Chapter 18

562Ammianus(xviii. 3) says: “Ignorans profecto vetus Aristotelis sapiens dictum, qui Callisthenem sectatorem et propinquum suum ad regem Alexandrum mittens, ei saepe mandabat, ut quam rarissime et jucunde apud hominem loqueretur, vitae potestatem et necis in acie linguae portantem.”

563Cf.Curtius(viii. 21); Aelian (Varia Historia, xiv. 49). After the battle of Pydna, where the Romans conquered the Macedonians, thepueri regiifollowed the defeated king Perseus to the sanctuary at Samothrace, and never quitted him till he surrendered to the Romans. SeeLivy, xlv. 6.

564For this use of διαπίπτειν, cf. Aristophanes (Knights, 695);Polybius(v. 26, 16); διαπεσούσης αὐτῷ τῆς ἐπιβουλῆς.

565Alexander wrote to Craterus, Attalus, and Alcetas, that the pages, though put to the torture, asserted that no one but themselves was privy to the conspiracy. In another letter, written to Antipater the regent of Macedonia, he says that the pages had been stoned to death by the Macedonians, but that he himself would punish the Sophist, and those who sent him out, and those who harboured in their cities conspirators against him. Aristotle had sent Callisthenes out. Alexander refers to him and the Athenians. See Plutarch (Alex., 55).

566Cf.Arrian(vii. 29).

567Curtius(viii. 29) says that Alexander afterwards repented of his guilt in murdering the philosopher. His tragical death excited great indignation among the ancient philosophers. See Seneca (Naturales Quaestiones, vi. 23); Cicero (Tusc. Disput., iii. 10), speaking of Theophrastus, the friend of Callisthenes.

568We find from chapter xxii. that these events occurred at Bactra.

569The Chorasmians were a people who inhabited the country near the lower part of the river Oxus, between the Caspian and Aral Seas.

570This mythical race of warlike females is said to have come from the Caucasus and to have settled near the modern Trebizond, their original abode being in Colchis. Cf.Arrian(vii. 13);Strabo(xi. 5);Diod.(xvii. 77);Curt.(vi. 19);Justin(xii. 3); Homer (Iliad, iii. 189); Aeschўlus (Eumenides, 655);Herod.(iv. 110-116; ix. 27).

571See iii. 29 supra.

572Propontis means the seabefore the Pontus. Compare Ovid (Tristia, i. 10, 31):—“Quaque tenentPontiByzantia littorafauces.”

573We learn, fromCurtius(viii. 3), that it was at this place that Clitus was murdered.

574These were a people dwelling to the north-east of the Caspian, who were chiefly remarkable for having defeated and killed Cyrus the Great. SeeHerodotus, i. 201-216.

575There were two other generals named Peithon; one the son of Agenor, and the other the son of Crateas. SeeArrian, vi. 15, 28, etc.

576Curtius(viii. 1) says that the name of the defeated general was Attinas.

577Artabazus was in his 95th year when he joined Alexander with the Grecian troops of Darius inB.C.330. SeeCurtius, vi. 14. His viceroyalty was destined for Clitus; but on the death of that general it was conferred on Amyntas. SeeCurtius, viii. 3.

578Curtius(viii. 11 and 12) says that the wife of Spitamenes murdered him and carried his head to Alexander.

579The Hebrew name for Media is Madai, which meansmiddle-land. The Greeks called the country Media, according toPolybius(v. 44), because it lies near the middle of Asia.

580Of the year 327B.C.

581ὤρα, akin to Latincura, a poetical and Ionic word, often found in Herodotus.

582About £2,700.

583About £327.Curtius(vii. 41) says that the first prize was 10 talents, the second 9 talents, and the same proportion for the eight others, so that the tenth man who mounted received one talent. The stater of Darius, usually called a daricus, was a gold coin of Persia. See Smith’sDictionary of Antiquities.

584Cf.Curtius(vii. 43), vela, signum capti verticis.

585Roxana and her son Alexander Aegus were put to death by Cassander,B.C.311.

586Statira. She died shortly before the battle of Arbela.

587καρτερὸς αὑτοῦ. Cf.Theocritus, xv. 94, ἁμῶν καρτερός.

588After the capture of Damascus, Alexander married Barsine, the widow of his rival Memnon, and daughter of Artabazus. She was distinguished for her beauty and accomplishments, having received a Grecian education. By her he had a son named Heracles. See Plutarch (Alex., 21). She and her son were put to death by Polysperchon,B.C.309.

589Cf.Herodotus, i. 131;Curtius, iv. 42. The Persians called this god Ormuzd.

590Curtius(viii. 16) says that Alexander saw Roxana at a banquet given by Oxyartes in his honour.

591Krüger substituted περιεῖργε for περιέργει.

592βατά. Cf. Xenophon (Anab., iv. 6, 17).

593Arrian imitates Herodotus in the use of ὡς with the infinitive instead of ὥστε.

594This term is a Persian word meaning mountaineers. The tribe mentioned here lived between the rivers Oxus and Jaxartes, on the borders of Bactria and Sogdiana.

595Curtius(viii. 17) says Alexander took with him 30,000 select troops from all the conquered provinces, and that the army which he led against the Indians numbered 120,000 men.

596This is the Indian Caucasus, or mount Parapamisus, now called Hindu-Koosh.

597The Cophen is now called Cabul. Nicaea was probably on the same site as the city of Cabul. Others say it is Beghram. The Greek wordSatrapesdenotes a Persian viceroy. It is a corruption of a word meaningcourt-guardian, in the Behistûn Inscriptions written Khshatrapâ. See Rawlinson’sHerod., i. 192.

598Curtius(viii. 43) says that Taxiles was the title which the king of this district received. His name was Omphis.

599A district between the rivers Indus and Attock. Its capital, Peucela, is the modern Pekheli.

600The brigade of Clitus still bore the name of its commander after his death. Cf.Arrian, vii. 14 infra.

601These were tribes living in the north-west of the Punjab.

602Probably the modern Kama, a tributary of the Cabul.

603Supposed to be another name for the Choes.

604καὶ τοὺς ψιλοὺς. The usual reading is τοὺς χιλίους, 1,000Agrianians.

605A tributary of the Cophen, probably what is now called the Lundye, running parallel with the Kama.

606Cf.Livy, xxi. 31:—“Amnis saxa glareosa volvens, nihil stabile nec tutum ingredienti praebet.”

607This was the capital of the Assacenians.Curtius(viii. 37) calls it Mazagae, and describes its strong position.

608See Bk. ii. 23 supra.

609Curtius(viii. 37, 38) says that the name of the queen was Cleophis, and that after the surrender she gained Alexander’s favour. He also informs us that the king died just before Alexander’s arrival.

610Probably Bajour, north-west of Peshawur. The position of Ora cannot be fixed.

611This was the king of the Indian mountaineers. SeeArrian, v. 8 infra.

612On the ground of ἐν τῇ πόλει ξυμφυγόντες not being classical Greek, Krüger has substituted ἐν τῇ πόλει ξυμπεφευγότες, and Sintenis εἰς τὴν πόλιν ξυμφυγόντες. No one however ought to expect Arrian to be free from error, writing, as he did, in the middle of the second century of the Christian era.

613This seems to be the Greek translation of the native name, meaning the place to which no bird can rise on account of its height. Cf.Strabo, xv. 1. This mountain was identified by Major Abbot, in 1854, as Mount Mahabunn, near the right bank of the Indus, about 60 miles above its confluence with the Cabul.

614Cf.Arrian, ii. 16 supra.

615Curtius(viii. 39) says that the river Indus washed the base of the rock, and that its shape resembled themetaor goal in a race-course, which was a stone shaped like a sugar-loaf. Arrian’s description is more likely to be correct as he took it from Ptolemy, one of Alexander’s generals.

616Near mount Mababunn are two places called Umb and Balimah, the one in the valley of the river and the other on the mountain above it. See Major Abbot’sGradus ad Aornon.

617δαήμων, a poetical word. Cf. Homer (Odyssey, viii. 159).

618Probably Dyrta was at the point where the Indus issues from the Hindu-Koosh.

619Gronovius first introduced καὶ before τοὺς ψιλούς.

620The name Indus is derived from the Sanscrit appellationSindhu, from a rootSyandh, meaningto flow. The name Indians, or Sindians, was originally applied only to the dwellers on the banks of this river.Hindustanis a Persian word meaning the country of the Hindus or Sindus. Compare the modern Sinde, in the north-west of India, which contains the lower course of the Indus. In Hebrew India was called Hodu, which is a contraction of Hondu, another form of Hindu. See Esther i. 1; viii. 9. Krüger changed ὡδοποιεῖτο into ὡδοποίει.

621This city was probably on the site of Jelalabad.

622ἐπεί τε. This is the only place where Arrian uses this Ionic form for the simple ἐπεί.

623The Indians worship a god Homa, the personification of the intoxicating soma juice. This deity corresponds to the Greek Dionysus or Bacchus.

624The slopes of this mountain were covered with vines. See Ovid (Fasti, ii. 313;Metamorphoses, xi. 86); Vergil (Georgics, ii. 98);Pliny, xiv. 9.

625φανείη. Arrian does not comply with the Attic rule, that the subjunctive should follow the principal tenses in the leading sentence. Cf. v. 6, 6; 7, 5; vii. 7, 5; 15, 2.

626Cf. Pliny (Nat. Hist., vi. 23; viii. 60; xvi. 62). The ordinary reading is ἄλση παντοῖα· καὶ δεῖν σύσκιον. For this Krüger has proposed ἄλση παντοίᾳ ὕλῃ σύσκια.

627The other names of Dionysus were: Bacchus, Bromius, Evius, Iacchus, Lenaeus, Lyaens. The Romans called him Liber.

628Curtius(viii. 36) says that the Macedonians celebrated Bacchanalia for the space of ten days on this mountain.

629The 1st aor. pass. ἐσχέθην is found only in Arrian and Plutarch. Cf. vii. 22, 2 infra.

630The celebrated Geographer and Mathematician, who was bornB.C.276 and died aboutB.C.196. His principal work was one on geography, which was of great use to Strabo. None of his works are extant. He was made president of the Alexandrian library,B.C.236.

631Cf. Arrian (Indica, v. 11).

632The earliest mention of India which has descended to our times is in Aeschўlus (Supplices, 284).

633Arrian frequently uses the Ionic and old Attic word, σμικρός.

634About £480,000.

635Alexander probably crossed the Indus near Attock. The exact site of Taxila cannot be fixed.

636The Hydaspes is now called Jelum, one of the five great tributaries of the Indus.

637Herodotus considered the Danube the largest river in the world as known to him, and the Dnieper the largest of all rivers except the Danube and the Nile. SeeHerodotus, iv. 48-53.

638“Amnis Danubius sexaginta navigabiles paene recipiens fluvios, septem ostiis erumpit in mare. Quorum primum est Peuce insula supra dicta, ut interpretata sunt vocabula Graeco sermone, secundum Naracustoma, tertium Calonstoma, quartum Pseudostoma: nam Boreonstoma ac deinde Sthenostoma longe minora sunt caeteris: septimum ingens et palustri specie nigrum.”—Ammianus(xxii. 8, 44).Pliny(iv. 24) says that the Danube has six mouths, the names of which he gives.

639The Indus does not rise in the Parapamisus, but in the Himalayas. It has two principal mouths, but there are a number of smaller ones. Ptolemy said there were seven. The Delta is between 70 and 80 miles broad. “Delta, a triquetrae litterae forma hoc vocabulo signatius adpellata.”—Ammianus, xxii. 15.

640The territory included by the Indus and its four affluents is now called Punjab, a Persian word meaningfive rivers.

641Ctesias was the Greek physician of Artaxerxes Mnemon. He wrote a history of Persia and a book on India. His works are only preserved in meagre abridgement by Photius. Aristotle says that he was false and untrustworthy (Hist. of Animals, viii. 27;De Generatione Animalium, ii. 2). Subsequent research has proved Ctesias to be wrong and Herodotus generally right in the many statements in which they are at variance.

642The fact is, that the Indus is nowhere more than 20 stades, or 2-1/2 miles broad.

643SeeStrabo, xv. 1; xvi. 4;Herod., iii. 102, with Dean Blakesley’s note.

644οὐδαμῶν is the Ionic form for οὐδένων.

645The Greek name Αἴθιοψ meanssunburnt. The Hebrew name for Aethiopia is Cush (black). In ancient Egyptian inscriptions it is calledKeesh. It is the country now called Abyssinia. Aethiopas vicini sideris vapore torreri, adustisque similes gigni, barba et capillo vibrato, non est dubium. (Pliny, ii. 80).

646Cf. Xenophon (Cyropaedia, vii. 5, 67).

647Called theIndica, a valuable little work in the Ionic dialect, still existing.

648Nearchus left an account of his voyage, which is not now extant. Arrian made use of it in writing theIndica. See that work, chapters xvii. to lxiii.

649Megasthenes was sent with the Plataean Dēimachus, by Seleucus Nicator, the king of Syria and one of Alexander’s generals, as ambassador to Sandracotus, king of the country near the Ganges. He wrote a very valuable account of India in four books.

650Taurusis from the old root tor meaninghigh, another form of which isdor. Hence Dorians = highlanders.

651The ancient geographers thought that the Jaxartes bifurcated, part of it forming the Tanais, or Don, and flowing into the lake Maeotis, or Sea of Azov; and the other part falling into the Hyrcanian, or Caspian Sea. The Jaxartes and Oxus flow into the Sea of Aral, but the ancients thought that they fell into the Caspian, as there is indeed evidence to prove that they once did.Hyrcaniais the Greek form of the old PersianVirkâna, that isWolf’s Land. It is now called Gurgân.

652Herodotus(i. 203) states decidedly that the Caspian is an inland sea.Strabo(xi. 1), following Eratosthenes, says that it is a gulf of the Northern Ocean.

653The Euphrates, after its junction with the Tigres, flows through the marshes of Lamlum, where its current moves less than a mile an hour.

654Cf.Arrian, vi. 27 infra.

655Probably the Chandragupta of the Sanscrit writers. He conquered from the Macedonians the Punjab and the country as far as the Hindu-Koosh. He reigned about 310B.C.

656Mount Dindymus, now called Murad Dagh, was sacred to Cybele, the mother of the gods, who was hence called Dindymene.

657Hecataeus of Miletus died aboutB.C.476. He wrote a work upon Geography, and another on History. His works were well known to Herodotus but only fragments survive.

658SeeHerodotus, ii. 5.

659SeeHerodotus, ii. 10-34.

660See Homer’sOdyssey, iv. 477, 581. In Hebrew the name for Egypt isMitsraim(dark-red). In form the word is dual, evidently in reference to the division of the country by the Nile. The native name wasChem, meaningblack, probably on account of the blackness of the alluvial soil.

661ἄλλοι is Abicht’s reading instead of πολλοί.

662Arrian, in hisIndica, chap. 4, gives the names of these rivers.

663SeeHerodotus, vii. 33-36; iv. 83, 97, 133-141.Bosporus= Oxford. The name was applied to the Straits of Constantinople, and also to those of Yenikale, the former being called the Thracian and the latter the Cimmerian Bosporus. Cf. Aeschўlus (Prom., 734). Ad Bosporos duos, vel bubus meabili transitu; unde nomen ambobus (Pliny, vi. 1).

664Diodorus(xvii. 86) says that Alexander crossed on a bridge of boats. Cf.Strabo, p. 698;Curtius, viii. 34.

665There was another river called Rhenus, a tributary of the Po, now called the Reno. It was called Rhenus Bononiensis, being near Bononia or Bologna.

666αἱ πρύμναν κρουόμεναι. For this nautical term compareThucydides, i. 51;Herodotus, viii. 84;Diodorus, xi. 18; Aristophanes,Wasps, 399. κατὰ ῥοῦν is Krüger’s reading for the usual κατὰ πόρον.

667The explanation of this passage given in Liddell and Scott’sLexicon, sub voce κλῖμαξ, is evidently incorrect, as there is nothing about a chariot in the original.

668Compare the description of Cæsar’s bridge over the Rhine (Gallic War, iv. 17).

669The place where Alexander crossed the Indus was probably at its junction with the Cophen or Cabul river, near Attock. Before he crossed he gave his army a rest of thirty days, as we learn fromDiodorus, xvii. 86. From the same passage we learn that a certain king named Aphrices with an army of 20,000 men and 15 elephants, was killed by his own men and his army joined Alexander.

670The kingdom of Porus lay between the Hydaspes and Acesines, the district now called Bari-doab with Lahore as capital. It was conquered by Lords Hardinge and Gough in 1849.

671Diodorus(xvii. 87) says that Porus had more than 50,000 infantry, about 3,000 cavalry, more than 1,000 chariots, and 130 elephants.Curtius(viii. 44) says he had about 30,000 infantry, 300 chariots, and 85 elephants.

672ἐπιτρέψας is Krüger’s reading instead of ἐπιτάξας.

673About the month of May. See chap. 12 infra; alsoCurtius, viii. 45, 46.Strabo(xv. 1) quotes from Aristobulus describing the rainy season at the time of Alexander’s battle with Porus at the Hydaspes.

674Cf.Arrian, i. 14 supra.

675ἀλλὰ κενόν is Krüger’s reading, instead of ἀλλ’ ἐκεῖνον.

676ἄλσει is Abicht’s reading for εἴδει.

677About 17 miles.

678This use of πρίν with infinitive after negative clauses, is contrary to Attic usage.

679The perf. pass. πέπηγμαι is used by Arrian and Dionysius, but by Homer and the Attic writers the form used is πέπηγα.Doric, πέπαγα.

680Seleucus Nicator, the most powerful of Alexander’s successors, became king of Syria and founder of the dynasty of the Seleucidae, which came to an end inB.C.79.

681For this use of ὅσον, cf. Homer (Iliad, ix. 354);Herodotus, iv. 45; Plato (Gorgias, 485 A;Euthydemus, 273 A).

682Compare the passage of the Rhone by Hannibal. (SeeLivy, xxi. 26-28;Polybius, iii. 45, 46.)

683100 Greek and 101 English feet.

684See Donaldson’sNew Cratylus, sec. 178.

685πρὶν κατίδωσιν. In Attic, πρὶν ἄν is the regular form with the subjunctive; but in Homer and the Tragic writers ἄν is often omitted.

686Cf. Arrian’sTactics, chap. 29.

687Diodorus(xvii. 89) says that more than 12,000 Indians were killed in this battle, over 9,000 being captured, besides 80 elephants.

688According to Diodorus there fell of the Macedonians 280 cavalry and more than 700 infantry. Plutarch (Alex.60) says that the battle lasted eight hours.

689Curtius(viii. 50, 51) represents Porus sinking half dead, and being protected to the last by his faithful elephant.Diodorus(xvii. 88) agrees with him.

690Cf.Curtius, viii. 44;Justin, xii. 8.

691Cf.Arrian, ii. 10 supra. δεδουλωμένος τῇ γνώμῃ. The Scholiast onThucydidesiv. 34, explains this by τεταπεινωμένος φόβῳ.

Back to Index Next