Note 61 — Chapter XCI · FIRST PERIOD OF THE REIGN OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT — SIEGE AND CAPTURE OF THEBES.

Neither the point where Alexander crossed the Danube,—nor the situation of the island called Peukê,—nor the identity of the river Lyginus—nor the part of Mount Hæmus which Alexander forced his way over—can be determined. The data given by Arrian are too brief and too meagre to make out with assurance any part of his march after he crossed the Nestus. The facts reported by the historian represent only a small portion of what Alexander really did in this expedition.

It seems clear, however, that the main purpose of Alexander was to attack and humble the Triballi. Their locality is known generally as the region where the modern Servia joins Bulgaria. They reached eastward (in the times of Thucydides, ii. 96) as far as the river Oskius or Isker, which crosses the chain of Hæmus from south to north, passes by the modern city of Sophia, and falls into the Danube. Now Alexander, in order to conduct his army from the eastern bank of the river Nestus, near its mouth, to the country of the Triballi, would naturally pass through Philippopolis, which city appears to have been founded by his father Philip, and therefore probably had a regular road of communication to the maritime regions. (See Stephanus Byz. v. Φιλιππόπολις.) Alexander would cross Mount Hæmus, then, somewhere north-west of Philippopolis. We read in the year 376 B. C. (Diodor. xv. 36) of an invasion of Abdêra by the Triballi; which shows that there was a road, not unfit for an army, from their territory to the eastern side of the mouth of the river Nestus, where Abdêra was situated. This was the road which Alexander is likely to have followed. But he must probably have made a considerable circuit to the eastward; for the route which Paul Lucas describes himself as having taken direct from Philippopolis to Drama, can hardly have been fit for an army.

The river Lyginus may perhaps be the modern Isker, but this is not certain. The Island called Peukê is still more perplexing. Strabo speaks of it as if it were near the mouth of the Danube (vii. p. 301-305). But it seems impossible that either the range of the Triballi, or the march of Alexander, can have extended so far eastward. Since Strabo (as well as Arrian) copied Alexander’s march from Ptolemy, whose authority is very good, we are compelled to suppose that there was a second island called Peukê higher up the river.

The Geography of Thrace is so little known, that we cannot wonder at our inability to identify these places. We are acquainted, and that but imperfectly, with the two high roads, both starting from Byzantium or Constantinople. 1. The one (called the King’s Road, from having been in part the march of Xerxes in his invasion of Greece, Livy, xxxix. 27; Herodot. vii. 115) crossing the Hebrus and the Nestus, touching the northern coast of the Ægean Sea at Neapolis, a little south of Philippi, then crossing the Strymon at Amphipolis, and stretching through Pella across Inner Macedonia and Illyria to Dyrrachium (the Via Egnatia). 2. The other, taking a more northerly course, passing along the upper valley of the Hebrus from Adrianople to Philippopolis, then through Sardicia (Sophia) and Naissus (Nisch), to the Danube near Belgrade; being the high road now followed from Constantinople to Belgrade.

But apart from these two roads, scarcely anything whatever is known of the country. Especially the mountainous region of Rhodopê, bounded on the west by the Strymon, on the north and east by the Hebrus, and on the south by the Ægean, is a Terra Incognita, except the few Grecian colonies on the coast. Very few travellers have passed along, or described the southern or King’s Road, while the region in the interior, apart from the high road, was absolutely unexplored until the visit of M. Viquesnel in 1847, under scientific mission from the French government. The brief, but interesting account, composed by M. Viquesnel, of this rugged and impracticable district, is contained in the “Archives des Missions Scientifiques et Litteraires”, for 1850, published at Paris. Unfortunately, the map intended to accompany that account has not yet been prepared; but the published data, as far as they go, have been employed by Kiepert in constructing his recent map of Turkey in Europe; the best map of these regions now existing, though still very imperfect. The Illustrations (Erläuterungen) annexed by Kiepert to his map of Turkey, show the defective data on which the chartography of this country is founded. Until the survey of M. Viquesnel, the higher part of the course of the Strymon, and nearly all the course of the Nestus, may be said to have been wholly unknown.