Book Title: Indian Antiquary Vol 58
Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Charles E A W Oldham, S Krishnaswami Aiyangar, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarka
Publisher: Swati Publications
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APRIL, 1929]
ALEXANDER'S CAMPAIGN ON THE N.-W. FRONTIER
which under Hephaistion and Perdikkas had been sent down the Kabul river to secure the Peshawar valley. Under Alexander's orders they had fortified there a town called Orobatis, for which no satisfactory location has as yet been found ; having garrisoned it. they had proceeded to the Indus to bridge it.
That Alexander himself had with the capture of Ora concluded his campaign in tic Swât valley and moved across the hill range into the Peshawar valley is clear from what follows. He is said to have marched to the Indus and to have received the submission of the city of Peukelaộtis, where he placed a Macedonian garrison. This city has long ago been identified with Pushkalavati, the ancient capital of Gandhara, close to the present Chårsadda on the Swât river and north-east of Peshawar. It is wrongly described by Arrian as lying not far from the Indus. The error must warn us as to possible geographical mistakes oven in the most reliable of the narratives dealing with Alexander's Indian campaign. We are next told that Alexander "reduced other towns, some small ones situated on the Indus," while accompanied by two chiefs of this territory; their names, Kophaics and Assagetes, are unmistakably Indian.
Before I proccod to analyze the data we possess concerning the famous "rock of Aor. nos," to the siege and conquest of which Arrian's account now immediately turns, it will be convenient briefly to indicate certain considerations of a quasi-geographical order which, I believe, deserve specially to be kept in view when looking for the right identification of that much-discussed site. We have seen that Alexander's operations along the Swât river must have covered Lower Swat and that most fertile and populous portion of Upper Swât which extends to the great bend of the valley near Mingaora above Udegram. We have also learned that after the fall of Ora, which must certainly be located above Bir-kót and probably below that bend, all the inhabitants abandoned their towns and fled for safety to "the rock of Aornos."
Now if we look at the map and keep in mind the situation created for the Assakênoi by the Macedonian posts established at Massaga and Ora, it will be clear that the bulk of the fugitive population evacuating the towns farther up the valley could have sought safety neither to the west nor to the south. In the former direction the way was obviously barred by the invaders. To the south, as far as it could be reached by routes not commanded by the Macedonian posts guarding the main valley, there lay Buner, a country singularly open for the most part and accessible by numerous passes from the side of the Peshawar valley. The plains of the latter had already been reached by the portion of Alexander's army sent down the Kabul river ; thus Bunêr, too, lay open to invasion.
Safe lines for general retreat were obviously restricted to the north and east. In the former direction the main Swat valley continues remarkably easy and open for a distance of close on 30 miles above Mingaora, and the same remark applies to the side valleys opening from it, at least in their lower parts. No safe refuge from invasion, so swift and determined as that of Alexander, could be hoped for there. Higher up where the Swat river breaks through the narrow gorges of Tôrwal, invasion would, no doubt, be kept off by the natural difficulties of the ground. But there, just as the high alpine heads of the valleys which descend to the Swât river from the snow-covered watersheds towards the Panjkora and Indus, local resources would have been far too limited for the maintenance of a great host of fugitives. Nor should the great climatic hardships be ignored which those fleeing from the towns of the valley plain would have had to face at the time in those alpine parts of Swat. We know that the Macedonian invasion must have reached Swat in the late autumn of B.O. 327, and the rigours of the approaching winter to be faced high up in the mountains would have sufficed to deter any large numbers from seeking safety northward.
Conditions were distinctly more favourable to the east. There a number of large and for the most part very fertile valleys comprising the tracts of Ghörhand. Kana, Chak@sar, Päran, and Mukhozai stretch down to the Indus from the Swat watershed. They can be reached by several easy passes, none much over 6,000 feet in heignt. All are throughout
