The Ancient Geography of India. I. The Buddhist Period, including the Campaigns of Alexander, and the Travels of Hwen-Thsang c5.s1.t2.1

c5.s1.t2.1

I will close this account of Kapisene with some remarks on the few other cities of the same district that are mentioned by ancient authors. Pliny describes one city as "ad Caucasum Cadrusi, oppidum ab Alexandro conditum," which is slightly altered by Solinus to "Cadrusia oppidum ab Alexandro Magno ad Caucasum constitutum est, ubi et Alexandria."* Botn authors place the city close to the Caucasus, to which Solinus adds, that it was also near Alexandria. Following these two distinct indications, I am disposed to identify the city of Cadrusi with the old site of Koratás, which Masson discovered under the hills of Kohistan, 6 miles to the north-east of Begrâm, and on the north bank of the Panjshir river.† There are the usual remains of an old city, consisting of mounds covered with fragments of pottery, amongst which old coins are frequently found. There are also remains of masonry works about the hills, which the people cail Kâfir-kot, or the Kâfir's fort. The commentators have accused Solinus of misunderstanding Pliny, whose Cadrusi, they say, was the name of a people, and whose "oppidum ab Alexandro conditum" was the city of Alexandria.‡ But the passage was differently understood by Philemon Holland, who renders it thus:—"Upon the hill Caucasus standeth the town Cadrusi, built likewise by the said Alexander." As a general rule, the Greeks would seem to have designated the various peoples whom they encountered by the names of their principal towns.