Geography

​They say, then, that Alexander founded eight cities in Bactriana and Sogdiana, and destroyed some, among which were Cariatae in Bactriana, where Callisthenes was arrested and handed over to custody, and Maracanda in Sogdiana, and Cyra, which was the last foundation of Cyrus, situated on the river Jaxartes, which was the boundary of the empire of the Persians. And he destroyed this foundation, although he was a lover of Cyrus, on account of the frequent revolts. And they say he also captured by treachery rocks that were exceedingly strong: namely, that of Sisimithres in Bactriana, where Oxyartes kept his daughter Roxana, and that of the Oxus in Sogdiana, though some say it was the rock of Ariamazes. Now they record that the height of the rock of Sisimithres is fifteen stadia, and its circumference eighty, and that it is flat at the top and fertile, capable of supporting about five hundred men; and there Alexander received a lavish hospitality and celebrated his marriage with Roxana, the daughter of Oxyartes. And they say that the rock in Sogdiana was twice as high. And near these places, they say, he also destroyed the city of the Branchidae, whom Xerxes had settled there, because they had voluntarily accompanied him from their homeland after betraying to him the treasures and wealth of the god at Didyma; and he destroyed it, loathing their sacrilege and treachery.

​Aristobulus calls the river that flows through Sogdiana “Polytimetus,” a name given by the Macedonians, just as they also gave many other new names or modified existing ones. This river, after irrigating the country, empties into a desert and sandy land and is swallowed up in the sand, just like the Arius which flows through the land of the Arians. They say that those who dig near the river Ochus find a spring of oil. And it is likely that, just as nitrous, astringent, bituminous, and sulfurous liquids flow through the earth, so oily ones are also found; but its rarity makes it a marvel. Some say that the Ochus flows through Bactriana, and others along it. And some say that it is a different river from the Oxus as far as its outlets, flowing to the south of it, and that both have their outlets into the sea in Hyrcania. But others say that at first it is a different river, but that it joins the bed of the Oxus, which in many places has a width of even six or seven stadia. The Jaxartes, however, from beginning to end is different from the Oxus, and although it empties into the same sea, their mouths are distant from each other, as Patrocles says, about eighty parasangs. As for the Persian parasang, some say it is sixty stadia, others thirty or forty. When we were sailing up the Nile, they used different measures at different times and called them “schoeni” from city to city, so that the same number of schoeni yielded a longer voyage in some places and a shorter one in others; thus it has been handed down from the beginning and is preserved until now.

​As far, then, as Sogdiana, to one going towards the rising sun from Hyrcania, the nations inside the Taurus were well known, formerly to the Persians, afterwards to the Macedonians, and then to the Parthians. But that the regions straight beyond are Scythian is conjectured from the similarity of character, though no expeditions against them are known to us, just as there have been none against the northernmost of the nomads, against whom Alexander indeed attempted to lead an expedition when he was pursuing Bessus and Spitamenes; but when Bessus was captured alive and brought back, and Spitamenes was destroyed by the barbarians, he desisted from the attempt. They do not agree that anyone has sailed around from India to Hyrcania; but that it is possible, Patrocles has asserted.