The Greeks in Bactria and India c18.19

c18.19

There seems only one solution. Alexandria-Kapisa was a double city; the Greek Alexandria stood on the west bank of the united Panjshir-Ghorband rivers near the confluence, facing the native Kapisa on the east bank, and the two formed one city; and what Begram, a name meaning ‘the city’,¹ really represents is not so much Kapisa as Alexandria. Greeks *may* have tended to call the double city Alexandria and Indians Kapisa,² but there was no clear rule, for the name Alexandria appears in the Milinda and the name Kapisa in one of Pliny’s sources. For consideration of what such a double city might mean I must refer to the text (p. 98); others of course are known. On the evidence of literature and the coins, which is all we have, there seems to be no other explanation; but it is to be hoped that some day it may be possible to test it by excavation.