08-15-2005, 02:34 PM
Quote:A very good example is the city in India (can't remember the name). Not a single soldier wanted to get onto the ladders and attack the city. Alexander did, with three others (the person who carried his shield and I think it were two officers).
There's no need to apologize for forgetting a name, because the name is not recorded. It is called "the town of the Mallians" in our sources. There is a romantic, old identification with modern Multan, which appears to be a contraction of something like Malava + -stan (country), a presumed Parthian name. This identification also requires that we assume that Arrian's account confuses two rivers, which is possible because the author of Arrian's source, Ptolemy, was not present. Personally, I believe the identification. (Pictures:[url:2xqzasux]http://www.livius.org/a/pakistan/multan/multan.html[/url] ).
