The Greeks in Bactria and India c21.17

c21.17

This shows that the corruption in Isidore 18 and 19 goes deeper than has been supposed;¹ the name of the metropolis of Arachosia in 19 must be ’Αλεξάνδρεια, not ’Αλεξανδρόπολις, and ’Αλεξάνδρεια should not come in 18 at all but only ’Αλεξανδρόπολις, near (πλησίον) Sacastene (not in Sacastene, as Droysen loc. cit. and Tscherikower, p. 103 give it). Alexandropolis near Sacastene can only be Kandahar, and this settles the question of its foundation, for a place called Alexandropolis cannot have been a city founded by Alexander (p. 7), and in fact there is no record that he founded Kandahar; Alexandropolis at best was a military colony which (possibly quite correctly) attributed its settlement to him. I need not consider the conflicting opinions about the name Kandahar, whether it be derived from Alexander (Iskandr), from Gandhāra (for which there seems no historical reason), or (most probably) from the Parthian Gondophares (Gundofarr). It must however be supposed, for reasons given elsewhere (p. 94), that the old Persian capital, ‘the Arachosians’, was the point at (or representing) which Demetrius founded his name-city Demetrias.