562 Ammianus (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.”

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

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

565 Alexander 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).

566 Cf. Arrian (vii. 29).

567 Curtius (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.

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

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

570 This 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).

571 See iii. 29 supra.

572 Propontis means the sea before the Pontus. Compare Ovid (Tristia, i. 10, 31):—“Quaque tenent Ponti Byzantia littora fauces.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

580 Of the year 327 B.C.

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

582 About £2,700.

583 About £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’s Dictionary of Antiquities.

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

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

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

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

588 After 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.

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

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

591 Krüger substituted περιεῖργε for περιέργει.

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

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

594 This 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.

595 Curtius (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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

603 Supposed to be another name for the Choes.

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

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

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

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

608 See Bk. ii. 23 supra.

609 Curtius (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.

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

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

612 On 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.

613 This 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.

614 Cf. Arrian, ii. 16 supra.

615 Curtius (viii. 39) says that the river Indus washed the base of the rock, and that its shape resembled the meta or 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.

616 Near 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’s Gradus ad Aornon.

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

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

619 Gronovius first introduced καὶ before τοὺς ψιλούς.

620 The name Indus is derived from the Sanscrit appellation Sindhu, from a root Syandh, meaning to flow. The name Indians, or Sindians, was originally applied only to the dwellers on the banks of this river. Hindustan is 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.

621 This city was probably on the site of Jelalabad.

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

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

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

625 φανείη. 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.

626 Cf. 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.

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

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

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

630 The celebrated Geographer and Mathematician, who was born B.C. 276 and died about B.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.

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

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

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

634 About £480,000.

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

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

637 Herodotus 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. See Herodotus, 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.

639 The 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.

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

641 Ctesias 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.

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

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

644 οὐδαμῶν is the Ionic form for οὐδένων.

645 The Greek name Αἴθιοψ means sunburnt. The Hebrew name for Aethiopia is Cush (black). In ancient Egyptian inscriptions it is called Keesh. 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).

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

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

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

649 Megasthenes 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.

650 Taurus is from the old root tor meaning high, another form of which is dor. Hence Dorians = highlanders.

651 The 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. Hyrcania is the Greek form of the old Persian Virkâna, that is Wolf’s Land. It is now called Gurgân.

652 Herodotus (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.

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

654 Cf. Arrian, vi. 27 infra.

655 Probably 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 310 B.C.

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

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

658 See Herodotus, ii. 5.

659 See Herodotus, ii. 10-34.

660 See Homer’s Odyssey, iv. 477, 581. In Hebrew the name for Egypt is Mitsraim (dark-red). In form the word is dual, evidently in reference to the division of the country by the Nile. The native name was Chem, meaning black, probably on account of the blackness of the alluvial soil.

661 ἄλλοι is Abicht’s reading instead of πολλοί.

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

663 See Herodotus, 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).

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

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

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

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

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

669 The 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 from Diodorus, 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.

670 The 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.

671 Diodorus (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.

672 ἐπιτρέψας is Krüger’s reading instead of ἐπιτάξας.

673 About the month of May. See chap. 12 infra; also Curtius, 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.

674 Cf. Arrian, i. 14 supra.

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

676 ἄλσει is Abicht’s reading for εἴδει.

677 About 17 miles.

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

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

680 Seleucus 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 in B.C. 79.

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

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

683 100 Greek and 101 English feet.

684 See Donaldson’s New Cratylus, sec. 178.

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

686 Cf. Arrian’s Tactics, chap. 29.

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

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

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

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

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