322 



Gracilis ad Aomon. 



[No. 4. 



Arrian. 

 the wall of investment. And 

 the siege of Ora became easy to 

 Alexander. Indeed attacking the 

 walls by assault, he mastered the 

 city and took the elephants that 

 had been left behind. 



xxviii. — And they of theBaziroi, 

 when they heard this, despair- 

 ing of their own cause, deserted 

 the city at midnight. They 

 fled to the rock as did those 

 other barbarians. For abandon- 

 ing all their cities they fled to 

 a rock in that country, called 

 Aornos. For this mighty mass 

 of rock is in that country and 

 tradition relates concerning it, 

 that the rock remained impreg- 

 nable to Hercules the divine. 

 Whether indeed the Theban or 

 Tyrian or Egyptian Hercules 

 came to the Indus, I affirm not, 

 I am inclined to think that he 

 came not. But whatsoever things 

 are difficult, men, to enhance the 

 difficulty, fable them to have been 

 impracticable to Hercules. And 

 concerning this rock, I know not 

 that it is numbered by tradition 

 amongst the labors of Hercules. 

 The circuit of this rock is rated 

 at upwards of 200 stadia (14 

 miles). The altitude above the 



Curtius. 

 of the sons as a hostage, dismissed 

 him to make good his offer. Mul- 

 linus, the king's secretary, was 

 placed in command of the light- 

 armed. He thought fit to plant 

 them on the mountain crest by a 

 path which might baffle the ene- 

 my's vigilance. This rock does 

 not, like most rocks, terminate by 

 gentle slopes in a lofty pinnacle* 

 but is set up, most like a goal, 

 whose base is broader, whose 

 higher portions are more restrict- 

 ed, whose summits shoot into a 

 sharp peak. Its roots the Indus 

 enters scarped on both sides with 

 lofty rocks: on the other hand were 

 interposed gulfs* and quagmires, 

 nor was there any way of assail- 

 ing the rock but by filling them. 

 A forest was at hand, which the 

 king ordered to be felled and 

 that the naked trunks should be 

 cast in, because the branches clad 

 with leaves impeded those bearing 

 them. He himself cast in the 

 first trunk, and the shouts of the 

 army an index to their alacrity 

 followed ; none grudging the labor, 

 because the king shared it. They 

 filled the cavities by the seventh 

 day, when the king ordered the ar- 

 chers and the Agrians to struggle 



* Eluvies is the word. If quagmires were to be filled up, the rock Pehoon 

 must be Aornos. There is no other on the Indus requiring such an expedient. 

 I have translated Voragines, gulfs, as leaving their nature in uncertainty. 



