[449] Arrian, iii. 24, 8; Curtius, vi. 5, 9. An Athenian officer named Demokrates slew himself in despair, disdaining to surrender.
[450] See a curious passage on this subject, at the end of the Cyropædia of Xenophon.
[451] Arrian, iii. 25, 3-8. Droysen and Dr. Thirlwall identify Susia with the town now called Tûs or Toos, a few miles north-west of Mesched. Professor Wilson (Ariana Antiqua, p. 177) thinks that this is too much to the west, and too far from Herat: he conceives Susia to be Zuzan, on the desert side of the mountains west of Herat. Mr. Prinsep (notes on the historical results deducible from discoveries in Afghanistan, p. 14) places it at Subzawar, south of Herat, and within the region of fertility.
Tûs seems to lie in the line of Alexander’s march, more than the other two places indicated; Subzawar is too far to the south. Alexander appears to have first directed his march from Parthia to Baktria (in the line from Asterabad to Baikh through Margiana), merely touching the borders of Aria in his route.
[452] Artakoana, as well as the subsequent city of Alexandria in Ariis, are both supposed by Wilson to coincide with the locality of Herat (Wilson, Ariana Antiqua, p. 152-177).
There are two routes from Herat to Asterabad, at the south-east corner of the Caspian; one by Schahrood which is 533 English miles; the other by Mesched, which is 688 English miles (Wilson, p. 149).
[453] Arrian, iii. 25; Curtius, vi. 24, 36. The territory of the Drangi, or Zarangi, southward from Aria, coincides generally with the modern Seistan, adjoining the lake now called Zareh, which receives the waters of the river Hilmend.
[454] Arrian, iii. 25, 6; Curtius, iv. 8, 7; vi. 6, 19.
[455] Curtius, vi. 7, 2. “Dimnus, modicæ apud regem auctoritates et gratiæ, exoleti, cui Nicomacho erat nomen, amore flagrabat, obsequio uni sibi dediti corporis vinctus.” Plutarch, Alex. 49; Diodor. xvii. 79.
[456] Curt. vi. 7, 29; Plutarch, Alex. 49. The latter says that Dimnus resisted the officer sent to arrest him, and was killed by him in the combat.