LIMIT OF ALEXANDER’S PROGRESS NORTHWARD
[329-327 B.C.]
Alexander then continued his onward progress, first to Maracanda (Samarcand), the chief town of Sogdiana—next to the river Jaxartes, which he and his companions, in their imperfect geographical notions, believed to be the Tanaïs, the boundary between Asia and Europe. In his march, he left garrisons in various towns, but experienced no resistance, though detached bodies of the natives hovered on his flanks.
Here, on the river Jaxartes, Alexander projected the foundation of a new city to bear his name; intended as a protection against incursions from the Scythian nomads on the other side of the river. He planted in it some Macedonian veterans and Grecian mercenaries, together with volunteer settlers from the natives around. An army of Scythian nomads, showing themselves on the other side of the river, piqued his vanity to cross over and attack them. Carrying over a division of his army on inflated skins, he defeated them with little difficulty, pursuing them briskly into the desert. But the weather was intensely hot, and the army suffered much from thirst; while the little water to be found was so bad, that it brought upon Alexander a diarrhœa which endangered his life. This chase of a few miles on the right bank of the Jaxartes (seemingly in the present Khanat of Khokand), marked the utmost limit of Alexander’s progress northward.
Shortly afterwards, a Macedonian detachment, unskilfully conducted, was destroyed in Sogdiana by Spitamenes and the Scythians: a rare misfortune, which Alexander avenged by overrunning the region near the river Polytimetus (the Kohik), and putting to the sword the inhabitants of all the towns which he took. He then recrossed the Oxus, to rest during the extreme season of winter at Zariaspa in Bactria, from whence his communications with the West and with Macedonia were more easy, and where he received various reinforcements of Greek troops.
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. After some time the whole army was reunited at the chief place of Sogdiana, Maracanda, where some halt and repose was given.