[309] It is evident that the name Pillars misled Megasthenes or the writers from whom he borrowed the facts; for it is impossible to suppose that Tearcho, who reigned in Arabia, or that Nabuchodonosor, who reigned at Babylon, ever conducted an army across the desert and through the whole breadth of Africa to the Straits of Gibraltar, to which place nothing invited them, and the existence of which, as well as that of the neighbouring countries, must have been unknown. The Egyptians, Arabians, and Babylonians directed their invasions towards the north, to Palestine, Syria, Mesopotamia, Armenia, Iberia, and Colchis. This was the line of march followed by Sesostris. Ptolemy indicates the existence of “Pillars,” which he calls “the Pillars of Alexander,” above Albania and Iberia, at the commencement of the Asiatic Sarmatia. But as it is known that Alexander never penetrated into these regions, it is clear that the title “of Alexander” was added by the Greeks to the names of mountains, which separated a country partly civilized from that entirely occupied by hordes of savages. Everything therefore seems to show, that these Pillars near Iberia in Asia, and not the Pillars of Hercules in Europe, formed the boundary of the expeditions of Sesostris, Tearcho, and Nabuchodonosor.—_Gossellin._ [310] As the Oxydraci are here meant, Groskurd adopts this name in the text. They were settled in Sagur and Outch, of the province of Lahore. [311] Eurip. Bacchæ, v. 13.—_Wodehull._ [312] Many cities and mountains bore the name of Nysa; but it is impossible to confound the mountain Nysa, spoken of by Sophocles, with the Nysa of India, which became known to the Greeks by the expedition only of Alexander, more than a century after the death of the poet. [313] Probably interpolated. [314] Il. vi. 132. Nysa in India was unknown to Homer, who here refers to Mount Nysa in Thrace. [315] Strabo takes for the source of the Indus the place where it passes through the mountains to enter the Punjab. The site of Aornos seems to correspond with Renas.—_Gossellin_. [316] The Sibæ, according to Quintus Curtius, who gives them the name of Sobii, occupied the confluent of the Hydaspes and the Acesines. This people appear to have been driven towards the east by one of those revolutions so frequent in all Asia. At least, to the north of Delhi, and in the neighbourhood of Hardouar, a district is found bearing the name of Siba. [317] That is, the Macedonians transferred the name of the Caucasus, situated between the Black Sea and the Caspian, to the mountains of India. The origin of their mistake arose from the Indians giving, as at present, the name of Kho, which signifies “white,” to the great chain of mountains covered with snow, from whence the Indus, and the greater part of the rivers which feed it, descend. [318] This people occupied the Paropamisus, where the mountains now separate Candahar from Gaour. [319] Book ii. c. i. 2.