Note 286 — Chapter IV · —Alexander subdues various tribes on his way to the Indus—Disasters to his fleet at the meeting of the rivers—His campaign against the Sudracae and Malli—Assails their chief stronghold and is left standing alone on the wall

This rhetorical passage will remind the readers of Virgil of his description of the zones (Georg. i. 231-251): “Five zones comprise the heaven ... of which two, the frozen homes of green ice and black storms, stretch far away.... One pole is thrust down beneath the feet of murky Styx ... where eternal night, wrapped in her pall of gloom, sits brooding in unending silence.” The passage was probably, however, suggested by the lines of the sixth book of the Aeneid, 794-796: “He (Augustus Caesar) will stretch his sway beyond Garamantian and Indian. See, the land is lying outside the stars, outside the sun’s yearly path.”