The fertile valleys of the Hindu Kush

Atlas Obscura is a newly created site (2021) aiming “to inspire wonder and curiosity about the incredible world we all share”. In fact, it was an article about the preservation of grapes in the foothills of the Hindu Kush that caught my attention. 

The location is the village of Aqa Saray at about half an hour drive north of Kabul – Alexander land, as far as I’m concerned. The place is described as being surrounded by vineyards and fruit trees. 

When Alexander arrived in the area in late 330 BC, he realized that it was too late in the year to march across the Hindu Kush (see: From Afghanistan into Bactria across the Hindu Kush). For that reason, he settled his army near Begram (later being renamed as Alexandria-in-the-Caucasus) at the junction of the Cophen (Kabul) River and the Panshir River overlooking a broad plain framed with snowy peaks. The army got a breather of several months in this valley where they found food and fodder in abundance. 

The fertile soil and dry-warm climate are ideal for apple, apricot and cherry trees to grow, as well as for vineyards. Presently, the production of grapes is officially estimated at 1.5 million tons. Further south, it is mainly pomegranates and melons. In winter, however, the snow falls heavily over the Hindu Kush and the mountains are covered with some twenty meters of snow. 

The climate has not changed much since Alexander’s days, so it is easy to imagine that the local people still live the same way as they did then. 

Here in Aqa Saray, there seems to be a living proof of that old heritage being kept alive. They actually are using containers made of mud-straw which they call kangina to preserve their grapes. The containers actually seal off the contents and keep out air and moisture – not unlike our modern plastic containers. The result is truly astonishing, particularly for the preservation of their grapes as they look perfect and remain fresh for at least five or six months, i.e., all through the winter! 

The above article mentions that this technique existed for centuries in these parts of Afghanistan and I can’t help wondering for how many centuries. Maybe all the way back to the days Alexander and his Macedonians occupied the land? 

The making of these containers has no secret. The villagers use the available clay and mix it with water and straw to obtain the desired consistency to create the bowls. They then are left to dry in the sun for approximately five hours. Once the recipients are ready, the grapes are put inside and the containers are sealed with more mud. The Taifi grape is preferred since it has a thicker skin and is better adapted for this kind of conservation technique. These preserved grapes are one of the favorite dishes served during the Nowruz or New Year meals to the many guests who come together for the occasion. 

It would be interesting to be able to turn back the clock of time, wouldn’t it?

[Pictures are from the Atlas Obscura]

The Khyber Pass into India

On their return from Sogdiana (see: End of Alexander’s Campaign in Central Asia), the Macedonians spent a well-deserved rest of six months at Alexandria-in-the-Caucasus (Begram) in the heart of the Kabul Valley. Here, Alexander worked hard to reshuffle and reorganize his army.

[Map is from the Encyclopaedia Britannica]

His strategic phalanx was dismantled since it no longer served its purpose after the Bactrian guerilla wars. The mounted Lancers joined the Companion Cavalry together with the skillful horsemen from Bactria and Sogdiana, to which he added 2,000 horse-archers from Spitamenes’ nomads.

On another level, the commanding posts needed to be redistributed after the execution of Philotas and Parmenion and the murder of Cleitos. Their detachments were split between Ptolemy, Hephaistion, Perdiccas, and Leonnatus. The Royal Shield Bearers were promoted to the title of Silver Shields (Argyraspids), led by Seleucos and Nearchus, under the supreme command of Neoptolemus. The Royal Squadron of Companions remained under Alexander’s own command. These Cavalry Commanders and trusted squadron leaders enabled him to divide his army more freely between different locations at any one time.

That winter of 327 BC, the entire army was on the march again, with their forces divided in two. Hephaistion and Perdiccas are sent ahead to the Indus in order to prepare the crossing of that river with half the Companions and all the mercenary cavalry. The timing is well chosen to avoid the summer heat upon arrival in India. With the other half of the troops, Alexander starts his march up the Kunar Valley into the Swat Valley in modern Pakistan.

There is little or no information about the expedition of Hephaistion and Perdiccas as they head east. It is clear that to reach the Indus River, they must cross the Hindu Kush Mountains again. The obvious route this time leads over the Khyber Pass. Even today, the main road from Kabul to Peshawar runs over the same mountain pass.

The Khyber Pass is situated at an elevation of 1070 meters and is 53 kilometers long. The passage varies between 3 and 137 meters in width, meaning that the Macedonians had to cope with the inevitable bottlenecks. On top of that, the Khyber Pass is walled in by steep cliffs towering 200-300 meters above the men’s heads.

It is not known how long it took Hephaistion and Perdiccas to get across the pass, only that they marched to Peucelaotis and hence to the Indus. Their instructions, according to Arrian, were that they had to take all the places they encountered, either by force or by agreement.

Peucelaotis, however, resisted. Hephaistion besieged the town for thirty days, after which the defenders surrendered, maybe simply because their governor, Astes, was killed. The newly appointed governor was a certain Sangaeus who had deserted Astes some time before to join Taxiles. This made the man trustworthy.

Eventually, Hephaistion and Perdiccas reached the River Indus at Ohind/Hund (near modern Attock) in Punjab. Here, they built a fleet of thirty-oared galleys and a pontoon bridge of linked boats spanning the river, which at this point is at least 400 to 500 meters wide. This operation is not to be underestimated, for although the bridge was constructed far upstream in the Punjab region, the river is fed by snow and glacial meltwater from the Karakorum, the Hindu Kush, and the Himalaya Mountains, and its annual flow is known to be two times faster than that of the Nile or three times that of the Euphrates and the Tigris combined.

Even in antiquity, historians tend to focus solely on Alexander, but his generals also excelled in their missions, which were multiplied from Sogdiana and Bactria onwards. The War of the Diadochi that broke out after Alexander’s death certainly proves – if a proof is needed – how capable each and every one of his generals was. Well, they certainly had an excellent master!

[The Black&White picture is taken by John Burke, 1879-1880]

Alexander crosses the Hindu Kush a second time

After two years of intense guerrilla fights throughout Sogdiana, Alexander had finally caught Bessus, eliminated Spitamenes, and restored a relative peace in Bactria by marrying Roxane. The time had come for him to head for India.

Until now, I was convinced that Alexander returned from Bactria via the Khyber Pass, but when I tried to trace where the idea came from, I was in for a surprise. There is no excuse; I should have taken a closer look at the map to realize that the Khyber Pass lies, in fact, on the way from Kabul to Peshawar and not between Bactria and Afghanistan.

With that question solved, I needed to find out which pass Alexander had used leaving Bactria. The antique authors are disappointingly scant in reporting this part of his campaign. Plutarch, Justin, and Diodorus do not mention the crossing of the Hindu Kush – a formidable barrier under all circumstances - on Alexander’s return, and Curtius simply states that Alexander set out for India in order not to foster idleness. Arrian seems to be the only one to be more specific, telling us that by the end of spring, Alexander began his march for India, that he crossed the Indian Caucasus, and ten days later reached Alexandria(-in-the-Caucasus), the city he had founded during his first expedition into Bactria. Strabo merely tells us that Alexander crossed the Hindu Kush and settled his veterans and mercenaries together with natives at Alexandria-in-the Caucasus.

This meant that I had to rely on modern historians and their research on the matter. Unfortunately, they do not agree among themselves about Alexander’s route, and it seems that they all have a theory of their own.

Frank Holt (Into the Land of Bones) has come to the conclusion that Alexander marched his army over the Shibar Pass. With the winter snows gone, the trek went smoothly and without great logistical problems.

Robin Lane Fox (Alexander the Great) says that Alexander used the same pass as earlier, meaning the Khawak Pass (see: From Afghanistan into Bactria across the Hindu Kush). This time in June, the march was at a leisurely pace and took only ten days. The snows had melted, and Alexander could rely on food stored in the Sogdian fortresses on the way and on the high grazing grounds for the animals. The army spent a pleasant summer at Alexandria-in-the-Caucasus (Begram), thus avoiding an invasion of India in appalling heat.

A.B. Bosworth (Conquest and Empire) simply mentions that Alexander crossed the passes of the Hindu Kush into the Paropamisadae in ten days and reinforced the city of Alexandria-in-the-Caucasus.

Michael Wood has concluded that Alexander crossed the Hindu Kush via Bamyan, which implies that he took the Shibar Pass.

Donald Engels (Alexander the Great and the Logistics of the Macedonian Army), in turn, sticks to the Salang Pass since this pass is shorter and has often been used by armies in a hurry. Engels states that the army re-crossed the Hindu Kush in late spring but could not forage for grain along the route because harvest at these high altitudes does not occur until July or August. They had to rely on supplies collected by Hephaistion throughout Bactra before departing.

In a footnote, the author refers to the optional Kushan Pass, just east of the Salang Pass, that has been put forward by other historians, but then this Kushan Pass is seldom used because it is precipitous and treacherous – not exactly recommendable for an army. The Salang Pass, on the other hand, although as fast as the Kushan, is much safer. He rules out the Shibar Pass, which is longer than the Khawak. Given the ten days it took Alexander to cross the Hindu Kush, Engels’ choice is narrowed down to either the Salang Pass or the Kushan Pass.

All these theories take me back to the map of Afghanistan and of the Hindu Kush in particular. Based on the above, it comes down to choosing between the 3,878-meter-high Salang Pass and the Kushan Pass rising at 4,370 meters, located due west of the Salang Pass. Interestingly, this pass is less than one kilometer away from the modern Salang Tunnel, built in 1964 with the financial and technological support of the Soviet Union. This meant that traveling time is cut down drastically, although repeated avalanches tend to trap the vehicles inside the tunnel, making the voyage still a dangerous one.

Glancing at Google maps provides another quite impressive image of the landscape the Macedonian army crossed. Even with enough food and fodder, we have to admire these sturdy men trudging over narrow paths, through deep ravines, across icy rivers, and over rocks of all sizes and shapes. Nobody, not even Hannibal, comes close to Alexander’s exploits in the Hindu Kush. In the end, I have to agree with David Engels and agree on the Salang Pass.

We should remember that Alexander’s Asian campaign is much and much more than a series of battles and sieges. Marching often through forbidding landscapes, coping with extreme heat, thunderstorms, crosswinds, dust, rain, sleet, and ice, the Macedonians have seen it all, but the king set the example by leading his troops over each and every obstacle. The Hindu Kush is just one of these obstacles, although a major one that cannot be stressed enough.

[First picture shows the Shibar Pass by František Řiháček -original prints, CC BY-SA 3.0, - The two other pictures show the Salang Pass by Scott L.Sorensen - My Personal Picture, CC BY 3.0 and by Spc. Michael Vanpool (U.S. Armed Forces) respectively.]

From Afghanistan into Bactria across the Hindu Kush

Before winter made the high passes of the Hindu Kush impassable, Bessus crossed the mountains north into Bactria, applying the policy of scorched earth in an attempt to make it impossible for Alexander to follow him. But evidently, he underestimated Alexander's determination and stubbornness! The ancients thought the Hindu Kush Mountain Range was a continuation of the Caucasus Mountains and alternatively used that name. They also called it the Paropamisadae, derived from the Persian word meaning as much as "peak over which the eagle cannot fly." The Hindu Kush is a nearly 1,000 km long barrier of high mountains running from Afghanistan to India, with the highest peak reaching 7,708 meters. This range, in fact, separates Central Asia from South Asia or India. In other words, it is a colossal barrier that cannot be underestimated.

It is late November 330 BC when Alexander marches through a series of narrow ravines that run from Kandahar, situated at 1100m via Ghazni, to Kabul at 1791 m. The modern road, which certainly takes shortcuts compared to Alexander's advance, tells us that the distance is slightly less than 500 km. Climbing in altitude to 3000 meters at times, the thin air and deep snow make progress very difficult. Under these circumstances, camp is made above the clouds where the nights are ungodly cold, and the land is covered with snow. The army suffers from snow blindness and frostbite. In the murky light, many lose their way and get stuck in snowdrifts as the wind howls through the narrows. Food, especially during the last leg of this journey, becomes a daily preoccupation, and the meager contribution of the natives hardly supports the Macedonian forces.

Alexander realizes that it is too late in the year to march across the Hindu Kush and settles his army near Begram at the junction of two rivers, the Cophen (Kabul) and the Panshir overlooking a broad plain framed by snowy peaks. Eventually, this city will become one of the many Alexandrias that patch the world map and will be called, very appropriately Alexandria-in-Caucasus. The army gets a breather for several months with abundant food and fodder available. Meanwhile, the snow falls heavily over the Hindu Kush, and in the heart of winter, the mountains are covered with a layer of twenty meters of snow.

Once again, one can only marvel at Alexander's highly skilled preparations and logistics. Of course, these lands were part of the Achaemenid Empire, and as such, they were well-documented and organized, but we must recognize Alexander's own intelligence and scouting parties. He had a choice of passes to pursue Bessus into Bactria, and it is generally agreed that he opted for the Khawak Pass. Although this road was the longest (75 kilometers), it also was the lowest (3,550m) and provided the best chances for forage. Here, he outsmarted Bessus, who had expected his enemy to take the shortest route, where he burnt all the local winter provisions behind him.

Despite careful planning, Alexander and his army approaching the Hindu Kush from the south had a strenuous journey. The column is divided into four sections, and the vanguard – the army engineers - had the most demanding job of clearing the way. They set out in early spring (sources vary from March to June), marching up the Panshir Valley, some 150 km north of Kabul, suffering from cold and lack of food. As soon as they entered the sheer walls of this gorge, they were confronted with thick crusts of frost as the sun hardly touched the bottom for a mere few minutes this time of year. They had to hack through the ice for many parts of this one-hundred-kilometer-long valley. With the first snow melting, rivers turning into torrents thunder down the gorges, making treacherous crossings. On top of that, scores of tributary valleys filled with debris and icy waters descend with deafening fury into the Panshir Valley.

It is said that the Macedonians carried a ten-day ration for an expedition that should take four days. Instead, it took Alexander and his army a full week to reach the summit and another ten days to descend into the fertile plains of Central Asia on the other side, i.e., seventeen grueling days in all.

It was not so much the distance that commanded the army's progress but the terrain itself. The mountain path varied considerably in width. At its narrowest parts, only three men could walk abreast: two infantrymen or one cavalry horse could pass at one time as the baggage train and pack animals formed a file alongside, as that was the best – and probably the only – way for the men in accessing supplies in such a confined space. These were actual bottlenecks that held up the entire marching line. The cavalrymen would most probably dismount their horses to lead their mounts, especially on the ascent.

What is not recounted in our history books but has been reported by British troops who invaded Afghanistan in 1838 and 1878 are the extreme weather conditions in these parts. In his book The Afghan Campaign, Steven Pressfield paints vivid pictures of the Macedonian's fight with the elements, which comes very close to reality.

There is an intensity in the sunrise and sunset in these mountains that is quite unique. The light throws patches of blue and violet on the melting snow, described as a purple veil as misty as a breeze. Worse are the sudden storms that strike, alternating hail and snow. Hailstones rattle the soldiers' shields and helmets. The men seek shelter against the elements, but soon the trail turns into ice, making each step slippery and treacherous. The drenched army must have felt the frigid wind cutting right through their bones. They have to sleep where they are on the trail, sheltering against each other and their pack animals as best they can.

When finally the sun breaks through, men and mountains are shrouded in vapor and sweat. The danger of avalanches is very real. Rills and runnels turn into torrents plunging to the depth of the valley. At times, the sun blazes so fiercely that the men take off their cloaks. Yet, one hour later, the mild temperatures suddenly plummet as a new load of sleet and hail thunders down on them. Their path is then covered with scree and shingle, making each step precarious. Nearer to the top of the pass, they are confronted with glaciers strewn with fissures, crevasses, and cracks between the ice upheavals. Whatever part of their upwards trek, the underfoot is unstable and dangerous. On top of that, mountain sickness hits the men, who are disoriented and unable to keep any scarce food down. Every movement demands a monumental effort, and many go snow-blind. The companies start falling apart while the winds howl relentlessly and the icy cold hits the men to the core of their souls.

The Macedonians did not realize that the Panshir Valley is a beautiful valley that provides the locals with rich harvests of rice, barley, and beans. But all that is now hidden under the thick coat of snow, burying even the orchards of pistachios, apricots, pears, and mulberries. There is no wood to light a fire, and the men must settle for cold goat meat, frozen onions, and iced curd. 

Halfway up in the mountains, a rock, half a mile high, became identified with Prometheus, a hero from the most remarkable Greek legends that had always been placed in the Caucasus. Here, the tale was conveniently assimilated into the ancient Persian myth in which the eagle Sena had saved the hero Dastan. The story was a good incentive for the army to feel more at home instead of plowing along through these god-forbidden frozen mountains.

Alexander's army has been estimated at 64,000 troops and 10,000 cavalry horses with an additional number of followers of approximately 36,000, making it a total of 100,000 men to meander over these snowy paths. In his Logistics of the Macedonian Army, Donald Engels gives detailed calculations of the space occupied by each soldier, horseman, and camp follower, enabling him to match the marching time of seventeen days as mentioned by ancient authors. This is a fascinating and trustworthy analysis.

According to Aristotle, one could see from the summit of the Caucasus all the way to the eastern edge of the world. Alexander and his Companions, who had shared his teaching, knew this story very well, but what they witnessed instead was not the end of the world but ridge after ridge of endless high mountains. How did this influence their opinion or esteem of Aristotle?

If the ascent was steep and challenging, the sufferings of the army reached intolerable heights during its descent. On the northern slopes of the Hindu Kush, the snow still filled the crags and masked all the features. Finding and following a trail was a nightmare. The horses had been fitted with snow boots to cope with the deep snow and slippery drifts. The men's clothing and footwear were unsuitable for these harsh winter conditions. They trudged on with empty bellies, chewing on wood and wax as they struggled with chronic fatigue. The well-drilled and disciplined Macedonian army falters as avalanches break their column formations into many separate sections.

Famine spread throughout the army, and the few remaining amphorae of wine – a mere drop in the ocean – were sold at exorbitant prices, as was the honey. In the lower valleys, the soldiers could supplement their diet with brown trout from the rivers and some herbs, but there was no fodder for the animals, and orders were issued to slaughter them. However, since the scant scrub bushes were still buried deep under the snow, no firewood was available, and the meat had to be eaten raw.

Descending from the foothills in early June, Alexander made it without trouble to Kunduz and from there to the local capital of Bactra (Balkh in Afghanistan). Here, he allowed his troops to refresh in this relatively generous oasis. The army's spirits must have revived when terraced fields of rice and barley unfolded in front of them, and they could relish the sight of pear and plum trees. Here, the days were warm and pleasant, and they found plenty of provisions stored within the city walls as ordered by Bessus to fit his scorched earth policy and now serving Alexander. This evidently was a real bonus as the city opened its gates to the new conqueror!

[Pictures are from Mountains of our Mind and from Place and See, except the first one, which is clearly from Oliver Stone's film Alexander]

End of Alexander’s campaigns in Central Asia (Central Asia 14)

In the chronological confusion, where exactly Alexander spent the winter of 328/327 BC needs to be clarified. Depending on the choice, the sieges of the Sogdian Rocks would have taken place in the fall of 328 BC rather than in the spring of 327 BC. But give or take a few months, this only changes a little to the facts.

The year 327 BC will be Alexander’s last year in Bactria and Sogdiana, but it will be another eventful year. He may well have reached a satisfactory settlement with the tribes of Central Asia by now, but within his own camp, matters were taking a different turn. The Macedonians strongly felt they were the conquerors of Asia and, therefore, superior. On the other hand, Alexander understood very well that he could not rule the Persians in the same way he led the Macedonians. There was no way the Persians would respect a king who didn’t live by their ceremonial requirements, which the Macedonians regarded as pure barbarian.

Alexander wanted to put all his subjects on equal footing, but this was a sensitive matter. He had already appointed several Persians to govern newly conquered satrapies, taking others in his personal service. He tried to compromise by adopting some aspects of their protocol, wearing some of the Persian regalia - but if the Persians welcomed this, it was heavily resented by his fellow countrymen.

There was, for instance, the sensitive matter of the proskynesis, a prostration the Persians used to perform to their king as a sign of respect, but which was ridiculed and rejected by the Macedonians, who would only prostrate themselves in front of their gods. Alexander could have abolished the proskynesis, but he would have lost face with the Persian courtiers and kinsmen, or he could have implemented separate rules for the Persians and the Macedonians, which, in the end, he did. But before reaching that decision, Alexander wanted to give proskynesis a try. It happened in Bactra, where he organized a banquet to be attended by both Persian noblemen and his Macedonian companions. The plan was that they all would toast to his health and then perform the proskynesis. There was a fiery speech about Macedonian values, at the end of which the Persians rose and prostrated themselves before Alexander. Then, as had been arranged, a golden loving cup was passed among the companions (as reported by Chares, the Royal Chamberlain). The king's companions would have a drink, rise from their seats, prostrate themselves, and then receive a kiss from Alexander. 

All went well until it was Callisthenes’ turn, Aristotle's court historian and nephew. Callisthenes of Olynthus drank from the cup and skipped the prostration to get the kiss, thinking Alexander was too busy talking to Hephaistion to notice him. Alexander might have ignored the missed prostration, but not his companions, who were watching each other with eagle eyes and notified Alexander immediately of the cheating. The king refused to kiss him. It is said that Callisthenes simply shrugged his shoulders, saying that he would return to his seat a kiss poorer. This was enough proof for Alexander that the best way would be merely to compromise, leaving the Persians to perform their prostration and not demanding it from his Macedonians.

Callisthenes definitely made headlines in Bactra, for he may well have been playing a significant role in the pages’ conspiracy against Alexander that happened shortly after the banquet. The pages were young men from leading Macedonian families in charge of guarding the king when he slept or joining him on his hunting parties. Yet part of their training was also provided by Callisthenes, whom they greatly admired. One of these pages, Hermolaus, seems to have broken the royal etiquette during a hunting party when he shot Alexander’s prey. That was a no-no, and Alexander ordered him to be whipped before his comrades. This fact alone was not a reason enough to plan the conspiracy. Still, the general resentment of Persian favors, fueled by Callisthenes’ personal attitude towards the king, may have contributed to the plot. A close group of pages managed to switch guard duties so that they all were on watch the same night. They would assassinate Alexander in his sleep. Yet Alexander stayed up all night, drinking till dawn, and never went to bed. Inevitably, the plan leaked, and Hermolaus and the other suspects were executed after fruitless interrogations and torture. No evidence was found against Callisthenes, but he was imprisoned all the same, and he eventually died.

Alexander was paying a very high price for his life and his plans to march into India. Hephaistion must have been quite a comfort to him in these needy times, and Alexander knew how to reward him by promoting him second in command with the title of Chiliarch. This meant that he carried military responsibilities, a job, and a title created by the Persian Kings. Personally, I feel that Alexander could have given his friend no greater honors.
        

During this time, Alexander decided to have 30,000 young Persians trained in Macedonian warfare and Greek writing. He obviously was very proud of these “epigonoi,” as they were called, but his Macedonians did not generally accept their presence. In their eyes, the conquered people remained their inferiors and forever enemies, not people they were now supposed to take into their ranks and treat as equals. The king had also promoted one of Oxyartes’ sons, a brother of Roxane, to a high position.
 

That summer, Alexander moved south to Alexandria-in-the-Caucasus (Begram in Afghanistan), where his army spent a lazy summer. Alexander, however, worked hard to reshuffle his army and draw up an entirely new plan.

To start with, he left 14,000 men to supervise the Oxus provinces. His strategic phalanx was dismantled since it no longer served its purpose in this terrain and in guerrilla wars. The mounted Lancers joined the Companion Cavalry together with the habile horsemen from Bactria and Sogdiana, to which he added 2,000 horse-archers from Spitamenes’ nomads. He must have thought it preferable to have these Central Asian forces fight at his side rather than against him.

On another level, the commanding posts needed to be redistributed now that Philotas was executed, and both Parmenion and Cleitos had been murdered. Their detachments were split between Ptolemy, Hephaistion, Perdiccas, and Leonnatus. The Royal Shield Bearers were promoted to the title of Silver Shields, led by Seleucos and Nearchus, under the supreme command of Neoptolemus (family of Olympias). The Royal Squadron of Companions remained under Alexander’s own command. These Cavalry Commanders and trusted squadron leaders made it possible to divide his army more freely between different attacks at any one time. These past three years have been a harsh and unforgiving lesson, but it was not lost on Alexander. You must be a military man to truly fathom what such a reorganization implied. For Alexander, this was a far cry from the kind of warfare he grew up with and had used so far in his career, but he must have realized its limits. His genius once again prevailed.

The people of Bactria-Sogdiana, however, were left very much to solve their own fate, which cannot have been very promising. Those not killed in the repeated raids were largely herded together and moved to populate the newly built Alexandrias. They had been torn from their tribes and ancestral grounds to live among Macedonian veterans who hated these places and had instead returned to their homelands. Daily life must have been a struggle for everyone, and far from the idealized picture, most historians would like us to believe that Alexander “civilized” the East. With no clearly drawn frontiers and no political victory, he instead left these peoples to their old way of life – unless their Macedonian rulers could convince them otherwise (The cultural success happened much later, after Seleucos’ rule and the start of the Graeco-Bactrian dynasty). For Alexander, it was a sad balance of three years of heavy campaigning and heavy losses of precious lives.

Alexander’s interference in Central Asia ended in Alexandria-in-the-Caucasus, where he received the submission of several Indian tribes from this side of the Indus and the surrender of Taxiles. In the early winter of 327 BC, he marched up the Kunar Valley into the Swat Valley and thus entered India. Alexander moves into another chapter of his short life.

This ends my impressions of Uzbekistan, or, should I say, my impressions of Bactria and Sogdiana. A fascinating country with far more to offer than one would expect, but I wonder if other travelers will find the traces of Alexander the Great I found, or maybe simply imagined? Who knows.

[Picture of the Persian noblemen is from Oliver Stone's movie]
[Click on the label Central Asia to read the full story]