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CHAPTER III. THE PERSIAN AND
MACEDONIAN INVASIONS. SECTION I. THE ADVANCE OF PERSIA TO THE INDUS.
While the kingdoms and republics of the Indian interior were gradually being merged in the Magadhan Empire, those of North-West India (including modern Western Pākistān) were passing through vicissitudes of a different kind. In the first half of the sixth century B.C., the Uttarāpatha (northern region) beyond the Madhyadeśa (Mid-India, roughly the Ganges-Jumna Doāb, Oudh and some adjoining tracts), like the rest of India, was parcelled out into a number of small states the most important of which were Kamboja, Gandhāra and Madra. No sovereign arose in this part of India capable of welding together the warring communities, as Ugrasena-Mabāpadma had done in the East. The whole region was at once wealthy and disunited, and formed the natural prey of the strong Achaemenian monarchy which grew up in Persia (Irān).
Kurush or Cyrus (558-530 B.C.?) the founder of the Persian Empire, is said to have led an expedition against India through Gedrosia, but had to abandon the enterprise, escaping with seven men only. But he was more successful in the Kābul valley. We learn from Pliny that he destroyed the famous city of Kāpisi, at or near the confluence of the Ghorband and the Panjshir. Arrian informs 183 that “the district west of the river Indus as far as the river Cophen (Kābul) is inhabited by the Astacenians
1 550-529 B.C. according to A Survey of Persian Art, p. 64, 2 H. and F., Strabo, III, p. 74. 3 Chinnock, Arrian's Anabasis, p. 399,
