[26] The spring of 327 B.C.
[27] Kaukasos here denotes the lofty mountain range, now called the Central Hindu Kush, which forms the northern frontier of Kâbul. Its native designation was Parapamisos, or, as Ptolemy more correctly transliterates it, Paropanisos. Till Alexander’s time these mountains were altogether unknown to the Greeks. The officers of his army who wrote accounts of his Asiatic expedition sometimes considered them to be a continuation of the Tauros, and sometimes of the Kaukasos. Arrian, who regarded them as an extension of the former range, says that the Macedonian soldiers called them Kaukasos to flatter Alexander, as if, when he had crossed them to enter Baktria, he had carried his victorious arms beyond Kaukasos. The Greeks of those days, it must be observed, had no definite knowledge of the mountains to which that name was properly applicable, but vaguely conceived them to be the loftiest and the remotest to be found in the eastern parts of the world. The pass by which Alexander recrossed the Paropanisos was most probably the Kushan or Ghorbund Pass.
[28] See [Note A], Alexandreia under Kaukasos.
[29] The tribes collectively designated Parapamisadai were, according to Ptolemy (who calls them Paropanisadai), the five following:—The Bôlitai, Aristophyloi, Parsioi, Parsyêtai, and Ambautai. They lived along the spurs of the Hindu Kush, chiefly along its southern and eastern sides. They thus occupied the whole of Kabulistân, and part of Afghânistân. The Bôlitai were probably the people of Kâbul, a city which, no doubt, represents that which Ptolemy calls Karoura (Kaboura?) or Ortospana.
[30] The colonies which Alexander planted in the countries he overran were of a military character, designed to secure the permanence, cohesion, and ultimate unification of his conquests. The war-worn soldiers whom he made colonists were condemned to perpetual exile, as may be gathered from the fate which overtook the colonists who of their own accord left Baktra and attempted to return to Greece. They were treated as deserters, and were all put to death.
[31] This is the Kâbul river, called otherwise by the classical writers the Kôphês, except by Ptolemy, who calls it the Kôa. Its name in Sanskrit is the Kubhâ.
[33] Taxilês. His distinctive name, as we learn from Curtius (viii. 14), was Omphis. Diodôros (xvii. 86) less accurately calls him Môphis, and says that Alexander changed his name to Taxiles. This is, however, a mistake, for Taxiles was a territorial title which each sovereign of Taxila assumed on his accession to power. Indian princes are generally designated in the classics by their territorial or dynastic titles. The father of Omphis died about the time Alexander was making his preparations to invade India.
[34] Kleitos had been killed before the army left Baktra, but his brigade continued to bear his name even after his death.
[35] Peukelaôtis designated both a district and its capital city. The name is a transliteration of Pukkalaoti, which is the Pali form of the Sanskrit Pushkalavati, the name by which the ancient capital of Gândhâra was known. General Cunningham has fixed its position at the two large towns of Parang and Chârsada, which form part of Hashtnagar, or eight cities, that are seated close together on the eastern bank of the Landaï or lower Swât river. The position thus indicated is nearly seventeen miles to the north-west of Peshâwar. The city was in early times a great emporium of commerce. Ptolemy, who with the author of the Periplûs of the Erythraian sea, calls it Proklaïs, has correctly located it on the eastern bank of the river of Souastênê, i.e. the river of Swât. Wilson, however, and Abbott take Pekhely (or Pakholi) in the neighbourhood of Peshâwar to be the modern representative of the old Gândhârian capital (v. Cunningham’s Anc. Geog. of India, pp. 49-51).