414 Aornos. [No. 4, 
Diodoros’ account is as follows. Aornos was the refuge of the 
people of the plas. (The loss of a portion of the narrative prevents 
our knowing the names of the cities from which the garrison had 
fled.) It was excessively steep; and Hercules had desisted from the 
siege, owing to earthquakes and heavenly portents. This rock had a 
circuit of 84 miles, an elevation of 10,560 feet and its surface was 
every where smooth and taper; being washed at the South by the 
river Indus. Elsewhere it was girt with deep ravines and was diffi- 
cult with precipices. A foreigner of destitute circumstances led him 
to a post which gave him the upper hand of the garrison, and com- 
manded its only outlet. Alexander therefore, having blockaded the 
rock, filled with earth its chasm and roots and pressed the siege inces- 
santly 7 days and 7 nights: when, conjecturing that the garrison had 
lost heart, he withdrew his guard from the outlet, and the barbarians 
evacuated the rock by night. 
Several points in this account agree with that of Curtius, who pro- 
bably took much of his narrative from Diodoros. All three agree 
in one fact, however they may differ in others; viz. that Aornos was 
fortified by nature alone and not by human art. Whatever therefore 
the site to be considered, it must be one, almost impregnable by 
nature if well defended, and destitute of artificial defences, except- 
ing of course that rude parapet of loose stones or earth, which barbarous 
nations from the earliest days have employed. Diodoros makes no 
mention of the assailants being hurled into the Indus. This appears to 
be a pure invention of Curtius, deduced from the fact that the Indus 
washes the roots of the mountain. Arrian’s and Diodoros’s accounts 
do not differ very materially, if we consider the six days’ ascent of the 
mountain (so circumstantially described by Arrian,) and the ambush 
of Ptolemy to be embraced by Diodoros in his brief statement, that a 
foreigner for reward led Alexander where he commanded the only 
access to the rock. To Curtius, generalship was nothing: courage 
and dash every thing. The mountain up which Alexander, with con- 
summate skill, fought step by step for six days, was far too prosaic for 
his page. He makes it rise out of the river ike a Roman goal and 
then he makes Alexander fell forests to build a ramp up to the summit. 
All of a sudden we stumble upon Diodoros, who estimates its perpendi- 
cular height at 10,000 feet or 2 miles; and then we wonder whence 
forests could be had sufficient for the work, or hands to fell and pile 
them up in six days. 
