The Early History of India, from 600 B.C. to the Muhammadan Conquest, including the Invasion of Alexander the Great c18.23

c18.23

Pātaliputra, the imperial capital, which had been founded in the fifth century B. C., stood in the tongue of land formed by the confluence of the Sōn with the Ganges, on the northern bank of the former, and a few miles distant from the latter. The site is now occupied by the large native city of Patna and the English civil station of Bankipore, but the rivers changed their courses many centuries ago, and the confluence is at present near the cantonment of Dinapore, about 12 miles above Patna. The ancient city, which lies buried below its modern successor, was, like it, a long, narrow parallelogram, measuring about 9 miles in length and 1½ miles in breadth. It was defended by a massive timber palisade, pierced by sixty-four gates, crowned by five hundred and seventy towers, and protected externally by a broad and deep moat, filled from the waters of the Sōn.¹