Book 11
11.6
Now the tribes one encounters in going from Hyrcania towards the rising sun as far as Sogdiana became known at first to the Persians—I mean the tribes insidei.e., “north of” Taurus (see 11. 1. 2). Taurus—and afterwards to the Macedonians and to the Parthians; and the tribes situated on the far side of those tribes and in a straight line with them are supposed, from their identity in kind, to be Scythian, although no expeditions have been made against them that I know of, any more than against the most northerly of the nomads. Now Alexander did attempt to lead an expedition against these when he was in pursuit of BessusSatrap of Bactria under Darius III. and Spitamenes, but when Bessus was captured alive and brought back, and Spitamenes was slain by the barbarians, he desisted from his undertaking. It is not generally agreed that persons have sailed around from India to Hyrcania, but Patrocles states that it is possible.
