The Invasion of India by Alexander the Great as described by Arrian, Q. Curtius, Diodoros, Plutarch and Justin: Being Translations of such portions of the Works of these and other Classical Authors as describe Alexander's Campaigns in Afghanistan, the Panjâb, Sindh, Gedrosia and KarmaniaMcCrindle, John Watson
History
The Invasion of India by Alexander the Great as described by Arrian, Q. Curtius, Diodoros, Plutarch and Justin: Being Translations of such portions of the Works of these and other Classical Authors as describe Alexander's Campaigns in Afghanistan, the Panjâb, Sindh, Gedrosia and Karmania
McCrindle, John Watson
Alexander, the Great, 356 B.C.-323 B.C.; India -- History -- To 324 B.C. -- Sources
designating Indian rulers after their territories, is evidently the name
of the country over which Sôphytês ruled. This country, which was rich
and prosperous, as its very name implies, lay between the Hydraôtês and
the Hyphasis, probably in the district of Amritsar and towards the hills.
Arrian in his narrative of the campaign between these two rivers makes no
mention of Sôphytês, or, as he calls him, Sôpeithes, but he afterwards
refers to a king of this name whose dominions lay between the Hydaspês
and Akesinês. Strabo was aware of the discrepancy of the accounts as to
where the dominions of the Kathaians and King Sôphytês were situated.
NOTE N.—ALEXANDER’S ALTARS ON THE HYPHASIS
These altars are mentioned by Pliny, who says (vi. 21): “The Hyphasis
was the limit of the marches of Alexander, who, however, crossed it, and
dedicated altars on the further bank.” Pliny stands alone in placing
these altars on the left bank of the river. The historians all place them
on the right bank. Philostratos states that Apollonios of Tyana on his
journey into India in the second century of our aera, found the altars
still subsisting and their inscriptions still legible. Plutarch affirms
that in his days they were held in much veneration by the Praisians,
whose kings, he says, were in the habit of crossing the Ganges every year
to offer sacrifices in the Grecian manner upon them. It would, however,
be unsafe to place much credit in either of these statements. The altars
have been sought for in recent times, but not the slightest vestige of
them has been discovered. Masson and some other modern writers place
them on the Gharra (the united stream of the Vipaśâ and the Śatadru (or
Satlej), but this view, while otherwise exposed to serious objections,
is upset by the fact alone that in ancient times the two rivers united
at a point forty miles below their present junction. As Pliny (vi. 21)
gives the distance from the Hyphasis to the Hesidrus (Satlej) along the
Royal Road at 169 miles, it is evident that the altars must have been
situated at a point high above the junction of these two rivers. V. de
Saint-Martin is inclined to think that the altars may have been situated
near a chain of heights met with in ascending the Beiâs, and known
locally under the name of the _Sekandar-giri_, that is, “Alexander’s
mountain.” These heights are at no great distance from Râjagiri, a small
and obscure place, but supposed to represent Râjagriha mentioned in the
_Râmâyana_ as the capital of a line of princes called the Aśvapati (or
_Assapati_ in Prakrit) who governed the Kekaya, or, as Arrian calls
them in his _Indika_, the Kêkeoi. Lassen, followed by Saint-Martin,
identified Sôpeithes as belonging to the line of princes indicated.
The identification has been superseded by a better, but Saint-Martin’s
argument, as far as it concerns the position of the altars, is not
thereby affected. Sir E. H. Bunbury considers that the point where
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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