[166] The descendants of Asklêpios (Aesculapius) were called by the patronymic name Asklêpiadai. They were regarded by some as the real descendants of Asklêpios, but by others as a caste of priests who practised the art of medicine, combined with religion. Their principal seats were Kôs and Knidos.
[167] Plutarch writes to the same effect: “The great battle with Darius was not fought at Arbêla, as most historians will have it, but at Gaugamêla, which, in the Persian tongue, is said to signify the house of the camel, so called because one of the ancient kings, having escaped his enemies by the swiftness of his camel, placed her there, and appointed the revenues of certain villages for her maintenance.”—Life of Alexander, c. 31.
[168] Kleitarchos, who accompanied Alexander to Asia, and wrote a history of the expedition, and Timagenes, an historian in the reign of Augustus, gave currency to this fiction, which Curtius is at one with Arrian in rejecting. Ptolemy received his title of Sôtêr (saviour) from the Rhodians, whom he had relieved from the attacks of Dêmêtrios Poliorkêtês (v. Pausanias, I. viii. 6).
[169] Thirlwall has noted that this line is found in Stobaeus. It is a fragment from one of the lost tragedies of Aeschylus, δράσαντι γάρ τι καὶ παθεῖν ὀφείλεται.
[170] The Hyphasis is here probably the Satlej, though the application of the name so far down as is here indicated is contrary to Sanskrit usage. Several arms of the Hyphasis may have anciently existed which went to join the Hydraôtês or perhaps the lower Akesinês. Megasthenês was the first who made the existence of the Satlej known. Pliny calls it the Hesydrus, and Ptolemy the Zaradros. The united stream which joins the Indus, called the Panjnad, has before the confluence a width of 1076 yards. The Indus after the confluence is augmented to 2000 yards from 600 yards only above the confluence. From the present confluence to the sea the distance is 490 miles.
[171] The Abastanoi are more correctly designated by Diodôros (xvii. 102) the Sambastai, under which form of the name the Ambashtha, who are mentioned as a people of the Panjâb in the Mahâbhârata and elsewhere in Sanskrit literature, can be recognised. It is evident from the text that they were settled on the lower Akesinês. They appear to be the people called by Curtius the Sabarcae, and by Orosius Sabagrae.
[172] The Xathroi are the Kshâtri of Sanskrit mentioned in the Laws of Manu as an impure tribe, being of mixed origin. In Williams’s Sanskrit Dictionary a Kshâtri is defined as “a man of the second (i.e. military) caste (by a woman of another caste?).”
[173] V. de Saint-Martin suggests that in the Ossadioi we have the Vasâti or Basâti of the Mahâbhârata, a people whom Hematchandra in his Geographical Dictionary places between the Hydaspês and the Indus, on the plateau of which the Salt Mountains form the southern escarpment. If the Vasâti were really so placed, it can scarcely be supposed that they would have sent offers of submission to Alexander, who had already passed through their part of the country, and was now marching homeward, leaving them far in his rear. Cunningham prefers to identify them with the Yaudheya or Ajudhiya, now the Johiyas, who are settled as formerly along the banks of the lower Satlej. Assodioi or Ossadioi seems a pretty close transcription of Ajudhiya.
[174] The name of this city is not given by any of the historians, but in all probability it bore the name of its founder. Its site has generally been referred to the neighbourhood of Mithânkôt, a town situated on the western bank of the Indus a little below the junction of that river with the united streams of the Panjâb. V. de Saint-Martin identifies it more precisely with Chuchpûr or Chuchur, an ancient fort standing on the eastern bank of the Indus right opposite Mithânkôt. This fort bore formerly the names of Askalanda, Askelend, and Sikander, which are but variant forms of Alexandreia. The great confluence, however, did not anciently take place at Mithânkôt, but at Uchh, an old city lying forty miles to the north-east of the confluence at Mithânkôt. The place is called by Rashed-ud-din Askaland-usah, which, as Cunningham points out, would be an easy corruption of Alexandria Uchha or Ussa, as the Greeks must have written it. The word uchha means “high” both in Sanskrit and in Hindi, and Uchh seems to owe its name to the fact that it stands on a mound. “Uchh is chiefly distinguished (says Masson) by the ruins of the former towns, which are very extensive, and attest the pristine prosperity of the locality.” v. V. de Saint-Martin, Etude, pp. 124, 125; Cunningham’s Anc. Geog. of India, pp. 242-245.