The rude but spirited tribes of Baktria and Sogdiana were as yet but imperfectly subdued, seconded as their resistance was by wide spaces of sandy desert, by the neighborhood of the Scythian Nomads, and by the presence of Spitamenes as a leader. Alexander, distributing his army into five divisions, traversed the country and put down all resistance, while he also took measures for establishing several military posts, or new towns in convenient places.[498] After some time the whole army was reunited at the chief place of Sogdiana—Marakanda—where some halt and repose was given.[499] [498] Curtius (vii. 10, 15) mentions six cities (oppida) founded by Alexander in these regions; apparently somewhere north of the Oxus, but the sites cannot be made out. Justin (xii. 5) alludes to twelve foundations in Baktria and Sogdiana. [499] Arrian, iv. 16, 4; Curtius, vii. 10, 1. “Sogdiana regio magnâ ex parte deserta est; octingenta ferè stadia in latitudinem vastæ solitudines tenent.” Respecting the same country (Sogdiana and Baktria), Mr. Erskine observes (Introduction to the Memoirs of Sultan Baber, p. xliii.):—“The face of the country is extremely broken, and divided by lofty hills; even the plains are diversified by great varieties of soil,—some extensive districts along the Kohik river, nearly the whole of Ferghana (along the Jaxartes), the greater part of Kwarizm along the branches of the Oxus, with the large portions of Balkh, Badakshan, Kesh, and Hissar, being of uncommon fertility; while the greater part of the rest is a barren waste, and in some places a sandy desert. Indeed the whole country north of the Oxus has a decided tendency to degenerate into desert, and many of its most fruitful spaces are nearly surrounded by barren sands; so that the population of all these districts still, as in the time of Baber, consists of the fixed inhabitants of the cities and fertile lands, and of the unsettled and roving wanderers of the desert, who dwell in tents of felt, and live on the produce of their flocks.” During this halt at Marakanda (Samarcand) the memorable banquet occurred wherein Alexander murdered Kleitus. It has been already related that Kleitus had saved his life at the battle of the Granikus, by cutting off the sword arm of the Persian Spithridates when already uplifted to strike him from behind. Since the death of Philotas, the important function of general of the Companion-cavalry had been divided between Hephæstion and Kleitus. Moreover, the family of Kleitus had been attached to Philip, by ties so ancient, that his sister, Lanikê, had been selected as the nurse of Alexander himself when a child. Two of her sons had already perished in the Asiatic battles. If, therefore, there were any man who stood high in the service, or was privileged to speak his mind freely to Alexander, it was Kleitus.