Note 73 — Chapter III · —How Eratosthenes views the legends concerning Heraklês and Dionysos—Alexander crosses the Indus

Arrian writes to the same effect in his Indika, c. 5: “When the Greeks noticed a cave in the dominions of the Paropamisadai, they asserted that it was the cave of Promêtheus the Titan, in which he had been suspended for stealing the fire.” At the distance of thirty-four miles from Birikot, a place near the river Swât, is Daityapûr, now called Daiti-Kalli, said to have been built by one of the Daityas, i.e. enemies of the gods, such as were the Titans of the Greeks. In the hill adjacent is a vast cavern which, as Abbott has suggested, the companions of Alexander may have taken to be the cave frequented by the eagle which preyed upon the vitals of Prometheus the Titan. At Bamiân, which lies on one of the routes from Kâbul to Baktria, there are some very notable caves, one of which, some think, must have been that which the Greeks took to be the cave of Promêtheus. But Alexander does not appear to have selected the Bamiân route either in crossing or recrossing the Kaukasos. The mountains of the real Kaukasos were the loftiest known to the Greeks before Alexander’s time, and hence to have crossed them was regarded as a transcendent achievement.