[37] The general effect of the monsoon Nearkhos certainly knew; he was a native of Crete, and a resident at Amphipolis, both which lie within the track of the annual or Etesian winds, which commencing from the Hellespont and probably from the Euxine sweep the Egêan sea, and stretching quite across the Mediterranean to the coast of Africa, entered through Egypt to Nubia or Ethiopia. Arrian has accordingly mentioned the monsoon by the name of the Etesian winds; his expression is remarkable, and attended with a precision that does his accuracy credit. These Etesian winds, says he, do not blow from the north in the summer months as with us in the Mediterranean, but from the South. On the commencement of winter, or at latest on the setting of the Pleiades, the sea is said to be navigable till the winter solstice (Anab. VI. 21-1) Vincent I. 43 sq. [38] The date here fixed by Arrian is the 2nd of October 326 B.C., but the computation now generally accepted refers the event to the year after to suit the chronology of Alexander’s subsequent history (see Clinton’s F. Hell. II. pp. 174 and 563, 3rd ed.). There was an Archon called Kephisidoros in office in the year B.C. 323-322; so Arrian has here either made a mistake, or perhaps an Archon of the year 326-325 may have died during his tenure of office, and a substitute called Kephisidôros been elected to fill the vacancy. The _lacuna_ marked by the asterisks has been supplied by inserting the name of the Makedonian month Dius. The Ephesians adopted the names of the months used by the Makedonians, and so began their year with the month Dius, the first day of which corresponds to the 24th of September. The 20th day of Boedromion of the year B.C. 325 corresponded to the 21st of September.