[36] The route assigned to this division lay along the course of the Kâbul river and through the Khaiber Pass to Peukelaôtis, which was situated where, or near where, Hasht-nagar on the river Landaï now stands.
[37] This name is perhaps a transliteration of the Sanskrit Sanjaya, which means victor. A Shinwâri tribe called Sangu is found inhabiting a part of the Nangrihar district west of the Khaiber Pass.
[38] The hypaspists, so called because they carried the round shield called aspis, while the hoplites carried the oblong shield called hoplon, formed a body of about 3000 men at the outset of the war, but were perhaps augmented to double that number during its progress. They were not so heavily armed as the hoplites, and were therefore more rapid in their movements. The foot companions were another distinguished corps of guards. The Agrianians, who made excellent light-armed troops, were a Paionian people whose country adjoined the sources of the river Strymôn.
[39] Aspasioi and Assakênoi. See [Note C].
[40] Strabo (xv. 697) states the reasons which led Alexander to select the northern route to the Indus in preference to the southern. “Alexander was informed,” he says, “that the mountainous and northern parts were the most habitable and fertile, but that the southern part was either without water or liable to be overflowed by rivers at one time, or entirely burnt up at another, more fit to be the haunts of wild beasts than the dwellings of men. He resolved therefore to master first that part of India which had been well spoken of, considering at the same time that the rivers which it was necessary to pass, and which flowed transversely through the country which he proposed to attack, would be crossed with more facility towards their sources.” The districts through which he passed are now called Kafiristan, Chittral, Swât, and the Yusufzai country. It is more difficult to trace in this than in any other of his campaigns the course of his movements, and to identify with certainty the various strongholds which he attacked. The country through which he passed is but little known even at the present day, and, as Bunbury remarks, a glance at the labyrinth of mountains and valleys, which occupy the whole space in question in the best modern maps, will sufficiently show how utterly bewildering they must have been to the officers of Alexander, who neither used maps nor the compass, and were incapable of the simplest geographical observations. The time occupied by Alexander in marching from the foot of Kaukasos to the Indus was about a year. Like Napoleon, he kept the field even in winter, though in these parts the cold at that season is intense.
[41] Khôês. This is the first river Alexander would reach after he had left his encampment near the junction of the Panjshîr with the Kôphên, which appears to have been the place where he divided his army. It cannot have been, as Lassen thought, the Kamah or Kunâr, but is rather the stream formed by the junction of the Alishang and the Alinghar, which joins the Kôphên on the left in the neighbourhood of Mandrour above Jalâlâbâd. The Alinghar river, as we learn from Masson, is called also the Kow. The Kôa of Ptolemy must not be confounded with the Khôês of the text, for that author in describing the Kôa says that it receives a tributary from the Paropanisadai, and that after being joined by the Souastos (the river of Swât) it falls into the Indus. The Kôa is therefore probably the Kôphên after its reception of the Kamah or Kunâr river.
[42] Euaspla R. This name, which, so far as I know, occurs only in Arrian, has not been satisfactorily explained. It designated, no doubt, the river which Aristotle, Strabo, and Curtius call the Choaspes, and which the best authorities identify with the Kamah or Kunâr, a river which rivals the Kôphên itself in the volume of its waters and the length of its course. It rises at the foot of the plateau of Pamîr, not far from the sources of the Oxus, and joins the Kôphên at some distance below Jalâlâbâd. Strabo says that the Choaspes traverses Bandobênê (Badakshan) and Gandarîtis after having passed near the towns of Plêgêrion and Gorydalê.
[43] The capital of this chief was probably Gorys on the Choaspes.
[44] Arigaion. This place, which was situated to the east of the Choaspes, is perhaps now represented by Naoghi, a village in the province of Bajore. Ritter identified it with Bajore or Bagawar, the capital of this province. The mountains to which the inhabitants fled for refuge may perhaps, as V. de Saint-Martin suggests, be those which Justin (xii. 7) calls Daedali, whereto he says Alexander led his troops after the Bacchanalian revelry with which they had been indulged at Nysa. There is no mention elsewhere of Arigaion, unless it be the “Argacum urbem” of the Itiner. Alex. 105. It is taken by Schneider to be the Acadira of Curtius.
[45] The Gouraios is the river Pañjkora, which unites with the river of Swât to form the Landaï, a large affluent of the Kâbul river. It appears under the name of the Gauri in the sixth book of the Mahâbhârata, where it is mentioned along with the Suvâstu (the Swât river) and the Kampanâ. It owes its name to the Ghori, a great and wide-spread tribe, branches of which are still to be found on the Pañjkora, and also on both sides of the Kâbul River where it is joined by the Landaï. It formed the boundary between the Gouraians and the Assakênians.