410 Aornos. [No. 4, 
Secondly, it is asserted that the Mahabunn “is too far out of the 
way to have been a refuge to the people of the plains.” But this is 
contrary to fact; for the Mahabunn, which includes a vast tract of 
forest-belted mountain, ever has been, as it still is, and always must be, 
the retreat to which the Aspasioi (Asupzye) when invaded, drive their 
flocks and herds and carry their women and children : its very distance, 
(to an invader, for it is not very distant for them) forming one of the 
especial reasons tor its selection. Not only did Hercules and Alexander 
Gf the Mahabunn be Aornos) find it necessary to assail this stupend- 
ous mountain, but Nadir Shah himself could not reduce the Kusufzye 
to submission, until he had crowned the summit with his army. Her- 
cules (we learn from Curtius and Diodoros) made earthquakes and 
heavenly portents his plea for abandoning the siege. His real reason, 
probably, was that, less provident than the son of Philip, he found his 
supplies cut off and the prosecution of the siege impossible. It is 
because the Mahabunn is the immemorial retreat of the Aspasioi of the 
plains when overmatched, that I was first led to enquire whether it 
might not be Aornos. 
Thirdly, it is objected, that “had the Mahabunn been the refuge 
of the people of the plains, a General like Alexander would not have 
wasted his time on the reduction of an isolated hill, which was by 
no means impeding his passage to the Indus.” 
Had it been said “a General like Napoleon or Wellington or Mar!l- 
borough,” the rashness of this remark had been less obvious. But 
Alexander differed from all other great generals in this, that his love 
of conquest was rivalled by his ambition to excel the heroes and demi- 
gods of antiquity. Neither Napoleon nor Marlborough nor Welling- 
ton, probably, would have headed the forlorn hope in storming like a 
common grenadier a mud-walled town, which any of his Captains could 
have reduced in a week. Yet we are obliged to believe that Alexander 
did this ; nor can we well believe that he attacked Aornos, without 
crediting what all his biographers assign as his reason, that it had 
resisted three assaults of Hercules. We must, moreover, remember 
that Alexander was already in possession of the Ferry of the Indus. 
Ee awaited the construction of boats, of which the timber* must be 
_* ?Eel 5& Kad bAn epyucinw evérvxe Tapa Tov ToTapoy, Kal GuTn exdmn aITa 
br) THS OTparias Kal vads emolnoay. Arrian iy. 30. 
