mercenaries with less than his
usual generosity towards brave enemies. Plutarch reprobates his slaughter
of them as a foul blot on his military fame. The attack upon the city
after it had capitulated on terms admits of no justification.
[48] See Note E.
[49] Abisares. Arrian in a subsequent passage calls this chief King of
the Mountaineer Indians. His name shows that he ruled over Abhisâra,
that region of mountain-girt valleys, now called Hazâra, which lies
between the Indus and the upper Hydaspes. In _Hazâra_ the ancient name
of the country seems to be preserved. It has been supposed, but less
reasonably, that the district was so called from the great number of its
petty chiefs, _hazâra_ being the numeral for _a thousand_ (in Persian).
Abisares was a very powerful prince, and it is supposed with reason that
Kâshmîr was subject to his sway.
[50] Aornos. See Note F.
[51] “Heraklês,” says Herodotos (ii. 43, 44), “is one of the ancient gods
of the Egyptians, and, as they say themselves, it was 17,000 years before
the reign of Amasis, when the number of their gods was increased from
eight to twelve, of whom Heraklês was accounted one. And being desirous
of obtaining certain information from whatever source I could, I sailed
to Tyre in Phoenicia, where, as I had been informed, there was a temple
dedicated to Heraklês.” The name of the Egyptian Heraklês was Dsona or
Chôn, or, according to Pausanias, Makeris, and that of the Tyrian was
Melkart. These were more ancient than the Theban Heraklês, the son of
Zeus and Alkmênê. The Indian Heraklês, called Dorsanes, who, according
to Arrian, was the father of Pandaia, has been identified with Śiva,
but also with Balarâma, the eighth avatâr of Vishnu. Diodôros (ii. 39)
ascribes to him the building of the walls and of the palace of Palibothra
(now Pâtnâ). Arrian in the second book of this work (c. 16) distinguishes
the Tyrian Heraklês from the Egyptian and Argive or Theban. The latter,
he says, lived about the time of Oidipous, son of Laios.
[52] The Olympic stadium, which was the chief Greek measure for itinerary
distances, was equal to 600 Greek feet, 625 Roman feet, and 606 feet 9
inches English. The stadium of this length was the only one in use before
the third century of our aera.
[53] The site of Orobatis must be sought for in the district west of
Peukelaôtis, through which Hêphaistiôn advanced on his way to the Indus.
The position and name of Arabutt, a village in this locality where ruins
exist, plainly show its identity with the Orobatis of the text. It is
situated on the left bank of the Landaï, and is near Naoshera. It is
probably the Oroppa of the Ravenna geographer.
[54] Nikanor was succeeded in this office by Philippos, who was placed in
command of the garrison of Peukelaôtis.
[55] Peukelaôtis, as has been stated, stood on the Landaï at a distance
of seventeen miles north-west from Peshâwar. Alexander after the fall of
Bazira moved westwards toward that river, judging it expedient before
attacking the Rock to reduce all the yet unconquered region west of the
Indus. He took Peukelaôtis, and then directed his march eastward till he
approached the embouchure of the Kôphên, whence turning northwards he
advanced up the right bank of the Indus till he reached Embolima, about
eight miles distant from Aornos, and as high up the river as an army
could go.
[56] Kôphaios, to judge from his name and from what is here stated,
must have been the ruler of the valley of the lower Kôphên or Kâbul
river. Hence it is unlikely, as some have supposed, that the dominions
of Taxilês lay partly in the country west of the Indus. I find nothing
anywhere in the classical writers lending countenance to such a
supposition. The name of Assagetes is probably a transliteration into
Greek of the Sanskrit _Aśvajit_, “gaining horses by conquest.”
[57] Ritter taking Embolima to be a word of Greek origin, equivalent
in meaning to ἐκβολή, “the mouth of a river,” thought that this place
lay opposite to Attak, in the angle of land where the Kôphên discharges
into the Indus, and was thus led to identify Aornos with the hill in
that locality on which the fort of Raja Hodi stands. Embolima appears,
however, to be rather a combination of two native names, Amb and Balimah.
Amb is the name of a fort, now in ruins, from which runs the ordinary
path up to the summit of Mahâban. It crowns a position of remarkable
strength, which faces Derbend, a small town on the opposite side of the
Indus. Not far westward from this fort, and on the same spur of the
Mahâban, there is another fort also in ruins, which preserves to this
day in the tradition of the inhabitants the name of Balimah. It is in
accordance with Indian custom thus to combine into one the names of two
neighbouring places.
[58] See Note F, Aornos.
[59] “All this account,” says Abbott, who takes Aornos to be Mount
Mahâban, “will answer well for the Mahâban, which is a mountain-table
about five miles in length at summit, scarped on the east by tremendous
precipices from which descends one large spur down upon the Indus between
Sitana and Amb. The mountain spur being comparatively easy of ascent
would not probably be contested by the natives, who would concentrate
their power to oppose the Macedonians as they climbed the precipitous
fall of the main summit. The great extent of the mountain, covered as it
is with pine forest, would enable Ptolemy, under the guidance of natives,
to gain any distant point of the summit without observation.”
[60] His name seems a transliteration of _Śaśigupta_, “protected by the
moon.”
[61] That is the eastern part of their country. He had already reduced
the western and the capital Massaga.
[62] On descending the Mahâban by its northern or western spurs,
Alexander would have found himself in the valleys of Chumla and Buner.
The fugitives from the rock would no doubt flee for shelter to these
valleys or the mountains by which they were enclosed. Dyrta probably lay
to the north of Mahâban, near the point where the Indus issues from the
mountains. Court’s opinion that Dyrta was a place so far remote from
the rock as Dir, which lies beyond the Pañjkora river, seems altogether
improbable. Yet it is adopted by Lassen, though the regions in which Dir
is situated had already been subdued.
[63] “This road,” says Abbott, “was probably the path leading amongst
precipices above and along the torrent of the Burindu, a river which,
after watering the valleys of Buner and Chumla, flows into the Indus
above Amb. The path even now is very difficult. This would have brought
Alexander back to Amb.” On this route probably lay the pass which the
chief called Eryx by Curtius and Aphrikes by Diodôros attempted, but
unsuccessfully, to defend against Alexander. The river Burindu above
mentioned may be identified with the _Parenos_ of the Greek writers.
[64] In doing so they had of course to cross over to the left bank of the
Indus.
[65] Arrian in his _Indika_ (c. 14) has described the mode of elephant
hunting practised by the Indians. It is still in vogue.
[66] Abbott points out that at Amb large quantities of drift timber are
yearly arrested at an eddy near Derbend. It is probable, he thinks, that
the pine forest in those days descended lower down the river than it
does at present. At one time forests of fine sisoo, mulberry, and willow
timber grew along both banks of the Indus at that part of its course.
[67] The bridge in all probability spanned the Indus near Attak, which
stands on a steep and lofty part of the left bank about two miles below
the junction of the Kâbul and Indus. The width of the latter river at
the fortress of Attak is, according to Lieutenant Wood who measured it,
286 yards. A little lower down where the channel is usually spanned by
a bridge of boats it varies, as stated by Vigne, from 80 to 120 yards.
According to Cunningham, the bridge was made higher up the river, at
Ohind. From Alexander’s campaign north of the Kâbul river, General
Chesney (in a lecture at Simla) hints that a _moral_ may be drawn:—“We
have been accustomed,” he says, “to consider the country north of the
Kâbul river as virtually impregnable. The march of Alexander’s army is a
practical proof to the contrary, and although he was not burdened with
artillery, and had apparently only mule transport, yet the Greek soldiers
all marched in heavy armour, which must have added greatly to the
difficulties of warfare among those mountains. There is an obvious moral
to be drawn by us from these incidents.”
[68] See Note G, Nysa.
[69] Mount Tmôlos, as we learn from Virgil, Ovid, and Pliny, was famous
for its vines. It was therefore considered to be a favourite haunt of the
wine-god.
[70] As the Greek φ represents the _bh_ of Sanskrit, his name would be
_Akubhi_.
[71] Ivy abounds, however, in Hazâra as well as in some other parts of
India.
[72] His other names were Bacchos, Iacchos, Lyaios, Lênaios, Evios,
Bromios, and among the Romans Liber also.
[73] Arrian writes to the same effect in his _Indika_, c. 5: “When
the Greeks noticed a cave in the dominions of the Paropamisadai, they
asserted that it was the cave of Promêtheus the Titan, in which he had
been suspended for stealing the fire.” At the distance of thirty-four
miles from Birikot, a place near the river Swât, is Daityapûr, now called
Daiti-Kalli, said to have been built by one of the Daityas, _i.e._
_enemies of the gods_, such as were the Titans of the Greeks. In the hill
adjacent is a vast cavern which, as Abbott has suggested, the companions
of Alexander may have taken to be the cave frequented by the eagle which
preyed upon the vitals of Prometheus the Titan. At Bamiân, which lies
on one of the routes from Kâbul to Baktria, there are some very notable
caves, one of which, some think, must have been that which the Greeks
took to be the cave of Promêtheus. But Alexander does not appear to have
selected the Bamiân route either in crossing or recrossing the Kaukasos.
The mountains of the real Kaukasos were the loftiest known to the Greeks
before Alexander’s time, and hence to have crossed them was regarded as a
transcendent achievement.
[74] Arrian, like other ancient writers, supposed that the Indus had
its sources in those mountains from which it emerges into the plains
some sixty miles above Attak. It is now known that it rises in Tibet
on a lofty Himalayan peak, Mount Kailâsa, famous in Hindu fable as the
residence of Śiva and the Paradise of Kuvera, and that before it issues
into the plains it has nearly run the half of its course of about 1800
miles. The number of its mouths has varied from time to time. Ptolemy,
the geographer, gives it seven.
[75] Pâtâla in Sanskrit mythology denotes _the underworld_—the abode of
snakes and demons—to which the sun at the close of day seems to descend.
It was, therefore, Ritter says, the name applied by the Brahmans to all
the provinces in India that lay towards sunset. Cunningham, however,
suggests that Pâtali, a Sanskrit word meaning _the trumpet-flower_
(_bignonia suaveolens_) may have given its name to the Delta “in
allusion,” he says, “to the ‘trumpet’ shape of the province included
between the eastern and western branches of the mouth of the Indus, as
the two branches as they approach the sea curve outwards like the mouth
of a trumpet.” But could the idea of such a resemblance have occurred to
the minds of the Indians unless maps were in use among them? For a better
etymology see Note U. It has been conclusively proved that Haidarâbâd is
the modern representative of the ancient Pâtâla.
[76] The Indus after receiving the united streams of the great Panjâb
rivers is increased in breadth from 600 to 2000 feet. Its breadth is
therefore grossly exaggerated here unless the extent to which its
inundations spread beyond its banks enters into the account.
[77] See Note H.
[78] The Afghans and Rajputs are still noted for their great stature.
[79] The Greek geographers derived the name of the Aethiopians from αἴθω,
_I burn_, and ὦψ, _the visage_, and applied it to all the sun-burnt,
dark-complexioned races south of Egypt. As the Aethiopic language is,
however, purely Semitic, the name, if indigenous, must also be Semitic,
since, as Salt states, the Abyssinians to this day call themselves
Itiopjawan. Herodotus (vii. 70) speaks of Asiatic Aethiopians. These
served in the army which Darius led into Greece, and were marshalled with
the Indians, and did not at all differ from the others in appearance, but
only in their language and in their hair, which was straight, while that
of the Aethiopians of Libya (Africa) was woolly.