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Arrian relates that there was a city called Cyropolis, situated on the Jaxartes, a place of great strength defended by very lofty walls, which had been founded by the Great Cyrus. This city belonged to Sogdiana. Pliny states that Capisa, the chief city of Capisene, which lay not far from the upper Indus, was destroyed by Cyrus. This place is probably Kafshan, a little to the north of Kabul.
Arrian tells us of republics in India, still supposed to exist by modern investigators; but they are not more productive of liberty of thought, or ferment of intellect, than the principalities. In Italy there were commonwealths as liberal as the Republic of Florence; but they did not produce a Machiavelli or a Dante.
Yet Polybius and Arrian deserve high praise when compared with the writers of that school of which Plutarch may be considered as the head. For the historians of this class we must confess that we entertain a peculiar aversion.
Seeing their defeat, the horse likewise fled, and thus the rout became general. It is not quite clear what part Darius took in the battle, or how far he was answerable for its untoward result. According to Arrian, he was struck with a sudden panic on beholding the flight of his left wing, and gave orders to his charioteer instantly to quit the field.
In front, at the further end, an opening in the mountain range showed the pass of Nawagai. Towering on the left was the great mass of the Koh-i-mohr, or "Mountain of Peacocks" a splendid peak, some 8000 feet high, the top of which is visible from both Peshawar and Malakand. Its name is possibly a corruption. Arrian calls it Mount Meros.
On his journey back to Rome, he visited Syria, Thrace, Macedonia, and Athens. By his orders, an artificial port was constructed at Trebizond on a coast destitute by nature of secure harbours, from which this city derived great wealth and splendour. The only writer in the time of Adrian, from whom we can derive any additional information respecting the geography and trade of the Romans, is Arrian.
To this survey we must add the valuable geographical knowledge given by Arrian in his voyage round the shores of the Red Sea, which has come down to us in an interesting document, wherein he mentions the several seaports and their distances, with the tribes and cities near the coast.
He was desirous to find restraints which might curb the passions of the multitude; and he absurdly fancied that he had found them in a religion without evidences or sanction, precepts or example, in a frigid system of Theophilanthropy, supported by nursery tales. Polybius and Arrian have given us authentic accounts of facts; and here their merit ends.
The ancient Greeks were much devoted to coursing, but previous to the time of Arrian, their hounds were not a sufficient match, in point of speed, for the hare, and it was seldom that their sports were attended with success in the actual capture of this fleet animal by the dogs alone.
Such was the general nature of the disposition which Alexander made of his army. But we have in Arrian the details of the position of each brigade and regiment; and as we know that these details were taken from the journals of Macedonian generals, it is interesting to examine them, and to read the names and stations of King Alexander's generals and colonels in this the greatest of his battles.
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